Dead Or Alive 5: Ultimate Sale [AGAIN!]

Well, if you missed out on the sale last month, I have news for you.  No, the characters are not back on sale – however, select costumes are!  Yeah, I know… not exciting…

But, also, Kokoro is being offered for free, much like Mila was last month.

For some odd reason, I do not see this being mentioned anywhere on the official Playstation blog.  However, you can take a look at things in the actual store, here. Or, click the banner above to go straight to Kokoro’s page.

Of course, as with every week, there is a sale going each week in the Playstation Store.  Check out the official blog here.

Finally, please be sure to check out my other posts.  There may be something of interest there.

Quick! Close Your Eyes!

Daily prompt.  Please be sure to read the others here.

Doesn’t really happen too often to me.  There’s so much violence in today’s entertainment, that I think I’m mostly desensitized… Although I’m probably kidding myself. — I actually remember the last thing to make me cringe.  It’s that scene in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.

And, thanks to the power of youtube, I can show you exactly! 🙂

SPOILER ALERT.  Although the game only lasts 5 minutes an hour anyway (so you should have completed it already) — that’s why I refuse to play it at 20 bucks.  But, that’s another story.

 Obviously, the video below is disturbing.  Watch with caution!

Please be sure to check out the rest of my blog posts here.  If you enjoy them, please be sure to like, follow, comment, and all that other good stuff.  Thanks a bunch!  I promise the rest aren’t going to make you cringe.

 

How To Get Your Start In Fighting Games?

Tekken 7 has been announced.  There wasn’t any major details about the game, so I didn’t bother to make a blog on the subject.  Nothing has been confirmed, so just play it safe, and expect Yoshimitsu, Heihachi, Nina, and Paul, since they’re the only four characters to appear in every Tekken game.  Kazuya will no doubt come back too, if the trailer is any indication.

However, I suspect that this will be Heihachi’s last game (Until Tekken Tag Tournament 3), as he’s getting older and the trailer references Tekken 7 as being the last battle.  I assume this isn’t to the series, but to Heihachi and Kazuya’s ongoing feud.

I think Kazuya may throw Heihachi into an active volcano, since they seem to like throwing each other down cliffs and what-not…

Anyway, there’s people out there who haven’t played Tekken in a while.  Perhaps not since Tekken 2, or 3.  But, you’re looking to get started?

First thing you want to keep in mind: Lose, Lose, Lose!

No, not your enemy, you.  You should be the one losing.  If you’re playing on settings that are too easy, you’re going to become very frustrated when you play against a human.  Why?

No matter what level you’re playing on, the AI, or, Artificial Intelligence, is designed to lose.  It doesn’t matter if you’re playing on maximum difficulty settings, it is meant to be defeated.

That’s not quite how things go when you play a human opponent.  So, tactics, or strategies that work on AI opponents wont always work on humans.

You know you have to lose.  But, how do you turn yourself into a winner?  Here are five simple steps to show you how to get your start.

1. Know your character.

Go into command training, and learn every attack your character has.  This will be useful.  If someone else is using the same character you are, you will be able to mimic strategies if you can take notice of the attacks being done.

In Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, for example, I’ve learned almost all of Mila’s attacks, so when I see other people using her on youtube, I can go from what I was doing here to this, eventually.

But, if I don’t know what I’m looking at, it wont help me at all.

2. Know your opponent.

Now that you know all of the attacks your character can do, you now have to learn all the other characters attacks too.  Although, the key thing here is that you don’t have to worry about the inputs.  You only have to get used to seeing the attacks.

This will help your defense, because you’ll learn to notice what is coming.

3.  Learn to react

Learn how to react to what is coming.  Each attack has a start-up animation and a recovery animation.  Each attack also has a hittable range.  Learn how to position yourself outside of the range of your enemies, or learn how to defend against the attacks.  How?

4. Basic properties of 3D Fighters.

Some attacks miss crouching enemies.  These attacks are called high attacks.  They only hit standing enemies and can always be crouched. Some attacks hit both crouching and standing opponents.  These are called Medium attacks.  Finally, are low attacks, which also hit crouching and standing.

High attacks can only be guarded against while standing, (but should be crouched under anyway.)

Medium attacks can only be guarded against while standing.  They are not blockable if you are crouching.

