Ultra Street Fighter IV

[mayor_mike_haggar]

I might play this for a bit tonight if anyone wants some free wins off me. I'm currently running on about 3 hours sleep, so my brain is idling somewhere between neutral and reverse. I basically just sleepwalked through a foul client meeting. If I go home and have a nap I'll just foul things up even more, so it's your duty to keep me awake.

Why must all life be suffering.

[Camel]

Hmm I've just looked up TTT2 DLC and weirdly, Boskonovitch and the other two DLC characters were already selectable when I played it.

EDIT: actually, there was an update when I first fired it up so maybe that unlocks them. I'll get sliding ASAP.

[joffocakes]

Yeah, they were free DLC from an update so that'll be it. I bet it's an excellent game. It certainly felt like an excellent game.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

Yes. I've still never played TTTT(2) online, because I have a very specific and gnawing terror about playing a game online against other humans before I have reached a certain level of competence, so this puts me off playing online, but this also serves to keep my levels of competence low enough that I eventually stop playing the game because I'm too gnawingly terrified to go online, basically marooning me in a vicious cycle/negative feedback loop of which I am only too well aware, but am powerless to do anything about.

[Caz-chan]

You must, but I send enough subtle hints over Twitter anyway... maybe I should wait for the next time SFIV's in a Steam sale

Yeah I will do eventually, just had other things to attend to first. Once we are all sorted we can pick up a second hand 360 and PS3 and I can have my arse handed to me online

[ah]

I rushed home early from work to try and catch some afternoon fighter only to discover that early doesn't mean the same thing to my current job as it means to the rest of the world. I will hopefully catch some mid-evening fightings with at least one of you fine people, though...

I bought VF5:FS so will hopefully find someone to beat me at that at some point, too - if only to justify the ten minutes I just spent freeing up space on my 20GB 13GB hard drive.

[JLM]

I have it. I play Eileen a bit. I believe they've patched in an option to skip the lobby countdown since last time I played it, which is good because that thing was super annoying.

[ah]

I looked at the character select screen, and then I looked at someone's list of how difficult the characters are to use, and I looked back at the character select screen and saw that the two I liked the look of were up there at the top of the difficult list.

So either I will give up and just pick the guy who looks a bit like Ken instead (who I think I did a bunch of trials with in the, aha, the trial version last year) or I will man up and learn both the drunken master guy and Akira.

[JLM]

Have you ceased fightings for the day Allystah? I am going to attempt some fightings now.

EDIT: Bah, no go. Too many people using it tonight, and I don't like kicking people off when they're actually using it for things other than leaving downloads running. Daytime/late afternoon fighter is probably more viable if you have an odd day off.

On the plus side, I just went into training mode in VF5 and I still have a few combos that haven't been rusted away.

[ah]

C...combos?

I have only one afternoon off in the forseeable future and I'm using it for a funeral :-(

I may have to come back to Leeds to get some fightings at this rate.

[Lyrical Donut]

Today I received a mysterious package from Edinburgh for my part in the scam to get Jiro's Kojima party bumpin' free copy of MGR:R.

That poster was a bitch to prise from the tube! So much so that I had to engage in Stanley Blade Mode in order to get it out. It was worth it though; it's all Three Dee and sheeit. Also pictured is a large t-shirt, wristband thing, a KojiPro pin and a MGR:R branded elephant condom.

I was slightly dismayed to discover no handwritten rage mail in the tube, but he uses Blanka, so it's alright really.

Koji-Jirotat!

Is this game £20 anywhere yet? It's been out for at least 2 weeks already!

[Nate Dogg III]

It's Konami, not Sega! You'll have to wait a month or so.

It's the most disappointing game I've played this year, and I've played the new God Of War.

[Lyrical Donut]

Oh . I've never given a single shit about the GoW games. I had a long session with the combat designer from GoW1 on HD Remix once. He's pretty fucking good at Streetfighter.

I've actually got Bayonetta and Vanquish in a box somewhere, barely played. I bought them at full price at launch and everything! Probably should get round to those I guess.

[Plopboy]

It's Konami, not Sega! You'll have to wait a month or so.

It's the most disappointing game I've played this year, and I've played the new God Of War.

