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Ultra Street Fighter IV

JLM

By JLM
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joeplus

joeplus

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That's exciting Haggar, do tell!

Bit shitty that I was unable to connect to yourself, Curtis or qazi this evening, sorry guys. Despite that, I had one of the most fun evenings of SF I've had in ages. Nuskool saved the day lobby-wise, pretty much every match was close whether mains or random. It included a hilarious failed timer-scam Ultra (mate, I honestly didn't realise that was what you were trying to do until I looked at the clock - if I'd chosen a punish with one frame more startup I think you would have had that!).

Ranked was fun because I decided to try my hand with Gief. The main thing I learned is that I am terrible at 360s outside of training mode, but I got three or four wins, all of them in incredibly scrubbish, trollish fashion. I was literally giggling at how horrible and flukey I was being. Then I got double-perfected by a Viper because I had absolutely no idea how to get in and she just did Seismos. Karma.

Pleasingly, though, I was absolutely on fire with Rose. Two games against an Akuma player where he kept getting a life lead, but every time I kept calm while he panicked and I took both games. Same story against a Swedish Vega man, three wins, good comebacks and somehow all my EX Soul Throw reads landed, including one that caught his overhead. Also finished off a Balrog with cr.hp x Super on his wakeup because I just had a feeling it would land.

Blowing my own trumpet there, but I don't get the chance to that much :P

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nuskool

nuskool

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Nuskool saved the day lobby-wise, pretty much every match was close whether mains or random. It included a hilarious failed timer-scam Ultra (mate, I honestly didn't realise that was what you were trying to do until I looked at the clock - if I'd chosen a punish with one frame more startup I think you would have had that!).

What a great night of fighting. I started off in ranked, managing to beat several 6000+ BP players (which is good for me!)... got my PP to my highest ever... then I got a 9000+BP Ken who won quite easily (everything Ken has again mt Ryu appears to beat it) and decide to rub things in by calling me a flowchart player :( Next was a quite high ranked Boxer which was closer but he still won.

Next came the fun with Joe... finally great to be able to connect (I've recently changed my router setup so that might be the reason). The Rose/Ryu fights were fun and I couldn't stop laughing at my timer scam. I thought I'd been so clever and it had won me the match only to see the animation finish with like 2 seconds left... D'oh. Next we did a few random games... well I say that but I thought Joe hadn't got the msg and still went with Rose but that was actually the random pick! I got Hawk and I actually know none of his moves. Annoyingly I got him again a couple of matches later and still didn't know any of his moves!

What a fun night. Apologies to, I think, Plopboy for not joining your lobby it was whilst I was in games with Joe.

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ah

ah

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I think the videos of me vs Nate just totally fried my other computer :-(

Treacherous. Alistarr, can I count on you to play Kentucky Route Zero?

Your last story-driven point and click recommendation didn't work out so I'm feeling wary here - especially after the whole Frog Fractions thing as well. Maybe if To The Moon turns out okay I'll be able to start rebuilding our bond of trust and give it some consideration.

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imp

imp

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I think the videos of me vs Nate just totally fried my other computer :-(

Your last story-driven point and click recommendation didn't work out so I'm feeling wary here - especially after the whole Frog Fractions thing as well. Maybe if To The Moon turns out okay I'll be able to start rebuilding our bond of trust and give it some consideration.

I haven't played To The Moon, yet. Well, only 45 minutes. And wait, you didn't like Frog Fractions?!?

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JLM

JLM

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I watched quite a lot of the Apex 2012 stream when I got home last night.

The fighting games part of it is streaming here: http://www.twitch.tv/bifuteki

Day 1 stuff:

There were some irritating stream issues, like ads being played right in the middle of matches and all of Sanford's matches being played off stream, including his match against Wolfkrone. Amusingly though, Ultradavid and his co-commentator tried to guess Sanford's results throughout the day by his facial expression, and every time they concluded that he looked really salty and unapproachable only to find out that he'd won. What a grumpy man.

Ultradavid also spent some time complaining about Ibuki and Viper taking a lot of the good mind games out of the game and it was music to my ears.

Lots of good matches and upsets on the way to top 16. It was especially cool to see MMS Native at a tournament, and his match against Wolfkrone was really impressive. Unfortunately he got matched up against DemonHyo and ended up going out off stream. He counter picked Blanka with Hakan, but I agree with Ultradavid that that match up isn't the win for Hakan people initially thought it was. I don't think how well a character punishes Blanka balls should be the sole measure of how that match up goes any more. If they can't do anything at all then it's harder, but if they have a really solid punish for it then Blanka can do loads of other things instead. Hakan has terrible answers to Blanka gimmicks, he loses badly in footsies and Blanka is good at escaping grappler vortex stuff.

