Ultra Street Fighter IV

[Plopboy]

He must be using Action Replay codes

[mayor_mike_haggar]

Apparently chun li's opponent doesn't gain any meter when getting hit by her lightning legs. How completely broken.

[Camel]

That is definitely the reason JLM is winning all these games.

[Camel]

GGs Plopboy, Qazimod and JLM! Sorry I had to leg it, it's time to pick up Camel Jr.

[JLM]

Ha, ggs guys. Camel, you always noticeably shake off the rust and improve as the sets go on in this game. At the beginning you kept tagging Dhalsim back in or refusing to take the hit and raw tag when he had zero life left, but later on you got more into the Strekken groove. There was one round in particular though where your Dhalsim was bleeding heavily, then Rufus came in and beat the crap out of both Juri and Chun, but then at one crucial moment you tagged Dhalsim back in and handed it to me. That is just the worst feeling in Strekken. The combos are so fun to do that it takes an insane amount of discilpine to stop myself rattling them off when my off screen character is in dire need of a rest. It's taken me a good 60 or so games over the past few days to cut down on my suicidal combo extention tags and I'm still doing plenty of them. It's easy to completely forget how to play this game, but I really am finding it a lot more fun since the patch.

[Qazimod]

So yeah, Jellum's combos are way too good in Strekken. GGs all.

[Camel]

Absolutely. Day-long combos should be banned.

Cheers JLM. I could feel the rust coming off as i played although my Rufus will probably always be a terrible, terrible thing. And you're right, I really need to learn when not to tag in, but it's difficult not letting auto-pilot take over.

I'll be playing more Strekken from now on I think so if anyone is up for more games, let me know.

Also, Plopboy's Kuma is a lovely thing.

[Plopboy]

Cheers for the games, sorry I had to dash Qazi as I would have liked a few more games.

I like Kuma he is lovely but I couldn't get his rolling head butt going, grrr

[ah]

I'm online now waiting for someone to come to my house to fix a thing. He might turn up bang on 17.30 and I'll have to go speak to him or he might be late, in which case I'll be idly sitting in training mode in one or other game wishing there was somebody online who I could play against who wouldn't mind if I dropped the controller mid-game to answer the door and spend an hour dealing with something before returning.

[Nate Dogg III]

I wasn't going to go to that Mad Catz thing but then someone was going because his girlfriend works for Mad Catz so I went for a drink.

I'm riddled with jetlag and socially awkward anyway so didn't say hello to Valle who I saw as soon as I walked in, talking to three girls, or indeed anyone. To be honest it was a bit weird seeing so many familiar faces IRL. It was like watching the world's most HD stream. There's Min, choking with a life lead and losing to Mago. There's Zhi in that weird sailor coat of his (he's shorter than I thought). There's Noel Brown in a suit. And PR Rog at the bar. And Justin. And so many others. I didn't see Daigo.

The closest I came to actual contact with anyone was Yipes brushing past me on his way back from the bar. What a marvellously enormous fellow that man is.

That was that. Loads of people playing Halo, and Gears. All the fightman setups were taken, not that there were that many of them.

Now sleep! Then Pax. I will try to go to that Capcom panel but these things are first come first served and they are commendably strict about not letting press bully their way in. There's an AE tournament on the Saturday, too.

[joffocakes]

Capcom are announcing two things, right? I guess one of them might be Strider. Also, isn't the Mark of the Ninja DLC being demo'd at PAX as well? Mark of the Ninja was absolutely excellent.

Did you get yourself one of those Capy/Double Fine floppy discs?

I remember shaking hands with Daigo at thon SvB thing and saying something like "here man you're pure magic at they firebaws by ra way" or whatever.

[Camel]

I would like to think that if I ever met Daigo he would throw hot food at me while I attempted to tickle him from the other side of the room. Then he would punch me square on the chin.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

How did Yipes smell?

Also joffo did you really accuse Daigo of making 'RA fireballs?

[mayor_mike_haggar]

Oh, man, excellent! the daigo valle ft5 was played on the same background as their match from SCR a few years ago. I can practically hear jason shrieking with glee

[joffocakes]

How did Yipes smell?

Also joffo did you really accuse Daigo of making 'RA fireballs?

My dad's play that mentions the IRA a lot is on in that London town you like so much next month. You should go see it and get your fill of sectarianism.

When should we expect to hear news of the Capcom games apparently at PAX? I want a Wii U version of Street Fighter.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

Is it the wildly named thing about singing about billys and tims or whatever. Will your dad be there, sat festering at the back, smelling slightly of tennents in his Celtic (Rangers?) shirt, and I can then timidly approach him and tell him I play childrens videogames with his only son on that internet that he's probably heard about, and he'll just burst into tears and curse at me in an unintelligible accent.

[imp]

Mago vs Ryan Hart was an absolute joy. And that is from someone who hates watching Sagat and Fei long.