I really liked it in a love hate sort of way. It took me until the final boss to really get the hang of it and yes it has all sorts of annoyances but ultimately when it clicks it is an awesome feeling. I would say the VR missions are really good, especially the new DLC ones.

[Nate Dogg III]

Well I expected more of it than GOW, in fairness, and a disappointing Platinum game is still better than most other games. I just expected more.

[joeplus]

>start up SSFIV AE for the first time in a while

>online mode

>endless battle, let's brush off Rose

>create 2-player lobby

>Jasonc85

>mfw

No seriously that was fun. My excuse is that I can't anti-air when I'm drunk, Sensei J, I will work on the crossups too. *hic*

[JLM]

They were some very tense games! Your Rose felt stronger than last time I played you, but yeah, I was getting away with far too many jumps when she has such a good button for it. Sorry for invading your lobby but my last few lobbies with randomers haven't been a lot of fun so it was nice to see a friendly 'mukker online.

GGs to Donut also; haven't had a nice long run of games against you for a while and it was lots of fun. It was especially fun learning the Oni/Makoto match up as I went along. Felt like I had quite a good handle on it by the end of the session. I was disappointed that I didn't get to land the new thing I've added to my repertoire in any of those games, but I'm pleased with my Oni generally. I played a bunch of offline Oni mirrors against the player who knocked me out of the last SFO tournament and it's helped a lot.

[Lyrical Donut]

Yeah, that's a pretty sweet Oni you have there. I was scared to go in too hard because of all of those horrible pokes he has, not to mention that uppercut. Kept getting caught by all of those hurricane kicks, too... I assume they were option selects?

I mashed Ultra 1 through a blockstring too. I'm so legit! It's probably the only thing you can mash with her to punish sloppy buttons.

Oh, and Oni's b.HK definitely has one of the most ridiculous hitboxes ever.

[JLM]

Ha, yeah, starting to use standing MK and standing roundhouse to cover both forward dashes and focus attacks was the turning point. His cr. MK and sweep are too sluggish and too much of a commitment when Makoto can do low axe kicks or focus dash through them so I had to switch it up. I liked that in one game I did it three times in a row to stop forward dashes, only to eat dash up karakusa - > ultra when I thought three would be enough, so a couple of games later there was that sequence where I did it five times in a row and you stubbornly dashed into all of them. Long sets of the same match are the best sets. I also liked how the situation after you landing Mak's forward throw kept changing as the games went on. Both do nothing, you throw out a cr. MP and I uppercut it, you don't throw out the cr. mp and I whiff an uppercut, I do nothing and you get free pressure, you back dash and I roundhouse tatsu, I focus the cr. mp, you do towards + fierce to blow up my focus, you do towards + fierce and I back dash to punish it with raw ultra 2. I don't think the same thing happened twice in a row at any point.

The hurricane kicks were just reads, When you don't have ultra or meter for EX Oroshi I'd just throw them out on your wake up in case you did back dash or focus back dash. Same as after a blocked level 2 focus because you like to back dash in that situation. When you had meter I tried to bait out EX karakusa or go for a throw to beat EX Karakusa/EX Oroshi. When you had ultra I went for safe pressure/no pressure. I decided that rather than trying to convince you to stop doing wake up things I'd just expect one of them, make a guess and try to bait/punish/stuff it accordingly because Makoto's wake up things are all big risky guesses. I got hit by very very few wake up things as a result, so when I did lose rounds it was because I hadn't stayed active enough in challenging your mid/close range game or because I couldn't resist the urge to jump in, eat a fukiage and then a huge chunk of damage that came with it. Oh, and on some occasions you engaged Donut beast mode and mauled me because your Makoto offense is still absurdly good when you get momentum. I liked the V-Ryu ambiguous whiffed dived kick shenanigans in particular. Oh, and empty jump low short into EX Hayate into corner things always gets me because it tends to come late in a sequence of fast and explosive pressure and it'll hit just at the point where I've totally cracked and am trying to neutral jump out of it.

Oh, and leaving on that match where I did my most foolish move of the game and went for a suicidal empty jump ultra only for it to out-invincible your counter ultra was quite the dick move wasn't it. You picked Guile in the first game though, so it evens out. Also that game where you played Dee Jay and I blocked a safe slide and then pressed a button was a heart stopping moment. I don't think I'll ever, ever learn.

