The Gaming Den

cthulhu wrote:The new street fighter is fucking impossible.

What's impossible about it?

I grabbed Ryu and pulled off the same HADOKEN multiple times.

... I saw nothing different about it other than the ridiculous expressions...



.... IN 3D!!!

I definitely dislike the new direction in art that Street Fighter 4 has taken. The cel-shaded graphics of the past were far superior for the game, I feel.

? I didn't think Street Fighter 2 was cel-shaded.

Sir_Neil wrote:? I didn't think Street Fighter 2 was cel-shaded.

It was not. The old Street Fighters were sprite based.

-Username17

Oh, thank goodness.

Sorry, I think I'm confusing my art/rendering styles. You're right, the old Street Fighter games were sprite-based, as is the new Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I'd prefer Street Fighter 4 to use cel-shading rendering to better resemble the old sprite-based 2D style, instead of the new photorealistic style.

Crissa wrote:They're terrible games, Draco. Basically the gameplay is DOOM in a more realistic setting and less logical damage system. The tactics include shooting while being shot at.

Ugh.

Also, you still can't see your damn feet. Why can't you see your damn feet in any of these FPS games?

-Crissa

Except it's not.

It's more like original System Shock, except that you can't climb ladders.

The "damage system" being less logical comment makes no sense to me.

You shoot something in the leg, it's moving slower, shoot a frag grenade in a creature's hands and it might off prematurely, or get knocked out of their hand and go off beside them. Disarming via shooting is challenging, but usually I don't bother with it. I tend to focus on dropping my targets instead of playing with them. I'm not a big fan of the "Dart Gun" FO3 weapon, since it only cripples, it does no real damage, which is good versus a giant bear, but crippling the leg of a person with a minigun is useless.

I've started to stop using VATS and I play the game more free-form now and focus on trying to achieve extreme-range heatshots without using a scoped gun, just iron sights, crouching (hide command makes you crouch, giving much steadier shots, and allowing you to get in much closer without being noticed) and using the 'aim' (hold the right mouse button) command.

I'm guessing that you've never played the game with a high perception (to know where enemies are) or with a high sneak skill.

Stripping down to recon armour and a shaded hat before going all sneaky style up to supermutants with a shishkebab (aka, FIRE SWORD) to sneak attack them is a lot of fun. Or a deathclaw hand that you've turned into the equivalent of an over-sized Freddie Kreuger glove.

Normally walking within melee range of a super-mutie is completely tactically unsound, but if you're going after them one on one you can keep gacking them while their buddies don't realize that you've entered their location.

On the other hand, I've also put in a lot of extra mods; things to unlock more than one companion at a time; new npcs, new areas, the creation of the old F1 and F2 weapons (I think that everyone who played F1 & F2 probably heard of a little handgun known as the .223 Pistol; aka, the Sniper Rifle in one hand).

I've actually found a lot more tactical and strategic elements in FO3 compared to FO1 and FO2.

This is because of the way that creatures perceive each other, the nature of the terrain that combat takes place in, and the fact that I'm being followed by a 6-NPC crew with a mix for assault, sniping, biggun and melee equipment; and some of which are able to tag along when I'm playing commando.

The main strategic elements involve making sure that the group is well equipped, that you travel at appropriate times, and paying attention to your karma.

Having a good mix of weapons for both long, medium and close range; as well as being supplied with ammo/fuel for such gear helps.

Not being seen is just as good as not being attacked, thus a lot of night-traveling also helps a lot. At night you're much harder to be noticed, so it's usually safer.

Having a good reputation is also handy when it comes to the strategic elements of FO3 gameplay, if you can't enter towns and resupply, or dump your looted items for more ammo or repairs to your gear, you'll probably going to have to work harder.

Some of the more tactical elements include positioning and moving to make the terrain work against enemies, even enemies in a raised position or in cover can be taken apart by approaching their location from an other angle. Honestly, I can't think of a single place that I've seen where circling and approaching from a safe path hasn't led to a much easier fight.

Other tactical considerations include using the right tool for the right job. I'm actually not a huge fan of the AoE weapons like the Fatman Tactical Nuke Catapult or the Missile Launcher since they can cause a lot of collateral damage to either slaves or captured people that slavers or super-mutants might have hidden away in the building that they're hiding out in.

