With the heralded success of both Street Fighter 4 and Soul Caliber 4 and Tekken 6 on the horizon it would seem that fighting games are making some sort of resurgence. No problem with me I have always enjoyed fighting games throughout my long assorted gaming career. The feelings of nostalgia all bubbling to the surface I figured i would run down a list of my favorite characters from fighting games.
I kept my list to one character from each series so I could touch on more universes and not just a bunch of sequels from the same maker.
10. Ragnar Bloodaxe: Mace the Dark age N64 1997
Face it vikings are cool. Whether you agree or not with the morality of raping and pillaging villages and basically building a religion around war you have to admit they could probably kick some ass. And when your fighting demons, golemns, monks and hell knights you need all the ass kickery you can muster. VALHALLA!
9. Slash: Eternal Champions Genesis 1993
Sometimes you don't care about what type of martial art training your character has. Sometimes you just want to grab a fucking club and beat people about the face and shoulders with. In comes Slash a cave man of particular brutality. In his character write up it states "He did not train in any specific martial art, and instead fought in any way which could cause as much pain as possible."
8. Rasputin: World Heros SNK 1992
Whats more bad ass than a crazy evil wizard? How bout a crazy evil wizard with giant spectre fists and feet. Plus he's based on one of the most infamous characters in history. Now that my friend is badass.
7. Voldo: Soul Edge & Soul Calibur series
Back in the glorious days when fighting games where coming out seemingly everyweek in the 90's there was one character a little bit different from the others. He had a unique fighting style that blending a certain flow with scorpion stings and some good old sado maschism. The best part about Voldo is his "untouchable" fighting once you get in the groove.
6. Jax: Mortal Kombat series
Really theres no that much to say. You have giant metal arms and you can pop enemies heads like zits or rip their arms off. Among the many Mortal Kombat characters Jax was always the most satisfying to lay the beats with.
5. Bakuryu (the Mole): Bloody roar series
If you never played bloody roar, weep. Just start crying right now because you missed one of the fastest paced awesome fighting games. What made this game a standout was each character had a beast form that they could turn into which was more powerful and even had a super combo move that dealt major damage. There was one character who was equal part fast powerful and trickery and that was the ninja assasin who turned into a mole. He was my first character that I mastered and soon became my favorite guy to return to if I was having trouble with a particularily annoying apponent.
4. Sabrewulf: Killer Instinct 1&2 1995-96
If your a man of any Ilk then you respect the art of Lycanthropy. Werewolves are awesome. Utilizing this and letting me control on in a game is actually a very easy way to appeal to me. Now take that werewolf and give him cybernetic arms and well sir you just blew my fun muscle.
3. Ken: Street Fighter series
He's obnoxious he's cocky and half the fighting games out there use the same move set as he did. You master ken and you master about 85% of fighting games available. Besides who wants to be that moody fag ryu anyway sure his fireballs are bigger but look at kens dragon punch. You wanna fuck something up you dragon punch that shit. Look what it did to sagats chest. Ripped it in half my friend right in fucking half. Why would you do that kind of damage then focus on fireballs? Because your not ken and you don't drive a red porshe and bang sluts and look in the mirror and smile because you fucking rule all. Thats why.
2. Juggernaut: X-men vs Street Fighter
At first I didn't want to mention this character because I always thought of him in the street fighter lineage but this game should be considered a crossover and it also it lead to the best 2d fighter ever made which is Marvel vs. Capcom 2. The reason I love Juggernaut is not for his size, which is huge. Its not for his power, which is again huge. Its for his medium punches. The are straight they have lots of reach and he grunts ever punch. There is just something so addictive and maniacle about trapping an enemy in the corner and laying about 20 punches into them. Hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh hunh.
