The 1st Rule of Fight Club is DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB

But I can't help myself so I'ma spill the beans! Man, Capcoms latest fight club event held at the Belasco theater was really amazing. I had a lot of fun. When I 1st got there, I was pretty worried because me and my friend were running late to the event. So we didn't have parking yet, and we had to wait in line. But thank god for Abby!

She really saved the day. She grabbed extra wristbands for me and my friend so we skipped the line to enjoy the festivities ahead. We were expecting a crew but it was just down to me, Abby, Abby's friend, my friend Edgar, and my other friend Brandly. Fight Club was better than I thought it was going to be. I've seen previous fight clubs, and they seemed to just be a bunch of people playing on the booths, but it was more than that.

When you walk in, you are greeted by these incredibly talented, and professional cosplayers. I've talked with them for a little bit, and they all make there own costumes! That's pretty cool if you ask me. Lili was my favorite of the 4. In total, there was She-Hulk from Marvel, C.Viper from Street Fighter, Chun-Li from Street Fighter, and Lili from Tekken. I took a few pictures and they'll be up later.

After you enter the next room, you'll see a medium sized stage where the DJ lights up the sky! To the right of the doors, there's a bar where you can get free drinks (Sorry kids, no alchohol for you). You had to be 18 to walk through the door so I assume they weren't going to have alcohol. But that's beside the point. After the bar, you can't help but see loads and loads of arcade setups. Well, not exactly arcade setups, but concole setups that imitate an edgy basement type arcade cabinet. On one side, you had all Ultimate Marvel 3 setups and on the other, you had Street Fighter x Tekken. On the far end walls, you had Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and Third Strike Online Edition (But I have both those games, so why bother).

My goal for the night was to meet up with some high level players, and chat for a little bit, and get my hands on SF x T. Did I mention they have Arcade setups? I walked upstairs and there was 8 more setups. I walked outside and guess what I saw :P

More Setups

So I 1st decided I'd take advantage of the super short lines since everyone was outside and play SF x T now. The rules were a little different. The general consensus was that you let players play whether you win or not. If you won, you left, if you lost, you left. Just so everyone can get their hands on it. After about 30 mins that all changed. I wanted to play some UMvC3 and the consensus changed to winner stays. I was fine with that. I ran into gootecks and said whatsup, and why mike wasn't with him today. He seemed busy but he responded like the person I knew him to be. Mike unfortunately couldn't make it because of family issues.

I wanted to talk with gootecks about a couple things but he had to run off and I was in desperate need of some UMvC3 action. I was drinking an ice cold drink for at least 20 mins. My hands were chilled so my execution suffered. Apparently, more so than I thought. I was literally bodied by someone who I thought wasn't so good. Wesker plays the same as he does in UMvC3. Very high damage output for little execution. I was a little salty at 1st, but I knew I was outplayed when he OCV'd me.

I was kinda hoping that we'd have a new build of UMvC3 and can confirm its the most recent build with Dr.Strange and nemesis. There was a really good nemesis player there. Saw some interesting setups with Hsein Ko. Phoenix Wright not being there made me unhappy, as I was looking forward to him.

After that, I realized that UMvC3 is essentially the same as MvC3 with a few balance changes and more characters. After this realization I decided I Was going to dedicate the rest of my gaming time to SF x T. Before that though, I grabbed some free food :P

I had some of the best pastries in my life here. Their strawberry danish is sooooooo good. After I re-fueled, I was ready for some more gaming. Ran into, Abby and the gang and I caught up with what they were doing. Edgar isn't much of a fighting gamer so he just walked around talking to people, Brandly was tearing it up in SF x T while I was away, and Abby managed to talk to Justin Wong. DeosX, was also in the building and he was rocking his signature doom. Seth was commentating on the DeosX vs JWong match. Along with these two high level players, there was also a few others like combofiend, alex valle, and a few others.

