Since I finished the Bayonetta Let's Play I've been trying to come up with a new video series. I finally came up with Arcade Assault. For some reason I always force myself to play through arcade mode in fighting games with every single character.
I used to do it in order to unlock characters, and see all of the endings. Sadly arcade endings suck in most games now, and characters rarely need to be unlocked. For some reason I still force myself to do it! For the first game and episode I chose to do classic mode in Super Smash Bros. for Wii-U. There are so many characters to do it with and I need to unlock those sweet sweet trophies!
I recorded the first episode last night, and streamed it as well. I decided that I'll stream smash and put the archives on YouTube, because there are so many characters. When Guilty Gear comes out on the 16th I'll just be recording myself playing through arcade mode in that. It seems like shorter episodes will be better for most things, but at least for Smash I have so much to get through.
Okay, enough of the introduction. I leave you with the first episode of Arcade Assault!
Showing posts with label Super Smash Bros. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Super Smash Bros. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Game Time - November 2014
I feel like it's been a lifetime since I did the October edition of Game Time. Since that time I have "completed" a let's play and done a whole bunch of streaming. In case you missed me flooding this page with Bayonetta 2 episodes, you can now watch the entire playthrough with the exception of a chapter that got destoryed... Since I posted so much about it on here I won't be taking about it here.
Instead, I will be talking about Assassin's Creed Unity and how it straddles the fine line between being average and terrible. I did however, end up playing two excellent games this month, which were oddly enough both Nintendo games. As you might imagine I played a whole lot of the Wii-U version of smash brothers, but I also miraculously made time to complete Alpha Sapphire!
This month actually made me realize that I'm pretty much an adult now, which is both cool and depressing. I've been thinking a lot about how my gaming habits and time have changed over the last few months, which is why I'm going to be recording a podcast about it tomorrow. So you can look forward to that, but until then it's game time!
Assassin's Creed Unity
The first Assassin's Creed I played was Brotherhood. I watched my brother play through all of the first game, and a college roommate play through most of the second. I ended up really liking it and got hooked on the series. Assassin's Creed 3 let me down a great deal, but I was willing to give the series another go. When Black Flag came out I absolutely loved it, because who doesn't love pirates?
That brings us to Assassin's Creed Unity. Let's just say that just like Assassin's Creed 3 this entry in the series has shaken my faith. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Unity to a certain extent, but it could have been a whole lot better. In fact, it should have been a lot better. A disconcerting trend in modern gaming is that games come out busted and that's not something that should be happening. A lot of games this fall have been totally bunk. Unity wasn't totally busted, but it's certainly not the best.
The game takes place in revolutionary Paris, so there are tons of people rioting in the streets. With the current generation of consoles Ubisoft wanted to show off how awesome their crowd tech is, so they have the street lines with tons of people. The problem is that every time you run through a crowd the frame rate tanks. For some reason it's not just when there are crowds either it happens frequently. If you can't get the frame rate up with tons of useless npcs on the screen maybe you shouldn't have so god damn many? To make it even worse they claim that the game runs at 900p instead of 1080p to keep the frame rate up. What the hell was it like at 1080p!?
That's only the tip of the iceberg. I had some npcs half into the world, and a corpse fly away and freak out on me. That's the normal kind of jank I expect from an open world game though. My friend Noukeo actually fell through the game world multiple times, and that's a bug that's being reported very frequently. For some reason the faces of characters seem to be melting off for a lot of people too. Ubisoft has issued numerous patches to address these issues, but I've already completed the game, so it's too late for me.
It's a real bummer that even if this game ran perfectly it would still be kind of lame. You play as Arno Dorian, who is obviously an Assassin. The overall plot and big bad guy are both pretty lame. There is a lot of good character interaction from Arno and his childhood love, but that's really the best part of the game. You're generally running around assassinating people who are loosely explained by the plot. Since Brotherhood I feel like the plots in these games have been super disjointed with a lot of time skips for no reason. Now that they seem to care so little about the real world plot it's becoming much more apparent.
