The marathon that was AI Ranbat 2.5

Yesterday was another ranbat tournament for Street Fighter IV at Arcade Infinity and at first, I didn't think I was going to play in it, but decided might as well do it. After missing the last two ranbats, I wandered if those months of leveling up have paid off. Turns out it didn't as if I didn't level up enough compared to the rest of the 64 players that competed in this long day. My good luck charm, aka my pringles can failed me and maybe Marvel vs. Capcom 2 could be the blame, but I didn't want to make any excuses as I still played my best despite going 2 and out again. Despite that, I learned a lot at this tourney and still had a good time hanging out with the SoCal SF4 scene, which matters in the end.

My first loss was a close one, which against a Ken player who knew his stuff. After the mistake of rolling with Honda at AI Ranbat 2.2, I decided to roll as my true main Bison, aka Dictator. I thought winning the first round of the first game would ease my nerves a little getting HYPE, but I started to lose it not executing my usual combos I would at home on my TE stick. Sure, the sticks at AI are a different beast of its own as maybe I should of played more warmup games to get accompanied with the stick again, but oh well. I lost the first game, but luckily won the next one as if I was about to lose it. Eventually, I lost my first match 2-1 against the Ken player since he was nailing his EX Hurricane Kick link combos and I decided to go reckless with head stomp bait ultras, wake-up ultra, or relying on head stomps too much. I was also maybe a little too much trying to get in for rushdown, but I feel I would get out-footsied by Ken which was the case.

Four hours later was my loser bracket match against Zack, an Akuma player. Usually my Bison is pretty good against Akuma in general as I had the right ideas, but execution was lacking as I was dropping scissor kick combos like nothing when I had the chance. In the end, I did go 2 and out, which is disappointing, but I did learned a lot from playing. It seems that my reckless Bison style of "live or die by the head stomp" cannot fly anymore being competitive against the best of SoCal compared to online, which is making me reconsider how I play as him. I feel like going a complete 180 when I play as Bison as a whole not being as reckless. Vic the Slick, Dae, and shglbmx gave me advice to not as be reliant on Head Stomp and Devil's Reverse as I should and I should rely on the poking/rushdown game instead.

Other than going 2 and out at Street Fighter IV, I still had a great time regardless because of generally hanging out with the people I know over the course of the last few months from Keno, his girlfriend Teresa, ComboJack, Fuson, Tatsu, shglbmx, KillerKai, Dae, LegendOfLore, Bebop, Rickstah, hostmaster Shoo and his girlfriend Naomi, Vic the Slick, Jay Jay, and more. Since Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is still fresh on my mind (oh my review of the PSN version will be up tomorrow), I did play that for a little especially with no lag and ragequitters especially the likes of Keno, KillerKai, and Warren. Nothing like seeing the truth that is Keno's Omega Red, which is the case yesterday and also Friday online on PSN, but hey Marvel is what it is and I'll let the review speak for itself. Arcade Infinity itself was pretty packed since it was a Saturday and a tournament was going on at the same time as it was just too hot and sweaty at times of being filled with too many people watching all the SF4 shenanigans. As expected, Glenn, AJ, and Cami from Get Your Tournament was there doing the coverage live at the time as well as recording video of the top 8 since tech man Scott wasn't there to set up direct feed and commentary. Not a lot of photos or video will surface from the event due to some people not being there, but at least there were some quick pics from Twitpic courtesy of Gootecks, Glenn, and AJ.

In the end, it came down to Keno and ComboJack for the title and these two worked very hard to get to that point together and they knew it was their time. Also, these guys have been on the top 3 of ranbat points. The grand finals match (videos below) was pretty epic and entertaining as the Keno Eye 2.0 was in effect and you can hear Teresa cheering him on really loud as well as not looking at times when Keno was in trouble. Jack kept dropping the Tiger Uppercut FADC, Forward+Roundhouse to Ultra combo which would make a difference, but Keno clutched it out in the end with timely EX headbutts and ultras. So congrats to Keno for winning it all in the end as he was on his A game despite some close calls early on against some random Vega player and pro Abel player Black Pyro. The tournament lasted almost 12 hours ending at 1 am and it seemed like the typical Banana Bay after-party was going to happen, but it was too late and I decided to go home.

So even with the long day, AI Ranbat 2.5 was a success lasting 10ish hours with 64 entrants and one machine to play on, which is still good considering what we have to deal with. There were lots of HYPE moments as well as memories as some players leveled up significantly while others didn't have their day especially Gootecks, who was upset by Vic the Slick getting sent to losers, and then getting peaced out by E Money's Zangief in dramatic fashion with the time out at the end. I have indeed learned a good deal from yesterday as we'll see if I'm willing to commit towards improving my Bison to be more legit than reckless especially with West Coast Warzone coming up quick. There are also thoughts of considering a main character change since the Bison army showed up in force, meaning there were lots of Bison players in the building that performed well. I'm thinking Guile randomly especially seeing Christian aka Fuson's Guile in action in his "temporary comeback" to tournaments as well as another Guile player who did decently too. Who knows, I might as well stick to Dictator in the meantime and try to limit head stomps and devil reverses. Once again, I still had a fun time at the end of the day with cool people, which to me what matters in the end.

