video games

How-To Replace the Buttons on a Mad Catz TE

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I am far from a handyman. Fixing things has never been a strong suit of mine, nor has my track record with fixing video game hardware been positive. So when my RT button broke on my Mad Catz TE, I dreaded the thought of myself trying to (and ultimately failing at) fixing it. Regardless of my lack of handyman skills and my desire to throw money at the problem to make it go away, the fastest, cost-effective and logical solution was to fix it myself.

While there are a ton of other, better guides online to show you how to handle this procedure, I thought I’d document my own experience in hopes of providing insight to you if you’re also scared of modding the buttons on your Mad Catz TE yourself.

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Societal Pressures and How They Influenced My Purchase of Catherine

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Shortly after writing my previous post on my time with the Catherine demo, I decided that I was going to purchase the game. Normally, when I’ve made the decision to buy a game before its release, I patiently wait until launch day and buy said game at a store. I like the experience of going into a store and getting the game immediately, rather than having the release date pass by while my game is in transit at the mercy of the postal service.

This time, I pre-ordered it online. I grabbed the PlayStation 3 version so that my girlfriend can play my copy too. I’ve never pre-ordered any games online before, and this is only the second time I’ve ever purchased a game online. No, I didn’t go out of my way to pre-order it so that I could get the bonus soundtrack and art book (though it’s a nice bonus, I guess). I pre-ordered it to save myself from any potential embarrassment.

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EVO 2011 Story Lines

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The biggest fighting game tournament in the world is only a week away. As a hardcore fighting game fan and stream monster, I can’t wait to sit in front of the computer all weekend to watch the scene’s best go at it all weekend long. If you’ve never watched a fighting game stream before, but have any interest in it, EVO 2011 is definitely the place to start.

If you do start here, you should know that this EVO tournament is actually the last tournament in the 2011 EVO season. A lot of drama has taken place between the start of the season and now. Unless you want to sit through hundreds of hours of tournament footage or read through much more comprehensive and better written recaps on the EVO tournament season, I can give you a primer on a few of the story lines surrounding EVO’s biggest games.

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Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Announced (And All Characters Leaked)

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Capcom yesterday revealed in a press release that they are working on Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. As with Super Street Fighter IV, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will be an iterative update to the original game that will be sold as a new game on a new disc. As much as I hate this business practice of Capcom’s that’s been happening since Street Fighter II: Championship Edition, historically I’ve only made the problem worse by purchasing these updates on day one. I’m fairly certain that I will continue the cycle by giving Capcom my $40 come November 15, which is when this game is scheduled for release.

What will you get with your $40 investment? Capcom revealed some of those details (such as 4 of the 12 new characters) officially through their press release and some gameplay footage, but some clever folks at NeoGAF were able to poke through Capcom’s own servers and find the remaining 8 new characters. Read through to see all the details!

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Button Dies on My Mad Catz TE

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The other night, I was playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3 online. I was running with my main team of Wolverine/Storm/Sentinel when something went awry: nothing happened when I hit the Sentinel button. Sure enough, my right trigger button on my Mad Catz TE had died.

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Universal Fighting Game Guide: The Problem With Only Mastering Combos

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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.

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I Played the Catherine Demo

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When this game was first announced, I immediately wrote it off as simply one of those erotic Japanese games that never make their way to my country. There’s a market for those types of games, but they’re not for me. However, the more I read about Catherine and its premise, the more I was intrigued to learn more.

With the demo out now on XBOX Live and PlayStation Network, I gave it a shot.

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Split/Second Impressions

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Split/Second was one of two high-profile arcade racing games to hit the market in May 2010. The other was Blur. Both Disney and Activision had high hopes for their respective racing games, with visions of turning them into the next big racing franchises. However, despite positive reviews for both, neither game sold very well, which led to the demise of both studios that made Split/Second and Blur. Despite my issues with Blur, I thought it was a shame that game and its’ creators suffered the fate that they did, as Blur was a pretty good game. I’d say the similar things about Black Rock Studio and Split/Second. This is a pretty good racing game that, unfortunately, a lot of people overlooked.

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Game Design Talk: The Racing Game Wall

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For a few days, I was on a roll with Split/Second. I was really enjoying the progression through the career mode and I thought this wouldn’t end like my experiences with Burnout Paradise or Blur, where I hit a figurative brick wall. In both games, I hit a point where I needed “x” amount of points to move onto the next set of challenges, yet I couldn’t muster up the skills to make the necessary progress. At first, I was finishing second or third in my Split/Second races, which was enough to get me to the next episode. However, my lack of perfection eventually caught up.

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King of Fighters i-002 Review (iPhone)

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Out of nowhere, SNK released King of Fighters i-002 for the iPhone. Until it hit the iTunes store, SNK hadn’t even acknowledged this game’s existence. Because of the flash announcement and release, it’s really hard right now to find any sort of impressions on it. As curious as I was to try it out, I was initially weary on picking this up immediately, as $7.99 seemed like a lot to gamble on for an iPhone game, especially when I just bought Street Fighter IV: Volt for $0.99.

However, out of my own curiosity and my desire to inform anyone interested in picking this game up, I decided to pony up the funds and give it a go. Does King of Fighters have what it takes to topple the Street Fighter IV series of iPhone games as the king of fighting games on the platform?

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