1. King: Tekken series
Tekken is the best 3d fighting series ever made. EVER. The realistic fighting styles mixed with simplistic move parameters makes for a very pleasant experience. Your a wrestler who wears a tiger mask. I find it hard to really find the words to describe how rad this is. I would go into length about why I love king but it would just be me gushing about every move he has and his bio and such in length. He truly is the only character that could not have been made better in any way.
F-ZERO to F-HERO: Top 10 fighting game characters
I hate sim games and love Halo Wars
I've been playing Halo Wars and for the record its awesome. If your like me you've been hearing alot of "hardcore" gamers crying about how it's not RTS enough and how it actually happens to be a dumbed down system that makes it easier and faster to play. I love it.
The game has trimmed out useless annoying steps that are usually involved with this genre. The most notable is resource collectin. No longer do you have to watch your grunts/harvesters walk over to mine/tree/whatever and slowly collect it and slowly walk back. You just build a building and a magical space ship from somewhere else drops off glorious cubes of building... perfect.
I might have a swayed opinion on RTS games because I actually lost interest in this type of game because usually its a giant pain in the ass that sees you farming your troops for an hour just blitz the bad base and realize you could have done it with a smaller army and not wasted all that time. Worst part is you try that the next level and get your ass thoroughly stepped all over and are given a lose for your efforts. I was going to probably go on with my life not playing this type of game anymore untill I heard about this one.
I decided to get back just to play this one. The best thing is this game is like playing a game and not doing some video console chore. You don't have to work at it. You don't have to strategize and think of how you want to create your town and where to place your buildings for maximum effort. You just add stuff to the predesignated pads and start the war machine.
Sure you can go through the levels slowly take cover in the captureable bases and strategicly cut off the enemy and chip away at their defenses and go that route. Or you can get a bunch of warthogs and tanks say eff it and run over some purple jerks and blow up everything else.
My main point is this: I don't want my video games to be work. I want them to be fun well paced blow shit up action.
e74
Well it finally happened. My xbox has a critical error. Much to the rejoice of pee ess fanboys everywhere. I bet they can't wait to tell me all about the wrongness of my decision to purchase a 360 instead of their haloed a symmetrical monolith. Although the loudest one my best friend derek already fried his PS3s laser so at least I don't have to worry about him trying to claim that his hardware is superior.
I called customer support and aparently my xbox's warranty ran out last year. Which is a giant douche. But really I purchased my beauty from a pawn shop over a year and a half ago so i kinda saw something like this coming. That said I am still depressed and i feel very emotional right now. The only thing that could possibly console me right now is the fact that there are still XBOX in my household because each of my roomates also own one. I guess I could drop $400 bonez on a PS3 but that seems like a lot of money to blow on a console when I could just buy a new arcade for $200.
This couldn't have happened at a worse time because my gamer score is just shy of 10000 and with a good push a couple of games I could have been there. Well at least I can just recover my gamer tag and play on my roomates machine.
VIDEO GAME AWARDS
Well I wanted to break out this new thing I was going to write about in a giant comprehensive list of Awards for games that truly covered a lot of ground. But I decided instead of hold onto these untill I thought of other good ones why not give them to you when I thought of them. Sort of a mini surprise slash present whenever I thought of one. So here are the first few.
The basic Idea is that I will award games not for best visuals or graphics or any broad sweeping category of that ilk. But for little victories. Just a way to show that I as a gamer appreciate the little things as well. Or adversely when the companies miss I like to point and laugh at there failings.
The I didn't know how much I missed it till it was gone award: Head shot ping noise in COD World at War
- Really it doesn't matter which game was better or worse or which developer you side with, just hearing that noise. Knowing you just owned someone makes all lines drawn in the sand fade.
The Why the hell is there only 2 multiplayer character skins award: Quantum of Solace.
- You took out the absolute best part of the old James Bond multiplayer games. Do you know how big of a dream you crushed by not letting me be baron samedy with a COD engine? It was very large.