If I remember correctly Justin clutched the match. After the match S-Kill (Seth Killian) introduced a new nerdcore artist by the name of "A-Rival, The 8-Bit Pimp". I like the DJ more than I liked AR to be honest. It's not that AR was bad but he wasn't exactly my cup of tea. AR was a mix between hip hop and nerdcore and it didn't seem to mix well with his lyrics. I prefer Red Rapper any day of the week, but I guess they decided to go with AR because of the electronica feel.

In the end, AR was an okay choice, but he failed in a lot of ways trying to get the hype through the roof. Like it felt kind of awkward at one point. I do like his enthusiasm though. Even though he sometimes off key with the public, he went on like a pro. Because of that, I respect the guy.

So, I'm still waiting in line for SF x T while all this is going on. I just decided, hey, might as well chat it up with some of the guys here. So I begin talking to players about SF x T and to try and get some basics down, because I've only played the game once, and I don't feel quite as comfortable. Like, I didn't want to research anything before I left. I wanted to play the game without knowing what I was getting into if that makes sense.

I've seen videos before, but very briefly. Before all this technology was made available to us, this is how people used to share information. Through word of mouth. By the time I made it to my turn, I felt slightly more confident. Only slightly. Like the UMvC3 build, this was the same build of SF x T. Nothing new except for Pandora mode (Hold down + MP and MK while at red health/below 25% health). Pandora mode basically is a buff. It allows you to gain increased damage and infinite super for roughly 8 seconds. Pandora mode kills your partner character and after the 8 seconds is over, your other character dies. In a way, it's kind of like x-factor, but it's super toned down in comparison.

I had no intentions of ever activating pandora mode during the testing.

My original team that I started out with when I came in was Ryu/Kazuya. That changed to Ryu/Poison. The Tekken characters DO NOT play like street fighter type characters. Like, they have similar move sets but the behaviors of the moves are far different. It feels like you're sort of playing Tekken. Since I never played Tekken a lot, I decided I will pass on Tekken characters for now. Poison was definitely the right choice. She has zoning down to a science.

She's not a charge character like I thought she would be. Her s.MP has outrageous anti-air hitboxes. and her s.MK is good range. She can be a footsie character as well. She can create frame traps with her HP Fireball. Light travels the farthest, Medium travels short, and the heavy travels extremely slowly and goes almost no where. What makes HP fireball the best is it's great against those who try to jump at you or go underneath your fireball. It has a huge hitbox so you can only block or use a move that is invincible to projectiles to get passed it.

Ryu still feels the same. He has all his moves from SFIV and he also has his axe-kick from 3rd strike. EX-Shoryuken is shin shoryuken which is really cool.

SF x T however doesn't play like any game in particular. I can't say it's like SFIV and I can't say it's like Marvel either. It's not exactly in between. It has elements of both games, but it is its own game entirely. I'm happy to say this game doesn't play as defensively as SFIV does. There's almost no defensive options. Tick throws are extremely hard to do. You have to be outrageously close to perform them (THANK GOD!)

As for the button layout...

(LP) (MP) (HP)
(LK) (MK) (HK)

LP + LK = Throw
MP + MK = Partner Change
HP + HK = Cross Assault

Cross Assault is a new mechanic which can be used in mid combos. If you end a combo with a heavy attack and press that heavy attack again, you get the Cross Assault. When you perform a CA, you will hit your opponent and your partner will come out allowing to continue the combo further and further.

There will be some pretty crazy things going on with this mechanic, and its very fun to use.

The other interesting thing about SF x T is that it plays Tekken Tag Tournament style. You basically have 2 characters. If any of those characters die, you lose the round. You don't need to kill both characters to win the match, just any of the 1. Your life recovers pretty fast while you're tagged out.