Low attacks can only be guarded against while crouching.  They are not blockable if you are standing.

5.  Making sense of those properties.

So, you’re thinking to yourself, high attacks… Bad.  Medium attacks… good…  You’re missing the point.

High attacks, because they can be crouched under, are generally faster than medium attacks.  This is usually in both start-up and recover frames of the animation.  There’s no point in high attacks if they are so slow, you can see them coming 10 minutes ahead of time, unless they have some other trait, such as dealing a lot of damage, or being an unblockable attack.

However, if you manage to hit your enemy with an attack like that, chances are high that they’re confused mentally or don’t know what to do.  That can be used to your advantage in terms of mind games and mental conditioning.  They are at your mercy.

That’s all for now.  If you’re looking for further help ahead of Tekken 7, Mortal Kombat X, or whatever else, check out my previous posts.

 

 

What’s So Special About Fighting Anyway?

Yeah, right.  I get it.  Fighting games.  What exactly is so fun about punching the other guy in the face, back & fourth, if that’s all you do?

Well, I thought it would be nice to go into detail about why I enjoy fighters as opposed to other types of games.

It’s not about being locked facing you opponent with no ability to free-roam, nor is it about just mindlessly clobbering your enemy until the next fight begins.

What exactly makes them different?

Just to make it clear, I like all types of games.

[rant ahead]  Except the sports and shooters we get year after year, in the form of Call of Duty, Live, Madden and soon I’ll be adding Assassin’s Creed to the list, since quite frankly, I gave the series TWO chances with Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation on Playstation Vita, and Assassin’s Creed III on PS3.  Both of those games failed me miserably.  I completed ACIII.  DLC included.  Not happy.  Couldn’t be bothered to finish the Vita game.  Both games were so severely buggy that I couldn’t even bare to pay attention to the actual story.  Just follow the yellow dot on the map.  That’s what I did the entire game.   I’m aware the games aren’t made by the same studio each year, but I was just too disappointed to ever try another Assassin’s Creed game again.  I even have pictures showing myself on the opposite side of an impassable wall, which I somehow managed to push myself through, and then I swam into nothingness until my game froze.  Because guess what.  I got so lost, and so bored that I just didn’t care anymore.

[rant over]

As I was saying, I like all types of games.  Fighting, third person shooters, action/adventure, platforming , role playing games and even puzzle games sometimes.  But, still, fighting games I like most.

Third person shooters, like Uncharted 3, I enjoyed playing online, I’ve always like Megaman games and more-recently, (over a year ago) I enjoyed Resident Evil 2.  Perfect game for my PS Vita.  I say recently, because growing up, that game scared me too much to play for more than 10 minutes at a time.

But again, why are fighting games so different?  Multiplayer, and things I learn in fighting games, are not restricted to my console or my save data.  Unlike RPGs.  No matter what you do, if your data is deleted, your character is at level 1.  It doesn’t matter how much experience you have, you simply can’t pass certain areas unless your character is of a certain level, because you need equips, special attacks, higher ranges of HP and MP and so on…

But, in a fighting game, no matter what, on default settings, no matter if you’re using your save data, or your friends, your HP, or hit points wont change.  Your characters stats in most cases also shouldn’t change.  And, that’s part of the answer.  Fighting games have mostly done away with locking characters, although now, a trend seems to be that you can’t beat arcade mode to unlock character, you have to outright spend additional money to unlock characters, so I guess that statement isn’t exactly true.  “Street Fighter X Tekken” being the number 1 offender of that.  Literally locking away half of the games characters behind a pay wall.  Needless to say, that isn’t a game I remotely like, despite having my number one favorite Tekken and Street Fighter characters.

The next thing is, well…  Numbers, put simply.

Fighting games are very strict with numbers.  They cannot have any sort of lag as it directly effects the gameplay.  This isn’t true with shooters, third person or first.  So, you can have 10-16 players firing at each other in the same map.  They don’t have large movelists and usually have universal animations for shooting, reloading, etc.

Fighting games on the other hand, eat up system resources with their many different animations, attacks, attack properties sound effects, voice, etc.  Then, they also all, except one fighting game, which I do not play, run at 60 frames per second.  Action/adventure, and shooters?  Run at 30.