For some reason I felt like the general gameplay mechanics were worse as well. Personally I didn't like the combat at all. Unity moves away from the free-flow combat and unlimited counter kills of its predecessors in favor of a more challenging system. You can still parry your opponents, but you need to continue hitting them repeatedly. This isn't too bad once you get used to it, it just makes every encounter a chore. It doesn't help that if you have more than two guards on you you're basically toasted. For some reason when you're being ganged up on other guards will run up and just shoot you in the face real quick, which is infuriating. The climbing didn't seem to be as fluid either. I got stuck on geometry way more in this game and had a much harder time jumping where I needed to.
To be fair to Unity it tried really hard to be good. The assassination missions in the past few games basically involved running up to a guy, fighting 500 guards, and then just walking away. In Unity they're at least a bit more elaborate. You need to get into locations, which have set entrances and exits. There are events to help you out if you complete them. Sadly the assassination missions alone weren't good enough to make me like Unity.
Pokemon Alpha Sapphire
Since Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby came out the same night as Super Smash I wasn't planning on playing right away. However, I couldn't resist the allure of reliving my Sapphire nostalgia. I still have very vivid memories of playing the original on Gameboy Advance. I was so into the game that I hid my progress report from my parents, because I knew they wouldn't let me play for a while. I had a 40 in math at the time, so I got the brilliant idea of hiding it behind the couch. It worked out for around a month, but I forgot I had hidden it and my mom found it while cleaning. So I was able to beat Sapphire, but I ended up not being able to play any video games for over a month. It was totally worth it.
I've always liked the Pokemon series, but I think Ruby and Sapphire were where my love of the series solidified. Before they were fun distractions, but my obsession truly started with Ruby and Sapphire. One night a few weeks ago before I went to bed I decided to start Alpha Sapphire, and I couldn't stop. I have now completed the main story and am on the cool new post game story.
In case you were wondering it's basically the same old Ruby and Sapphire from back in the day, but now it has hot 3d graphics like Pokemon X and Y. That doesn't mean it's exactly the same though, there are quite a few new interesting features. The first being that Pokemon actually appear in the grass. So if you're in the grass a shadow of a Pokemon will appear. If you sneak up on it by walking slowly you'll fight it. These hidden Pokemon are generally stronger than the ones you'll randomly find in the grass. You can actually search for pokemon you've run into in the grass as well, and the more you come into contact with them the better they will be.
I try to force myself to go through every game with Pokemon caught entirely during my playthrough. This time I was lucky enough to get two shinies. The first is the shiny Beldum, which everyone can get through wifi from Nintendo. The second is a shiny Magikarp, which came up on my first attempt to fish in the game. I really wanted a Gyrados to go through the game with, so now I have two shiny Gyrados'.
I wish I had more to say about the game. It's an excellent recreation of the original games. Secret bases are awesome and make their triumphant return. I don't know it's Pokemon. I thought this would be the one that finally made me get sick of Pokemon, but it wasn't. As long as Nintendo keeps putting them out I'll keep buying them.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii-U
My level of hype for this game was unbelievable. The night it came out I was planning on staying up all night and streaming it, but that didn't end up working out. For some reason my local Gamestop didn't receive the Gamecube controller adapters, so I couldn't play locally with Noukeo. So instead we were sitting in my house playing online, so that we could both use our Wii-U game pads. Using a wii-mote is awful for smash. I don't recommend it to anyone. Around 4:30 AM I started to feel like my stomach was going to explode, so I ended up going to bed. The following days I played a ton of Smash, but didn't stream very much of it.
So as it turns out I really like Smash on Wii-U. It looks incredible. It still blows my mind that Nintendo puts out games that run in 1080p at 60fps and games on PS4 can't even handle running most games at 30fps! It helps that Nintendo has killer art direction in all of their games.
I stopped playing the 3DS version weeks ago, which I now think was a good decision. While the 3DS game is good the Wii-U version is so much better. As I mentioned previously the graphics are amazing. On top of that there's a ton more content. Instead of every stage having two songs they all have a minimum of five, and there are at least extra unlockable songs! Almost any Nintendo song you can think of is in the Wii-U version to enjoy.
