Anya

They should have given Stryker another mutant henchman. There's no reason they couldn't have used someone like Juggernaught in X2. People complain about characters like Deathstrike not being developed but not every character needs a big role or backstory. Random soldiers are not any better than a mutant henchman.

The "final battle" of X2 is so lame. There is no threat or intensity. I liked a human like Stryker as the main villain but the generic soldiers as his henchmen wasn't enough. They go to his lair and it's just a power exhibition. Like Magneto pulling the pins out of the grenades. That's clever but it doesn't make for an exciting climax. Then there's evil Scott for like 10 seconds. Only good thing is Wolverine fighting Deathstrike. X2 kind of feels like 2 hours of setup and exposition. Magneto escapes...but then just kinda hangs around until leaving. Pyro is fleshed out, joins the darkside but just goes with Magneto. It hints at Jean evolving into Phoenix. X2 is a better written movie than 3 but I think I'd rather watch 3 again over it. Only time I'd have fun watching X2 is along side the others. Quill was horrible. It's funny he gets to hang out with Magneto when the "pawns" have cool powers like breathing fire and regenerating arms. Quill's power is that he can hug you to death. Maybe if the spikes could like shoot out at you and were poison he could be useful. The way he is in the movie I'd rather have a human cop with a gun on my side.

Yeah the scoring in SC II was really random. You would get a ton of points for doing an unblockable. Sometimes you could kill the CPU in 2 seconds and go way down. The whole leveling up system was silly, it was just fun to have a character saved and be able to challenge other regulars. The casual crowd is going to be bored. SC II allowed them to mash with Kilik and feel as if they were doing something productive. No controller ports is horrible. I hate playing Cass on the crappy sticks. That kills a lot of my interest in playing. I like her, I don't want to play handicapped or switch characters.

That makes no sense. It sounds like this mode was something Namco came up with because we couldn't have that mobile conquest cell phone game. Do you even get to enter your name so people know who they are challenging and you can fight other regulars? Is the one player of legend boss the only ghost saved or does your character just become one of the regular 8 fights if they don't get a higher level? It sounds like the only way this would be interesting is if there's a bunch of people playing the same character as you so you could compete to be the single ghost saved. That's lame though. I am probably going to be the only one playing Cassie. So basically I'll do this once and I'll have no reason to play again. How different is the game? A 5.1 update or a true upgrade with new moves and all that? Only thing I recall seeing about Cass is her old juggle no longer works.

I liked it more than 2. Like nothing happens in X2. It's not very fun to watch now. There's no threat. Scott is definetly dead. You can even see his skin start to disentagrate before it cuts. I don't like how the two big deaths don't even have anything to do with the cure. People are going on about how it's a war but it's a team member who does the killing and one of them is on accident.

That's stupid. The test version was in the T5 cabinet. I was really looking forward to that, I want to play with a pad. One arcade I go to has a SC II cabinet so crappy you can barely even see the monitor. Nobody is going to play that. So is it true the new conquest doesn't let you actually save your character? You just start over every time and they become the subboss until someone beats them? That sounds pointless. The fun part about that mode was having your own name and win record, something to check on every time you where there.

Not yet. Probably get it sometime next week. A Namco manager told me it was a cheap upgrade that almost all Namco locations should get. Sounds like they're not going to be shipped in the nice T5 cabinets though.

My guess is that if Storm set something on fire and then left or whatever Pyro could control it but not the fire around his body. Johnny's own control would override Pyro's.

The phoenix story not following the comic is the smartest thing they did. Aliens? That stuff is so stupid. Even in a comics or cartoons.

I liked Magneto leaving Mystique like that. It makes sense that he'd have such an irrational hate of humans that he'd be so cold. I also liked how he yelled at Jean to stop and told Pyro to shut up about the Professor and yet tried to use Jean anyway. Even after what happened to his old friend he was still more concerned about his agenda. I've always had the impression that underneath the rhetoric Magneto is as bad as the humans that hate mutants. He isn't a rightous man.

Nightcrawler is not in it at all. Not even mentioned. I liked it a lot. It just went by too fast. It was exactly as a I feared, they had too much story to tell and too little time. I never liked the idea of having Phoenix in the movie along side the cure. After seeing it I really think that was a mistake. It seems like the only reason they put that in was because they hinted at it in X2 and fans wanted it. I think the movie would have been a lot better had they focused on the main story and kept Jean dead.

