fighting games

Street Fighter IV: Volt Update Includes Two New Characters and Punishment For Rage Quitters

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Earlier this week, Capcom released its first update to Street Fighter IV: Volt. While the most obvious change to the game is the addition of Sakura and Makoto to the roster, Capcom has also taken measures to curb the rampant rage quitting problem that is ruining the current online experience. On one hand, it boggles my mind to see how childish the community has handled the online experience. On the other hand, it boggles my mind to know that Capcom did not build in any measures to punish rage quitters in the first place.

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Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition is Getting a Free Balance Patch This Year

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Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition has been a huge disappointment for me. While most casual players won’t notice much of a difference to the core game from what’s found in the previous two iterations of Street Fighter IV, competitive players have been crying foul about Arcade Edition’s character balance since its launch in late 2010. I didn’t get my hands on it until early June, but it didn’t take me long to notice that their vision to intentionally unbalance Arcade Edition did not jive with what I wanted out of the game. Because of my bitterness around Capcom breaking what I felt wasn’t broken, I lost interest in playing Street Fighter IV competitively.

It looks like I wasn’t alone in this view, as Capcom has recently announced that they’re going to do something about it.

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Out Now: “Focus” – The Mike Ross Documentary

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One of the cool side-effects of the growth of the fighting game community is that the personalities within the community have in their own way, reached pro-wrestler status. There’s good guys and bad guys, as well as story lines around the games themselves that fans intently follow. One of those players that has reached that level is Mike Ross, who is one of the best Street Fighter players on the planet. It also doesn’t hurt that he and Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez have been supporting the community with their Cross Counter content and that Mike Ross seems like a genuinely good guy.

Just days before EVO, G4TV decided to do the community a solid and release the Mike Ross documentary entitled “Focus” for our viewing pleasure for free.

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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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Street Fighter IV: Volt and Rage Quitters

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Over the past few days, I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Street Fighter IV: Volt’s online multiplayer. I’ve been doing so because I want to unlock Akuma, which can be done either by playing 100 online matches or beat the game with all 18 characters. On paper, 100 online matches is easier to complete than 144 matches against the computer. Boy, was I wrong.

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Street Fighter IV: Volt Review

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Street Fighter IV for iPhone is hands-down the best fighting game available on iOS. You could even make a solid case for it being one of the best iOS games, period. Despite my initial thoughts that it would suck, it won me over in a big way. Up until the release of Volt, Street Fighter IV on the iPhone has been a near-daily ritual of mine.

While Capcom made a number of huge updates to the original, they’ve decided to release a new app this time around. I would have much preferred paying for this as an add-on to the original, but I can’t complain too much when I was able to get it on sale for $0.99. Regardless of what you paid for it (and/or if you have the original), is Street Fighter IV: Volt worth a purchase?

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Public Service Announcement: Street Fighter IV Volt On Sale For a Limited Time

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Capcom’s latest update to the iPhone Street Fighter IV series is Street Fighter IV: Volt, which is available now. If you are reading this before July 1st and have even the slightest interest in the game, buy it now. It’s on sale today for only $0.99. As for the rest of this limited time offer?

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Pick-Up Post: Mortal Kombat Season Pass

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One of the most recent developments in DLC is the idea of paying for a set of content up-front and receiving a discount on the set rather than buying the components of the set separately. From a business perspective, this makes a lot of sense, as it’s a lot easier to ask me for $15 now rather than four payments of $5 spread out over 8 months. It also makes sense from the player’s perspective, as we get stuff at a discount.

Case in point, the Mortal Kombat Season Pass. There are four DLC characters scheduled for release at $5.00 each. However, if you buy the Season Pass up-front, you’ll get all four characters for $15, which is a savings of $5.

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Out Now – Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition

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Though the eyes of most gamers are focused squarely on E3, the fighting game world gets a major release today. If you own a copy of Super Street Fighter IV, you can now purchase Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition as DLC for $15. The update will feature four new characters (Yun, Yang, Evil Ryu and Oni), new balance changes and a number of major upgrades to the replay channel.

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Impressions of Mortal Kombat’s Story Mode

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Historically, fighting games have done a poor job of providing a good single-player experience and a horrible job at telling a story. Even 20 years after the release of Street Fighter II, the majority of fighting games simply boil down to fighting opponent after opponent, until you’ve beaten everyone in your path and receive your character’s ending. This does not make for an interesting one-player experience, or add any context to why you’re fighting opponent after opponent. To be fair, the BlazBlue series has tried to expand its single-player experience with a story mode, but that game’s story is so poorly written and presented that only the hardest of hardcore anime fans would find any redeeming value in it.

With that said, Mortal Kombat’s story mode is a breath of fresh air. It’s presented in a way that makes perfect sense to the mythology of the series and to the player in control. What makes it so great? And what could have been done better?

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