For long range stuff I tend to either take aimed potshots with a single-shot firearm or pull out a Light Support Weapon and use the scope and fire at the torsos of well, I'm not gonna lie, super-mutants are a really common enemy.

For more close-in fights I'm a big 'fan' of using the flamer on stuff like feral ghouls (and sweeping that hot, hot, flamer fuel all over them). But honestly, that's more of a ''for fun'' practice. Using a fully automatic shotgun or powerful handgun works a lot faster.

My brother is a big advocate of the use of explosives in FO3; grenades, mines and the like are how he evens the odds when he's leading a half dozen enemy mercs to a frag mine death trap, or fighting muties much easier by throwing grenades over or around obstacles.

Fallout 2 was pretty much Fallout 1 with most of the annoying problems that FO1 had removed. You could equip followers, and give them better armour. You had allies outlined in green instead of red, there was no cap on levels, more perks were added.

anyway, i gtg.

Good review JE.

2D fighting games are fun but only if care was put in to them, such as the Samurai Showdown and Street Fighter series. Maybe Guilty Gear but I've never played it.

Soul Calibur and maybe DoA would be an exception to the general rule that 2D > 3D fighters. Tekken is OK but far too Mortal Kombat in its habit of one-sided stunlocks and juggles.

it's... so-so. I should re-write and clarify a lot of it.

I firmly believe that Super Smash Bros Melee is the best 2D fighting game ever made, and it blows away all competition in any dimension.

Surgo wrote:I firmly believe that Super Smash Bros Melee is the best 2D fighting game ever made, and it blows away all competition in any dimension.

Only Game n' Watch and certain SSB maps are 2D. Jeeeeez.

Perhaps the term should be 2-and-a-half-D since any character can dodge, receding in to the background for a brief moment. A conditional and temporary 3D motion.
Kind of like the protagonist in Flatland.

Is the fighting performed in a 2D plane? Yes? Then it's a 2D fighting game.

The existence of the spot dodge doesn't change that fact. A brief invincibility-frame-granting feature doesn't make a fighting game not 2D -- I'm pretty sure King of Fighters had that feature, among others.

Smash Brothers is a party game. It's not a fighting game, no-one takes your tournaments seriously. Especially because of tourneyfags with their "No items, Fox only, Final Destination" bullshit (which takes a party game and then extracts the fun).

It's a fun game, don't get me wrong, but it's not the best fighting game, and doesn't even rate amongst them because it's not a real fighting game.

I don't get what's so amazing about Soul Calibur except for Taki's cameltoe. DoA is reversal-frenzy but fun, and any schoolgirl uniform battle sends me to my happy place while playing it. I'm referring to DoA2 for PS2, because that's the only one I played.

Surgo wrote:

cthulhu wrote:The new street fighter is fucking impossible.

What's impossible about it?

The difficulty curve is steep. I'm no fighting game n00b, and street fighter 4 is inducing controller snapping frustration, and I'm on fight.. 5?

Koumei wrote:Smash Brothers is a party game. It's not a fighting game, no-one takes your tournaments seriously.

Major League Gaming thought quite differently.

How the hell is it not a "real" fighting game anyway? Because you say so? For that matter, what the fuck does it even mean to be a "real fighting game"?

edit because I can't let this go:

Koumei wrote:Especially because of tourneyfags with their "No items, Fox only, Final Destination" bullshit (which takes a party game and then extracts the fun).

This is a complete myth. Believe it or not, the majority of the stages in Melee are allowed (for one season in MLG, Rainbow Cruise was even on the initial random stage select list!). And so are the characters! In fact, no characters are even banned! The only reason you see so much Fox is because he's good and people want to win. You can seriously play Pichu if you want to. Nobody does because Pichu sucks.

Stage bans only happen to keep the power of characters in check. That usually ends up being Fox. Hyrule Castle and Great Bay ended up banned because of that, actually: shoot 1 laser and then run the timer out for the rest of the match. (Great Bay has a bug with Fox and Falco's side-Bs that allows this to be possible.)

edit again: Melee is actually one of the better-balanced fighting games out there. The bottom tier is totally useless of course, but anyone from Top/High/Mid (which makes up most of the characters) has the tools to win. Hell, I've even seen people legitimately pick Game & Watch and Young Link in tournament matches to counter some character or stage.