The main thing I like about this version is that I can use a Gamecube controller. I know I sound like some kind of weird hardcore Smash player when I say that, but it's really not the case. I find the Gamecube controller to be very comfortable and it's what I'm used to playing Smash with. Unlike the 3DS I'm not worried that I'm going to rip the analog stick off and I feel much more comfortable hitting the buttons with force. I tend to dodge a lot more and shield better when I'm using a Gamecube controller. It shows that Nintendo is trying to understand their fan base, because most companies wouldn't put out a USB adapter for a two generation old controller.
The new characters in this generation of Smash are all pretty cool. While I think it's lame that the Ice Climbers are gone, new additions like Little Mac, Rosalina, and Mega Man are awesome. I think Little Mac is my favorite newcomer. I've always thought he would be a cool character and I was right! He's super fast, does a ton of damage, and wears a hoodie. He's like the perfect character for me, except that he has the worst recovery ever. Seriously, if he's like three feet away from the stage he can't get back. It's no good for me, especially since I main Peach who has the best recovery ever. Rosalina is cool as well with her little star friend luma. She's super strong as well, but I just don't want to learn how to use both of them in unison in order to maximize damage.
I really like this version of Smash, and I hope to stream more of it soon. One of the reasons I've hesitated streaming Smash is because I don't think I'm very good at it. Sure I can be competitive with my friends, but I don't think I'm amazing or anything. So when I think about the amount of pro players who stream Smash I get a little apprehensive about putting my play out there. Over the past few days I decided that I don't really care about the skill level of the play I put out there. I just want to stream and have fun, which is what Smash is all about. Hopefully you can look forward to more Smash streams in the future.
Ohhh the fighting games!
I was going to apologize for being light on content this past month, but then I realized that I finished an entire Let's Play of Bayonetta 2, streamed a bunch of Spelunky, and made a whole bunch more videos. I think the fact that I work a shitty retail job has made the past three weeks seem much longer than they actually were.
However, now that it's December I'll have quite a bit of content. I'm going to be streaming as much Smash as I can in my free time. Then once Guilty Gear Xrd Sign comes out on the 16th I will be playing that as much as humanly possible. If you have ever wanted to see terrible Guilty Gear play, then this will be your premiere source for just that!
I've definitely been slacking in the podcast department, but this month I'll have at least two. I will definitely be recording one tomorrow and then later in the month Noukeo and I will be doing a game of the year podcast. I'm trying my best to get content out there and I'm having a lot of fun doing it.
It's been fun, see you guys next time!
Instead, I will be talking about Assassin's Creed Unity and how it straddles the fine line between being average and terrible. I did however, end up playing two excellent games this month, which were oddly enough both Nintendo games. As you might imagine I played a whole lot of the Wii-U version of smash brothers, but I also miraculously made time to complete Alpha Sapphire!
This month actually made me realize that I'm pretty much an adult now, which is both cool and depressing. I've been thinking a lot about how my gaming habits and time have changed over the last few months, which is why I'm going to be recording a podcast about it tomorrow. So you can look forward to that, but until then it's game time!
Assassin's Creed Unity
The first Assassin's Creed I played was Brotherhood. I watched my brother play through all of the first game, and a college roommate play through most of the second. I ended up really liking it and got hooked on the series. Assassin's Creed 3 let me down a great deal, but I was willing to give the series another go. When Black Flag came out I absolutely loved it, because who doesn't love pirates?
That brings us to Assassin's Creed Unity. Let's just say that just like Assassin's Creed 3 this entry in the series has shaken my faith. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Unity to a certain extent, but it could have been a whole lot better. In fact, it should have been a lot better. A disconcerting trend in modern gaming is that games come out busted and that's not something that should be happening. A lot of games this fall have been totally bunk. Unity wasn't totally busted, but it's certainly not the best.
 |
| ohh noo my spine! |
The game takes place in revolutionary Paris, so there are tons of people rioting in the streets. With the current generation of consoles Ubisoft wanted to show off how awesome their crowd tech is, so they have the street lines with tons of people. The problem is that every time you run through a crowd the frame rate tanks. For some reason it's not just when there are crowds either it happens frequently. If you can't get the frame rate up with tons of useless npcs on the screen maybe you shouldn't have so god damn many? To make it even worse they claim that the game runs at 900p instead of 1080p to keep the frame rate up. What the hell was it like at 1080p!?
