I somehow never got into the Virtua Fighter series. I had a few friends growing up who liked it, but I didn't play it more than once or twice, and I vaguely recall thinking 'meh.' I just started downloading the VF5 demo on Xbox Live. I'll give it a go and see how I like it. If it grows on me, I'll check out the full version. As for the other two titles, I've never played them. 3D arena fighters are a genre that never really grew on me. There was even some 2D stuff I didn't really like. I was the only person I knew growing up who actively disliked Super Smash Brothers. Part of it has to do with my inability to grasp the mechanics, which always led to me getting my ass beat. And I never felt like I got any better, unlike when I played another Mario-based series, Mario Kart.
It's way more complicated and requires more knowledge than Tekken, so I haven't played it as much after VF3, but in terms of balance and depth, it's by far the best of the 3D fighting genre. I guess you could call it the Guilty Gear of the genre, heh. Super Smash Brothers isn't a 3D arena fighter, though; more like a 2D arena fighter with really simplified mechanics. It's also a lot more frenetic than 3D arena fighters. I'm actually surprised 3D arena fighters haven't caught on more; in terms of casual fun, without having to learn complicated game mechanics, it's the ideal type of fighting game.
The new Mortal Kombat has been banned in Australia. I think they are scared we will have too much fun and our tampons will fall out.
Holy shit, that game is a fucking blast. I just spent a half hour with the demo wailing on fools. It was tricky at first, trying to get the controls down, but once I learned what button did what, it was lots of fun. The mechanics feel just as smooth and polished as in Tekken, so I can see the comparison. I could literally spend hours trying to string together the litany of combos in that game and not grow tired of it. I definitely see myself buying the full title sometime in the near future. The only problem I foresee (and I could be way off here) is that the game seems to vulnerable to button mashing by unskilled human opponents, but I suppose that's not any different from most other fighters. I'm relatively unfamiliar with the genre, so I can't speak to that too much. Yeah, I meant to say 2D, and tried to correct my post afterwards. I agree about the mechanics being very simplified. I didn't recognize the titles and had to look them up on YouTube. Obviously, watching a game isn't the same as playing it, but as I was watching some clips, Super Smash Bros. was the first game that came to mind. The frenetic nature is probably why I didn't get along so well with that game, either. I like to be in control of my player in games (it doesn't matter whether the genre is sports, RPGs, fighters, FPS, etc), and I have never felt that SSB did a good job with that. Too many crazy superpowers churning about by all 4 players involved does not a happy Rob make.
On the topic of downloading demos, I put a bunch on queue on XBL. First up to bat, so to speak, was MLB 2K11. I'd fallen out of favor with sports games as a whole in recent years. Baseball in particular, the last of which I played was MVP Baseball 2005 (which RULED, by the way). The main reason I tuned out was the relative lack of control given to players, which limited their replay value for me. But now, this whole thing going on with the analog sticks is fucking awesome. When I nail a well-executed 12-6 curve over the corner and get the guy looking for a strikeout, I feel accomplished. That's as opposed to before, where I'd just shrug and resign myself to the fact that the computer was doing most of the work. It feels good to have more control over the game's outcome like that. I have no idea how long they've been doing this "total control" feature, since I didn't pay that much attention, but I definitely plan on getting the full title soon, at any rate. Other demos (man, I can't believe I didn't utilize this feature before) that I have or am downloading: Bulletstorm, UFC Undisputed 2010, NHL 11, Civilization Revolution, Halo Wars, Dead Space, and Arkham Asylum. I'm certain I'll buy the last two titles anyway, if only because of how wildly positive the reviews for them have been, but I'd like to at least dick around with the demos just to be sure. It's my fantastic, economically-efficient (read: cheap) method of trying games, since all of my expendable income is tied up in a new PC. Since I've never played a Halo or UFC game, I'm a big Civ fan, and it's been over a decade since I've touched a hockey game, I'm sure I have lots of goodness in store this upcoming week.