The why isn't this game more fun to play: Spore
- That annoying morality argument aside this game seemingly had all the pieces for greatness and endless fun. Leveling up customization unlocking new body parts and building your creature however you want. Yet for some reason when I got to the tribal stage and realized it was more of an RTS style gameplay I lost all interest. Can we get another version of this game where everything before that was longer.
I could just drive forever: Burnout Paradise City.
- I love this series alot. I was a more than a little anxious when I found out they had changed the style of gameplay from the previous titles to a more sandbox open world style. That is till I played it. The funny thing was I enjoyed exactly what i thought I would hate. The pointless driving around with no real goal... Just driving. Ripping up and down the far west road through the mountians I was fully content.
F-ZERO TO F-HERO: 10 Favorite achievements of 2008
(Mike's list)
- Game: Portal
Achievement: Vanilla Crazy Cake
Beat all six Portal advanced maps.
Nothing funny or spectacular about this achievement. Just one I proudly possess, for one of my favorite games ever. - Game: World of Warcraft
Achievement: Hallowed Be Thy Name
Complete all of the Hallow's End achievements.
You get this achievement by completing all of the annual Halloween events in WoW, which only happened for a week or two. Most of them were easy and just took some time and a bit of effort, but one was just devilish. You had to get 2 special loot drops, both of which could only be gotten from the unique Hallow's End boss the Headless Horseman. And you could only kill him 5 times a day, which seems like a lot, but since you needed a group of 5 people to summon him, even if one of the 2 rare items dropped, you had to win the roll against the other 4 people who also wanted the item. I lucked out and got the first drop with about a week to go, and then killed the boss 5 times every day for the rent of the event, slowly driving myself crazy. Finally on the last night - in fact, about 4 hours before the event officially ended - the 2nd item dropped, and I won the roll against the other 4 people with me. And I freaked out. What did it get me? Now I have a title "the Hallowed" that appears after my character's name. - Game: Fallout 3
Achievement: Dream Crusher
Talk Moira Brown out of writing the Wasteland Survival Guide.
You get this secret achievement by telling Moira Brown that instead of finishing her "Wasteland Survival Guide", she should stop because people might use it and get hurt. She reluctantly agrees, her ambitions shattered by cold reality...or more likely, your laziness and unwillingness to do the quests. After getting radiation sickness, blown up by land mines and ravaged by ferocious man-crabs in toxic sewers, all for "research" for her idiotic book, my delight at telling her that her book is stupid - and the ensuing achievement - was probably my favorite moment in the entire game. - Game: Call of Duty 5
Achievement: Gunslinger
Assassinate General Amsel with a sidearm
I saw this achievement before I had even played COD5, and immediately vowed to get it. What a terrible decision. In retrospect I should have figured that it would be freaking impossible. I probably also should have been tipped off when the first time I heard Amsel's name was a sniping level where you were climbing through top floors in buildings and shooting people on the ground. It took me probably about 15 tries - there is no hope of assassinating the general through skill. The best you can hope for is looking for movement far, far FAR off and start firing off your entire clip. Keep in mind that you're being shot at by nazis with rifles and turrets and OH YEAH A TANK OR TWO. When I finally offed the bastard, I was proud to get the achievement and yet ashamed that I would force myself to endure such frustration for a stupid achievement. - Game: Left 4 Dead
Achievement: Akimbo Assassin
Survive an entire campaign using only pistols.
