Game Informer sucks...

[AndrewTS 0]

"People's perception of Tekken (based a lot on uneducated magazine bullshit, so we're united on our dislike for bad reviews) is ten-strings, multi-throws, deathfists and Eddy mashing. In reality, Tekken is based on constant, complex movement (steps, backdashes, wavedashes and all sorts of complex character specific stuff), baiting out a whiff, punishing, that kind of stuff. It's a totally different game, not even similar."

 

So we come right back around to "game magazines today suck."

 

"No, trust me, SC2 is more of a 50/50 game than almost anything else out there. Hard to see mid/throw or mid/low mixups are a huge part of most people's game, and the post-GI game is 50/50 also, between moves that force a re-GI and moves that punish a whiffed re-GI (technically that's not true anymore with 2G, but that's going into too much detail)."

 

By the same token, I could make the Marvel vs. games sound waaay more strategic than they are by their very nature.

 

it sounds like if you were to write a review of a 3D game, it would look quite similar to this guy's 2D reviews. Probably not with the "2D games should stay where they belong" soapbox silliness, but with the same lack of knowledge.

 

Nope. I knew what you were talking about with SC2 (G.I. = guard impact), and saw what you were talking about. You're pretending as if SC is the only game with anything like GIs, and that's not true. It's also not a new technique in fighting games in general. Guard Reversals have been around at least since the VF days, but moves more like the guard impact (which aren't a counter by themselves, but stun for a counter of your choice) have been in 2D fighters (SF3), other 3D fighters, and even in freakin' WWF No Mercy (not uncommon to get in a punch reversal, punch-reversal, etc sequence). It expounds on it more than a lot of the other ones that have used it, but you're greatly exaggerating its importance. However, I completely forgot about that aspect of the game, so it isn't my "lack of knowledge." It's my lack of caring about it, because I was thinking more of Soul Edge.

[Jer 0]

So we come right back around to "game magazines today suck.

 

Oh absolutely, I've posted several times on this board about how much I hate them, particularly right after they started releasing T4 reviews. Which is why I always get probably somewhat overly annoyed when I see other people saying the same kind of stuff that they say, particularly about Tekken.

 

By the same token, I could make the Marvel vs. games sound waaay more strategic than they are by their very nature.

 

Heh I don't consider 50/50 guessing very strategic. SC2 isn't the most strategic game out there by any means. Certainly not a masher, but not as elaborate as TTT or 3s.

[AndrewTS 0]

By the same token, I could make the Marvel vs. games sound waaay more strategic than they are by their very nature.

 

Heh I don't consider 50/50 guessing very strategic. SC2 isn't the most strategic game out there by any means. Certainly not a masher, but not as elaborate as TTT or 3s.

Compared to most fighters out today, it is shallow. That was my entire point.

[Jer 0]

Compared to most of the tournament batch, maybe. I'd say it's deeper than ST and what is actually used at tourney level in T4 and MvC2, and shallower than TTT, VF4e, CvS2, 3s and GGXX. It's deeper than pretty much all non-tourney fighters though, like SvC or DoA or whatever.

[AndrewTS 0]

That's a shame, because DoA and SvC suck.

 

What's "ST?"

[Jer 0]

Super Turbo.

 

And yeah, DoA and SvC do suck, that's why no one plays them seriously. Having depth is kind of a prereq for being a tourney game, so being below average depth-wise for tourney games doesn't mean it's not still incredibly deep. All tourney fighters are, meh.

[AndrewTS 0]

Super Turbo.

 

And yeah, DoA and SvC do suck, that's why no one plays them seriously.  Having depth is kind of a prereq for being a tourney game, so being below average depth-wise for tourney games doesn't mean it's not still incredibly deep.  All tourney fighters are, meh.

 

And being incredibly deep doesn't make a game good or fun, necessarily.

 

Aside from the gameplay preferences, another thing I hate about 3D fighters is that nobody but Namco has any decent character designs. VF: Lame, generic. DoA? Lame, generic, or just plain ripped off (Hogan, Mai, one guy looks exactly like the old dude in Tobal). The original characters in Capcom's own 3D fighters suck for the most part. The characters I've seen in the new MK games from about MK3 on (I haven't played it or seen them all, though) are the same deal. "Frost"--hot damn, there's an original character. Bo Rai Cho seems decent enough, but we've had drunken-style characters in plenty of other fighters first.

 

Kazuya just has to be a tongue-in-cheek tribute to Street Fighter. Otherwise it would be too blatant. The scar, several of his moves, the Devil thing, his relationship to his pops is kinda like Gouki/Sheng turned on its head, and in Tekken 4 he's missing an eye. In Tekken 5 is he going to be bald, 7 feet tall, and use a version of the Raging Demon super?