What this also means is that your console must be able to run the game at a speed far greater than 60 frames per second.  They’re computers, and sometimes, your data load will be heavier at specific times.  But, if the console is able to run the game at 75 frames without problems, and 62 frames when things get hectic, that means it will have no problem running everything at a locked 60 frames per second.

HDTVs.  They lag.  Standard def TVs?  They buzz but they don’t lag.  This particularly is true for older HDTVs.  I’m not quite on the same level as my friends.  I’m only better than perhaps two or three, and all the rest are better than me.  Not leagues and miles ahead, but still better, and they complain about lag during local play, but quite honestly, I don’t notice anything.  Maybe because I’ve been off SD for too long.

Why do they comeplain?  All attacks in fighting games are timed based around frames from their start up to their recovery.  A frame is a single still on your TV, and your TV flashes 60 frames at you each second to stimulate movement.  So, keeping in mind the game is running at 60 FPS (frames per second) if you have an attack that has a 10 frame start-up, it means that attack takes 1/6th of a second before it’s actively able to hit an opponent.  What this means is that if you are hit within those 10 start-up frames, your attack will be countered.

But, c’mon.  Lets be reasonable.  You cannot see and react to something coming at you at 10 frames, and then, even if you could, say react by the 3rd frame, which is impossible, mind you, your character must attack with a move that has at least a six frame start up, which in almost all cases,  will not have anything faster than eight or nine, depending on the game. If it has a seven frame start up, and you try to use that, you two will end up trading hits with each other because the attacks becomes active at the same time, unless one attack has a higher priority than the other, in which,  that attack will always win and there will be no trade.

And, this is where it gets fun.  No, you can’t see it coming, but, you can react to it.  How?  Predicting your enemy, or putting them in a situation to where they think it’s a good idea.

With a move-list, for example of 80 different attacks, how exactly do you predict what your enemy is going to do?

First, keep in mind, that some attacks are so slow, and have such a long start up, it make no logical sense to do them up close, unless your enemy is doing an attack with long start-up themselves.  But, if they’re being that foolish, you’ll have better options anyway.

Also, you want to keep in mind too that some attacks can only be done while crouching, or some attacks can only be done mid-air (2D games mostly) and some can only be done while rising from a crouch (Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Soul Calibur) while other attacks can only be done while side-stepping (3D games only).

So, by keeping in mind that each attack has it’s use, and using an attack improperly will set you up for failure, you don’t actually have to worry about the entire move-list of your enemy.  Just the attacks he or she is most probably going to do.

What you then do is, while you’re fighting, study your enemy and keep in mind, they are studying you.

Me and my friends, we play Tekken Tag 2.  Four players.  Now, there’s only two fighters actively fighting for a majority of the match.  That means one enemy I’m fighting, and the other is watching and waiting to come in.  So, because I know I’m being watched, I will use two different strategies.  If for example, I’m trying to mix things up, and using a specific pattern, if the pattern has a punch that can be side-stepped, I’m going to use that on the person that doesn’t side-step, and for the person that does, I will instead trade out that punch for a kick that tracks side-stepping enemies.

And, for some strange reason, it works every time.  Eventually, one would think, “Yeah, he’s doing that now, but when he tries it on me, he’s going to kick.”  Hasn’t happened yet, so I keep doing it.

Some strategies work on beginners, others work on good players or not.  And anyone Adept in fighting games will tell you to throw out any tactics that only work on beginners.  They’re useless and can lead to bad habit and will leave you confused.  Some strategies only work on the computer controlled enemies, while never working on even beginners too, just something to keep in mind.

Just what the hell am I talking about anyway?  I’m all over the place.

To sum things up.

1. Attacks in fighting games are based around frames, and individual properties.  Some attacks could be completely invincible on start up, which means they cannot be interrupted until they become active.  They may do double damage depending on your characters current action, and so on.

2. you have to study your enemy while you are fighting, unless you’re playing the same person over and over.  Now, this may or may not be a good thing.  If you’re playing against someone that is particularly bad, and tries to use bad strategies, you’re going to feel like that character you’re fighting against has somehow become a different, much better character than you’re used to, because someone who knows how to use them properly wont use any bad strategies.

I use Feng Wei as one of my four characters I use in Tekken.  Not my most favorite character, but he’s my best.  My friends and I play against one another frequently, and one of them went to a tournament two weeks ago.  And, in this tournament, he fought Feng Wei.  My friend is used to fighting against Feng Wei, and the one he fought in the tournament used some of the exact same strategies I did.

