Gamer Journal - Day 33

Cammy is a beast.

Quick spin knuckle is all about timing, passes through fireballs, but I heard isn't the best way in on projectile characters.. This isn’t the greatest move, but the half circle movement of the stick is a bit of a bitch. Using charge characters all this time has restricted my attack style, so Cammy is great for building up fireball and rushdown techniques.

The Cammy quick combo is as useful a kid with turrets at a funeral, being that it will only work in the most stupid of situations.

I've heard that use of the ex meter is essential in competitive fights, so spin drive smasher is almost out of the question. Her Gyro drive smasher, though, is the shit for punishing fireballs.

Hooligan combination seems to land too slowly, but I guess it's the ambiguity that's the key. Spiral arrow is what it is..

Gotto work more on spike cannon..

She's a beast.. And is really showing why he's upper tier..

Winner Quote - Alex Valle

"Life is good when you made that guy break another 5 dollar bill in the quarter machine."

http://m.kotaku.com/5248956/the-last-of-the-great-arcade-fighters

Fighter Focus - Alex Valle

Recently noticed I'd really been overlooking a huge ass proportion of why I'm doing this.. The real arcade heroes.. The inspiration, passion and dedication of champions..

So let's talk Valle.. Alex Valle.. Peruvian-American Street Fighter II player extraordinaire..

"His style was and still is aggressive. Aggressive and relentless. Relentless and brutal. "Almost instantly, Valle understands your game, and from there he gets inside your head and just violates you," says Seth Killian, long time Valle pal and resident Street Fighter expert at Capcom. "While some other top players would hang back and try and grind you down, he pioneered his own 'rushdown' style, where he was on you so fast, and in so many different ways, you were constantly on the defensive. While you were trying to figure out what just happened, he was on you again with a new setup, so his opponents would really just fall apart. It's paralyzing." Valle explains, "There isn't much time to think when the game starts, so my strategy involves overwhelming my opponent before they can adapt.""

Axel Valle is a legend in the SF community.. Not 'was', 'is'. The only problem now being A SFII-arcade player, living in a SFIV-online world.. Valle's Exploits during the 90's have made him one of the most respected fighters of all time in. "Players needed guts of iron. Way back in '96, Valle put himself on the map with his fight at Southern Hills Golfland arcade with rival John Choi at the B3: Battle By The Bay, the unofficial West Coast Street Fighter Alpha 2 arcade grand championship. Two years, at the SFA3 World Tournament, Valle went head-to-head against Daigo Umehara (yes, that Daigo) in Daigo's first international fight."

Check out some of the greatest fights in history, and witness the awesome power, which is the Valle, 32 and still primin.

There's a lot to learn from this guy.. Developing your style nowadays is much easier than for Valle, back in the day, but coming up the hard way forced his style to be rushdown. It's what fits and what works..

http://m.kotaku.com/5248956/the-last-of-the-great-arcade-fighters

Gamer Journal - Day 32

Straight up, the practice isn't goin so well.

SF is pulling me in with its 2D simplicity (yeah, yeah, troll all you want) and it's range of flashy techniques, I'm becoming a bit of a junky for super combo and ultra finish’s.. But scratchin deeper into the technical side; cancels, combos and footsies, is still beyond me. Arcade Edition has a huge number of characters, and to be honest, it's kinda overwhelming, even getting the basic techniques of characters like Gen is causing deep ball ache.

Having training partners is the way to go, absolutely, but being so basic a player, dealing with the cheap shit might cause me to bust a nut. If I play a Sagat, I'll just end up with a face full of fireballs.. And my partner a plain face full of balls.. I don't know if I can deal with that shit at the moment..

By the end of the week I wanna have the basic play if each character covered.. And still I've gotto work on Cammy..

Winner Quotes - Charlie Sheen

"I blinked and I cured my brain... Everybody has the power.. Can’t is the cancer of happen.. Can’t is the cancer of happen.. The Nike slogan doesn’t say “Just try it”.. No, “Just do it” man."

Arcade Review - Mikado

A pretty god dam epic place if you’re looking for a classic arcade is Mikado In Takadanobaba.

So what have we got here? For one thing it's located 2 minutes from Takadanobaba station (5mins from Shinjuku or Ikebukuro to anyone on the JR line)

That alone cannot be beaten for convenience... And having a Lawson next door.. It's bliss, grab food, play, grab more food, play.. It's amazing.. And we haven’t even gone inside yet!

There are plenty of indie arcades scattered around Tokyo, but Mikado is different.

First floor covers a lot of the old school gaming scene with set ups like famicom Mario, Darius, Outrun, an a whole slew of games you've long forgotten.. Even got a goddam pinball machine there!

So floor 2. You will never see more of a mad selection of beat em ups anywhere. As a Tekken player, I'm a bit guttered that we've been reduced to a single cabinet, but I get the feeling that it'll change pretty soon. Bias aside.. Has a huge set up of SF, MB, GG, and a bunch of games I've never even heard of.

One-point kicks this place clean out of the ball park for me; the tourneys.. Day in, day out, tourney this, competition that.. It's amazing, backed up with announcers and prizes; it's the perfect place for players to get a foot in..

Never rammed, plenty to get your teeth into, good facilities, accessible.. Shit.. It's the shit.

So all in all, one of the best arcades I've seen, and absolutely a must for any gamer, big time or noobie. Dudley award for a jolly good show!

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=takadanobaba&hl=en&ll=35.712667,139.703486&spn=0.001198,0.001725&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=38.22949,56.513672&radius=15000&z=19&layer=c&cbll=35.712667,139.703486&panoid=ky6xeDSqwamXfJuCpQtU7g&cbp=12,336.48,,0,-7.28

Resource - iplaywinner

Move lists, strats and frame data.. Surprising hard to find on the net, mainly due to trolls talking nonsense, arguing, debating, and everyone wanting to voice an opinion.. 

Praise god for iplaywinner.com. Since finding their podcasts a few months back, they have kinda sorted me out with a bunch of pointers, mainly to do with the Sf scene.

The fact they cover all the major fight game bases is a huge plus, you've got your BlazBlue, KoF and whatnot, but as a quick and simple, you can't beat it. Sure SRK has the news first, but being a nobody working my way up from absolute zero, it seems like iplaywinner is really catering for ground level up fighters.

Shit is broken down real simply into exactly what the characters strength and weaknesses are, tactics and matchups .. Shamefully, recognizing a rush down character in SF is still not totally clear to me.. (With the intro of arcade edt. About 20 new characters popped up.. And that's a shit lot of work!)

In terms of tactics in fighting games, any of the guys can be played in whatever style suits you.. But going against the grain will limit your choices..

"Cammy" for example is much better suited to in their face beat downs, she's a rush down character.. That's the bottom line.. "Guile" more for turtling.. Blanka, countering .. Basic shit, but ipw just gives it to you straight up..  Hit points, tier ranking, usability.. Perfect

That's what I like, that's what I want.