I loved using the pistols in Left 4 Dead before I even found out that this was an achievement, as they have infinite ammo and you can just freely unload constantly. I figured this wouldn't be that hard to get, but then after a seemingly-successful campaign I discovered that using the turret negated the achievement. Then I tried it again, but this time I got knocked down and when my teammate helped me out, the game automatically equipped my hunting rifle - something I didn't realize before I had already fired off a shot. Then on my 3rd attempt I didn't pick up any other guns or even the molotovs or pipebombs, and made it to the last stage with 3 computer teammates...who were all crushed SIMULTANEOUSLY by the Tank, who smacked a forklift into all 3. Of course, having only pistols, I didn't have the firepower to kill the Tank and so I died. Finally, my computer teammates managed to stay alive and I finally got the achievement. - Game: Battlefield: Bad Company
Achievement: Never Used a Door
Destroyed 1000 walls
One of my favorite "tactics" in BF:BC was lurking behind the enemy lines, looking for snipers holed up in a house. Then I'd rush the house, slash the door down (one hit with a knife destroys a door) and murder the snipers inside with said knife. One game my entire team was bunkered down in an old castle and I was prowling around the far corner of the map and spotted 4 enemy players inside a house conferring. The smart idea would have been to throw a grenade in the window and kill all 4, but for effect and awesomeness I instead chopped down the door, ran right up to them and murdered one right before their eyes. They shot and killed me a second later but I maintain that it was totally worth it.
F-ZERO TO F-HERO: 10 Favorite achievements of 2008
10
Game: The Bigs
Achievement: 250,000 Points
-Get 250,000 points in Home Run Pinball.
The home run derby in this game is amazing. Instead of putting you in a park where you ho hum hammer out a few your in times square hitting balls at giant neon lights collection power ups and basically fucking some shit up.
9
Game: Crackdown
Achievement: Airtime Assassin
-Shoot and kill 5 gang members in a single jump (while airborne)
Keep in mind these kills are all in the same jump. There's something magical about a game where you can leap tall buildings and cap five chuckle heads in the face in a single bound.
8
Game: Battlefield. Bad Company
Achievement: Forest Ranger
-Knocked down 1000 trees
Dale: Hey Mike I am going to get this Forest Ranger achievement
Mike: WHAT A THOUSAND TREES THAT WILL TAKE FOREVER.
next day
Dale: Oh i got that achievement... yeah I got bored and started AA gunning trees
7
Game: Soul Caliber 4
Achievement: Numeric God
-The last two numbers of total play time and remaining time in a victorious battle were the same.
Sooooo yeah that happened.
6
Game: Quantum of solace
Achievement: Time to face gravity
-In White’s Estate, open the cellar door with one shot.
The way to get this achievement is head shot a guy on a balcony. His corpse will then fall over the railing through a cellar door. Pretty good achievement to get with a well placed shot but think of how good it would feel if you ran around a corner with an Uzi and just shot a hail of bullets at a guy and the first shot just happened to catch him in the face.
5
Game: Too Human
Achievement: Feeder of Ravens
-Kill 10,000 enemies.
You know a game is fucking good when you have killed 10,000 enemies and are still playing it.
4
Game: Burnout Paradise
Achievement: Parallel Park
-Power Park achieved with a 100% rating
The absolute best part about this achievement is how I got it. On the second try. Yeah yeah yeah it might have been a fluke but I beat Mike so thats all that matters.
3
Game: Spider-Man Web of Shadows
Achievement: Id
-Spent time with Black Cat
"Spent Time with" is code for had sex with. Even if the developers didn't intend it to mean that I am extrapolating that meaning. I made Peter Parker go bad and Have sex with one of the hottest female comic characters ever thats awesome. Now more crybaby little kid Spider-bitch I made him truly a Spider-Man.
1 a
Game: Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga
Achievement: Let the Wookiee win
-Pull 25 arms off other characters.
1 b
Game: Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga
Achievement: Follower of Fashion
-Wear Every Hat.
Lego Star Wars got first and second place because these two achievements are hilarious on their own but looked at side by side they are Epic. You have Pretty much the toughest BA achievement ever which sees you ripping guys arms off that contrasted against the a typical femme achievement of wearing all the hats in the game makes it the clear out and front winner.
Review: Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead has been one of the most intriguing titles to hit the 360 in the past few years. Mixing the genres of survival horror with true co-op/team gameplay has created an incredibly enjoyable and exciting undead beast, yet one that has countless simple flaws.