Now,  my friend analyzes the flaws in our strategies after we’ve all left.  This is why playing against beginners is so much different than playing skilled players.  You think one thing is coming, but a skilled player pulls out something different that stops your counter strategy dead in it’s tracks.

However, that isn’t what happened.  The guy at the tournament used the same strategy I did.  My friend was ready for it and punished him for it.  Sometimes, you only get one or two chances to try specific strategies in fighting games.  It’s a really bad feeling when someone puts up an iron wall over one of your strategies.  You have to do something different.  Something Smart.  Something effective.  And, if all you had was that one strategy for that particular situation, and you know it’s not going to work…  You’re going to freeze up.  You can try something anyway, pray it works, and improvise if you’re skilled enough too.

Freezing up, however is a bad thing.  It’s showing your enemy you don’t know what you should be doing.  So, then, your enemy can more-easily condition you to do what he wants you to do.  That gets really bad because now, you’ll start getting baited.  You take the bait, and throw out your 10 frame punch, which your enemy wanted you to do.

It’s going to go down hill from there….

But, just keep in mind, you don’t have to be still and confused for someone to try to bait you.   Most of the time, it’s to get a feel for how you play, and see how you react in relation to their actions.

I’ve lost every tournament I’ve ever entered, personally.  I’ve switched from characters I was winning with to characters I had no idea how to use, because they were new (Can’t in a million years tell you why I did that.)  Completely forgo strategies because I don’t know how they would specifically work on the enemy, and so on.

You have to be used to tournament situations, and that, I am not… I do stupid stuff that I normally wouldn’t.

But, hopefully, this has left some understanding.

Fighting games are about numbers, building a strategy based around your attacks, which each have specific, proper uses, and doing it in such a way that bests your opposition through the use of mind games, and deceiving their perception and expectation.

 

Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate (A Very Late Review)

Opening:

Me and my friends, we like fighting games.  Generally, during the weekends which we’re free, we get together and battle.  We all have our general game or games which we’re significantly more experienced than the others.  For me, that is limited to Marvel Vs. Capcom 1 & 2.  Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 left a very bad impression on me.

Anyway, for us, when we fight, it’s not a mindless button mash, or continually trying to set up that single combo we know that does the most damage.   Anyone who plays fighting games know that after trying the same set-up, continuously, is only going to hurt your offense and make you mind-numbingly repetitive.

When we fight, we’re trying to condition each other to do what we want.  Making your opponent guess and react incorrectly is the only way to win, unless you’re using a character with seriously unfair advantages.  Though, thankfully, most fighting games don’t have single characters that can annihilate anyone with no real effort.

As I said before, friends and I, we play fighters.  We enjoy them for the most part and even if we don’t we still participate most of the time.

Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate is my first Dead or Alive game I’ve ever owned, or played and it turned out to be a fantastic game, and I promise it’s because of the gameplay and not the certain visuals the game provides on its female cast of characters.

Controls:

The game features simple controls.  Punch, Kick, and Hold (Guard) much like Virtua Fighter.  There is also a throw button, but pressing punch and hold simultaneously registers as a throw, so it’s not required.

You may also, if you choose, hold back to block.

It, like any other 3D fighter is played using mostly close ranged combat with almost every character having a different fighting style.  3D fighters don’t have the vast array of lasers and projectiles and fireballs etc. that 2D games have.  So, your goal isn’t to control space or attack from long range, but to stay in your opponent’s face (generally) and keep them guessing.

Defensive Playstyle:

The unique thing with Dead or Alive, that makes it different from Virtua Fighter is that every character has universal counters (universal as in the command for the basic counters are the same from character to character).  So, if you’re predictable, you -will- get countered.

I honestly have bad habits.  When I fall on the ground, the first thing I do when I get up is kick.  I get countered for it, so what do I do next?  Sweep kick.  If one kick doesn’t work, do a different one, right?  Not if the other person predicts that’s what you’re going to do.

Counters in the game work like this:  You tap a direction and the guard button at the same time.  Forward for kicks.  Backward for punches.  Moreover, you press down-back for low punches, and down-forward for low-kicks and up-back for high jabs.

