It seems that I'm having problems sleeping again. I
get to bed on time and everything, and sleep like a baby, but then
inexplicably, I'll wake up after 2-3 hours, and then find it impossible to get
back to sleep. Of course, this messes me up for the next day.
What I really dislike is twitter notifications to my e-mail
which tell me that people have got tweets for me! Well goddamn, of course
they do, it's twitter! You can't shut people up! I don't need to be
informed of the obvious. Not only that, the notifications also tell me
about "people I may know" on twitter. 100% of the time, they
are people I've never heard of. How stupid are there linking
abilities?? This certainly ain't no facebook. However, I do derive
a LOT more pleasure out of twitter than I do facebook, and I hardly ever use FB
anymore. I think facebook is more for people addicted to being the centre
of attention.
I wrote a note about issues with games, but now I have no
idea what the hell I was referring to? Oh well. I'll talk about
games anyway! Hahaha. I don't know if you're aware of this, but I
used to be the king of fighting games. Not just one series in particular,
but pretty much all of them. To me, it all seems like an extended play on
paper-scissors-rock. This attack will beat this attack, which will be
beaten by that attack and so on. To me, it's more of a thought process,
and not entirely reactive, that way you can develop a plan, predict with great
certainty what your opponent will do, and then have a way to counter it.
That way, you can just dominate matches. I guess this all began with
Street Fighter 2 at the arcades. At first, I was an E.Honda and Chun-Li
rapid button pushing spammer for the hundred hand slap and lightning
kick. Well I was a kid, sue me! Of course, I progressed to the
awesomness of Ken and Ryu and began to start dishing out punishment to
others. However, in current matches, provided the speed has been jacked
up, I like to use Vega, whose reach and pure speed is just brutal. You
can totally destroy an opponent with rapid spike hits and throws and kicks to
keep an opponent in the corner and win fights within 10 seconds. Though I
would have to say that Sagat is probably the most well rounded character, with
power, special moves, and reach, but the lack of speed is a killer for
him. It was a good series, even if I haven't played some of the more
recent efforts. Also LOVED Ken's theme, it's a classic in video gaming
music, I'd have to say. I actually favour Ken to Ryu due to the multiple
hit hurricane kick, as well as the double roll on his throw (as opposed to
Ryu's singles in both instances).
Then came Mortal Kombat. I found this game incredibly
difficult at first, as I discovered that joypad rolls ala Street Fighter didn't
work here. You just had tap diagonal and punch and a special move would
occur (e.g. Sub Zero's ice freeze move). There's a lot of nuance about
this game, as the series progressed, fights became quicker, and combos longer,
and the general quality of opponents (human and AI) became much better. I
rarely used fatalities, as I memorised special moves and combos instead.
Or I'd use Sub-Zero (face it, he's the best), from MK3 onwards and utilise his
Blk Blk Run Blk Run fatality, or sometimes Liu Kang's Fwd Fwd Dwn Dwn Low Kick
immolation fatality. I ALWAYS started off each match with Liu Kang by
doing the bicycle kick. Haha, it's just a trademark, and a way to get the
easiest first hit of the match in. Thoroughly enjoyable, I loved the
depth and the difficulty curve of the games. I did enjoy MK4, since it
was quite different to the rest of the series, and my friends and I used to
just bash each other senseless for hours on end till our hands and eyes
hurt. Problem with this was that my friends were as good as me at this,
so there was no CLEAR champion, but I did manage to win the majority of my
matches by improvising a lot of tactics (and never be afraid to sweep
repeatedly, as well as land a roundhouse kick to run throw combo)!
