With money and time as an finite resource, it’s very easy to stay in a comfort zone with the video games you play. But sometimes, you get rewarded for escaping your imaginary box. Despite my previous negative response to art games like Journey and The Unfinished Swan, trying out Gris on the strength of a recommendation from Kris and Rachel from Double Jump proved to be a worthwhile endeavour.
Here are a few more games that I’ve played that expanded my horizons in ways I wasn’t expecting.
I thought Marvel vs. Capcom had bitten the dust off the lackluster performance of Infinite. But recently, a fairly-reliable source has stated that a Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite update is on the way, and it will be renamed Marvel vs. Capcom 4. Whether it’s true or not is beside the point. What I wanted to do was to use this as a jumping-off point for a discussion around a future entry in the Marvel vs. Capcom series. Real or not, what does a hypothetical next entry in the series need to look like in order to rebound from disaster? Continue reading
Playing this game once more before the release of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite!
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From X-Men vs. Street Fighter to the recently released Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, Marvel and Capcom have been crossing paths since the late 90s in some of the most legendary fighting games of all-time. While I was well aware of their collaborations, their output in the 90s and early 2000s was a reminder to my younger self that fighting games had moved on without me. As a Nintendo fan who actively played Super Street Fighter II, these crossover games were too complex for my liking. On top of that, these games never made it to Nintendo consoles, leaving me out in the cold.
I wouldn’t get a chance to play this series in earnest until the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The road was rough, and I wasn’t there all the way through, but my time with that game was key to my growth as a fighting game player. In a time now where its successor is in market, this post is for the fallen soldier that is the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 series.
Though I don’t talk about it much on this blog, I am no slouch in the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 series. Having invested hundreds of hours into it, I wreak havoc online and it’s generally the game I do best at in tournaments. Say what I will about having the #1 ranked Rose in Canada on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, my best tournament placing to-date across any game is 25th in MvC 3 at T12; a point that arguably holds more weight in my fighting game resume.
Having said that, I have a glaring hole in my skill-set that keeps me from ascending to the upper echelon of players: my inability to land the biggest combos.
In virtually every fighting game, certain characters will have inherent advantages against others. More often than not, this is just the end result of character design factors that end up dictating how easy or difficult it will be for character A to defeat character B. In some cases, you may have to put in some elbow grease as the weaker character in order to win. Other times, trying to overcome a bad match-up can feel almost impossible.
Is it ever really impossible though? Let’s talk about what bad match-ups are, why they happen and things you can do to beat the odds.
Poor Ken Masters. As a character, his capabilities are fairly standard issue. However, the sight of Ken is enough to induce a groan from even the most casual Street Fighter fans. It has nothing to do with the character himself, but rather the player using him. There’s a good reason why the term “Flowchart Ken” exists.
Get hype!
Yesterday, I came to bring the pain at T12: Toronto Fighting Game Championships. While it was not my first-ever fighting game tournament, it was definitely my first fighting game tournament of this magnitude. Everything about this one had a lot more weight to it, from the Team Spooky stream, to the international players flying in for this event, to the skill-sets of the players attending, to the hype that filled the room when something dramatic happened. Having watched these types of events take place for years from afar, it was very cool to be a part of it this time.
Last year, I dipped my toe into the competitive gaming waters by participating in Fan Expo 2010’s Super Street Fighter IV tournament. While I was bummed out that Fan Expo didn’t run any fighting game tournaments this year, I am attending something that will most likely be way cooler.
If you’ve ever had any sort of interest in fighting games, you’ve probably stumbled across a combo video or two. They’re very cool to watch, and you may have even taken it upon yourself to be as good as the person in the video by going to a guide and learning how to read an execute something like this from BlazBlue:
214D -> B (FC), 623D, dash, 3C xx 236236B, 214D -> C, 5C 2C 4D -> D, [j.C x n] [dj.C x n] xx j.214B – 50% Heat
While you may be tempted to learn the big fancy combos the moment you start playing a new fighting game, it’s not the best way to level yourself up. Mastering the physical execution of big combos is nice, but learning the big combos without knowing the context behind them first is like trying to run without learning how to walk. This is post 1 in a two-part mini-series about understanding combo systems. Part 1 will deal with the elements that make up most combo systems, while part 2 will discuss how to put context to those elements to shape your offensive capabilities. Let’s get moving with part 1!
In Third Person 