Glad you liked it. Actually, mashing will do a lot less for you in VF than Tekken, especially since the combat system is way more complicated. Tekken is mostly just about timing your initial launcher and completing the juggles. VF has more depth, counters, moves, and unorthodox combos. You know, that's a big reason why I don't like SSB myself or the MvC series, either. But I feel like it's a lot more manageable and under control in the two games I mentioned, especially because of how big the environment is. How was this compared to something like Civ 4?
So thanks for bringing up SMB yesterday, I spent probably a good 45 minutes last night trying to beat one fucking level. The level was named, appropriately enough, "Four Letter Word". Great game. Also, there is an interesting little article up on Edge about Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford talking about how multiplayer is handled in the industry. He makes a good point about so many games these days that shoehorn in a multiplayer mode when they should probably be focusing that time and effort on the single player narrative, since their multiplayer will probably be cast aside for the likes of Halo or CoD anyway. Deadspace 2 and Homefront being a couple of excellent examples. Now I will return you all to your Mortal Kombat talk which I will stay out of since this is the last Mortal Kombat game I played:
Boon needs to stop with the 3-D format and go back to sidescrollers for Mortal Kombat. You're not Tekken, and you're not even close on the game play to make it worthwhile. Focus on smooth game play, sharp graphics, and stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Oh, and never, ever try that campaign bullshit you did with Subzero a few years back. Want to turn around? There's a button for that. Worst game ever.
I assume you're referring to this, since I always avoid spinoff games as a general rule. If so, it sounds like I didn't miss a damn thing.
Hah, I actually played that game! It was a neat concept by itself (a side-scrolling beat em' up with fighting game mechanics), but it just wasn't executed very well, as each enemy could be handled in the same simple, repetitive manner.
This is your friendly Dmix3 reminding you that if you own a Playstation 3, the Socom 4 Multiplayer Beta is now available to ALL users of the Playstation Network. You may now resume your prior Mortal Kombat discussions, and for the record I would shit stomp anyone on this board in MK2 and/or 3, that is all.
Mortal Kombat II for sale in the PS Store for like $5. If they had MKTrilogy, I would already be walking around with only one kidney. Will be downloading that Socom Beta.
Here's a new spin on the beat to death WWII shooter. Be sure to check out the video. http://pc.ign.com/objects/094/094409.html
I'm responding to this against my better judgement, but here we go. What I meant by "I haven't read specifics" I meant what people posted about it here. Not that I saw the box cover and wanted to talk about it being a fun game. I've played it and own it. It is a solid game. I played against friends and the computer and we never ran into the infinite. You also can find infinites (MvC 2 - Magneto which is loved by almost everyone who plays 2D fighters and Mv3 - Wesker, Sentinel) in even the most elite fighting games besides maybe Virtua Fighter 5 so you can't discount a game on that. Metacritic gave it a 71/100 based on 61 reviews so not the worst MK ever. Mortal Kombat advanced is actually, with an 33/100. User Score based on 32 reviews give MKvsDC 8.3. I'd give it a 7.5 single player, 8.0 playing it with friends. Which means a majority of people that reviewed it liked it. Who knows what they're qualifications are, but what are anyone's really? Don't be skeptical about MK9. If you have a video game system (PS3 or Xbox), which I'm suspecting you don't, take the 15 minutes to download the demo and play it. Spending 30-45 minutes crafting posts and quoting people just to debate/theorize/speculate/be skeptical/insult how good the game is going to be is completely useless and moot when you can play the game and KNOW what the game is like. If you don't own a system, go ask a friend to download it and play it. It's free, and takes 15 minutes. No idea why there is so much speculation about an available free product that is easy to acquire. Rob, I'm glad you played the game...you now just don't think, or speculate...you now believe. Edit: Due to a PM from a board member, apparently Metacritic is a "random" site I found on the last page of the Google search results. So here are the top 3 gaming sites. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.1up.com/reviews/mortal-kombat-universe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.1up.com/reviews/mortal-kombat-universe</a> <a class="postlink" href="http://ps3.ign.com/objects/853/853444.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://ps3.ign.com/objects/853/853444.html</a> <a class="postlink" href="http://www.gameinformer.com/games/mortal_kombat_vs_dc_universe/b/ps3/default.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.gameinformer.com/games/morta ... fault.aspx</a> And speaking of League of Legends, the shit is about to blow up. They got a fat ass cover story on IGN. I'm waiting for these guys to run out of ideas. When I started back in November or so, it was a Champion every 3 weeks. And that was just talking about the concept and showing the art. Now it seems like they got this shit down to a 10 day art, and none of the champions are copying each other. Nuts. Fucking nuts.
