To say that Disney Infinity is simply a knock-off of Skylanders is rather disingenuous. The toys may work in a similar fashion at a base level, though the actual gameplay experience is quite different. There’s also a level of nuance with the figurines and discs that goes beyond the groundwork laid by Activision. But are these differences enough to justify going with one over the other?
Video Games Express is doing a Super Street Fighter II on Super Nintendo tournament at the Toronto Toy Fair this Sunday, October 6th. I’ve never been before, but I’m excited to see what cool stuff they have to offer and to (hopefully) kick some butt in one of my all-time favourite fighting games! If fighters aren’t your thing, they’re also doing tournaments for Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros. Melee. If you haven’t signed up yet, head over to the site for more details!
The premise for Pushmo is deceptively simple. You control a character whose job it is to scale to the top of a block formation. This is done by pushing and pulling pieces of that formation until they form something scaleable. During the first few challenges, I had a hard time grasping why people loved this game so much. However, it doesn’t take long for that classic Nintendo brilliance to kick in.
To this day, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time is considered by many as one of the greatest video games of all-time. I definitely side with that mentality. I even gushed about it before on this very blog. With that said, the Nintendo 64 original and Gamecube port don’t look so hot by today’s standards. The textures are a blurry mess, everything is overly blocky and they both only run in 480i resolution. It would have been a shame if this classic got lost in time. Thankfully, Nintendo is breathing new life into it with a 3DS iteration that’s a bit more than a port.
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron has been a game I’ve been meaning to play for quite some time. It first caught my eye with its arresting visual flair, though the mixed reviews kept me at bay until I could grab it on the cheap. A few months back, it hit rock bottom on Xbox Live, as it was on sale for a paltry $3. Having played a little bit of it now, I’m not sure if the game was worth the wait.
I try to make Uncle Sensei proud with less than stellar results. I try to keep my cool and talk about the finer points of Divekick, though it’s hard to when I get exposed as a fraud.
Buy Sony Playstation Network Card – $20 [Online Game Code] Now On Amazon.com
Everything in life has a physical and mental aspect to it. Fighting games are no different. The physical element comes down to your ability to execute the maneuver you want at the time you want it, regardless of the circumstances that may make you mess it up. When it comes to improving one’s ability to play a fighting game, most guides and training aids will focus on the physical aspect of fighting games.
With that said, the mental aspect of fighting games shouldn’t be overlooked. I’d go as far as to say that the mental aspect of fighting games is far more important than any physical factor. In today’s edition of the Universal Fighting Game Guide, let’s cover the mental element that will play the biggest part in your success or failure. That element is mind games.
The free-to-play business model is something that fighting games are beginning to dabble in. Tekken Revolution was the first out of the gate, which provided a smaller Tekken experience that limited the number of times you could access each mode. Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate Core Fighters takes a different approach by primarily gating characters instead. Does this approach provide a less scummy experience?
One of the people I admire the most in the fighting game community is Ryan Gutierrez. Best known as Gootecks, he’s recognized as being a top Street Fighter III: Third Strike player, as well as a top Street Fighter IV player in the game’s early days. While he could have continued to pursue that path, he made a conscious decision to be a content creator with an eye on tutorials and advice for newcomers. Part of that decision probably was because he saw it as a more stable means of making an income from being a part of the FGC. However, he also recognized the importance of growing the community, which he’s most vocal about in the early days of his podcast. Without bringing new players into the scene, the FGC would have continued down the path of being a tiny niche market that was stuck playing the same old games for a decade. Without guys like Gootecks paying it foward, I may have missed out on some of the best and most rewarding times I’ve ever had playing video games.
Fraud detected! Though I may be lukewarm on Divekick, that doesn’t mean I can’t provide any useful tips for players looking to be the next Uncle Sensei. Head over to Splitkick for all of the details!
Check out the Kickstart Guide to Divekick on Splitkick.com
Buy Sony Playstation Network Card – $20 [Online Game Code] Now On Amazon.com
In Third Person 