That's only the tip of the iceberg. I had some npcs half into the world, and a corpse fly away and freak out on me. That's the normal kind of jank I expect from an open world game though. My friend Noukeo actually fell through the game world multiple times, and that's a bug that's being reported very frequently. For some reason the faces of characters seem to be melting off for a lot of people too. Ubisoft has issued numerous patches to address these issues, but I've already completed the game, so it's too late for me.
 |
| THIS IS IN A SHIPPING VIDEO GAME. OH MY GOD. |
It's a real bummer that even if this game ran perfectly it would still be kind of lame. You play as Arno Dorian, who is obviously an Assassin. The overall plot and big bad guy are both pretty lame. There is a lot of good character interaction from Arno and his childhood love, but that's really the best part of the game. You're generally running around assassinating people who are loosely explained by the plot. Since Brotherhood I feel like the plots in these games have been super disjointed with a lot of time skips for no reason. Now that they seem to care so little about the real world plot it's becoming much more apparent.
For some reason I felt like the general gameplay mechanics were worse as well. Personally I didn't like the combat at all. Unity moves away from the free-flow combat and unlimited counter kills of its predecessors in favor of a more challenging system. You can still parry your opponents, but you need to continue hitting them repeatedly. This isn't too bad once you get used to it, it just makes every encounter a chore. It doesn't help that if you have more than two guards on you you're basically toasted. For some reason when you're being ganged up on other guards will run up and just shoot you in the face real quick, which is infuriating. The climbing didn't seem to be as fluid either. I got stuck on geometry way more in this game and had a much harder time jumping where I needed to.
 |
| At least the glitches are funny? |
To be fair to Unity it tried really hard to be good. The assassination missions in the past few games basically involved running up to a guy, fighting 500 guards, and then just walking away. In Unity they're at least a bit more elaborate. You need to get into locations, which have set entrances and exits. There are events to help you out if you complete them. Sadly the assassination missions alone weren't good enough to make me like Unity.
Pokemon Alpha Sapphire
Since Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby came out the same night as Super Smash I wasn't planning on playing right away. However, I couldn't resist the allure of reliving my Sapphire nostalgia. I still have very vivid memories of playing the original on Gameboy Advance. I was so into the game that I hid my progress report from my parents, because I knew they wouldn't let me play for a while. I had a 40 in math at the time, so I got the brilliant idea of hiding it behind the couch. It worked out for around a month, but I forgot I had hidden it and my mom found it while cleaning. So I was able to beat Sapphire, but I ended up not being able to play any video games for over a month. It was totally worth it.
I've always liked the Pokemon series, but I think Ruby and Sapphire were where my love of the series solidified. Before they were fun distractions, but my obsession truly started with Ruby and Sapphire. One night a few weeks ago before I went to bed I decided to start Alpha Sapphire, and I couldn't stop. I have now completed the main story and am on the cool new post game story.
 |
| Mega Blaziken is pretty awesome. |
In case you were wondering it's basically the same old Ruby and Sapphire from back in the day, but now it has hot 3d graphics like Pokemon X and Y. That doesn't mean it's exactly the same though, there are quite a few new interesting features. The first being that Pokemon actually appear in the grass. So if you're in the grass a shadow of a Pokemon will appear. If you sneak up on it by walking slowly you'll fight it. These hidden Pokemon are generally stronger than the ones you'll randomly find in the grass. You can actually search for pokemon you've run into in the grass as well, and the more you come into contact with them the better they will be.
I try to force myself to go through every game with Pokemon caught entirely during my playthrough. This time I was lucky enough to get two shinies. The first is the shiny Beldum, which everyone can get through wifi from Nintendo. The second is a shiny Magikarp, which came up on my first attempt to fish in the game. I really wanted a Gyrados to go through the game with, so now I have two shiny Gyrados'.
 |
| Secret bases are probably my favorite part of the new games. |
I wish I had more to say about the game. It's an excellent recreation of the original games. Secret bases are awesome and make their triumphant return. I don't know it's Pokemon. I thought this would be the one that finally made me get sick of Pokemon, but it wasn't. As long as Nintendo keeps putting them out I'll keep buying them.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii-U
My level of hype for this game was unbelievable. The night it came out I was planning on staying up all night and streaming it, but that didn't end up working out. For some reason my local Gamestop didn't receive the Gamecube controller adapters, so I couldn't play locally with Noukeo. So instead we were sitting in my house playing online, so that we could both use our Wii-U game pads. Using a wii-mote is awful for smash. I don't recommend it to anyone. Around 4:30 AM I started to feel like my stomach was going to explode, so I ended up going to bed. The following days I played a ton of Smash, but didn't stream very much of it.