Ha! Don't I wish. I tried fruitlessly to find the demo, only to learn it's a PS3 exclusive. At any rate, I'll be buying (or at the very least, renting) MK9 at the end of the month, so I won't have to wait too much longer. I just want to rip someone's spine out and show it to them; is that so much for a young boy to ask? As for demos I have been able to get my grimy little paws on, last night I played my nuts off with the UFC Undisputed 2010 demo. As a very, very casual observer of MMA (I can literally name 5, maybe 6 fighters), a few hours of that game taught me a lot about the various positions, moves, and general terminology. At least, I'm assuming it did. If the game got all of the specifics right (which, judging by the consensus that the Undisputed games are very accurate, it did), then I'd say I'm learning a lot, and rather quickly. As for the gameplay, I was able to progress from beginner to advanced in the span of a few hours, once I began to grasp the library of controls, and I felt like I was getting better each time. After that was Bulletstorm, which delivered exactly as advertised: a shoot 'em up game featuring foul-mouthed space pirates. If you need any more explanation than that, video games probably aren't for you. The demo also stands on its own very well, as it offers a high replay value due to its "get the high score OMG!" nature. The Dead Space and Resident Evil 5 demos are on queue for tonight; details to follow. To respond to KIMaster from earlier: I haven't gotten around to Civ Rev yet, though I plan on doing so tomorrow. I have limited space on my hard drive, so I can acquire these things only 3 at a time at the moment.
That's absolutely horrific for a big name, hyped release. In fact, I challenge you to find me more than two games with that shitty of a Metacritic score within the last two years. Even utter dogshit like Halo:ODST garnered 83/100. And one of the worst games of the last couple of years, "Army of Two: The 40th Day" got 74/100. But you know what? None of that shit even matters. I wrote very specifically what was wrong with the game, so rather than linking to game sites who have fired editors for giving low review scores, why not specifically address that? "Besides freaking minigames in the middle of a match to determine who does more damage, you also had craptastic hit detection, clumsy movement, and the simplest, most braindead infinite I have ever seen in a fighting game released in the last decade; " When you have specific points to make, you don't have to link to dishonest Internet reviews, or make appeals to a nebulous "majority". You can actually discuss the game. And pro tip- The overwhelming majority on Shoryuken, including Midway fanboys, thought MK vs. DC fucking sucked, and swore off the franchise forever. I've mentioned several different times in this topic that I have already played through the MK9 demo. With each of the four characters. Honestly, it's no wonder you have such a hard time comprehending others' posts. I doubt you even bothered reading anything I wrote when you furiously typed up this reply. Grandstanding can be funny, especially when it's this misguided.
I liked the mini-games, it made it different than other fighters. It made the game unique. I don't care what people on Shoryuken think, what makes them more qualified? I've been playing MK when it came out on Sega, hiding it from my parents. They're opinion is more qualified? Disagree. You played the demo with all 4 characters, what did you think about the game? You tried the core game play then, what are your thoughts? How are you still skeptical?