By the time I gained at least this information, I've been playing the game nonstop for 30 mins. Around this time, 1 person in the line got a little frustrated with my win streak. I didn't care because he's a hater, and I had no intentions of getting off. I was following the rules like everyone else was so I could care less. After every victory, I greeted the other player politely and said thanks for the match. The better players appreciated my humbleness and tried to take a run for the money.

I've played probably at least 29 different people that night. There were about 5 really good players out of that lot and it got fairly close. A lot of time passed that I didn't even realized passed. Brandly who was with my during my win streak had to leave early cause he had to drive to Las Vegas. Edgar even came by to get my wrist band so I could get my swag bag.

I ended up playing SF x T for about 1 and 1/2 hrs. I went undefeated the whole way through. I couldn't even believe I've been playing for as long as I did. It felt like only 20 mins passed. I wanted to play more but the bouncers turned off the power and kicked us out. We past by the lady giving away items, and we asked if there were extra posters. I swear this lady is awesome because she gave us a whole lot of posters. :P

I have like 10 extra posters that I will probably be giving away some time later. You can't find posters like these, I promise :P

I had such a blast at the event and I got to meet some pretty cool people. The games were awesome, and the music was awesome. My only regret is not getting Lili's number. There's no community like the fighting game community!

That's it for this review. Join me next time on my crazy adventures.

6ixx out!

Bye facebook, hello google+?

Don't know if you guys noticed but facebook is looking a lot like google plus. If I honestly had to choose, it'd be the original over the knock off.

This scenario seems so familiar. I believe the staff/developers of myspace, facebook, and google+ share some common ground. I see a complete takeover by 2012.

Google plus here I come. Come say hey!

https://plus.google.com/109026932949955751458/posts

Mind of 6ixx Podcast: Episode 1

Just started up my very 1st podcast. I guess you can say it's a vlog, but it isn't since it's just audio :P

So anyways, join me and my crazy shannigans as I talk about stuff. This weeks episode talks about fighting games and what it is that I love and hate about them. Everyone should get 3rd Strike Online Edition if they already don't have it. Comment, rate, and subscribe :P

Classics are good!

I'm really pumped! I don't know if you guys ever played "Resident Evil 4" like I have, but I can't get enough of that game. RE4 originally came out for the Nintendo Gamecube and then it made its way onto Sony Playstation 2 (I hated this ver). Resident Evil 4 takes place in Europe where the U.S. Presidents daughter is kidnapped and her life is threatened. The terrorist don't want money, but her life. They want to teach a lesson to the Americans, so they figured why not the presidents daughter?

The plot of the story is really good, and the dynamics of the game are very well crafted. If you played previous RE games, you'll know right away it doesn't play anything like them. The originals play more like games like Tomb Raider and the early GTA series. RE4 has those elements, but they are renewed, and they add in the FPS element to their game (Which I loved).

Capcom decided to take it a step further and make a lot of items more interactive, as well as have signature boss fights. Like, you knew when you were fighting a boss, and all of them were different but have similar backgrounds.

There are dozens of reasons to check this game out for yourself, but I suggest you wait until the HD re-release of Resident Evil 4. It will hit the XBLA and PSN on September 20th 2011. The new release offers all of the extra content from the original game and it also adds a lot of new content to the game. I'm sure after the games release, there will be DLC planned for the future. There's also online features for Mercenaries, but lets hope they have some sort of co-op story mode planned for the future.

The price will be between 15-20 bucks. Lets hope for less!

Well, me and my friends got together to do a tutorial vid on how to mod your Hori Real Arcade Pro VX SA. In this video we show you how to properly mod your stick so that you can have your own customized arcade stick.

I've got a lot of great tips on shoryuken.com but I know people would still prefer to have some sort of visual aid. It was my 2nd run at modding arcade sticks and my 1st art mod. I think it went very well, but I know some things on how to do it smoother the next time.

Check out our video!

And here's part 2!

Comment, rate, and subscribe!

A full day of filming!