So it's out in Asia and it seems like Capcom actually did some work this time. There's 2 Alpha 2. Regular CPS2 Alpha 2 and Alpha 2 Gold arcade(SF Zero 2 Alpha). Plus you can unlock an arranged mode that has Cammy from the home ports. 2 versions of Alpha 3. Straight CPS2 Alpha 3 and a new arrange that is based on CPS2 A3 with the characters from Upper. And an whole new game. Sort of. Hyper SF Alpha. It is based on Hyper SF II. It allows you to pick any version of any character against each other. So Alpha 1 Guy vs. Alpha 3 Rolento or whatever. There's new hidden ISMs too. SF III ism, Marvel ism, Darkstalkers ism, and CE ism. It's not really a complete game like Hyper SF II though. There are only a couple generic backgrounds and no full 1 player mode. I guess it's more like the bonus mode in SF Collection 2.

It's weird how in SoR the game world seems fairly realistic and then suddenly in 2 there's robots and Mr. X magically came back to life. Then in 3 even more futuristic machines and suddenly X is a brain in a jar. Maybe he was always a brain in a jar and the X you fought was a robot like the one you fight halfway into 3? Maybe after he died in 1 that is when he became a brain in a jar. I wonder if Sega even knows or if they just made him a brain in a jar because they thought it looked cool.

You can be a nazi in most of the FPS WW II games but mostly just as a skin in the multiplayer modes. I don't know of any games where you can actually play as a nazi in a story mode where you shove jews into ovens. Hitler would be a good fighting game character. He could be a boss in a new World Heroes.

As time goes on I find villains like Kefka and Sephiroth to no longer be as good as I used to think. I don't hate them but they're not "omg best ever!" either. Sephiroth is so convoluted and melodramatic and Kefka barely does anything at all, by the time he becomes a threat and the main villain he is gone until the very end. A lot of the RPG stories are not very good really. They're only good "for a video game". But that's a whole other topic.... Dr. Wily and Sigma. You have to give them credit for their consistency. They never give up trying the same evil scheme. I love how they'll try to stay in the shadows and make it look like a different villain is in the spotlight and then it always ends up being them anyway. I especially find it funny how Capcom is slowly making it so the heroes are aware of how stupid the whole thing is and the heroes actually casually discuss how they keep coming back and they always lose. Same thing with Bowser and Mario. They've been fighting so long it's like a joke now, inbetween Bowser's plots to kidnap Peach they play golf and race go karts together. M. Bison. Icon of fighting games. Does anyone not think of him when thinking of bosses? It was cool fighting him and then getting to PLAY as him in CE. Back in the days when doing the psycho crusher back and forth was considered high level strategy. The only thing that sucks about him is Capcom's recent bizarre sci fi stories about him being obsessed with creating clones and desiring the body of a teenage girl. I liked him better when he was just a dictator. Kazuya and Heihachi Mishima. I always liked how pre-Jin there was no real main hero in the Tekken story. There's guys like Paul but he really has nothing to do with the main plot. The two big characters were Kazuya and Heihachi...who are both evil. Both are cold and ruthless and want power. Whoever wins...we lose. It's funny how the crappy animated movie had to make Kazuya more sympathetic just to have a clear story to tell. Kazuya is so cool fans desperatly try to see him as a misunderstood anti-hero just because they don't want to accept both are evil. It's just Devil! He really did love Jun! He cares about Jin! No, sorry, Kazuya is just mean. Emo Jin is the hero, deal with it. Nazis. Just for being in half of FPS ever made. Nazis are cool because they're an easy all purpose villain. No setup is required. No backstory, no expirment gone wrong, no inner demons, they're just nazis. Everyone knows who they are and everyone hates them. If you need a villain for an action game just put in nazis. You don't even need a specific nazi commander to be a main focus. Just generic nazis are good enough. I still think Wolfenstein 3D has the best nazis in gaming. It was great how at the end you actually fought Hitler himself. First those weird Hitler decoys in robes that shot fireballs and then in a giant mech. I don't remember hearing about Hitler's robot armor in history, maybe it was the same class where they brought up the giant crabs. I know someone who swears that there was a secret final level where Hitler was a brain in a jar. I keep telling him he is mistaken for that movie "They saved Hitler's brain!" but he won't believe me. Reggie, Peter Moore and all other PR guys. Not actually in a game but close enough. They are far more annoying than any game villain. I can't believe people actually take what they say seriously. You can tell there was nothing to talk about in the dying days of the Gamecube when Nintendo fans hyped up REGGIE more than actual games. OMG HE KICKS ASS AND TAKES NAMES! It amazes me that people actually go to meet him and get his autograph. Peter Moore can't go 2 seconds without saying something ridiculous. The only thing good about him is his super human strength he must have to lift up the Xbox 360 in the palm of his hand in that picture where he is screaming about something. I don't even want to get into Sony's nonsensical "4D" buzzwords. Oh and happy birthday to Andrew! Another good gaming villain for me. Almost an nemesis for me here. Always spoiled my FF VII/VIII love fests, likes fighting games yet somehow doesn't play Tekken(I still don't see how that's possible), and won't let me go around claiming whatever I like is the BEST EVER.