So as it turns out I really like Smash on Wii-U. It looks incredible. It still blows my mind that Nintendo puts out games that run in 1080p at 60fps and games on PS4 can't even handle running most games at 30fps! It helps that Nintendo has killer art direction in all of their games.
 |
| Princess Peach is my boo! Seriously she's the greatest. |
I stopped playing the 3DS version weeks ago, which I now think was a good decision. While the 3DS game is good the Wii-U version is so much better. As I mentioned previously the graphics are amazing. On top of that there's a ton more content. Instead of every stage having two songs they all have a minimum of five, and there are at least extra unlockable songs! Almost any Nintendo song you can think of is in the Wii-U version to enjoy.
The main thing I like about this version is that I can use a Gamecube controller. I know I sound like some kind of weird hardcore Smash player when I say that, but it's really not the case. I find the Gamecube controller to be very comfortable and it's what I'm used to playing Smash with. Unlike the 3DS I'm not worried that I'm going to rip the analog stick off and I feel much more comfortable hitting the buttons with force. I tend to dodge a lot more and shield better when I'm using a Gamecube controller. It shows that Nintendo is trying to understand their fan base, because most companies wouldn't put out a USB adapter for a two generation old controller.
 |
| I kill myself with this move all the time. |
The new characters in this generation of Smash are all pretty cool. While I think it's lame that the Ice Climbers are gone, new additions like Little Mac, Rosalina, and Mega Man are awesome. I think Little Mac is my favorite newcomer. I've always thought he would be a cool character and I was right! He's super fast, does a ton of damage, and wears a hoodie. He's like the perfect character for me, except that he has the worst recovery ever. Seriously, if he's like three feet away from the stage he can't get back. It's no good for me, especially since I main Peach who has the best recovery ever. Rosalina is cool as well with her little star friend luma. She's super strong as well, but I just don't want to learn how to use both of them in unison in order to maximize damage.
I really like this version of Smash, and I hope to stream more of it soon. One of the reasons I've hesitated streaming Smash is because I don't think I'm very good at it. Sure I can be competitive with my friends, but I don't think I'm amazing or anything. So when I think about the amount of pro players who stream Smash I get a little apprehensive about putting my play out there. Over the past few days I decided that I don't really care about the skill level of the play I put out there. I just want to stream and have fun, which is what Smash is all about. Hopefully you can look forward to more Smash streams in the future.
Ohhh the fighting games!
I was going to apologize for being light on content this past month, but then I realized that I finished an entire Let's Play of Bayonetta 2, streamed a bunch of Spelunky, and made a whole bunch more videos. I think the fact that I work a shitty retail job has made the past three weeks seem much longer than they actually were.
However, now that it's December I'll have quite a bit of content. I'm going to be streaming as much Smash as I can in my free time. Then once Guilty Gear Xrd Sign comes out on the 16th I will be playing that as much as humanly possible. If you have ever wanted to see terrible Guilty Gear play, then this will be your premiere source for just that!
I've definitely been slacking in the podcast department, but this month I'll have at least two. I will definitely be recording one tomorrow and then later in the month Noukeo and I will be doing a game of the year podcast. I'm trying my best to get content out there and I'm having a lot of fun doing it.
It's been fun, see you guys next time!
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Party Game Sundays: Watching EVO
I haven't written one of these in the two weeks since I've been back and for very good reason. The first week I skipped we played Birthday Party Bash as a belated celebration for my Birthday, after which we played Scattegories. The week after we were feeling rather lazy, so after eating ourselves to the brink of destruction we decided to watch videos of competitive Beyblade players, and some super hot advanced techniques. For those that don't know Beyblades is an anime where characters fight with spinning tops. There are toys of the tops, which people apparently get super into. It's super funny.
