Jer

Sounds really fun. Probably just a little too far though. I actually have a lot of friends going now that SC3 is there, but they're in Jersey or New York and that's not quite as ridiculously far as it would be for me.

N-E-S and S-N-E-S. I've never heard anyone say "ness" or "snezz".

I could go into detail on the absurdity of talking about VF's supposed upward trend based on one data point (especially after VF4 Evo sold so little that VGCharts doesn't even track it), but too much sales talk is boring, so changing the subject. I downloaded T5:DR on Friday and it is awesome to have it at home so I can practice, yay, although no practice mode sucks. I need to get Eric to come up and hold forward or something. I'm becoming convinced that Anya is right about how solid Julia is. Her wall game is just amazing now that the ender works every time, especially since after the wall combo they're still grounded by the wall in position for more mixups. So fun. And at least for now, Maryland doesn't know that 4~2,1 is launcher punishable, so that makes it really good, heh. Just going through her movelist, I realized I never used b+2 for some reason and that I probably should. If Anya ever reads this, what's the normal options that people use after b+2 on hit? The stupid computer just gets hit by 1,1,1, heh.

VF hasn't ever outsold an installment of Tekken released in the same timeframe, though. I know it's not relevant to quality, but like I broke down in my post earlier, you're not even factually correct. Again, VF4 came out *before* T4, why would you compare it to T4's sequel released 3 years later? 1P is irrelevant to quality of gameplay, at least to me. But yeah, obviously it needs to exist or else casual fans won't buy the games and the developer won't make more. See Capcom. Edit: I did forget about Soul Blade, I marked out pretty hard for the 1P quest mode as a kid. The weapons were neat.

Yeah I will give VF4 and VF4 Evo particular props on how good their 1P mode was at actually focusing on how the game was supposed to be played and trying for an AI that was semi-realistic. Especially the one with the high-level videos that showed what the player's hands were doing on the bottom of the screen; that was cool as hell. But to say they're the exception is an understatement; they're the only two worthwhile 1P games in the history of the genre.

Not to be too much of a dick, but that's kinda funny after your selective (2002 VF vs 2005 Tekken) sales argument just a page back.

Yeah, I guess if you care about 1P modes in fighting games then reviews might be helpful. But if you want a game to play by yourself, I don't really know why'd you'd even bother with fighting games, they're really boring 1P. Heh taking off points for not having online play is always fun. Cause it's such a huge loss that we can't play laggy Tekken where you see the throw after the break window has closed (Reviewer: What?! You can break throws?!)! Damn!

... My critical success comment was sarcastic. Critical success in fighting games has never meant shit because the reviewers never knew what they were talking about. Besides, critical success is the *VF fan* argument. That it's a shitty argument is what we've been saying the whole time.

T5's average on GameRankings is higher than VF5's, thus proving it is better. Andrew's got a point, though, the vast majority of VF's most ardent American supporters (and Tekken's most ardent detractors) are people that think they're good because they're a Hero in quest mode. Their anti-Tekken arguments center around how bad the AI is. Just read through any VF thread on any general gaming forum and you'll see that. People that are actually good at either game are not nearly as rabid.

Tekken fans, in general, don't have a problem with VF. Hell, lots of us are starting to pick up VF5. The anti-VF sentiment from Tekken fans is almost always backlash against stupid mainstream articles.

There were no gameplay comparisons made in either article! Certainly not any involving how either game is actually played. Or do you actually think people still use 10-strings in Tekken?

Haha his angry blog post is so cute. I <3 VF fans, especially ones that are bad at fighting games trying to break down why VF is great.

As for the article, a couple years ago I'd get all worked up and write some long reply, but I've long given up caring what reviewers think about fighting games because they're just so ridiculously clueless. At this point it's just funny. "For that, we give the nod to Virtua Fighter's depth, nearly unlimited playability, and space for improvisation, compared to Tekken's dialed-in combos that put it closer to Killer Instinct or Mortal Kombat than to a true 3D fighter. " Hehehe yeah. And I <3 "depth" in VF articles. Too funny.

Virtua Fighter 4 came out before Tekken 4, so it should be compared to Tekken 4, not Tekken 5, especially since the whole genre's popularity declined since then. And it didn't outsell Tekken 4, at least not in the US. Not even close, actually, T4 outsold VF4 over 2-1. Even add Japan sales and T4 still wins fairly easily.

Eric's right; backwards compatibility is nice, but it's really pretty insignificant when you're talking about a system like PS2 that's sold 100 million copies and that everyone owns. People will just keep their PS2s now instead of getting rid of them. The only reason people don't have PS1s anymore is because they got rid of them because PS2 was backwards compatible. Yeah, you lose the ability to trade in your PS2, but that's what, $40 at best? I don't really see why people are jumping all over this, other than it being trendy to bash everything Sony does. Sony needs to cut costs, and this is a way to cut costs without sacrificing any real functionality. Better this than using cheap components that break more often, or something. They should pass the savings on to the consumer and cut prices, though. If they really keep the price at $599 for two more years like that article said, it's hard to see the PS3 staying competitive.

I finally got a PS3 yesterday and have been playing a bunch of VF5. It's a lot like VF4, but with prettier stages, heh. But I like VF4, so that's cool. And I have to learn it so I can enter it at Evo. Now I just need to find someone to play. Eric? Haha. Today my mission will be to find a 50 ft long ethernet cable that can reach from my cable modem in the computer room to my TV, and then I'll be able to get T5:DR and all will be right with the world. Random comment - the PS3 gets really hot when it's on for any length of time. Is that normal? It doesn't seem like it can be good for it...

But VF has depth and Tekken is a button masher!

This is probably that interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mby6w5qCKVk Kinda boring but it does show a little more of the new characters. Zafina looks like she might have some neat stance stuff.

King needss... to be taken out of Tekken! Leo kind of reminds me of Lion from VF. Kinda similar move animation. They're also both very girly. Leo's trash talk probably won't match up, though. "I don't make it a habit of fighting the elderly!". Can't top that. Zafina's a lot more interesting. Good look and it looks like she might be fun to play. Really hope there's more than two new characters.

Neat. Nice to see it getting an arcade release. I was worried it'd be straight to console and thus suck like SC3 did. Looks pretty. Seems kind of soon though; DR still feels new to me. Namco's number one priority for T6 should be to give Julia better items.

Chainsaw gets worse as your level gets higher, because it does that autokill thing more often at higher levels and it never works. So by late game, Drill is tons better because Chainsaw just misses for 0 damage most of the time. Is that picture Castlevania 2? Fuck that game, I spent hours as a kid walking from one side of the world to the other over and over trying to figure out how to advance the game, and didn't figure out until college you were supposed to kneel by the river or something. Ugh. It seemed like it would have been such a good game too.

No vanish/doom?! Haha when I played that game in middle school that was the only way I could beat some of the bosses. I was trash. Should have been on DS...

So DR is actually out for American PS3 now? Did they give Jinpachi a real moveset or does he still have the instant stun and infinites and all that other broken crap?

Tekken and Mortal Kombat, no doubt. For real, probably Suikoden 2. Even with the bad translation it was pretty moving. Jowy is just such a great character.

Yeah, I'm also curious what sort of same old song and dance Sony has been doing that needs to be changed. Because to me, Sony did pretty much nothing wrong with the PS2, and it ended up being the best selling videogame system of all time with one of the best libraries of all time. And with PS3, Sony made a mistake rolling their new format into the system and thus raising the price, but other than price, I'm not seeing a whole lot wrong here either. This isn't Nintendo with N64, there is nothing inherently wrong with Sony's hardware or Sony's relationship with third parties. It's *just* price.