Soulcalibur III?

I remember reading about a match where Undertaker had to fight off Paul Heyman's minions and if he lost Paul Bearer would be buried alive in cement. Apparently he WON...and then killed Paul himself. I was curious about why he did that if the point of the match was to save him. I looked it up on google and every recap just said he claimed he was sorry to Paul. What? Did he ever explain why he killed his own friend when he was just trying to save him? Why did Heyman have him buried in cement anyway?

Just "The Brotherhood". A lot better than any goofy variation. Brotherhood of Evil Mutants is so 60's. The X-Men arcade beat em up with Dazzler I was talking to you about was based on that pilot.

The days of it being taboo to admit to using a pad are over. A lot of people do now, especially for the 3D games.

I like the idea of the cure. It fits in with the theme of the series and sounds like a good way to tie the series up. The military vs. the Brotherhood with the X-Men stuck in the middle is going to be a good end to it all. I've read a lot of the spoilers and the one thing I don't like is the Phoenix stuff. It just seems completely pointless. . From the looks of it she is there just to be there. Like since they killed Jean in X2 and hinted at this they have to go through with it. The biggest complaint I've seen from people that have seen early screenings is the pacing, there is too much story and not enough time to tell it. It sounds like most of the cast barely gets any screen time because they're moving along so quickly. Even some of the new characters like Angel who they hype up as being important are supposedly only in the movie for a few scenes. They could have just kept Jean dead and told the same story. With so much it do in just one movie they should have kept the focus on the cure and how the mutants choose to deal with it, not waste time on with a subplot about Jean.

The AI on Hyper is based on the arcade ST AI, which is very annoying. Feels like the damage doubles for them. I've never played AI that is like fighting a human. "Smart" AI just means they block. Like in T5 the hardest setting will block all day, duck highs and break throws, the AI Kazuya even does electric. But they have no concept of actually playing the game. They don't set anything up, they don't punish, they don't poke, all they do is throw out random moves while having inhuman reflexes to block and duck. Then there's all the little tricks and weaknesses they have. With Julia you can b+2 to spin around them then get a free back throw. I've yet to find a human dumb enough to stand there and let that happen.

There's more to being good at Tekken than beating the computer. The computer sucks. The computer sucks in every fighting game, including SF and KOF. You don't have to know all the moves and crap to be able to beat KOF or SF. Everyone can beat these games. Nobody cares if you can easily beat the computer.

I was thinking about it but last month I went to Texas for a week. Can't take another trip. And yeah people have no clue. I really resent the lack of respect Tekken often gets. I hate how the press and random people on boards have decided to love VF and SC but still think Tekken is about 10 strings and multi throws. Have you played Lili against anyone good yet? I found the idea of her being too good dies fast. Against someone that knows her flip stuff and can SW and break throws well she becomes very limited. I find her fun and her damage and crushes make her worth playing but I don't think she is nearly as good as she seems at first. She needs a better low and something to track, f+3 doesn't cut it.

If they're serious about appealing to girls, old people and whatever other non gamers it has to be 100-200. I wish I could be a Merrill Lynch analyst. They get paid to speculate about the obvious and nobody ever seems to mind when they're wrong. I bet they make good money too.

The bizarre analogies and 4D thing are unbelievable. If I didn't know otherwise I would swear that was a photoshop! You just can't make stuff like that up.