That brings us up to this past Sunday, where we would have played some games, but EVO was happening. I love watching competitive fighting game play, and EVO is the tournament to end all tournaments. I don't like using the analogy, but it's basically the Superbowl of fighting games. So inevitably Noukeo and I forced Landers, who doesn't know anything about fighting games, to watch the EVO finals. It was actually quite an educational experience. Landers asked a whole lot of questions and we tried to tell him as much about what was going on as possible. We specifically watched Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and Ultra Street Fighter 4. If you've never played Marvel before it is basically incomprehensible flashing, so we had to explain a whole lot about that. Street Fighter on the other hand is two people beating down on each other much slowly, so he had a pretty firm grasp on it.
When my brother started getting way into fighting games about five years ago he started watching streams of tournaments all the time. This made it so that I also ended up watching a lot of tournaments, and quickly got to know all the prominent players of both Street Fighter and Marvel. It's one thing to watch a tournament online, but it's completely different to go to an actual tournament. Philadelphia, PA is a few hours away from where we live, so we go to quite a few tournaments there. It's surreal to see all the players who you respect playing in person. What's really nuts is how loud everything is. When people cheer it's earth shattering. When something amazing happens the whole room erupts and it's deafening. That's one of the reasons I love watching EVO, because it's on a whole different scale. When you can hear the crowd super loud on the stream, it's probably out of control in the actual venue.
I'm personally super terrible at fighting games, but I understand what I should be doing in order to do well. So when I watch competitive play I can tell what's super lame and what's going to bring the hype. Since I know the players it's easy for me to latch on to who I want to win a match and it gets me way more invested in it. Even when we go to tournaments I just watch, but it's incredibly fun for me. I scream fairly loud when things get crazy and watching EVO is absolutely no different.
When we were with Landers watching the finals nothing particularly bananas happened, but I still got a little amped up. In Marvel the only thing I want to happen is for Chris G to lose. I've got nothing against the guy, but he always wins with what I find to be a boring strategy. He uses the succubus Morrigan to fill the screen with colorful projectiles in order to lame out the opponent. Much to my pleasure he did end up losing to Justin Wong, who is arguably the best fighting game player in America. Watching Justin win is always entertaining, because he's just so damn good at everything. You can't dislike him. I always want my boy IFC Yipes to win, but he never gets far enough for me to cheer him on anymore. I had to settle for Justin winning, which is always a fine alternative.
Street Fighter was much more hype for me, because I didn't really know what was going to happen. Unlike Marvel, Japanese players actually do well in Street Fighter, so there were a bunch of them in the top 8. There were however two American players and a French player in the mix as well. One of the American players SnakeEyez is incredible. He's been doing super well for the last year or so and his play is only getting better. He didn't win, but he did have some amazing matches. The day before Party Game Sundays he had a ridiculous match where he won at the last second against a previous EVO champ. Take a look at the video below. As you watch the end imagine me losing my shit in unison with my brother, who was on a different floor of the house.
I bet that most people who watch this video with no context will think I'm crazy, which is how I feel when I watch most sports. For some reason fighting games are just exciting to me. When watching I yell, scream, and occasionally want to cry. Sometimes I feel like I'm alone in this excitement, but after going to tournaments in person, I know that I'll never be alone in my hype.
If you don't know anything about EVO or fighting games you should just search for some EVO videos on YouTube to see some people lose their minds over a video game fight. Next week I promise we'll play something new. I just had to watch EVO, or I would have missed the hype!
That brings us up to this past Sunday, where we would have played some games, but EVO was happening. I love watching competitive fighting game play, and EVO is the tournament to end all tournaments. I don't like using the analogy, but it's basically the Superbowl of fighting games. So inevitably Noukeo and I forced Landers, who doesn't know anything about fighting games, to watch the EVO finals. It was actually quite an educational experience. Landers asked a whole lot of questions and we tried to tell him as much about what was going on as possible. We specifically watched Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and Ultra Street Fighter 4. If you've never played Marvel before it is basically incomprehensible flashing, so we had to explain a whole lot about that. Street Fighter on the other hand is two people beating down on each other much slowly, so he had a pretty firm grasp on it.