Meteo's Vega beat Dieminion off stream in a huge upset, then Dieminion lost to Gridman's Viper so ended up going out before top 8. Wolfkrone and FChamp also failed to make top 8.

Jeron Grayson's Bison and LuckyD's Dhalsim had a good match, but Jeron's day was mostly notable for another match where he hit his light kick button so hard that it caved in and fell into the stick. I didn't know you could even do that to a T.E., but it would be a Bison player that did it first.

Lionheart's gamble Sagat was impressive too. He is willing to meaty kara uppercut your wake up, and he is willing to do meterless uppercuts at all the times you wouldn't expect it. It isn't brainless though, and he's great at teaching you to sit still and then getting free throws. He'll also do stuff like uppercut on his first wake up, run up to you and then block your angry retaliation reversal because he knows you'll do it. Calculated risks for the most part, and his success rate on the kara uppercut to catch people's wake up was close to 100%. He ended up beating FChamp (who is excellent at Sim vs Sagat) and Gridman (which is a terrible match up for Sagat) to make top 8, so his style is effective even if he's not BonChan.

Blue9's excellent Abel and Juri were as impressive as usual, though his Abel got thoroghly dismantled by Arturo's Rose. Horrible match up for Abel, but it was still an absolute beasting.

Top 8 looks like this:

KBrad (Cammy) vs Demon Hyo (Blanka). This is the bracket paying Hyo back for getting Blanka vs Hawk earlier I suppose.

Jeron Grayson/EMP Hiro (Bison) vs DMG Lionheart (Sagat)

Blue9 (Abel/Juri) vs ChrisG (Sakura)

Meteo (Vega) vs Arturo Sanchez (Dhalsim/Rose)

Pleased to see Arturo in top 8, and I like that line up generally, should be some great games on Sunday.

Arturo is doing a great job of uploading big matches that didn't make the stream too.

Arturo vs Sanford:

Wolfkrone vs Sanford:

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ah

ah

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I haven't played To The Moon, yet. Well, only 45 minutes. And wait, you didn't like Frog Fractions?!?

I'm pretty sure I only got it because you mentioned it, though, so I'm counting it as a recommendation!

Frog Fractions lost me towards the end, and when it was over I felt a bit grumpy I'd spent the only hour I had that evening playing it. I did like the bit at the very start and the bit about the boxing though.

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joffocakes

joffocakes

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I didn't really get Frog Fractions either. I played it for a while until I kept dying and accidentally right-clicking on the track pad. I did like Walking Dead, but then I didn't even get around to finishing the first episode. It probably helps that I was fresh out of playing 999 on the DS, so I wasn't too bothered about playing something with very little actual game in it. I think Kentucky Route Chicken looks beautiful as well, so I'll probably consider that. I've yet to play through Monkey Island 2's HD remake, despite eagerly waiting around on Live Arcade to buy it the minute it appeared. I'm interested in the Developer Commentary as I enjoyed playing with that in Portal.

I went Danning in ranked yesterday afternoon and got three separate wordless requests for salty runbacks. I'm still a B of shame, but slightly less shame now.

Also, Samuel, apologies for ignoring your invite, but that was actually the lady on the xbox, watching Daria on Netflix. I was in bed ill for 30 hours.

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ah

ah

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Oh man, I apologise. The boxing part pretty much earnt my undying love though. Also all of it, actually. :(

Haha, don't worry - I think it's good to try new things occasionally. I'm going to try that Spec Ops game once you've knocked me out of this tournament for the second time. And To The Moon of course.

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imp

imp

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I didn't really get Frog Fractions either. I played it for a while until I kept dying and accidentally right-clicking on the track pad.

From the sounds of it, I guess you didn't get very far?

once you get the turtle, try using WASD to explore...

@listarr, I just started Spec Ops the line a moment ago, just to see how it runs. It's surprisingly pretty in its own way. It's like there's an instagram filter over the whole thing. It's pretty weird.

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JLM

JLM

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Dear Dr. JLM,

Please can you explain to me why Rose / Abel is a bad matchup for Abel.