I'll add in Battle Arena Toshinden here. Haha, ok so I
can hear some of the purists yelling at me. Yes, it doesn't stand up to
the test of time, and it's basically just street fighter with weapons (but in
3D). But nostalgia really brings me back to this one. I LOVED the
music on Kayin's stage. When I would load versus modes to practice
special moves, I'd always pick him to fight against, just so I could get amped
up by the music and love every second of it. What I particularly enjoyed
about it was the weapons based combat, I think this game did it better than
Soul Blade/Soul Calibur (woooo big call there), and I loved the pace of the
game. It wasn't too fast or too slow. So for me, it was a very
strategic and methodological game. And all the hard matches were very
close, it was almost as if the computer liked keeping it that way to maximise
enjoyment. It's a shame that the later games REALLY sucked. Eiji,
you the man! I loved NOTHING more than doing a hard slash, fireball,
sideways sommersault to sword rush. It would utterly decimate at least
1/3 of the opponent's health, and it was easy to pull off. Saved me many
a time. Yes, I did own a Saturn at some point, and I did play the abysmal
Battle Arena Toshinden URA. But I LOVED how impossible the replicant
battles were. No matter what you tried, you would always get
decimated. Nobody makes games like that anymore, and if they do, they're
a novelty (ala Dark Souls).
I'll put Kessen in here, though I don't know why. I
wasn't particularly adept at it, but I managed to win a lot of my
matches. I think I was attracted to the fluidity of the fighting
system. Though, now I can't really remember any of the characters or how
most of the game actually played! Hahaha. But it's one worth
nothing. I blogged about winning a fighting game tournament with this
game, so you can go back and check that out. It's a great post!
Soul Calibur/Soul Blade. I've only played the first 2
in the series, so I don't know how good it got. But I was not
particularly adept at it, I just couldn't find one particular character that
stuck to me, so I would get owned a lot in matches. I tried with
Mitsurugi, I tried with Li Long, but it appeared that Taki came out best for
me, since I RARELY used the knife, I would just kick, run in and throw, and
somehow win matches. But overall, my friends were definitely way better
at these games than I was, and I never really responded to it.
Next up is Bushido Blade. This is a VERY different
fighting game to every other one on this list. VERY slow, strategic,
weapons based combat. Different in the sense that you took real damage -
a sword strike to the hand and you couldn't use that hand for the round, or a
brutal stab through the torso and you'd be finished. This added a
dramatic tension to the match, where nobody really mashed buttons, they would
look for openings and probe (and probe well, mind you). This was a
difficult game to master, as you could never prepare for everything, and you
always had the potential for being caught unaware by things. Hits were
not guaranteed to connect, and chaining moves together would just result in you
moving forward constantly, without regard to any change in direction from the
opponent. I loved the fear that overcame you when you had taken a hit to
the leg and you had to spend the time crouched down and trying to defend
yourself from the onslaught of an opponent who was completely able
bodied. If you haven't given it a go, hit it up through an emulator, it's
great fun, but only for like-minded people.
Dead Or Alive. This is a bit difficult for me to
discuss in-depth, as I understand there have been stacks of these games, but I
have only played DOA 1 and DOA2 (maybe DOA3, but only once). DOA1 was
just a pathetic Tekken rip off, but DOA2 saw this series hit its own
stride. Enter a new rapid counter system, and the aggressor would end up
getting soundly smashed in the space of a split second, and vice versa. It
was complete mayhem and carnage. Destructible, multi-level stages, and
probably the quickest fighting game I've played (with the exception of Street
Fighter 2: hyper-fighting). What does it for me? Two words: Jann
Lee. AWESOME. Jeet Kune Do in a fighting game? Yes
PLEASE! The moves were very fluid. With Jann Lee's speed and range,
it was easy to annihilate opponents, but against the computer, who seemed to be
able to counter at will, it was always a thrill to see if you could come out on
top. Loved the graphics and gameplay on this. However, I learned to
play this on a Dreamcast, and the game did not translate well to the PS2
controller. I recall going to a friends place to play this on PS2 even
after I was good, and I was destroyed, because I couldn't get a handle on the
controls. I liked this game because it was 100% reactive, the speed was
so fast that you couldn't plan for anything.
Next up is one of my faves. Tekken. Ok, so I've
played Tekkens 1-3 and TTT, but nothing after that. I understand the
series is up to 6 now. Tekken 1 was interesting, but slow, but I did
enjoy the concept of fighting at various famous locations around the
world. Tekken 2 on the other hand, stepped things up a notch and made
gameplay much faster, with a few more characters thrown in, and just more depth
to the game engine to add more special moves. However, I didn't really
hit my stride until Tekken 3. This game I must have poured hundreds of
hours into in JUST learning special moves and combos. Not even proper
fighting. I became excellent at this game, to the point that I was
unbeatable and could win games at will, no matter what my health was.
