Let’s Talk About E3 2012

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year for gaming news, as the Electronic Entertainment Expo is upon us. I can’t wait to watch all of the conferences from the major platform holders, read everything that comes up on my reader and listen to all of the podcasts that come from the show. Personally, I’m really curious to learn more about the Wii U, but I’m also keeping my eyes open for some out-of-nowhere shockers that will get me excited for the future of gaming.

Are you excited for the biggest gaming show on the planet? What are you looking forward to seeing or learning more about? Who do you think is going to win E3? Let’s talk about it in the comments!

Check Out My Review for Joy Ride Turbo on Splitkick.com

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Hot off the heels of Kinect Joy Ride is Joy Ride Turbo; the sequel to a motion-controlled game that ditches motion controls completely. On one hand, it’s a curious move to eschew the original’s key selling point. On the other hand, the key selling point in practice wasn’t very good.

If you’re curious about how well it turned out, head over to Splitkick.com to check out my review!

Qanba Q4 RAF Review

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Over the last few years, Mad Catz and Hori have done an excellent job of creating high-quality fightsticks. However, as officially licensed peripheral makers, neither company can provide a fightstick that supports all major platforms out of the box. It sucks to be in a situation where you’ve spent a large chunk of change on an XBOX 360 fightstick and your friends bought the latest fighting game on PlayStation 3. Or when you want to play in an XBOX 360 tournament when you only have a PlayStation 3 fightstick. To get around this, you can try your hand at modding your fightstick. Or you can try your out a sketchy adapter which could be obsolete with the next console patch. Or you could do what I’ve done to date, which is buy a high-quality fightstick for each system I play fighting games on. Regardless of the route you choose, the answer usually isn’t cheap or technically stable.

Aiming to address this need, the Qanba Q4 RAF is built to work on the XBOX 360, PlayStation 3 and PC right out of the box. For avid tournament goers or gamers who often play on different systems, having one fightstick that supports all platforms is truly a blessing. But does it work as advertised? And does the rest of this fightstick from an unknown manufacturer stack up with the best from Mad Catz and Hori?

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My Sony PlayStation 3D Display Has Died From the Blinking Red Light of Death

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So much for that positive review. I’ll have to go back and edit that now.

Sat down at my gaming desk last night and attempted to turn on my Sony PlayStation 3D Display. Instead, no picture appeared, and a red light flashed under the screen. Turns out, there are a lot of complaints about this all over the internet. Though I wasn’t able to track down the cause, I’ve read that when this happens, the TV is toast.

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Unboxing the Qanba Q4 RAF Fightstick

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The Qanba Q4 RAF is one of the most sought-after fightsticks on the market for its ability to work with the XBOX 360, PlayStation 3 and PC right out of the box. If you have fighting games across multiple systems or regularly play in tournaments, then having just one fightstick that works with everything sounds a lot better buying multiple fightsticks to do the same thing. However, because of that key feature, this fightstick isn’t licensed by Sony or Microsoft, which means you’ll never be able to buy this at a regular store. Even tracking these down online isn’t necessarily an easy task, as the few online retailers that carry it are often sold out.

Luckily for me, I was able to purchase one at a tournament I was recently at. Let’s open this bad boy up together.

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My Experience at Toryuken

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(Me [right] vs. Rikir [left]  on the Toryuken main stage and live stream of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3)

The ability to excel in a high-pressure situation does not come naturally to most. I, for one, have found this to be the case with everything I do in life – especially in my foray into competitive gaming. I’ve suffered from a seemingly unshakable case of tournament nerves, which has plagued my ability to play to my full potential. It’s hard not to let the nerves get to you when playing for your tournament life in front of a large crowd that is judging your every action.

The cure for shaking nerves? Practice. If you put yourself in a high-pressure situation enough times, you body and mind should get accustomed to the situation. Going into Toryuken – my third tournament to date – I was hoping that this would be the tournament where I could shake off my tournament nerves once and for all.

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Fall Damage Podcast Level 127 Featuring Jett

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Truth be told, you should be listening to Splitkick.com‘s Fall Damage podcast every week. Scratch that. You should be listening to both of Splitkick’s podcasts – Fall Damage and Rocket Jump – every week. And no, I’m not saying this because they’re my video game writing BFFs.

Granted, there may be one or two of you that will say, “But Jett, we haven’t listened to the Fall Damage podcast because you’re not on it.” In that case, I’ve got good news for you! The Fall Damage team was nice enough to invite me on  as a guest on Level 127 of their podcast.

Click here to listen to Level 127!

Click here to subscribe to Fall Damage on iTunes!

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Universal Fighting Game Guide: How to Improve Your Execution

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When it comes to fighting games, your ability to input the right buttons at the right time is critical to success. If you’re an amateur fighting another amateur, the person who can more consistently pull off their special moves is going to have the edge. As you get better, the importance of execution continues to be a factor, as your opponent’s ability to hit you with a big combo in a crucial situation (or any situation for that matter) could put you in a really bad spot.

With that said, I think that execution is generally considered the most boring and tedious aspect of your skill-set to practice and improve upon. Because of how monotonous it may seem, it’s easy to just stick with what you’ve got and never make an honest effort to improve your execution. In this post, we talk about what execution is, different types of execution ‘concepts’ and a few different ways to approach improving your execution without boring yourself to tears.

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Game-Breaking Glitch Discovered in Version 1.04 of Street Fighter X Tekken

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In an attempt to fix infinite combos, Capcom has introduced a far worse problem. In version 1.04 of Street Fighter X Tekken, the game will crash if Rolento’s kunai makes contact with any fireball in the game. This impacts both the PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360 versions of the game.

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Now Playing – Kid Icarus: Uprising

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Recently, my girlfriend got me Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS as a gift. Though I’m in the midst of preparing for Toryuken, I am trying to work this game into my rotation. Not sure where I am in relation to the total length of the single player, but I’m at Chapter 8 if you’re wondering where I’m at. Though I was expecting a good game, this one has kind of caught me off guard.

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