What this means is that there isn’t a single, simple option for countering attacks.  You have to actually know if there’s a punch or kick coming and rather or not it’s a high or low.  Countering incorrectly does leave you vulnerable, and if you are grabbed why in a counter animation, you will lose more health than normals.

It’s a very useful feature that forces you to play smart.  If you don’t know what’s coming, your best option is to guard.  However, like any fighting game, 99% of the time, you cannot guard against grabs or throws.

Another big difference from Virtua Fighter, (Keep in mind, I haven’t played Final Showdown for several months) I think you’re able to break grabs while you’re guarding.

However, in Dead or Alive 5, you cannot break a grab at all if your finger is on the guard button.  And, furthermore, unlike Tekken, you cannot use side-stepping to evade guards.  Your options are either to break the grab, or crouch under them.  Or, remain standing if it’s a crouch grab.

Of course, with me being late to DoA5, I’m going to have a rough time getting wins.  Over the weekend, me and a friend play around 35 matched, in which I only won a single three-round match.

But, it isn’t all about winning.  I like how intricate the game’s defensive options are.  It makes you think and if you mess up, you’re going to lose.

Offensive Play:

Moving over onto the offensive play style, it’s more or less like any 3D fighter, although timings on certain things like tapping grab at the same time your attack connects is a lot less strict than virtua fighter.  In fact, virtua fighter is not lenient at all when it comes to pressing things at the same time.  If you have to press grab at the same time of your kick lands, you have to do it at what seems to be the exact same time. So, if your kick has a 12 frame-start up, that’s all the time you have to press the throw button.

For me, I just avoid moves like that.  It takes around 20 tries for me to get it right, and there is no way I’m going to have perfect timing while having to consider everything else that’s going on in a match

However, DoA being more lenient, there’s nothing so strict that I cannot feasibly do in a an actual match.  Being able to do something in practice mode isn’t the same as finding the appropriate time to use it in an active match, with your enemy being active and defensive.

Continuing on with offensiveness, the combo system is closer to that of Tekken, and not virtual fighter.  There are weight classes like in Virtua Fighter, but you can get launched 20 feet into the air too, just like Tekken.  With me being so new to DoA, I’m not sure if there are any other delicate things about the combo system, other than how fast you fall, depending on your weight class, which means lighter characters can me much more easily comboed.  Tekken, in particular pushes back the attacked enemy with each hit in a combo.  So, doing too many hits in a combo is a bad thing.

Dead or Alive also has things like stagger escaping.  What this means is that you can recover quickly from certain moves that leave you stunned.  An opponent that fails to stagger escape can be hit with extended combos that shouldn’t normally work against someone who’s adept at the game.

There’s also attacks that resemble super attacks, which can only be done at half health, which can lead to the opponent being further damaged by stage hazards.

But, to put things simply, there’s a lot this game has to offer in both offensive and offensive play.  I’m simply not going to be able to get too detailed with each feature the game has or else I’d never finish this review.

Features:

One of my biggest gripes about the game is the fact that you cannot lock your commands on screen.  Tekken, for example, allows you to lock any particular move from the command list on the screen so you can see it while trying to perform it correctly.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 allows you to scroll through the movelist while having it locked on screen, showing one item listed at a time, so you can scroll at your leasure.  The only way to see the attack on screen in DoA5U is to go to command training.  But, as soon as you perform the move, it automatically scrolls to the next move in the list.

It makes things much more tedious to learn.

However, it, unlike Tekken provides full attack details.  For every fighting game, 2D and 3D, each attack has special attributes.  Information about their start-up, recovery, etc needs to be known to be effective.

For example.  If your jab is 11 frames, and the person you’re fighting against has 9 frame jabs, you cannot jab faster than your enemy.  It is numerically impossible.  What this means is that you have to do something else.  Either a counter the jab, block it, or move out of the way.  Or, if it’s a high punch as most jabs are in 3D games, you can crouch under it.

The game also features neat little options such as saving replay data and has a story mode.  But, honestly, the story was so dull and forgettable, I’m not going to bother making that into it’s own section.

Overall:

Before I close, I know I’m leaving out a lot of things, but, there’s only so much I can cover. The game features a hefty amount of characters, and four of which are guest stars from Sega’s Virtua Fighter.  From what I can tell, their commands have been left the same, so it’s not too much trouble to adapt from Virtua Fighter to DoA if you use one of those four characters.