[Yasawas]

Here is the Madcatz thing if anyone wants to see it, I fell asleep before it started - http://www.twitch.tv/madcatz/b/380657544

Also if you need more footsies with your lunch this potentially interesting nugget just showed up in my YouTube feed, that wild, wild Ryu playing overmostheads' Oni in a FT5

[mayor_mike_haggar]

Jessu, that must have been laggy as anything. Solid is in the US somewhere and omh is based in Bradford, I think.

[joeplus]

So, as future tournaments have been mentioned - would anyone be interested in running something in a league style, as I believe was done in days of yore? Could do something like tiers of 4/5/6 players, round robin (so 3/4/5 matches each), with divisions based on previous tournament results (or just agreed on by discussion, everyone here is pretty honest about their relative skill level). Either just a one-off, or a series with promotions/relegations.

Would mean fewer mismatches, and (this part purely self-interest) more matches for the freer (free-er? freeeeer?) amongst us. Also a bit easier to get matches played relatively quickly, due to no waiting for previous ties. Any thoughts?

This post is sponsored by parentheses.

[jiroczech]

(sounds good to me)

[cale]

That's going to be some good watching. Cheers Yas.

We should all organise a road trip to see Joffo's da' perform his play. Standing up in the middle of it as one unit chanting 'Joffo's dad! Joffo's dad!' should be one of the requirements too.

E: I'd be up for leagues again. They seem to be fairly tricky to keep a handle on but I'd definitely play.

[Qazimod]

Leagues would be fun. Bagsy bottom division.

Another future idea we should try is team tournaments. Not necessarily Team Battle mode in SFIV, but pairs (or more?) of players aiming for the most cumulative win points, or whatever.

[geldra]

Sign me up for Vauxhall Conference tier.

[JLM]

Madcatz unveiled things:

Mago vs Ryan Hart was amazing.

I love how Ryan has changed up his approach to the Fei match up since that salty day in Telford. Pre-

empting rekkas whenever possible in particular. I initially just wanted to see a close set because this

match up is horrid for Sagat and it'd be awful if the big rematch ended in Ryan losing 5-0. I never

imagined it would end up an absolute mauling in Ryan's favour. I know he's good enough to beat Mago and I

think he's actually seriously underrated as a player in SFIV, but to dominate one of his character's

harder match ups in such spectacular fashion was still mightily impressive. Europe is seriously lacking

representation for a lot of characters in this game but Fei Long isn't one of them and you could tell

Ryan has been grinding the match up very hard indeed since last time he played it. Oh, and the

perfect round with the counter hit combo followed up with the angry scar combo for style was a beautiful

thing. The only thing it was missing was F-Word on commentary.

Yipes vs Tokido was good fun, though it was only competitive because Yipes started off with his Dante

team on a dare from PR Rog. Tokido is excellent at almost every fighting and has levelled up in Marvel

since last time I saw him, but once Yipes hit his stride with his Spencer team it wasn't that

competitive. Having drunk Nina and Persia on commentary killing esports was quite funny.

Daigo vs. Valle was beautiful. It couldn't quite live up to the SCR set but the standard of play was still very very high. The difference between them was that Daigo has improved his up close game with Ryu to a truly frightening degree. His counter hit timings and max damage conversions from them were a bit too much for Valle, so although they matched up well in every other aspect, when Daigo got inside Valle's low forward range he was completely dominant. Great set anyway, and I immediately wanted more as soon as it ended.

The exhibition matches afterwards were superb as well. Min vs. Mago, Lucky D vs. Mago and Gridman vs. Ryan Hart were particular highlights. The stream chatters were hilarious too. "RYAN FRAUD HART. RYAN RANDOM HART. GRIDMAN! BEST VIPER IN THE U.S.! EUROPE GONNA GET BODIED!" Then Ryan beat him. Min vs. MAgo and Lucky D vs Mago were two of the biggest chokes I've seen in a while too. Anyway, yes, very fun event and everyone should watch it.

[joffocakes]

My dad is pretty intense. You fey internet types would probably meekly clasp your plastic cup of weak lager while he rants on and on in your direction in an accent which makes distinction between enthusiasm and aggression impossible, flapping his arms like Stan from Monkey Island*.

I will be on that internet doing fighting tonight though, sirs! At least for a few hours. What's the game of the evening?

*Mêlée Island.

[joeplus]

Skullgirls!

Actually, I'll probably be watching the football. Skullgoals.

[joffocakes]

Striker Hiryu.

+4 +4 +2

Uh... Kick.

[jiroczech]

I've met Joffo's dad. He was like a Scottish Chuck Norris/Gerard Depardieu* mashup. Not really. He was nice and welcoming even though I was a strange man off the internet.

* Not Gerard now, that he's all fat and disgusting and Russian. The younger one.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

Joffo is your dad one off those excellent tortured alcoholic Scottish intellectual sorts, who sort of wobble through life in a perpetual scream of incoherent but articulate rage.

What does he think of murray, also.