fighting games

Game Design Talk: Turning the Difficulty Up To 11

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I’ve been putting a lot of time into Street Fighter IV for the iPhone and I’m still having a lot of fun with it. I’ve gotten to the point where I can consistently hit 19-hit combos with Ryu, which is kind of scary, considering the fact that I can’t do that on the real thing.

Thinking I had mad skills, I decided to try playing the game at the toughest difficulty setting. On normal, I could beat the game with Ryu in under 8 minutes. On “Grueling”, it took me 25 minutes to get to the final boss. It was tough, but I didn’t mind the experience. It still felt somewhat fair.

It was when I got to M. Bison that the experience took a turn for the worst. If you’ve played a Street Fighter game, you probably can empathize with my pain. I spent another 30 minutes just trying to beat him before I finally broke through.

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Making It Another Blockbuster Night

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Yesterday, while on my way to my girlfriend’s house, I passed by another Blockbuster. Having pillaged every Blockbuster in my city, I decided to check out the Blockbuster close to her house to see if I can find some gems in their clearance bin. While their selection had no shortage of old sports games, generic shooters and crappy movie-based games, I did pick up some stuff and there were other games worth noting.

Hit the break to see what I found.

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Street Fighter IV on iPhone Makes Me Eat My Words

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“…like the thought of eating a steak topped with ice cream, the recently announced Street Fighter IV iPhone port has made me throw up in my mouth just a little bit. I can’t imagine this being anything but an absolute nightmare to play.” – Me.

Up until the recent release of Street Fighter IV on the iPhone, I expected nothing less than garbage from this mobile port. In my previous post, I provided a bunch of reasons to support my initial feelings towards the final product. But then, the positive word-of-mouth online began to bubble. As a Street Fighter IV junkie, this was enough to push me over the edge and give this $10 app a shot. To my surprise, Street Fighter IV on the iPhone does very well considering the platform its on, providing players with a fun fighting game that controls well enough.

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Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: I Take It For A Ride

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A few weeks ago, I vented my thoughts on the possibility of me purchasing Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars. I was interested in the game, but maybe not enough for me to buy it. However, it was also an opportunity as a core Wii owner to show the world that I will buy hardcore games if companies put them out on the platform. This moral dilemma also hit me shortly before I lost my job. With all of the things stacked against it, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom seemed out of my grasp for the time being.

Street Fighter IV and Why iPhone Game Controls Suck

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If you’ve been following my blog for the past few months, then you’ll know that I am a huge fan of Street Fighter IV and a fan of iPhone games. However, like the thought of eating a steak topped with ice cream, the recently announced Street Fighter IV iPhone port has made me throw up in my mouth just a little bit. I can’t imagine this being anything but an absolute nightmare to play.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom – Time to Get Pringles?

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I don’t think I’ve ever been torn about a game like I have been for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. With this game, I can put together a fairly solid case for why I don’t want it. I’m not a “Versus” series style of fighting game player. My only experience with this style of fighting game was with the XBOX Live release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2. After years of wanting to test my chops in one of the most popular fighting games of all-time, I finally came to the conclusion that I’m awful at that style of game. I end up mindlessly mashing buttons and randomly doing traditional Street Fighter special move command inputs and hoping for the best. It’s cool to see all the flashy action on screen, but I didn’t find the fighting satisfying enough for me to commit to getting better. My only experience online with Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was an absolute disaster, where I didn’t win a match and at times, didn’t connect a single hit on my opponent.

Super Street Fighter IV and Online Play

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For the longest time, I used to wonder why pro Street Fighter IV players would bash online play so much. It seemed like every single one of them would complain about how the game doesn’t play the same online as it does locally. As an amateur player who had spent the majority of Street Fighter IV time online, I thought it worked fine. Sure, there were instances where the game would clearly slow to a crawl, but I thought that I could play this game online the same way I would locally.

However, I’ve gotten a lot better in the last few months, and I’m really starting to see what many of the pro players were complaining about. As I’m learning new techniques, combos and tactics, I’m finding more and more that they don’t consistently work online, even with a great connection.
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Time For An Intervention

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For the past few weeks, you’ve probably read a lot of my Street Fighter IV posts. Ever since I got an XBOX Live gold account in May, Street Fighter IV has become a huge part of my life. Besides dropping over 100 hours into the game and playing over 1600 online matches, I’ve spent a ton of time listening to Gooteck’s Street Fighter Podcast, reading the Street Fighter thread over at NeoGaf, watched any tournament videos I could on YouTube, and almost dropped $200 on a Mad Catz TE Fight Stick.

Some Thoughts On I Got Next (Short Version)

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“I Got Next” is a documentary about the fighting game scene. Filmed during the Sinsation tournament earlier this year, its goal as a movie is to cover the scene and the people behind competitive fighting games. I watched the short version of the film at www.igotnextmovie.com. A longer version of the movie is due out this winter, with footage from Evo 2009.

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Some Thoughts On BlazBlue

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As someone whose fighting game history is almost exclusively tied to Street Fighter, BlazBlue makes me feel as though I’m on another planet. While the general idea of one-on-one fighting is the same and there are many parallels that can be drawn in terms of the execution of normal attacks and special attacks, BlazBlue is a very different fighting experience.