Today was pretty rough. I woke up today with great optimism but things change on the fly later along the road. I had a few bumps I had to endure with today but like anyone coming into the film industry, you have to work with what you have. I've done quite a bit of preparation for today's event, and Russ can testify to that claim. With new things come new opportunities. So I had to quickly adjust to the situation.

So before I left out to Russ' house to go film I had to make sure I had everything ready to go so there would be little room for error.

TIP #1 : Always prepare for the worst possible situation

Here's what I brought!

HDV Camera
32 gig SDHC Card
Tripod
Xbox 360
Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition
Marvel VS Capcom 3
Custom HRAP VX SA
Madcatz SE (Slightly Modded). I call this the B!@#% stick, lol.
Studio Headphones
Blue Yeti Condenser Microphone
5x USB 2.0 Cords (You can never have enough!)
Hauppauge HD PVR
Laptop
Xbox Live Headset
Microsoft Xbox Controller

So yeah, oh whole lot of stuff! I think I managed to list everything down, but I probably missed a few things.

So, I happen to be walking to Russ' house ON THE HOTTEST DAY EVER! I was sweating buckets. Don't forget to bring your towel and a spare shirt. Last thing you need is to smell on the set. Always have spare stick of deo or body spray.

So I'm at Russ' house waiting for Russle because well, he's just getting off of school. I didn't wait long but I was occupied by his house guest who were very nice and offered me a drink while I waited. Be sure to always say thank you to those who're kind to ya. No one likes a rude guest.

So me and Russ are chillin' in his room as I unpack. To his surprise, he was shocked at all the equipment I brought. The setup was pretty legit to as it took up a decent amount of space in his room. After we got to setting everything up, we began to do equipment test right away!

Tip #2: Always test your equipment before starting any project. If you have a deadline to uphold and people need to be places after the show, you need to make sure that you make time so that you test the equipment and not take up any more time that you need to!

As my luck would have it, my laptop ran into a few problems with recording footage from the hauppauge. Rather than take up time trying to diagnose the problem, I figured out that it'd be less time consuming to just install it onto Russ' desktop. Windows XP did it right the 1st time around! Once we installed everything on the Desktop, everything ran smoothly. During the installation, we played a few matches of AE to gauge were me and Russ were at in terms of skill level, and I was happy with our performance.

So we went through a mic check, a haupp check, and a camera check. Everything was on point and we were ready to go. We discussed what we should open with 1st and what small things we should talk about before we started. Doing this ensured a higher quality product. After we made our opening statements, we agreed that we would try to keep a natural feel to the show so it was left unscripted. We have an outline for the episode, but we figured scripting it would be un-ideal.

So we started great with the show, and we immediately went to online matches. We figured we try to be funny and down to earth as possible without sounding cheezy, cheap, or unprofessional. It was tough getting our 1st few matches, because it almost seemed like the players didn't want to play. Couldn't find a game for like the 1st 1-2 mins, lol. :P

Like with all online games, we got good games and we got bad games. We however, managed to win all of our matches online. It came down to the wire sometimes, and we even lamed it out with a time out victory! But without spoiling the episode too much, I'll cut it off there.

After we spent about an hour or so recording the footage, it was time to transfer files. This is the one thing I didn't take into account. How was I going to transfer files from the desktop to my laptop. Russ cpu is pretty old, so it didn't have an SD slot. He didn't have a card reader. I didn't bring my flash drive and he doesn't own one. So how do you transfer files then? Hosting sites of course!

So I decided to upload to my Mega Upload account. Sadly enough, the max file you can upload on MU at one time conveniently is 2 gigs. The capture footage was about 2.24 gigs, so it was too much. MU has a service that uploads higher than 2 gigs but the amount of time it takes to upload it was unknown. So we ran into a really tough spot. We decided to try and upload it and hope it works, but we both agreed that I should always carry my flash drive and 2, I should come download the files on my flash drive when we're both available.