Here's the grand finals match of Keno and ComboJack courtesy of GetYourTournament below (Don't mind the Guitar Freaks music, which is annoying, but let the HYPE speak for itself).

Me playing Street Fighter IV on the tubes...

So apparently, I found this random online match on YouTube of me in action. For once on the tubes, I won (Yay!). Of course my matches are not the greatest in terms of having the perfect execution since I usually drop combos most of the time or I couldn't punish when I had the chance.

Today was a different story with a friendly session of matches against one of the best SoCal players around, which is Dae. Even though I didn't beat him at all today, some matches were indeed close as I had some opportunities, but couldn't clutch it out. Dae is arguably the best Chun-Li player I know in SoCal and this was also the first time I played him, so it took time to figure some things out, but usually you gotta quick with adjustments against your opponents, which is the case here. If u see me in action in these clips, you will notice that I use Bison in a certain style and I roll with it throughout (maybe I rely on some moves too much) because not playing your game just makes you feel a little uncomfortable. So check out the footage of me getting owned by Dae down below and see how beast his Chun-Li is (Also I will do dumb stuff like random ultras as seen out of desperation).





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Getting Hyped for West Coast Warzone...

I'm been back in the lab lately playing Street Fighter IV to get ready for SoCal's biggest tournament, aka West Coast Warzone hosted by John "Teppelin" Rog, happening this September 4-6 (Labor Day Weekend) in the Irvine Hilton. The SoCal SF4 ambassador himself Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez shows off the hotel itself in the promo video above, which is making me consider getting a room for the weekend even though I rather just drive back and forth from my home. Then again, this tournament will be in the late hours and yeah things are bound to happen for sure that is too HYPE. All of SoCal's biggest names in Street Fighter IV will be there as well as other games for tournaments such as BlazBlue and King of Fighters XII (Not sure about entering that too). I think I rather save up some money for this huge event in the SoCal SF scene. So if you're free those days, go ahead and check out West Coast Warzone to witness all the madness (Pool party also on September 4 = lol). Oh I should sign up for this thing soon too.

Here's the website for more details about the epic weekend... and also another promo featuring Gootecks just sitting in the car letting the ladies do the talking (lol).

UPDATE - Almost forgot... Anyone got a 360 arcade stick I can borrow for that weekend? If so, let me know as soon as possible. Don't worry I won't break it.

Being One with the Darkness... The Batman: Arkham Asylum Demo Hands-On Preview

The highly anticipated Batman: Arkham Asylum is out later this month (more like August 25 in normal and limited editions that come with the battarang) and while stores like Target, Wal-Mart, and GameStop already have a demo of this game, that is pretty much a challenge mode demo being a showcase for the combat. The demo that comes out today on the Playstation Store and later tonight or tomorrow on Xbox Live Marketplace is the first minutes of the single player game. Since it is the beginning of the game, you will watch the intro cutscene as Batman brings the Joker to Arkham Asylum and once Joker goes loose, he brings out chaos thanks to Harley Quinn and it is up to Batman to set things right by cleaning up Arkham. Even though the demo provides a taste of what is yet to come in the final game, it is a pretty good taste demonstrating not just the combat, but also what makes Batman famous, which is using stealth and his gadgets to his advantage.

Even though the melee combat in Arkham Asylum feels a bit mashy, meaning you can mash the attack button to take care of normal enemies, it still feels solid as well as flowing smoothly especially when you counter someone's attack by the press of the triangle button. There's also a cape stun move to stun enemies as well as his battarang to attack from a distance, but still you can get away from dealing with a crowd of guards with melee alone. I hope the other gameplay elements in this new Batman game truly shine, which is the stealth and detective elements. Since Batman is a stealthy dude, the stealth has to be pretty good and it is so far from what I played. You can grapple to high gargoyle spots in certain rooms and either glide kick by surprise or hang down Spider-Man style to attack nearby enemies as well. The grappling mechanic also flows smoothly being simple to control with the press of a button as well as being stealthy. As for the detective mode, once you press L2, the screen goes in blue vision allowing you to easily spot enemies, platforms to swing to, hidden paths to explore, and other things to solve puzzles. This especially helps when planning out an attack line for certain areas, which is satisfying when your plan works. Just by gameplay alone so far, it definitely feels like you're Batman and being badass at the same time too.