When my brother started getting way into fighting games about five years ago he started watching streams of tournaments all the time. This made it so that I also ended up watching a lot of tournaments, and quickly got to know all the prominent players of both Street Fighter and Marvel. It's one thing to watch a tournament online, but it's completely different to go to an actual tournament. Philadelphia, PA is a few hours away from where we live, so we go to quite a few tournaments there. It's surreal to see all the players who you respect playing in person. What's really nuts is how loud everything is. When people cheer it's earth shattering. When something amazing happens the whole room erupts and it's deafening. That's one of the reasons I love watching EVO, because it's on a whole different scale. When you can hear the crowd super loud on the stream, it's probably out of control in the actual venue.
 |
| Thousands of people show up to EVO every year. |
I'm personally super terrible at fighting games, but I understand what I should be doing in order to do well. So when I watch competitive play I can tell what's super lame and what's going to bring the hype. Since I know the players it's easy for me to latch on to who I want to win a match and it gets me way more invested in it. Even when we go to tournaments I just watch, but it's incredibly fun for me. I scream fairly loud when things get crazy and watching EVO is absolutely no different.
When we were with Landers watching the finals nothing particularly bananas happened, but I still got a little amped up. In Marvel the only thing I want to happen is for Chris G to lose. I've got nothing against the guy, but he always wins with what I find to be a boring strategy. He uses the succubus Morrigan to fill the screen with colorful projectiles in order to lame out the opponent. Much to my pleasure he did end up losing to Justin Wong, who is arguably the best fighting game player in America. Watching Justin win is always entertaining, because he's just so damn good at everything. You can't dislike him. I always want my boy IFC Yipes to win, but he never gets far enough for me to cheer him on anymore. I had to settle for Justin winning, which is always a fine alternative.
 |
| I was so happy Justin won. He jumped onto the ground and rolled around for a bit. |
Street Fighter was much more hype for me, because I didn't really know what was going to happen. Unlike Marvel, Japanese players actually do well in Street Fighter, so there were a bunch of them in the top 8. There were however two American players and a French player in the mix as well. One of the American players SnakeEyez is incredible. He's been doing super well for the last year or so and his play is only getting better. He didn't win, but he did have some amazing matches. The day before Party Game Sundays he had a ridiculous match where he won at the last second against a previous EVO champ. Take a look at the video below. As you watch the end imagine me losing my shit in unison with my brother, who was on a different floor of the house.
I bet that most people who watch this video with no context will think I'm crazy, which is how I feel when I watch most sports. For some reason fighting games are just exciting to me. When watching I yell, scream, and occasionally want to cry. Sometimes I feel like I'm alone in this excitement, but after going to tournaments in person, I know that I'll never be alone in my hype.
If you don't know anything about EVO or fighting games you should just search for some EVO videos on YouTube to see some people lose their minds over a video game fight. Next week I promise we'll play something new. I just had to watch EVO, or I would have missed the hype!
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Game Time - 4/29/2012
It's been another long week and Xenoblade has still managed to consume nearly all of my free time. Don't worry though, because I have a bit more to talk about.
As most people have been made aware PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale the terribly named answer to Super Smash Bros. was announced on Thursday. I wrote a post on what was shown, but after thinking more about the game I've got a few things to say.
Stemming from this announcement I ended up playing Brawl with my brother and a few friends. It was a lot of fun, but I sucked it up something fierce.
With two games and a pretty cool announcement it was a solid week.
Xenoblade
After 100 hours of play time I still can't stop playing Xenoblade. I've completed almost every sidequest that has been thrown at me, but there are still a lot to go. After a ton of needless questing and leveling I'm sitting at the solid level of 87. The cap is 99, so after a few more hours of messing around I should be there. I could probably beat the final boss with my eyes closed, but due to the way I play games that won't happen for a while longer.
The sidequests in this game suck. Straight up, they're not engaging. None of them are voiced, and the dialogue from your party is almost the same for every single quest. There's nothing to get invested in. It's a shame, because the rest of the game is so solid. Everything deals with killing a certain amount of monsters, or getting certain materials. While they give you decent experience the loot you get it almost never worth it. However, now that I'm at the end of the game that's no longer the case. The loot is awesome now, and I even got to see a fully voiced scene.