The game also features nice looking stages.  There isn’t a single one of them that struck me as being so boring.  Some even have stage hazards which includes being punched or kicked through walls and floors and continuing the fight in a different area.  There are no ring outs in this game, however.

Voice acting, from what I could tell, was in most cases pretty bad.  Virtua Fighter’s low quality voice recordings are obvious in this game, which makes me wonder why those characters didn’t just get new voice dubs for this game.

But, rather the voices are set to English, or Japanese, they are equally as bad.  Some worse in Japanese, while others worse in English.  It’s a mixed bag and unlike Street Fighter IV, or Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, you cannot mix and match.  All characters will either speak English, or Japanese, except the Virtua Fighter characters in the game, who will speak their usual tongue.

The game does also feature an online mode, however, I’ve not yet been able to take the game online as of yet and will not be reviewing that part of the game.

At the end of the day, the game looks and plays great.  It’s easy to pick up and play, and features controls that are pretty simple.  As a whole, the game is complicated to master, but that is expected.

As great as it is, the major problems I have with it are the ridiculous amounts of Paid Downloadable Content featured in the game.  Costumes, costumes, and more costumes.  Much of the female characters (well, all of them) feature several sets of bikinis, some of them covering more skin than others and it is a bit much to charge 2 dollars for one costume, of 15 for a set.  There’s no point in paying for some of these items.  They don’t effect the game play, and to me, it’s foolish to pay so much for the sake of having multiple different sets.

This is the reason i waited for this game to go on sale before I touched it.

Based on this, and the other negative aspects of the game, it’s final score:

8.0/10

Definitely worth the price, as long as you don’t go to crazy with the DLCs at various prices.   Even at $40.00.  However, you can pick the bare game up right now in PSN, during a limited time sale for about 23 bucks, as featured in a previous blog post.

I’ll leave you with a gameplay from the weekend that was uploaded today specifically for this review.  It’s honestly nothing special.  I tried to avoid combos since I don’t know any and relied solely on mind games and mixing up limbs and high and lows to keep myself from being countered.

 

E3 2014 Begins!

E3 has begun this week.  Presentations varied much in how well they were able to capture my interest.  However, I will be making two blogs today.  The first of which will go into what I’m looking forward to, and the second, to discuss something particular about Mortal Kombat 10.

Before I continue, I will say that these games carry mature themes and are particularly violent.  Videos are not for the squeamish, or sensitive.  No first person shooters are on this list either, they’re all the same.

In no particular order, because I’m getting all the games on the list anyway:

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

(The music they choose for Metal Gear Trailers are always top notch.  Deserves a mention.)

I do not particularly know what’s going on.  Fans of the series remember the first game, released in 1998, took place in 2005.  Metal Gear Solid V is not a sequel to Metal Gear Solid 4.  MGS4, took place in 2014, while being released in 2008, and MGSV, if I remember correctly takes place in the 1980’s.

I’m a little confused.  We see an incomplete Metal Gear Rex in the trailer. Which, I believe was a prototype in the original Metal Gear Solid game, so, it’s confusing to me to see it here, 20 years before the eventual completion of the first prototype.

We also see what appears to be big shell, which was in Metal Gear Solid 2.  It may not be big shell, but, it obviously does look like it. Perhaps in the 90’s and early 2000’s, it’s expanded.

I just don’t know what’s going on here, but, I’m excited for the game.  I’ve played 1,2, and 4 of the Metal Gear Solid series, and none of the older metal gear games that came out prior to the playstation.  I skipped the others because I don’t like going backwards in time, (with MGS3 taking place before MGS1).  MGSV is doing that too, I know, but, I’ll make an exception this time.

MGS is such a hard story to follow.  I remember some points about the series, but, there’s just so much to keep up with.  Not that it’s a bad thing by any means, though.

Side note:  Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeros (the first short chapter of MGSV) is on sale this week via the PlayStation Network.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/06/09/best-of-e3-2013-sale-20-games-on-sale-starting-tomorrow/

 

Mortal Kombat X

(Seems like Scorpion has learned Psycho Crusher, for all you Street Fighter Fans.  Just don’t ask to hold back to block.)

The 10th game in the Mortal Kombat series.  But, it’s being called “Mortal Kombat Ex” excuse my mistake from my post last week, I guess Ed and the gang thought “ex” sounded cooler than 10.