The Good: Teamwork
Hands down, L4D is the best cooperative shooter I have ever played. When compared to other games in the genre that are recognized and respected for their co-op aspects, such as Gears of War or Halo 3, it blows them out of the water. This is because in virtually all such games, you play it pretty much like you would a single player game, except you sometimes pick up an injured teammate or take turns driving / shooting a vehicle.
L4D completely abandons this style by forcing the team of 4 survivors to be exactly that: a team. This is accomplished primarily through the use of "special" zombies which can pounce on or strangle a survivor, incapacitating them. An incapacitated survivor CANNOT defend themself - a teammate must come to their aid and hit or shoot the attacking special zombie away. As a result, you end up playing like a team - watching each other's backs, rushing to each other's aid, and constantly saving each other from death. Another surprising benefit of this gameplay style is that is greatly enhances the game experience by creating a powerful bond and sense of kinship between the players, elevating the game's goal of survival to an almost-real state of believability. In this sense, L4D's co-op nature almost needs to be compared to other "team" games, like EA's NHL series.
Another unspoken benefit sure to be appreciated by anyone who has played public games on Xbox Live is that this game will likely be hated by the idiots who ruin online play with juvenile behavior and attitude. It takes a reasonable level of maturity/responsibility to succeed at Left 4 Dead - if a player is selfish, doesn''t care about their teammates, or has a "I can do everything by myself" superiority complex, they will lose. Going into a public game full of strangers and already knowing that the other players want to work with you as a team is an incredibly encouraging sensation.
The Good: Variety
One of the most publicized and anticipated elements of L4D was what Valve calls the A.I. Director, a system that ensures that every game is different. A basic example of this system at work in L4D is that one game a room will have a medkit, and in the next game it won't. Not being able to rely on pickups really makes you appreciate them more when you find them - sometimes you unexpectedly find an ammo cache or much-needed medkit and you genuinely feel lucky.
However the A.I. Director is capable of making more complex decisions that truly create unpredictable, uneasy scenarios. The most commonly experienced event is that if the team of survivors lingers too long in an area, suddenly a giant horde of infected will rush around the corner or start crawling through the windows. Not only does this prevent players from slowly and easily working their way through a level, but creates tension by forcing them to keep moving - just as if they were really in a zombie-infested city.
Another perfect example of how the Director really keeps things interesting is placement of special zombies. Last night while playing, a friend wanted to show me a useful shortcut he had found before, where we could bash down a door and skip a difficult scripted zombie attack. We gathered around the door and bashed it down and started celebrating (we weren't sure if Valve had removed this shortcut in a recent patch). However our celebrations were cut short when we realized just a few feet away lying in wait behind the door was a tank special infected (picture an undead incredible hulk that pulverizes anything nearby). We barely survived and walked away shaking our fists at the sadistic Director.
The Good: Versus Mode
Deserving of its own category, L4D's versus mode is where the game truly shines. Versus mode lets four players play as the infected against four players playing as the survivors. After playing through to the first checkpoint (or until all the survivors die), the teams switch roles and play through the area again. Both sides receive points depending on how many survivors perish and how far they make it. As good as the campaign mode is (and it is very good), versus mode is just awesome. First of all, being able to be an infected and take your revenge for the countless times you were murdered in campaign mode is extremely satisfying. But since you are against other real players, when you pounce or strangle someone or catch someone lagging just a bit too far behind, it is delicious because you know EXACTLY what they are thinking as you claw their face off.
Teamwork is also very important as infected. While you don't have to worry about defending or rescuing your teammates, if you don't coordinate your attacks you have a much smaller chance of winning. A survivor team working together can fend off any single threat - a zombie horde, a tank, etc. Which is why in order to win, the infected must throw the survivors into chaos. A well-coordinated infected team can blind the survivors with a boomer (special infected that vomits/explodes into bile, blinding players and attracting a swarm of regular infected), and then while the survivors are blinded and fighting the swarm, take out one survivor with a hunter infected pounce attack or a smoker infected strangle/drag away attack, both of which eventually kill the survivor if they aren't rescued (and of course, their teammates are blinded and dealing with their own problems). As the survivors, being the victim of a well-organized assault is thrilling, regardless of who wins the struggle.