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| It's refreshing to find almost all of a games characters to be genuinely interesting. |
In the coming week I should be able to wrap up my time with Xenoblade. I'm really looking forward to the conclusion of the story. At first it seemed as if the game had nothing in common with Xenogears and Xenosaga, but now it's evident that they all share certain themes. I don't want to get too much into that though, because it would ruin the story.
For all the ragging I do on the sidequests I legitimately love the rest of the game. It does so many things right and I hope that more games do it like this in the future. JRPGs have been getting stale for a while now and Xenoblade tries to do as much as it can subvert that trend.
Sony Smash Bros.
Yeah, I didn't play this game. I did however consume as much media as possible dealing with it and thought about it a whole lot.
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| This isn't exactly a name that rolls off the tongue... |
My first thought was that PlayStation All Stars: Battle Royale may be one of the worst names a video game has ever had. It's not catchy and it's far too long. I've decided that I'm going to call it Sony Smash Bros., because it looks very similar to Super Smash Bros. When the first footage of the game came on GTTV all I could think about was how much the game looked like Super Smash.
I've been browsing a lot of forums and it seems that there are a lot of people who aren't down with this game at all. I've seen people calling it lazy and unoriginal due to how similar it is to Super Smash. While it's clear that this game is pulling a whole lot of inspiration from another franchise I don't think that's such a bad thing. I like Super Smash and I like Sony characters. If you put the two together that's something I could get down with and this game is my opportunity to do that. That's not the problem for me.
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| It's hard to defend against the Super Smash comparisons when you release a picture that has a Wii in it. |
The place where it all got a little weird for me was when I read about some of the game mechanics. As most people know the goal of Super Smash is to knock your opponent off of the stage. That's not how this game works at all. That fact alone should appease all the haters right? Well no, because the way you score points sounds awful. Every character has three specials of varying power. The only way to score is by hitting opponents with a special in order to kill them. In that way it's like a timed super smash match. The issue I have with it is that if you get hit with a special it's an instant kill.
On it's own that's not too terrible, but it brings up a lot of questions. Apparently SuperBot games recruited avid fighting game players to work on the game. They claim that the game will be easily accessible, but deep at the same time. It's like they're trying to tell me that this game will be super competitive if I want it to be. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I don't see how this mechanic is so deep. If all I need to do is fill a meter for a super what's the point of the characters even having moves other than supers? The only reason you'll be fighting is to get your super.
With that mechanic in mind it changes my view of all the footage, because it means that the game is super unbalanced. It's clear that some supers are far better than others. It's caused me to be very skeptical about the whole game. I realize that this makes me sound like a super competitive asshole, but I assure you that's not what I'm trying to do. It's just that I like it when a game is balanced. I'll most likely be playing this game a lot with my friends and it'll be super annoying if it's not balanced properly. The game is still in development, so there's time for the mechanic to change, or for everything to get a lot more balanced.
Super Smash Brothers Brawl
After talking a great deal about Sony Smash Bros. with my friends we decided to play some Brawl. As I've mentioned before Brawl isn't my favorite Smash Bros. game, but I still find it enjoyable. The controls are floaty and it's not as fast as Melee was. Regardless of my feelings we played for a few hours and it was really fun.
We haven't played Super Smash in a long time and it was good to get back to it. For some reason it's the only game series that I've ever practiced enough to get good at it. It's just fun and that's awesome. When I got done playing it I realized that I was ready for a new Super Smash game. I'll be able to get my fixes fairly soon. Sony Smash Bros. should be coming out before the year is out and Nintendo claims that there is a Smash game coming for the 3DS and the WiiU.
SSX DLC?
This Tuesday we're rolling into May and that means that the SSX DLC will be hitting digital stores. My friends haven't been competing with my scores lately, so hopefully they'll be brought back into the fold. I really want to play more SSX, but it's hard to find the motivation when I have nothing else to work towards.
I'm planning on finishing up Xenoblade in the next few days, so I'll be moving on to a new game. So far I don't know what that's going to be, but I've been thinking about Zak and Wiki. I started it a long time ago, but didn't end up sticking with it. I liked what I played, so I hope it'll stick this time around.
We'll have to see what goes down in the coming week.
-Manny
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