ox1973

The first time Street Fighter entered my consciousness was a chance encounter with the original Street Fighter cab in an arcade in London. Can't remember exactly where, probably one of the many arcades around Leicester Square/Piccadilly Circus at that time. It was the early version that had 2 large rubber, pneumatic buttons (one for punch and one for kick) - the harder you 'punched' the buttons the stronger the punch/kick. Later revisions had the now familiar 6 button layout. I had never seen anything like it before so played a few games, before moving on and forgetting about it completely (anyone that has played it knows that it doesn't hold a candle to SFII). Roll forward 4 years and SFII has exploded into the arcades and is literally everywhere. One of the most popular cabs in any arcade and one of the few you need to 'stick your money down' in order to join the queue to play. But for me the journey didn't really start until I joined university a year or so later. First week of term, grant cheque burning a hole in my pocket (yes, old enough to get a grant, lucky bastard) and I roll past an electronics shop on the walk back to halls. In the window - a SNES SFII edition - how could I resist. The amount of time I (and my friends) spent playing SFII over the next few years is obscene. Only Super Mario Kart came close. It's stood the test of time and the main reason for that is the balance I think. Everything is just perfect, blow and counter blow. To watch 2 skilled players going toe to toe is a thing of beauty. Definitely up there for me, in my top 5 games of all time.

Just watched this now and my goodness the mediocrity was off the scale. I don't have a PS5 but it wouldn't have taken much to push me over the edge - a Bloodborne remake alone would probably have done it. No chance with that line-up. And that new Sony handheld. From the PSP and the Vita to that. How the mighty have fallen.

I have found Nimrod usable in a Galactus deck as a plan B (Nimrod + Destroyer). An interesting but niche card - maybe more options will open up in future.

This season's drops to Series 3 are Knull, Silver Surfer, Darkhawk and Sentry. Some very solid cards there. If you really want one you can pin it in the shop and when it drops to series 3 you can pick it up for 1,000 tokens.

Nebula seems like she will fit in most decks. Very strong card I would say and a nerf almost certain down the line. Anyone seeing lots of Galactus out there at the moment? Seems like I am forced to kneel before him every other game at the moment.

I run 3 different deck types for a bit of variety (my main deck is Modok Discard but I also have a Thanos Lockjaw deck and a Junk deck). I do not play the same or similar opponents when switching decks.... Highly anecdotal but I think opponent deck 'type' definitely forms part of the matchmaking algortihm.

Basically, yes, your character carries over from BG1 to BG2.

Hmmm. There are a few on my list: Double Dragon. The elbow is a cheat code but the bridge jump puts me off a bit. Final Fight. Pretty straightforward once you learn the levels. Street Fighter II Champion Edition. Ken or Blanka. No drama. R-Type. All good as long as I don't die on level 7. Bank Panic. Can't really clear this one though. I can play for a looonngg time though. Maybe they would get bored and let me go. Would probably go for Track & Field. Pretty easy to clear both loops. If we're talking computers as well then it's ZX Spectrum - Manic Miner. I can play that game indefinitely - it's hard wired into my soul. Loop after loop after loop. I once played it for around 5 hours straight before pulling the plug (don't ask me why - I don't know).

There are some really good cards dropping to series 3 next week as well: Bast Valkerie Black Panther Super Skrull Shuri Shuri the obvious choice at the moment given the meta, but with a (likely) heavy nerf incoming probably best to wait a bit and see how that plays out before deciding.

Guilty as charged 🤣 It was a real observation about playing the same people over and over again though, and it's still happening (brag) even after reaching infinite (end brag). The matchmaking algorithm prioritising speed of game start over variety I guess.

Seems like I'm playing the same people over again and again. There are seemingly about half a dozen of us stuck in the mid 90s on the hell climb to infinite. I would suspect bots but they use emotes and play a pretty solid game so probably not. Anyone else with the same experience?

Scarlet Witch is invaluable for this kind of terrible location.

Yeah, don't do it mate. I posted in here already about my regret in doing similar (which is very unusual for me - no other regrets for similar spring cleans of the gaming collection). You'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.

Defintiely Patriot. I don't have the card yet but the patriot/mystique combo has done me over plenty. Made it to infinite with a discard deck. Strangely seemed to get easier once I got past the road block in the mid 80s. Discard is not particularly meta but it's good enough, as long as you play the percentages. I'm at collection level 1500 (about halfway through series 3 in terms of cards) and have already pulled two series 4 cards - Silver Surfer and Knull. I'm assuming that is pretty lucky? Surfer I'm not sure I can use but Knull seems like an interesting card.

I read that the token shop is changing soon so that everyone not series 3 complete (including me, I'm 40 odd cards short) will get a free series 3 card every month, with the shop then being for series 4/5 only. So if there's a series 3 card you want, now is the time to buy!

Making good progress this season until I hit 85. Since then it's been a slog, one step forwards, one step backwards, playing a lot of games but treading water. It's very rare that any game goes the distance - everyone bails (including me) rather than risk losing cubes. There's very little variety as well, mostly Thanos and Shuri Red Skull decks with the odd Galactus thrown in every now and then. I've got a functional discard deck but it gets stomped by Thanos and Shuri pretty much every time, although Galactus you can see coming a mile off so that's pretty easy to counter.

One other demo that stands out is the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo disc that came with Zone of the Enders on PS2. It was one of the main reasons that I bought the game. I think I ended up liking the ZoE games more (Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars is a forgotten masterpiece) but still, it was a big deal to get such a high profile and content rich demo at the time.

Picketts Lock (now Lea Valley Leisure Complex)? They had a few decent cabs there - Salamander was another favourite.

Silent Hill P.T. Still have this lurking on my old PS3. If ever there was a test of concept that deserved to be developed further it was this.

A long time ago I used to get the train to school and next to the train station was a cab office with an R-Type cab (an original cab rather than a generic one). I played it pretty much every day (only one game a day for 10p as my resources were unsurprisingly limited) for years and as you might expect I got pretty good. I eventually got to the point where I could clear it pretty much at will. Once you have everything committed to muscle memory the only really sticky point is the stage 7 re-start point - if you die on stage 7 good luck recovering. The years have not been kind to my reflexes but I can still clear it. It's a game that rewards persistence. Every time you play you get a little bit better, you remember a little bit more, you get a little further. Most SHMUPs have that feedback loop I guess. Anyway, long story short, if I were doing a desert island discs video game edition it would be my top choice.

The Playstation State of Play trailer was shite but the game itself is promising (early access loser here). I'm hopeful we'll get a decent D&D tactics game when it's released.

This game is bang average as far as I'm concerned. Haven't posted in here to date as the thread is a toxic mess and won't be posting in here again.

No PS5 yet and this hasn't changed my mind. Can't remember being less whelmed by a big promo.

OH MY WORD! Cybernator remastered by M2 - the stuff that dreams are made of.

Agree. The one thing I hated about Awakening more than anything else was the 'optional' levelling up battles. It completely screws up the progression through the game when you can just out level any problem that comes up. I wasn't crazy about the introduction of DLC for the first time either now I think about it.