Yours,

Beardy

I'l preface this by saying that it's only my opinion, based on matches I've seen, my experience playing Rose against very capable Abel players and bits and pieces I know about both characters. It's 5-5 on a lot of tier lists, but both Rose and Abel players who disagree with that tend to put it at 6-4 Rose.

Reasons:

1) Rose has much better footsies and can apply very safe pressure in the mid range game to frustrate him.

2) Rose has an absurdly good back dash, and although good Abel players will have back dash punishes, having one as good as Rose's is still a big nuisance for him.

3) Rose has a stong throw game and above average damage on her throws. Players who know the Abel match up well will often option select a throw when pressuring him to punish him for attempting to escape with a roll because the roll is not throw invincible. Rose can do this more effectively than a lot of the cast.

4) Rose's close standing medium kick is throw invincible. This one is the key for me. Abel's panic button under pressure is EX Tornado Throw, and most characters have to be wary of it when pressuring him, throwing in neutral jumps and back dashes to try and bait it.The problem there is that one of the biggest strengths a top Abel player should have is punishing people for neutral jumping, so it's far from foolproof. If he anti-airs your neutral jump with standing fierce cancelled into roll then you get reset and are essentially in the Abel vortex even without being grabbed. However, Rose has a close range pressure button that can't be tornado thrown, so she can bully him on his wake up and take liberties with her pressure in a way that few other characters can. It's the same reason Rufus doing double dive kick is an absolute nightmare for him, because you can't be thrown but you're not commited to the air to be knocked out of it. He can go for EX change of direction instead, but he needs to spend a further two bars for that to be a serious threat, whereas EX TT is a big threat with just one.

This match is an example of Kozakura's excellent Rose taking advantage of the aforementioned safe pressure, strong mid range game, throw/frame trap game, frustrating back dash and liberal use of close standing MK:

1:29 for a particularly good example of a set up that beats EX TT with close standing MK.

The flipside of this is that Rose has EX soul spiral as her only reversal and it's really not very good and quite punishable on block. If Abel gets a good vortex going and she doesn't have a lot of meter then he can kill her very quickly and she doesn't have an uppercut or decent "get off me" move so she has to just sit and eat a lot of his pressure. I can totally see why some see it as 5-5 for that reason and I've seen plenty of matches where Abel mauls her to bits, but it's easy to say that any vortex character has a bunch of 5-5 match ups because if they get it going they can win. I just think she has good counters to most of his strongest tools, she can harass him and pressure him to death and if she can make it almost impossible for him to get his usual nonsense started.

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Qazimod

Qazimod

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The worst thing about Abel is that I still end up accidentally doing his air grab when I try and do COD. It hurts even more when I'm using meter :(

Started collecting a few clips for my List of Things that Juri's Counter can Escape From but I stupidly forgot to mute the cheesy training stage techno so there won't be any custom soundtrack...

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Spuck

Spuck

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I landed FOUR Siberian Blizzards in a 3 round match today. Consider Russian skies well and truly goddamned protected :D

Starting to figure out Cammy as well, she's the worst thing that can happen to Juri, ever, it's glorious.

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JLM

JLM

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Just spent the afternoon at the weekly casuals session in Leeds. Got some good games in, though there was a shortage of set ups as a number of people who usually bring an Xbox and monitor didn't show up. Ended up having one Marvel set up and one AE set up between ten people, but everyone was nice and polite and tried not to stay on for too long. My Chun went undefeated, but I also threw in a bit of Guy, Oni, Juri, Gouken and Zangief for variety. There are a few others there who dabble in most of the cast, which is always fun. There are also three Balrog mains and two Hondas, so I think I'll level up my anti-Balrog game if I keep going. Offline games with an audience are the best way to play this game of course, so I'll be going back next time when they'll hopefully have more set ups and I can play some longer sets against people. A couple of the players there are really good, so it should help me raise my game.

My personal AE highlight was busting out that Gouken reset I've already done against all of you fine folks, and also generally getting props for my play and having people ask to play me. Sweet, sweet approval is what I crave. The overall highlight was probably a guy playing Ryu baiting a wake up ultra 1 out of Gouken, and being so sure that he'd do it that he did a neutral jump EX tatsu for Gouken to fly into and end the round. There was also a Balrog vs Honda match that featured a frankly ludicrous number of successful Balrog overheads, including overhead reset into overhead for the dizzy, then another reset into overhead for the win when a regular combo would have killed. Good stuff.

I was too scared to play Marvel. The standard seems really good and I don't want to waste their time stinking up the place when they have limited set ups. Patronsaint should totally go though.

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