We see three new characters in the trailer, which is running on PS4 (slighly not impressed by the graphical output, but, as a fighting game fan, the fight-mechanics themselves are more important than anything else in the game.)

As of this post, none of these characters have been named.  One looks similar to Chang and Choi from King of Fighters, while the other looks like Blackarachnia from Transformers: Beast Wars.

The characters themselves look great.  They’re not quite like the old batch of characters who were in my opinion very dull in their appearances, and just plain forgettable.  Hopefully, we’ll never see characters like Kobra, Mokap, or Meat ever again.

Glad to see the goofy, and silliness of Mortal Kombat be traded out for a more-serious, darker tone.  Already interested, as Sub-Zero’s my favorite, and I tend to usually gravitate towards the new characters.  Enjoyed using Skarlet in the last game despite her odd play-style that I couldn’t get into at first, however, I absolutely hated Cyber-Sub-Zero.

However, all three of the new characters shown so far, I like, and I tend to only use about 4-5 characters in any fighting game, so it’s going to be interesting when I get my hands on the game.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

(I’m getting a “someone’s going to die at the end of the game” vibe from the video, and I’m guessing Sully.)

The title leaves the option for the series to close out on a high note.  However, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the end.  The sequel could just as easily be called, “Uncharted 5: A Hero’s Beginning.”  Though, even still, they probably implied an end of the series for a reason.

I knew from the moment I heard the music playing during the black screen what game this was going to be…  Then, the naughty dog logo popped up.  We all knew at that point.  There’s not much to show, other than the graphics, and somewhat of a setting, and a flashback(?) of a conversation he had with Sully.

We see that it has been some years.  Nate, obviously has aged a little, and seemed to live a normal life, until being thrown back into a world of treasure hunting and killing.

The trailer also opens with a ring on Nate’s finger.  Most of us assume it’s Elaina, but, perhaps due to some twist in the story, it could even be Chloe for all we know.

 

The Last of Us: Remastered Edition

(Not understanding the spoiler alert.  I didn’t really catch anything story-wise that was too specific.)

The game looks great.  I skipped the PS3 edition, and glad I did.  This edition of the game is being seriously tweaked for PS4, as we’ve been told, and wont be a simple graphical increase.  The opening, shows Joel clinging his daughter who had just been shot, by a guard who was told by higher-ups there were enough survivors at the camp. (yeah, spoilers, I know, but, she dies so early in the game anyway.) The game itself looks amazing.  I’m sure they planned to release a remastered edition on PS4 when the game was initially worked on.  That way, they’d have the assets they needed to make a PS4 version stand out from a the PS3 game.

Now, with every game on my list, keep in mind that each and every single one is choreographed every animation in each of these games are captured by actors playing parts in a studio.  It’s different from movies, in a sense that you can take everyone’s best performances, after many re-shoots, and mesh them together for a more defining performance, without everyone needing to be 100% on cue at once.

It’s also a lot easier on animators, because to animate certain things can take hours, meanwhile, an actor can act out the same movement in a few seconds, giving a more defined, and less robotic appearance to the motions.  An animator wont be able to animate a 3D figure as accurately as an actual person doing the movements.

Voice capture is another important thing caught by the performances.  Think about people reading from a script.  You dont know the environment you’re in, you don’t know how far away the other person is, and reading a script just doesn’t sound natural.  It only makes playing older action/adventure styled game hard, because the roles just aren’t convincing.

But, you get these actors together.  Show them mock-ups of the area they’re supposed to be in, and use props, they know where they’re supposed to be and how to appropriately project their voices, it makes the entire experience better.

All the games here are releasing 2015 at the soonest.  However, I’ve just remembered MGSV specifically said “COMING 1984”  Better start calling around to see who has it in stock.  Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were releasing 2016.

Finally, honorable mentions, that I’m probably not going to get are:

Grand Theft Auto V (PS4 version)

Batman: Arkham Knight

Nothing wrong with these two games, they’re just not that high on the list.

Feel free to come on back.  Will be writing more about E3 as it continues this week.  And, while you’re here, as a thanks for stopping by, I’d like to give you something.  A free lead generating system, which you may have here.

As for the next post.  The dreaded block button in Mortal Kombat X.  I want to talk about it.