It's a fun game, don't get me wrong, but it's not the best fighting game, and doesn't even rate amongst them because it's not a real fighting game.

Uh, why?

A lot of the particulars definitely deviate from most Capcom/SNK/GG fighters, but the core element of two people picking a more different guy (or not) than their opponent and after being transported to a field they use a moveset to counter moves the opponent makes with the ultimate goal of incapacitating an opponent definitely makes it seem like a fighting game.

Is it the lack of life meter?

You just got trolled :D

That being said, Guilty Gear is in fact the best fighting game, and every other fighting game should do more to emulate it.

Also, it kind of DOES have a health meter. Not your standard kind, granted, but close enough that you could call it one: the damage percentage that makes attacks launch you further/acts as a tie breaker.

You just got trolled

You should feel bad about trolling someone on TGD regarding technicalities. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

That being said, Guilty Gear is in fact the best fighting game, and every other fighting game should do more to emulate it.

I love the music and artwork and silliness of Guilty Gear, but I cannot figure out how to play that game. Why is doing moves so damn hard in that game?

And that's one thing I enjoy about Super Smash Bros. It takes about five minutes to teach anyone who has played a video game before to play that game.

You can't figure out how to do special moves with such complex button combinations as "QCF + Punch"? Get out. Now. You are no longer a video gamer. Hand in your controller AND your Sony callouses on your hands.

Yes, some of the Tension Supers are trickier (QCB, HCF, QCF + Heavy + Dust), but that's why you read the movelist first, then practice a bit. Instead of the 4E style "Dur hur I just learned to breathe, now I can play!" it encourages learning the game, and getting system mastery.

I will not stoop to a game that lacks QCF+Punch style special moves.

Also, GG is actually balanced: you can pick ANY character (except for unlockables, and even some of them) and they're competetive. As opposed to "Sagat Fighter 2" and "Ken Fighter Alpha". Although it still does have tiers, and Eddie got his own top tier in one of them, but the tiers are close together and an expert with, say, Dizzy (D-tier) , can still beat an expert with Sol (A-tier).

Various iterations of Guilty Gear XX featured at Evo for a while, so you can take a look at vids of high-level play on Youtube to see what you -should- be doing in terms of combos at least.

u can't figure out how to do special moves with such complex button combinations as "QCF + Punch"? Get out. Now. You are no longer a video gamer. Hand in your controller AND your Sony callouses on your hands.

... Guilty Gears' moves are a lot more complicated than QCF + punch. Yes, you can do a couple of them like that, but you're still missing out on a huge segment of the gameplay.

Yes, some of the Tension Supers are trickier (QCB, HCF, QCF + Heavy + Dust), but that's why you read the movelist first, then practice a bit. Instead of the 4E style "Dur hur I just learned to breathe, now I can play!" it encourages learning the game, and getting system mastery.

Look, I played Guilty Gear at the arcade. Even with the meager movelist sheets on the board, which you damnwell know doesn't cover most of the game mechanics or even the entire movelist, if it takes more than 5 credits to get your character to do what you want him or her to do then your game sucks.

I had no problem learning how to get my character to do what I wanted to for the Vs. series or for the Street Fighters, so why are you giving me such a hard time about Guilty Gear. I mean, fucking listen to yourself: QCB, HCF, QCF + Heavy + Dust to do one move. Why does it need to be that complicated?

u can't figure out how to do special moves with such complex button combinations as "QCF + Punch"? Get out. Now. You are no longer a video gamer. Hand in your controller AND your Sony callouses on your hands.

... Guilty Gears' moves are a lot more complicated than QCF + punch. Yes, you can do a couple of them like that, but you're still missing out on a huge segment of the gameplay.

Yes, some of the Tension Supers are trickier (QCB, HCF, QCF + Heavy + Dust), but that's why you read the movelist first, then practice a bit. Instead of the 4E style "Dur hur I just learned to breathe, now I can play!" it encourages learning the game, and getting system mastery.

Look, I played Guilty Gear at the arcade. Even with the meager movelist sheets on the board, which you damnwell know doesn't cover most of the game mechanics or even the entire movelist, if it takes more than 5 credits to get your character to do what you want him or her to do then your game sucks.

