fighting games

Thoughts About the Upcoming Mortal Kombat Game

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I haven’t liked a Mortal Kombat game for a long time. I enjoyed the first one, thought the second one was the best and that the third one was a bit of a letdown. From there, I lost interest in the series when it shifted to 3D, added weapons and any other gimmicky stuff to keep the series fresh. To be fair, the Mortal Kombat games have always sold well, but the series hasn’t been relevant among hardcore fighting game fans or the mass audience in years.

Thankfully, the developers behind Mortal Kombat seem to be going the Street Fighter IV route by going back to what made the game great in the first place.

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GODSGARDEN 2.5 Stream Right Now!

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I know it’s really early on a Saturday morning (at least in my part of the world), but if you’re a big Street Fighter fan and you’re reading this shortly after I post this, you should definitely check out the GODSGARDEN 2.5 live stream, featuring some of the best Japanese Street Fighter players. Hit the “Read More” button to grab the link.

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4 Reasons Why Daigo Umehara is the Street Fighter Champion and I’m Not

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Daigo Umehara is one of the most popular and successful competitive video game players on the planet. For well over a decade, he’s been the Michael Jordan of Street Fighter. Long before I ever took fighting games seriously, I still knew him by name.

As I continue training for my first-ever fighting game tournament at FanExpo, I realize that I am nowhere near Daigo good and probably never will be. Forget about being the best in the world right now; I may not be the best player on my block. Instead of being positive and spending the time to get better, I spent my time writing this post that highlights 4 reasons Daigo is better than me at Street Fighter.

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Review – BlazBlue: Continuum Shift

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If it weren’t for news of a thorough tutorial mode being included in the sequel to BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, I wouldn’t have picked up Continuum Shift. As much as this may look like a Street Fighter style game, it plays completely different and I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

A year later, it’s back with a few new characters, new stages, balance tweaks and a great tutorial mode, which I’ve already written about in great detail. However, is there enough here for new players and seasoned BlazBlue veterans alike to continue the fight?

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Game Design Talk – BlazBlue: Continuum Shift’s Tutorial Mode

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Over the weekend, I thought a bit more about whether or not to buy BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. After more deliberation and talking about it with my brother, I totally caved and picked it up. I did get it at way less than retail price though. I gathered up a bunch of the free games I got during my Blockbuster raids that I had no intention of playing and traded those in. On top of that, my brother agreed to pay for half of the remaining cost. Sweet!

Unlike 99% of the games we’ve ever played, we started out our experience by jumping into tutorial mode. Knowing the difficulties we had with the first game and hearing that Continuum Shift supposedly has an awesome tutorial mode, it made sense to start at ground level rather than button mash and wonder why this game doesn’t play more like Street Fighter. If you’ve had any reservations about learning BlazBlue, then I have (mostly) good news for you.
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To Buy or Not To Buy – BlazBlue: Continuum Shift

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I really wanted to like BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, and based on what I knew of the game going in, I thought I would eat it up. Instead, it sat on my shelf because I couldn’t grasp the gameplay. The pacing was a bit slower than I expected. I had a hard time understanding the game’s mechanics. It also didn’t help that every character played completely differently from each other, which meant there wasn’t much in the way of transferable skills. Some of this wasn’t the fault of the game; part of it was a fault in the user. I realized that my Street Fighter knowledge wasn’t as applicable with this game, and that the amount of investment it would take for me to be good at BlazBlue I would rather dedicate to Street Fighter IV instead.

This week, BlazBlue hit store shelves. I have a lot of reasons for just leaving it there. However, a couple of things are tugging at my heart strings (and wallet) to give the series one more shot.
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My 14 Years Without Fighting Games

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Back in 1995, I didn’t think I would ever quit fighting games. I was still riding high on the Super Street Fighter II rush, mashing away on the Super Nintendo port at home. It was around this time that my mom was taking night school out of town, which meant that my dad, brother and I would spend our time waiting for my mom to finish class at the local mall. At the time, this mall had an awesome arcade, and I would regularly play (and get smoked) in Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Mortal Kombat 3.

Never did I think that a series of factors would ‘make’ me fall out of fighting games for 14 years. What happened?

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Get Hype! EVO 2010 Starts Today!

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Last year was a monumental one for everyone involved in the Evolution fighting game tournament. Besides it being the debut of the massively-popular Street Fighter IV, it broke records for participants, attendance and for the first time ever, it was all viewable live to anyone with an Internet connection. EVO was no longer just the one YouTube clip of Daigo parrying all of Justin Wong’s super combo hits. Hundreds of thousands of people tuned in throughout the weekend to watch Daigo and company play out the fighting game magic. I was glued to my computer that entire weekend; watching arguably the best fighting game action I’d ever seen in my life. That tournament even went as far as inspiring me to level up my own skills.
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Pick Up Post: Jam TE

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My birthday just passed yesterday. While I’m past the point of gift-hording from everyone I know, my girlfriend was wonderful enough to spoil me on my special day. I got a few CDs, a 13-month subscription to XBOX Live and the piece of awesome picture above that you can read about if you hit the link.

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Pick Up Post: Indestructable

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After a year of damn-near uncontrollable anticipation, the sequel to my 2009 game of the year is now in my house. I was actually so excited for this, I was at Walmart at 7:00 AM buying this game, even though I wouldn’t get to play it till after work. After putting in about 20 hours this week into it (and waking up this morning with an arthritic right hand due to all the fighting action) I can positively say this game is good. In fact, it’s SUPER (sorry).

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