 

SNK has kinda fallen into the same trap these days, unfortunately. See: Kula Ayanami, TETSUUUUUO!!

[Anya 0]

TTT is so deep. Best advanced movement and techniques/glitches in the series.

 

I guess the scar and TGF are SF like, but the Devil storyline really doesn't remind me of SF at all.

 

 

Frost is pretty cool, except her name and locking up my Xbox all the time.

 

 

Primal Rage!!!!! One of my favorite bad MK clones. Blizzard is so top tier.

[AndrewTS 0]

guess the scar and TGF are SF like, but the Devil storyline really doesn't remind me of SF at all.

 

 

Primal Rage!!!!! One of my favorite bad MK clones. Blizzard is so top tier.

 

Blizzard = Sub-Zero in a gorilla costume.

[Anya 0]

Akuma is not really like Kazuya/Devil. Besides being demonic(which is a huge cliche in like all of media) how are they at all alike? Even as far as demon related stories go they're not close. Their origins, motivations, powers and appearances are nothing alike.

 

 

Blizzard's freezing uppercut move is cool. I wish Sub could do it.

[AndrewTS 0]

Akuma is not really like Kazuya/Devil. Besides being demonic(which is a huge cliche in like all of media) how are they at all alike? Even as far as demon related stories go they're not close. Their origins, motivations, powers and appearances are nothing alike.

Until Tekken 2, Devil Kazuya had no motivation or powers, and his origin wasn't unveiled until 3. The origins are kinda similar because both Gouki and Kazuya were both normal humans turned into demons--one by unlocking the Shun Goku Satsu, the other by genetic tinkering (which is even more far-fetched, actually).

[Anya 0]

We knew Devil's origin in Tekken 2, which is when he was first introduced into the story.

 

Kazuya got his connection to Devil by selling his soul and making a deal for power, not through genetics. He just got the Devil Gene as a result.

 

"normal people turned into demons" is such a stretch. That's just silly. How many stories feature stuff like that? That's like saying any revenge story is a rip off of Guile or Chun Li's stories. It's an age old plot. People have been turning into demons in stories since before games or even television was invented.

 

The stories have totally unrelated themes. Akuma is a foil for Ryu's "live to fight" story and Kazuya's is a story of revenge(and the struggle between light and darkness in Jin's case).

[AndrewTS 0]

"Kazuya got his connection to Devil by selling his soul and making a deal for power, not through genetics. He just got the Devil Gene as a result."

 

When was that revealed? Because I had Tekken 2 and never saw anything directly explaining that.

 

But that explanation makes it sound much more like Gouki's situation.

[Anya 0]

It was revealed when Tekken 2 first came out. It's in his main bio. Not sure where you can find that on the net. Tekkenzaibatsu only has the main story, not the individual bios for Tekken 2. I'm going to look around for a site that has the old bios.

 

It's not in the game because no backstory at all is in the game and the booklet just has bios for the default characters. Always been a problem with the Tekken story. Like if you didn't have access to the bios via a guide or the net you wouldn't know why Bryan is so strong in Tekken 3.

 

The only thing I can quote directly is the Tekken 2 booklet, which just says "there is a rumor Kazuya has made a deal with the devil".

 

It's also shown in the movie, though that is non-canon.

 

The Devil Gene wasn't brought up until Tekken 4, when Hei's cronies discovered it.

 

 

Again, saying their situations are alike because they're humans that were supernatually turned demonic is silly. Maybe if they looked alike, had the same powers and had the same motives. But this isn't the case. It is obvious from those things that Namco's intensions were much different than what Capcom was going for.

[AndrewTS 0]

It's not in the game because no backstory at all is in the game and the booklet just has bios for the default characters. Always been a problem with the Tekken story. Like if you didn't have access to the bios via a guide or the net you wouldn't know why Bryan is so strong in Tekken 3.

 

You can kinda tell from the looks of him that he's not a normal human.

 

The only thing I can quote directly is the Tekken 2 booklet, which just says "there is a rumor Kazuya has made a deal with the devil".

 

So, one line in the manual, that doesn't even definitively say.

 

It's also shown in the movie, though that is non-canon.

 

You mean the animated movie where Kazuya was a good guy, and the Devil thing was portrayed more like how Ryu was struggling not to succumb to the Dark Hado in the Alpha movie? No, that's very non-canon.

[Anya 0]

But you'd never know Bryan was a robot zombie, just that he's strong and invincible.