I had no problem learning how to get my character to do what I wanted to for the Vs. series or for the Street Fighters, so why are you giving me such a hard time about Guilty Gear. I mean, fucking listen to yourself: QCB, HCF, QCF + Heavy + Dust to do one move. Why does it need to be that complicated?

I only have, and have only played, Guilty Gear XX #Reload. What I say should apply for the newest game (Accent Core) as well though, because the difference is basically some balance tweaks.

The movelists when you do start -> character moves, while in Japanese, are all astoundingly complete. I say astoundingly because even in rereleased games like Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix they've missed a few (though they aren't special moves), like Chun Li's neckbreaker and T. Hawk's aerial down + punch (the splash).


If the following sentence isn't true, you must not be playing Guilty Gear XX. 99% of the Guilty Gear specials (not supers, but see later) are generally built around three motions:
- Quarter-circle forward (starting from down)
- Quarter-circle back (starting from down)
- Dragon punch (forward, down, down-forward).

Now, I'll be the first to tell you that it's god damn hard to do a dragon punch motion on anything short of an arcade stick. Most of the time when I played Guilty Gear before I had an arcade stick I just ignored the part where I had any move that fired on Dragon Punch. How easy it is for beginners to the motion to do the Dragon Punch on an arcade stick depends on the stick itself. American-style sticks tend to be entirely circular, which makes it interesting because at first you aren't sure where down-forward is exactly supposed to be. Some American cabinets and almost all Japanese cabinets have square restrictors instead of circulars, which makes it easy though, again, at first quarter-circle forward is difficult because you're not sure where forward changes to up-forward. Depending on the stick, DP or QCF could take a little getting used to.

A character I'd suggest for beginners is Ky (not Robo-Ky). He has a forgiving learning curve and his moveset can also teach you a lot about the game, specifically stuff like zoning, spacing, and anti-air.

Zoning: Ky is one of the few characters in the game with a fireball (QCF + Slash, and QCF + Heavy Slash for a slower, multi-hit version). In #Reload this is probably his only advantage outside of his sword. Abuse the fireball. Make people hate you for it. Also remember that you can use it in the air which makes it travel diagonally (slash steep, heavy slash shallow), which isn't necessarily as useful as it sounds (you'd think you'd be able to throw a steep diagonal fireball to cover your approach and then come down with a mix up, but throwing it makes you bounce up-back like a retard so you can't actually do that), but it's still good.

Spacing: Ky's sword has deceptively bad range, but it's still a lot better than most. I think he's not so deceptively bad in Accent Core. A lot of Eddie's moves go further, but Ky's far slash is a pretty great poke. Learn to keep people on the end of your sword and you can stop a lot of bad shit from happening to you.

Anti-air: Ky has an extremely good arsenal of anti-air moves. His two dragon-punch moves (DP + Slash and DP + Heavy Slash) are both appropriately anti-air. He has the same forward + punch universal anti-air that almost everyone has, and it's pretty good. He also has an amazing aerial slash, which sweeps out a wide disjointed arc in front of him. Use his anti-air game to keep people grounded on their approach where they can eat fireballs. If all else fails, his QCB + Kick (I think) is a move with a decently high and very wide hitbox and can make for a good anti-air as well.

Of course, Ky has a lot of other problems and that's why he's low tier or mid at best, but he is an excellent character for learning the game and is certainly capable of being played at the highest levels.


Now, about the tension supers. They are very rarely useful, and you needn't bother much to learn them. You're really not missing out on anything by not bothering/ The tension bar is generally better at letting you do other stuff, and is unfortunately where the Guilty Gear series of games becomes very complex. If you still care, I can post about them later.

I fully agree with you about complexity of inputs. I don't think Guilty Gear is horrible in that regard because almost all of its specials are built around those 3 inputs. For that, the worst fighter that people care about I think is Soul Calibur which, in a failed attempt at depth, just gets pretty nasty at points. And for that game it gets even worse because every character has upwards of 100 moves at, again, another failed attempt at depth. Sooo much memorization for that game.

Koumei wrote:You can't figure out how to do special moves with such complex button combinations as "QCF + Punch"? Get out. Now. You are no longer a video gamer. Hand in your controller AND your Sony callouses on your hands.

I have to say that I have a lot of trouble performing the 'charge' moves in the new SF4 consistently, because the Xbox controller is too sensative, and a joy pad would be better.