I've blogged about my rivalry with my friend's brother, so I won't go into it
again. My fave characters were Jin and Hwoarang. With Hwoarang I'd
just use jinking moves in flamingo stance (you could sidestep at a much faster
rate), and then just throw. I'd also love using quick 1-2 punches,
because it caught EVERYONE off guard when you use a kick specialist. Jin
I mastered a crapload of moves and combos with, so as soon as you went down,
you wouldn't get back up because I'd just chain ground hits and would air
juggle you back up to combo level. Hahaa this pissed my friends off to no
end! My favoured mode was team battle, because I'd get my dream team
together (Jin, Hwoarang, Paul, Nina, Law and Kazuya), and just destroy
others. It was also a good way to learn how others played and used
characters they weren't 100% familiar with. I also enjoyed the counter
characters (Paul and Nina), because I could counter at will. I learned
this game inside and out! I can't believe I got so good at it. But
I'm sure my skills are nowhere near what they used to be, if I ever went back
and played this. I saw moves before they happened, I could predict
outcomes, I knew framerate differences in moves, gosh so much time
wasted!
Virtua Fighter. This is my fave fighting game series,
which is a riot, cause I've only played 3 of them. Virtua Fighter 1 was
nothing to write home about. But Virtua Fighter 2? On the
Saturn?! AWESOME looking game. In fact, it would still hold up to
today's next gen graphics, that's how good it looked. Super frame rate,
and fluid and smooth looking. There was so much depth to this game,
because there were literally dozens of special moves for each character.
My regret with this game was that I never bothered to learn Akira that well,
which is a shame, because he's got an unusual style, and it would be easy to
displace opponents if you knew what to do. My favourite character was
Jacky, mostly because of the Jeet Kune Do connection (though I preferred DOAs
take on it, due to the speed). I loved his remix BGM from VF1 in VF2,
it's a great piece of music, not just in games, but in general! I loved
loading that up and fighting. People would think I was cheating because
I'd always try to turn the music on. I also liked his regular VF2 music,
because I got so good that I could time my moves to connect hits to the beat of
the music, which pissed off my brother incredibly, especially when I would sing
along to the theme, haha! That being said, I did lose many a match as
Jacky, as he is a great attacker, but he has no real defensive abilities.
Enter Pai Chan (or to a lesser extent, Lau Chan). Sure Kage was a ninja,
and what not, but Pai's brutal speed and countering abilities just made her
unstoppable. I did have the pleasure of playing VF5 on XBOX360 when I was
living with my housemate, and I liked what they had done with the game, but to
me, it didn't hold the same excitement that VF2 did. It had become
Tekken-ised in a way.
I know this isn't strictly speaking a fighting game, but I
had to include Streets of Rage on here. 1 2 and 3. It was a tough
game, yes. But the MUSIC was what made this game rise above every other
beat 'em up in existence. Listening to it now, you realise just how ahead
of its time it was. Acid house, funk, tribal techno jungle, it's amazing
that they were able to do this shit! I'm going to say the music was way
better than anything in any Final Fantasy game (that's a MASSIVE call), and
I'll stick to it, because of the sheer innovation of it. Probably one of
the few games you can actually play while bopping your head to the music.
Put me in a room with this game series, and Panzer Dragoon 2, you will have one
very happy Joaquin!
Damn, the tiredness is really hitting me now! But this
was a pretty damn good post, if I do say so myself!
Was busy this morning, but not right now. I'm just
finding myself bored! BORED! I don't want to do anything! In
fact, I just want to sleep.
I think with guitar this evening I will aim to play some
popular stuff, but coming up, I should probably focus on finishing
ideas!! So many disjointed and half finished pieces in our dropbox.
Sheeeittt, 4pm and I'm already feeling so tired. I
have a bad feeling that I'm going to have an accidental nap when I get home
today. It just hit me like a ton of bricks! Ahh! Probably due
to my return to the gym today, after an inadvertently extended hiatus.
Can't nap, otherwise I'm going to have issues sleeping tonight. But fuck,
I'm REALLY trying not to sleep at my desk!
Ok it's almost quitting time. I'm done!