 

I think Kazuya becoming a big monsterous winged laser shooting demonic beast called "Devil" proves that the "rumors" were right.

 

 

The movie is definitely not canon. Kazuya is no good guy. Alex didn't bite off Anna's head(though I wish he had).

 

I don't know about the Alpha movie and I don't care, it's irrelevant.

[Jer 0]

Derr I'm bored waiting for someone to meet me in a computer lab, didn't see this before, might as well reply.

 

Nope. I knew what you were talking about with SC2 (G.I. = guard impact), and saw what you were talking about.

 

Heh I wasn't using GI as some sort of leet abbreviation to prove how little you knew. Everyone talking about SC should know what GI is, it's pretty fundamental. When I said you didn't know what you were talking about, my evidence was you calling SC a button masher in one post and fast paced and aggressive in another, neither of which are true at a decent level.

 

You're pretending as if SC is the only game with anything like GIs, and that's not true.

 

No I'm not, I didn't say anything like that. GIs are a dynamic that I like, but I never claimed they were innovative or anything. SC isn't particularly innovative, never said it was.

 

It expounds on it more than a lot of the other ones that have used it, but you're greatly exaggerating its importance.

 

Hey, I never said they were important in any context except saying that post-GI is (or used to be) a pure 50/50 situation, which is true. Nowadays that's not even true, since the 2G glitch has made it so that you can block "guaranteed" moves post-GI, and now GIs are fairly limited in use at the highest level.

 

However, I completely forgot about that aspect of the game, so it isn't my "lack of knowledge." It's my lack of caring about it, because I was thinking more of Soul Edge.

 

Meh, you still do lack knowledge of where SC's depth comes from. It's pretty similar to Tekken's, in that you have to know move priorities and frame data (or at least have a sense of what beats what) in order to know what interrupts what, whether moves give you advantage or disadvantage on block, what's punishable, what gives you advantage so that it can't be interrupted, etc. SC also has more of a range dynamic than other 3D games, so you have to be very conscious of spacing and know what you can hit with from various ranges. Glitches have changed a lot of game priorities, but they add depth in themselves. It used to be that you had to be careful when you tried to step, since horizontals could punish step. Now, with step-guard, horizontals can't punish step, but tracking lows can, so there's a premium on those. And while GI has been weakened with 2G, there's a whole new mindgame there, since things like GI-> throw that used to be fairly useless are now stronger since the throw attempt is still guaranteed, even with 2G. Blah blah blah. Trying to explain depth just makes me feel like a dork, so I'll stop, but the point is that there's tons of tournament level depth that casual players calling the game a masher don't know about. That's true of almost all fighters, so when people call any good 2D or 3D fighter shallow or a masher, they're almost always wrong.

[razazteca 0]

So which character in SC2 is the best overall?

[Jer 0]

Top Tier: Ivy, Yoshi, Cervy, Xianghua, Sophie

 

Most Popular: X, because she's braindead easy to use at upper-mid level, so people that got into the game late and want to be competitive, or Tekken players that want to win without doing much work, love her. She's really tough to beat if you can't block the 3A/3B mixup on reaction.

 

Best Overall: Debatable, but I'd say Ivy. Best 2A in the game, best step in the game in a game hugely dependant on step, best post-step punisher in the game by far (33A, does 120 on hit, doesn't even have to be counter), best high/throw whiff punisher in the game (fc1B), one of the best lows in the game (K2), one of the best throw games (SS/CS, people are starting to break SS on reaction now, but still only Asta/Berserker are better there), excellent mids (4A+B:B, 8A+B), excellent moves at all ranges, no real weaknesses. Maybe a lack of variety in close, but with 2A, K2 and 4A+B, you don't need much else.

[razazteca 0]

Well at the local mall its all about Maxi or the guys with the long reach weapons (staff, axe, big ass sword). I personally use Cervy and Xianghua.

[Jer 0]

Nod, that's pretty normal, mashers like Maxi because he does long strings if you mash, like Eddy in Tekken, and people like Kilik and Nightmare because they look cool and have abusable moves that beat inexperienced people. Asta I guess people just use because he looks cool, but he's not really easy to use. Mitsu's usually pretty popular in malls too because he's the cool samurai guy, heh. Coolness factor is such a big deal in mall character selection. X is much easier to use scrubbily and win with than anyone else, but she doesn't get used much because she's not "cool".

[chaosrage 0]

I like Nightmare, Kilik, and Taki. I'm only okay but I'll beat the crap out of anyone that tries to button mash. They can never win one round. It's easy to put moves together (that's a good thing) but it's definitely not a button masher game.