From part of a PM Parker sent me; You obviously don't know the Shoryuken community, then. These are the same people who rave about unbalanced fighters like Castlevania: Judgment, TMNT on both the SNES and Genesis, and a host of others. It doesn't have to be a balanced, deep competitive game for people to like it. And again, if you had bothered reading my reply, that was never my problem with it at all. Rather, it's that MK vs. DC has a crappy, generic 3D combo system, not much better than many forgettable titles during the late 90s, and can't even get the bare basics right. Even the hit detection and movement is fucked up. I don't believe you. I have never met a single person who could tell me he likes mini-games in a middle of a fighting game with a straight face. That's just inane. Would you enjoy a cooking simulator in the middle of a super combo, too? By the way, what is your opponent supposed to do during the mini-game, anyways? Stick his thumb up his ass? However, this next statement by Parker takes the cake Of all the ignorant statements you have made, this might be the worse. Go ahead and point me to a single 3D fighting game, ANY 3D fighting game in HISTORY, with an infinite, let alone one as brain-dead as the one Superman used. Please. And to pre-empt your reply, the MvC series is not 3D, nor are the set-ups as simple. Again, I wrote it on the last page. It seems like a very generic Mortal Kombat game. No one knows the combo system all the way through and maybe something really deep will be discovered, so I'm reserving any final judgment. And rather than asking me "how are you still skeptical" about a franchise which has released non-stop shit for the last 15 years and counting, how about answering "why are you hyped about it"? Just because you played Sega as a kid? Or because an online site told you to like it?
Christ almighty, will everyone just shut the fuck up and stop turning this into a bunch of 12-year-olds arguing on a GameFaqs board? Fuck. Ok. With that out of the way... Picked up Dragon Quest IX yesterday since I've burned through most of the 3DS launch titles worth anything. Critics seemed to generally warn people of its extreme old-school-ness, which I was a bit wary of at first, but I'm totally loving it so far. Feels like a throwback to mid-90s RPGs, only, ya know... prettier. Decent customization options without going overboard. A story vaguely interesting enough to keep me going. And just enough level grinding necessary to mindlessly "play" the game on occasion while watching TV, which is one of my favorite aspects of portables anyway (and precisely why I fucking loved Persona 3P). Outside of the obvious remakes (FF IV, Chrono Trigger, etc.), can anyone recommend any good portable RPGs I might have missed over the last few years? It's been a while since the last time I owned any version of a DS. And on a final note, Game Dev Story on iOS fucking rocks. First phone game ever that had me glued to it for over an hour in one sitting. So stupidly simple, but somehow manages to stay compelling.
Holy shitballs! Just played my way through Homefront on the PS3. Awesome game, and right up my alley. Here's my review. Solid story, for what it was. I read a lot of shit about how unrealistic it was, unoriginal, blah blah fucking blah. Fuck all that, I enjoyed it. A little short for my liking, but I can forgive that. I paid $55 for the game, brand new, and got 5 hours of enjoyment out of it. $11/hour, almost less than a movie, and certainly more entertaining than a couple of pizzas and/or a case of beer. Excellent pacing. Kept me in the action with almost zero downtime, while still managing to keep the dialogue and story going. Connor rules. No one else was developed, but no one had to be. Connor ran the whole fucking campaign, and did a damn fine job of it, from start to finish. Control and difficulty was good for a novice like me. I don't play FPS games very often, and twitch games are not the kind I prefer. That being said, Homefront really played well for me. Graphics. Looked good enough to facilitate gameplay. Nothing else matters in this department. Ending was nice. Simple, effective, and not a boring, long ass, drawn out piece of shit. I don't much care for games that try to end on a higher note than the gameplay itself, exceptions being made for certain games here and there. All in all, a worthwhile purchase, and I look forward to a sequel. Note: I'm not mentioning Multiplayer because I won't play it, or any other version of it in any other FPS, and therefore don't have any insight into it. Take from that what you will. Cheers!