I'll be going to his house to get the capture files. In the mean time, I'll be working on the intro for the show, as well as other things regarding the show.

As a film maker, you have to know how to manage your time well. A lot of your time will be eaten up with working with editing software all day long. Any editor will tell you how long it takes to edit videos. It takes even longer if you want to have a quality video. The best thing you can do when it comes to making shows, or even small video series, is to decide whether or not how you want it to look. There's things like intros, outros, cut offs, host bars, and a whole bunch of stuff. Almost too much to describe. If you do a good job, you can use what you learned on your future projects and you can also try to learn other avenues of the industry as well.

So yeah, I've been doing a lot of stuff today, and guess what I have to do when I get home? Work! The life of a film editor is never truly over. If editing is something you have a passion for, you'll have to understand that it's not a job that is easy, time-friendly, or appreciated. Some people do understand the need for film editors and respect them and their decisions, but in the general publics eye, they assume it's an easy job. News flash! It isn't.

It does pay really well and it's a highly sought after field, so you can't go wrong here! :P

I love my job and the people I work with, so I got really lucky! Stay tuned for my next blog and keep an eye out for

Gaming Spotlight: Battle Fantasia

Battle Fantasia is a 2.5d fighting game released by Aksys games in April of 2007. This game features 12 pretty unique characters starting from Marco, a little kid who wants to one day go on adventures and be like his father, all Deathbringer, the man slaughtering giant. This game has some pretty unique features as well and some old favorites such as parry (Gachi).

Battle Fantasia is a 5 button fighting game (6 if you hotkey heat mode), that uses the following layout. It takes time getting used to, but if you play any of the king of fighters games, you'll fit right in.

(LP) (HP) (GA)

(LK) (HK)

In this game, parry is known as Gachi. There are 3 types of Gachi

• Normal Gachi: This gachi parry's a hit and leaves your opponent vulnerable to an attack for a brief period of time. Using gachi instead of guarding will result you taking 0 damage and put you in state where you are in a position advantage, allowing you to attack immediately while the opponent is still in a recovery state. 

• Blue Gachi: This gachi is performed by pressing forward + gachi button. This gachi works like the normal gachi. The only difference is that after performing the parry, your character will attack the other character and bounce the opponent off the wall, into the air, and place them in a juggle state. As long as the opponent remains blue, you can keep juggling your opponent. In my opinion this is the most devastating of the 3 gachis. The problem with this gachi however is the timing of the gachi. Unlike the 1st gachi, this gachi isn't safe. Depending on your opponents move, this gachi can be countered. Lets say 1 atack had 2 hits. If you used Blue Gachi, you would get hit by the 2nd hit of that attack because Blue Gachi is too slow. Blue gachi takes time to get used to, but once you master this, you'll be well on your way to doing high damage output combos.

• Red Gachi. This is performed by holding down-foward + gachi button. This gachi counters a low attack and retaliates with an attack. This gachi will knock your opponent to the wall and put him/her in a spinning dizzy state. Characters with great ground combos can capitalize on this. If your character is a  juggle character, try and find a way to get the opponent airborne from the ground to make use of this

There's also another unique feature to this game that's yet to be talked about. This feature is known as HEAT MODE. In heat mode, characters are granted special enhancements. For some characters, you get noticeable heats such as Marcos Dragon. Others are suddle but give nice rewards. Heat uses 1 meter and last about 5-10 seconds depending on the character. If you receive a significant amount of damage in heat mode, you will be put back into a regular state.

_________________________

With the key features explained, lets get back to the game. Battle Fantasia is Aksys gaming's attempt to create a unique balanced fighting game. Unlike earlier titles such as Guilty Gear, Battle Fantasia takes the classic fighting game approach such as Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Each player has a certain amount of HP. What's fascinating about this game is the exact amount of health is listed on each players side as though it were an RPG.

Unlike previous games, this game is very "zone" heavy. 