 

And the only gaming magazine ever worth anything was Next Gen.

[razazteca 0]

Ever waste money on a magazine just for the "free" CD insert?

[Guest I'm That Damn Zzzzz]

And the only gaming magazine ever worth anything was Next Gen.

I used to think that too until I read some of them again. If it wasn't for those dull gloss or whatever the covers were originally made with, the magazine wouldn't have lasted nearly as long.

 

Ever waste money on a magazine just for the "free" CD insert?

I stole a Christmas Nights cd once, does that count?

[chaosrage 0]

And the only gaming magazine ever worth anything was Next Gen.

I used to think that too until I read some of them again. If it wasn't for those dull gloss or whatever the covers were originally made with, the magazine wouldn't have lasted nearly as long.

It wasn't as good right before it died as it was in 95 and 96. The books got thinner and thinner every year. When it first started, they were huge. No other mag gave you that much information per month.

[Jer 0]

Next Gen's previews were top of the line. I remember a ten page Super Mario 64 preview with tons of screenshots, detailed game information, interviews with the development team, all sorts of cool stuff. Every other mag just gave you like a page with a little blurb and some pictures, Next Gen was on a different level. The reviews were terrible though, short, very little information and an arbitrary rating tied more to innovation than gameplay. But for info about games in development, nothing was ever as good as Next Gen was.

[chaosrage 0]

I loved Next Gen's ratings. The focus on innovation kept all the Tomb Raiders and Crashes from getting high marks. The ratings should reflect on it if it's something you REALLY have to play or if it's just more of the same shit that you already play. Next Gen was the only magazine I could trust for reviews.

 

The little games only used to have a couple of paragraphs, but their big name games almost always had a whole page review, sometimes more. Mario64 had about 6 pages.

[Jer 0]

Different priorities, I guess. I want my games to be good rather than different. I put almost no premium on innovation, if a game is innovative and good, that's great, if it's innovative and flawed, then I'd rather have a polished sequel. I didn't like that sequels were almost guaranteed not to get higher than ****, no matter how good they were, because of the innovation criteria.

 

I also don't think a *-***** rating system with no subcriteria and only 5 possible scores is really versatile enough to be accurate. The *** and **** ratings in particular had a huge range. Some games were *** and were great games, just derivative, others were *** and seriously flawed, but got *** for effort. It was too hard to know whether a game you were interested in was actually worth buying with their rating system.

[AndrewTS 0]

Different priorities, I guess. I want my games to be good rather than different. I put almost no premium on innovation, if a game is innovative and good, that's great, if it's innovative and flawed, then I'd rather have a polished sequel. I didn't like that sequels were almost guaranteed not to get higher than ****, no matter how good they were, because of the innovation criteria.

That's why I planned if I do any reviews (sometimes I'll put a few up on GameFAQs) in the near future I'd rate it on two basis: content and context.

 

While rather dry-sounding, the deal would be that content would rank how good the game is on absolute terms: if you never played this sort of game before, what would you think of it? It would rank what is actually there, rather than what's new.

 

Context, on the other hand, would be purely comparative. How does it stack up against games of this nature? Former games in the series (if it's a sequel)? It would also double as a "then and now" type of thing, where if it is an old game or remake, I'd give an opinion on how well it has held up.

 

The only really good magazines (I'm talking overall and with everything down pat) I've seen have been Gamefan and Game Players when they were really good.

 

Next Gen had terrible reviews, and...whoopie freakin' do they had huge previews! So does every damn magazine these days.

[chaosrage 0]

Different priorities, I guess.  I want my games to be good rather than different.  I put almost no premium on innovation, if a game is innovative and good, that's great, if it's innovative and flawed, then I'd rather have a polished sequel.  I didn't like that sequels were almost guaranteed not to get higher than ****, no matter how good they were, because of the innovation criteria.

 

I also don't think a *-***** rating system with no subcriteria and only 5 possible scores is really versatile enough to be accurate.  The *** and **** ratings in particular had a huge range.  Some games were *** and were great games, just derivative, others were *** and seriously flawed, but got *** for effort.  It was too hard to know whether a game you were interested in was actually worth buying with their rating system.

I want games to be good and different. I don't want developers to just take a good game and add new characters and levels to it. Sequels shouldn't stay the same. They should keep most of the gameplay but at the same time they should take risks and have enough things in it to make it a whole completely new experience. That was the difference between a Crash or a Tomb Raider and Zelda. Most sequels might as well just be an expanision pack. I mean, this is the same reason people buy new systems. Because they want new experiences that they haven't seen before. Next Gen was the only mag that really seemed to take that into account.