[jiroczech]

@Donut - yeah I wanted to write you rage mail but in the end I'd spent so long getting the damn posters into the tubes that I didn't get round to it. I have your address now though...

I thought MGR:R was great - especially considering Platinum took over development and turned it round in a year. Not as good as Vanquish but.

When did Xboxes start switching themselves off? Was that part of the update? I spent most of last night not playing Darkstalkers 3, with it sitting on pause and I came through a couple of times to find an alert saying my Xbox was about to shut down. I like the challenges in DS3 - the text that accompanies them is really good, some genuinely sound advice and the challenges themselves are quite well thought out. Like Joffles has discussed previously there's so much opportunity for fighting games to have fantastic in-game training/tutorial tools and yet none of them have really nailed it.

[Camel]

Yeah I've noticed that with my 360 lately too, Jiro. I hope there is an option to turn it off.

I downloaded the DS demo with no intention of buying it because I have so many unplayed games, but it seems lovely and despite owning the DS Anthology on PS2 I will probably buy it soon. Scan line option looked horrible for some reason though.

[geldra]

How the eff do you do Morrigan's super? In air lp,lp,->lk,hk. Can't do it at all.

Wish you could turn on the input display for the challenge demos.

[jiroczech]

I had trouble with a move like that - they look like they should be a Raging Demon input. One that got me was kung-fu wolfman's cr.LK, MP -> LK, MK but I had no idea on the timing once you hit forwards.

Also had trouble with Felicia's cr.LP, cr.MP xx QCF - cancelling the cr.MP into a fireball motion wasn't happening for me after the LP. Hmm! Just had a thought, it's probably something to do with chains and links, could I be chaining when I should be linking? Street Fighter!

[geldra]

I have no idea about chains n' links but i did notice that the inputs for qcf etc are far stricter than SF4, may be that?

[mayor_mike_haggar]

Aha, I think I've finally had the 'don't push buttons after donut's dee jay slides' thing rammed into my head. so much so that I never try to punish unsafe slides, even when he doesn't have super/ultra stocked.

Instead of playing street fighter last night I slept for 13 hours instead. Today is the most wonderful and amazing day of my life.

[Lyrical Donut]

Oh, and leaving on that match where I did my most foolish move of the game and went for a suicidal empty jump ultra only for it to out-invincible your counter ultra was quite the dick move wasn't it.

Ha, I was praying that U1 would knock Oni out of his Ultra, silly me. I picked Fei too. I actually meant to pick 'rog though.

[Qazimod]

When did Xboxes start switching themselves off? Was that part of the update? I spent most of last night not playing Darkstalkers 3, with it sitting on pause and I came through a couple of times to find an alert saying my Xbox was about to shut down.

Wasn't that one of the features of the Slim to help prevent it from going into meltdown after extended use? I've not had it with mine yet but I'm sure it'll happen eventually, when I'm trying to drag the next 10Gb demo of something or other off the Marketplace...

OT: I may be around for fightings later.

[Lyrical Donut]

Wasn't that one of the features of the Slim to help prevent it from going into meltdown after extended use?

It was introduced as a dashboard before that, I turned it on as soon as it was available after my second 360 bought the farm after 3 months. The replacement is still going strong, 5 years on. It does sound like a hoover these days, though.

[jiroczech]

Weird, I've only noticed it recently. I'm always leaving my Xbox on pause. Probably 95% of my total Street Fighter time is just pause menu... I mean I'd be good if I'd actually played that much, right?

Maybe an update has made it the default behaviour?

[ah]

At some point in recent days I received a mysterious package from Edinburgh for my part in the scam to get Jiro's Kojima party bumpin' free copy of MGR:R.

The postman didn't leave a card - he wrote "packet on porch by table" on the back of a piece of junk mail addressed to a former occupier and he hid said packet behind a piece of drainpipe, so I'm not really sure when it arrived. My girl just spotted his enigmatic communiqué while throwing junk mail in the recycling bin. Thanks, postman!

Here is a picture of my stuff:

That poster was pretty easy to prise from the tube! And it's all Three Dee and sheeit. Also pictured is a bunch of other stuff.

Is this game £20 anywhere yet?