Zoning: Controlling a set amount of space with normal moves and special moves.

It has elements of Street Fighter III: Third Strike, but the pace of the game is different. It's not slow by any means but it's not as fast as compared to 3rd strike. After about an hour or so of playing the game, you should transition a little better. This game also relies on the parry function a bit too. Since it's such a heavy mechanic in the game, it's good to start learning and recognizing patterns early on so that you can parry and capitalize on your enemies mistakes

This game appeals to the simple straightforward fighting game enthusiast. Even at the lowest levels of play, you have a blast, but when you're at higher levels of play, you can do things like this.

(No, this isn't me playing the game, lol)

Now, lets talk about the cast of the game for a second. Like with all Aksys fighting games, they use a brand of truly unique characters

Marco

Marco is in essence one of the main characters of the game (if not the main character). His playstyle is simple and has a lot of past fighters type of move sets. If you're new to this game, you'll probably find comfort in playing with Marco since his move set will be similar to that of Ryu of Street Fighter. He has a fireball command (each version has a different property) and a shoryuken command (Uses his sword instead of his fist).

He also has a few moves of his own that sets him apart like his Fanged Snake Crash (Jumping sword slash) and his Hell Slash (Fierce giant swing). 

Accompanying Marco is his pet dragon, Char Siu

Char Siu takes importance in Marcos fighting style because Marco's heat mode transforms Char Siu into a fierce dragon ready for battle. Char Siu works like an assist character from the Marvel VS Capcom series games.

Urs

Urs, Marco's older brother was trained by his father to serve the queen and her army. Unlike Marco, he doesn't play like any other character. He uses a Chainsaw blade to take down his foes. The only move reminiscent of a previous fighter is Urs shoryuken like move. It's more like Kens than Ryu's since he does multiple hits with a flame sword.

Urs is a rush down character with a lot of mobility. Using him will get allow you to get to your opponent quickly and efficiently. He does medium damage like Marco but Marco is overall stronger than Urs. But that is debatable since Marco lacks the speed that Urs has. Marco is power, Urs is Speed.

 Cedric

Cedric, is scholar of a science facility. He uses his calculative brain and smarts to get the edge on his opponents. His weapon of choice? A spiked ball and chain of course. He is also a magic user and is one of the charge type characters of the game. He has an essence of Guild because he has a flash kick (Holy Devotion) and sonic boom (Evangelical Light). Although they're similar, they don't play the same way at all. Cedric has zoning moves but he can also be played very aggressively.

Cedric can combo right out of his throw and he has a lot of juggle mix ups. He is a balance between a mix up and zoning character

Ashley

Ashley is a pretty crazy character. He has low damage output, but he's arguably the fastest character in the game. His a pure mix up character that capitalizes on tick-throws, and juggle opportunities. His heat mode makes him even faster as well as makes his damage out put higher and enhances properties to existing moves. This is the type of character that can only be played well at high levels of play because he's quite the complex character.

He uses his agile move set to move around the plain fast and hit fast. His damage output isn't that great, but if you can confuse your opponent, you'll rack up the damage in no time.

Olivia

Princess Olivia, another unique character of the game is pretty fun to play. She's also one of those characters that requires at least a intermediate level of understanding, but she also is pretty unique. She's a balance between zoning and rush down. She uses the flag of her mainland in order to defeat her foes. Attached to the tip of the flag is a spear head. 

She has a lot of safe options that are available to her, which makes her kind of a threat. She can sit there all day, hitting you and retreating back to safepoints. She can also go head to head with you if you're in her space. She can score knock downs and start the mix ups

Beware of her Empress Lily. With it, she can juggle you into the air and go in for a super with little room for error.

Watson

God I love this little bunny. Watson is a master mage rabbit that with proper knowledge, can defeat any foe. Watson uses his mastery of magic to lay down the law. He can lay down magical traps to activate at a later time, as well as zone the crap out of you with his heat seeking fireballs.