The Good: Presentation
The sensory elements in L4D are interesting. The graphics, while good, are not groundbreaking. The music, while fitting, is also not exceptional. But they are combined superbly in the game, especially when combined with fantastic horror movie-styled lighting. Streets are dark and foreboding, lit only by a blinking storefront neon sign or a lone car whose headlights were left on as it was abandoned. Subway tunnels underground are cast in eerie red light, but then you end up in a brightly lit warehouse and you can see every snarl and grimace on the infected's faces. Even though you don't often get the chance to carefully examine the infected, the level of detail on them is impressive. (We had a good laugh one game when we noticed a recently killed infected was still wearing a pair of bright pink and green striped socks).
The sound and music are also secondary to the gameplay, and is used mostly as indicators of danger. The game tends to be either eerie silence or a chaotic symphony of screaming infected and shouting survivor. But when the audio does kick in, it's always noticeable and effective - you can hear a hunter infected growling before it comes into sight, and when a tank is nearby you hear a blood-pumping crescendo before it bursts into sight. All in all a very slick and polished presentation.
The Bad: It Sucks Alone
I'll be honest. Left 4 Dead is terrible by yourself. It's boring, it's hard (in a bad way), there's no storyline, and it just feels like an average kill-everything game. The excitement and danger created by saving your friends just doesn't carry over well when you are saving nameless computer bots who just run around getting strangled and stealing the medkits.
The Bad: It Sucks With Two or Three Players Too
It's not much better without a full team too, unfortunately. The behavior of the computer teammates is annoying beyond belief. They go from being ridiculously omniscient, shooting special infected a block away before you even see them, to being complete morons and standing in the middle of a three-hall intersection being ravaged by a horde of infected while the actual human players huddle in a defensive corner.
The Bad: Not Enough Variety
There are only four levels in the game, each consisting of 5 sub-stages. It doesn't take long before you have played through them all, and while the A.I. Director does accomplish great things in keeping the gameplay varied and fresh, four levels is still only four levels. To make matters worse, only TWO of the levels are playable in versus mode. While there is probably a good reason for this (maybe the unavailable levels have areas that aren't balanced for versus play), it's still very disappointing.
A lot of people would also point out the lack of weapons as a negative. (Your initial weapon choices are a shotgun or uzi, then you can upgrade to a scoped rifle, auto-shotgun or assault rifle.) As a result, it gets a little boring using the same 2 or 3 guns over and over again. However, I think adding too many options would devalue the game's core experience, as it is the simplicity and teamwork that are important and not the weaponry. Yeah, Halo 3 has some sweet energy swords and sticky grenades, but they're completely different games trying to satisfy completely different niches. A few more guns would be fine, but too many would ruin it.
Another common complaint is that the survivors don't have different strengths and weaknesses. I am neutral on this one. On one hand, it would be nice to be able to fill a specific role in the group, like if one survivor was good with explosives while another ran faster. On the other hand, this would cause problems when players didn't get to play as their favorite character. As it stands now I like to play as Bill, the grizzled war vet (he's grouchy and cranky which I find amusing). But if someone else takes Bill, I am fine being a different survivor because they're all the same. An interesting dilemma.
Final Score: 9/10
I give Left 4 Dead a 9/10 because for me, that is what it is. I play it online with friends. I know 7 people now with the game, and once we get another person we can do full versus matches and it will be incredible. However if you don't know others with the game or don't like playing with strangers, you will enjoy this game much, much less. If that were my situation I would give it a 4/10 for being a smooth playing game with no storyline, and very limited replay value and variety.