Watson is zone heavy character. He can be used aggressively but he works best as a zoning character. He has great juggling capabilities and mix ups. If you like long, flashy combos, with a high execution barrier, then Watson is the little bunny for you.

Don't underestimate his magic, or you'll be taking 1300 damage in a single combo!

Freed

Freed is my favorite of all the existing characters. He is a rushdown character that has the essence of Balrog from street fighter. He has great mix ups and does a little over medium damage. His heat is my favorite amongst the rest of the cast as well, and one of the reason I picked him up. He creates a clone of himself that repeats his attack based on the level of strength of the move that you did. This only applies to special moves of course. He won't repeat a super or any normal attack. By using heat mode, you can create a load of frame traps that will in the end deal a lot of damage even if your opponent manages to guard.

Donvalve

The grappling giant, Donvalve is quite the damaging character. He has a strong damage output with very few combos. He has no dash but if you use his heat mode, he gains super armor, fast walk speed, and extra damage. By no means is not having a dash bad thing. He can always use his jet pack attack to get around the stage as well as throw you into a wall. He uses 360 motions for his grabs but the grabs themselves have a very short range. Donvalve also has some pretty solid pokes, so you can fight off those pesky jumpers

Coyori

Coyori is the agile waitress who loves a good battle. With her unique move set, she can dish out the damage. She has a rather simple move set, but she has great footsies. She can use her speed to get around opponents and use her juggle potential to do 2 supers in a single combo. She's one of the few characters who has a target combo but because of that, she can create high damage opportunities off of the easy hit confirm.

Face

If you've been around in the guilty gear series, your immediate thought is, omg it's faust with guns. Lol! Face uses his guns to attack his opponents at a distance. While his normal shots have short range, his special shots have pretty high range. Combine that with heat mode and you're good to go. His heat mode makes all of his bullet shots unblockable, so you better have your parry skills ready!

Odile & Dokurod

Dhalsim, Dhalsim, Dhalsim! Odile plays almost like Dhalsim from the street fighter series. She has long ranged attacks and she has the infamous spinning divekick. She is surprisingly a combo heavy character. She's often confused as Olivia because they look exactly the same. So much so, that the writers of the game made her a twist in the plot of the story of the game. She's a bit faster than dhalsim, but she lacks his teleport. 

Deathbringer

The final boss of the game. Deathbringer well, brings death! Lol. He's a very strong damage output character but lacks mobility. Very predictable, but if he manages to land a hit, can be very devastating. Has combo options but the chances of getting this combos are very slim because it requires blue parrying.

___

Outside of the characters and their movesets lies the story of the game. Aksys really did a good job in supplying the stories to their games. The game has a pretty rich story, and has a story mode for each of their characters. If you complete their stories, you unlock extra content such as alternate costumes for the characters. Freed turns into sol bad guy basically!

With all this said and done, and after all the time I put into playing this game and writing the review, I give Battle Fantasia a

8/10

I think it's a really good game and it deserves some love. Finding copies of this game will be rather difficult in a retail store, but you can find it online for about 10 bucks. 15 bucks if you include shipping. Get it while there are still copies available! That's it for the spotlight this week! Check out my blog next week where we'll talk about another one of my all time favorite games, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle! See you guys next time :P

Gaming Spotlight

What's Gaming Spotlight?


It's a new mini series that I'm working on where I go a little in depth about past games and explain them with a degree and depth. These are games that I grew up with or games that didn't get enough love because of poorly constructed reviews or for some reason didn't get enough publicity.

There's a bunch of games like that, like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, or Battle Fantasia. Look forward to some of the segments in the future, and if they're popular enough, I'll create video reviews on them as well.

Thanks a bunch for listening. See you guys around :P

Street Fighter IV: Understanding the game - Episode 1

I have been playing street fighter since the world warrior days and competitively since 2006. During this time, I've been playing many different fighters that I've come into contact with, and I believe I have a solid understanding of the game. What I've come to realize nowadays more than ever is that whenever I run into people that say they play said game really good, I've come to realize that they don't understand the core fundamentals of the game.

In the SFIV series specifically, the execution barrier isn't too high because Capcom makes it so that if you have issues performing directional inputs, you'd still pull off the move. Down-Forward, Down-Forward, + Any punch will result in a shoryuken, if you're any of the shoto characters. In my opinion, this was a bad move on Capcoms part. It basically gets you used to performing faulty execution.

Things of this nature does not exist in any other street fighter title...

Outside of this little help feature, there are misconceptions about the basis of this game. Capcom changed the game once again by adding the canceling feature also known as "focus attack dash cancel". As the name ensues, it cancels your focus attack into a dash, which will lead into other opportunities. Combo opportunities.

This is something that newer players don't understand. They think "omg, that combo was so long and cool and  does a lot of damage". While that may be true to some degree, this is exactly the problem. People tend to think this is the focus of the game...

Thinking this way would encourage players to try to land a specific combo they've been practicing. Some go to great lengths to try to land this combo onto the opponent regardless or not what they do is the best decision. While each player has their own play style, it's apparent in the newer players.

You're probably a new or inexperienced player if you....


Jump in excessively
Spam/mash out moves on impulse
Wake up ultra when you have an ultra available
Wake up [insert special move/super here] on almost every knockdown
Press more than the required number of button presses. Also known as mashing
___

There are so many factors but these are general ones. Now, if you fit into any of these 5 categories, you're probably a newer or inexperienced player. Becoming a better player is possible at any level of play, so the thing you have to do is understand what you do wrong and build upon it from the next time.

Zoning/Spacing


These mean basically the same thing. Zoning is basically controlling a set amount of space with any of your given moves. This term is a lot more complex than it actually sounds. It's so simple yet very misunderstood. You can only truly understand Zoning by experiencing it. Zoning is the core of all SF games. It translate to every street fighter game ever made. Some sf games is more zoning heavy than others. SFIV is one of them.

Lets go into zoning a little further. In this example we'll use the corner of the stage and both characters in this example will be Ryu and Ken. Ryu puts Ken in the corner with a HK Hurricane Kick. Now, when you're trapped in a corner, the 1st thing that pops into most players mind is to get out of the corner. Why? Because it's the worst possible position in the game.

Since you're in the corner, all Ryu has to do is adjust himself to the proper range of the screen by going back and foward to the point where he see's fit. Ryu can in theory do anything he wants to the opponent. That's not to say as that it will go unpunished. From this range, Ryu can use his great pokes to keep you at bay. If you try to jump out of the corner, you'll most likely eat a shoryuken, st.LK, c.HP, or s.MP. All these things can anti-air you and put you right back in the corner only for it to happen again.

Another huge factor that can be capitalized on is ambiguous cross-ups/acu. ACU's are very devastating because the opponent has to play the guessing game on which way he or she will be crossed up. The person performing the ACU will know which way he or she's going, but the opponent has to guess which way to block.

While this example may seem like it explains a lot, it really can only be captured through sheer experience...

I think I'm gonna call it a night for today's episode. Tune in to our facebook channel for updates, events, and all the jazz. See you guys next time! :P

What's Up Guys!

Hey guys and gals, just thought I'd explain a few things. 1st up, I've finally got a blog channel now! What does that mean? You get to delve into the life that is Chris Ware :P

Here, I'll be talking about my daily updates that revolve around me and things to come. That being said, I've been working on a couple things right now. Me and Russ have been going at it for new ideas, and I think we've finally found something that will work. I'd love to go into details about it, but for the mean time, I'd like to keep it a little hush hush, seeing as it's still in the start up phases and nothing is too concrete at this point. Just keep you eye peeled for new stuff to come.

Thanks for checking out the new channel guys! See you around

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