I'll keep this short and save the rest for a review if I buy this game in which after playing this demo, I'm more stoked than I thought I should for arguably the Batman game fans have been waiting for. The game looks great and the audio is awesome with the voice cast from the 90s cartoon providing the voice work. For now, I'm not willing to waste 100 bucks on the limited edition, but I would just buy it normally when it comes out on August 25 for the 360, PS3, and sometime after on PC.

Loving It Like a Fat Princess Loves Cake... The Fat Princess (PSN) Review

It seems like these days the downloadable services on the three consoles need some highly praised game that is both cutesy and violent at the same time. The Xbox Live Arcade already filled that void with Benemoth's Alien Hominid HD and Castle Crashers while WiiWare has not found its game yet or the fact it is not their thing. The Playstation Network on the other hand finally has its own exclusive game of that kind with Fat Princess. This game has been a long time coming for nearly a year and being highly praised among those curious about such a game called that. The special thing about Fat Princess is that it takes a simple concept like capture the flag and twist it up to a completely different take with flags being princesses that love cake too much. Even though with such a crazy idea of getting princesses fat, this game at its core is a team class-based strategy game with classes that are suited for certain roles and playstyles. When things really click such as the perfect team strategy being executed while communicating through headsets, Fat Princess is truly an awesome game, but be prepared to deal with its flaws as well.

Fat Princess's core game is Rescue the Princess, which is basically capture the flag except with obviously princesses that want to be fat. The class-based system is simple to understand and pick up that consists of five classes. You got the standard warrior class that is focused on close range combat, a ranger class that is centered on long-range combat, a mage class that casts fire or ice spells on enemies, a priest class that heals teammates or sucks enemies' health away, and a worker class that gathers resources to build structures. The worker class especially is key for developing upgrades for the other classes as well as build quick transport tools such as ladders and catapults. With a game like rescue the princess, teamwork is required to be successful, otherwise being disorganized with people trying to do their own thing just leads to chaos, which seems to be the case playing online with random matches most of the time. What I mean by teamwork in Fat Princess is having planned strategies ready to execute, having a diverse group of teammates to charge to the opposing castle (not having an army of warriors rush and get killed), and also communicating via headset, which seems to be rare since not everyone has headsets on PSN. At its core, Fat Princess reminds me of Team Fortress 2, another awesome team class-based multiplayer game that clicks when the perfect plan goes to action, but disfunctional chaos with no teamwork.

Other than the standard rescue the princess mode, Fat Princess has other multiplayer modes as well spicing up the gameplay a bit. Those consist of Snatch & Grab, which is basically rescue the princess in reverse as you have to bring back the opposing team's princess back to her cage three times to win, Invasion, which is like playing a game of Battlefield capturing outposts to drop the opposing team's core to zero to win, Team Deathmatch, which is self-explanatory as seen as many games before, and a random game of soccer with the medieval twist. These other modes are nice diversions from your normal game, but certainly Rescue the Princess is where it is at in terms of fun and satisfaction. If you are tired of the online madness, there is also single player options to explore as well as customizing your character conveniently called getting fabulous. The Legend of the Fat Princess is a six chapter campaign that is pretty much a tutorial and good warmup for the online action with some sense of story told in book form by the announcer of the game. The thing with this mode is playing with AI bots, which can be a mixed bag as they are not the smartest bots to have around as a team or fight making you do all the work and that can lead to some frustration. Other than the campaign, there is the skirmish mode of playing a normal game against bots, and Gladiate, a survival mode of trying to outlast wave after wave of enemies for victory. While Fat Princess delivers on fun times with a decent selection of modes, dealing with the online issues is indeed a pain prevent it from greatness.

Since Fat Princess is mostly an online game with a maximum of 32 players in one room, getting into an actual game is a pain and tiring as many attempts will end up on failure as you back to the press start screen. Plus, it does indeed take a long to join a game in progress as the game has to gather the necessary information and connect to the host. This can also get frustrating when trying to join with online friends as well, which the game allows for that option. The developers, Titan Studios, are indeed aware of the online stability issues as they hope to fix them in an upcoming patch. Other than matchmaking issues, Fat Princess can be at times a little buggy especially when lag rolls around. This is the case when you don't see the cake icon around the menus for a bit after failing to join a game, various other obvious latency issues while playing, and even the game crashing too. In addition, players have been noticing some balancing issues as well in which the developers have been listening to feedback regarding that hoping to be fixed soon. Even though Fat Princess is loaded with frustrating issues, do not let them go over your head from playing such an awesome game.

With its cutesy and charming style, Fat Princess looks great and the violence just makes it look even more sweeter. The graphics fit the game's medieval theme as the characters look cutesy enough with all the customized looks when getting fabulous as well as the princesses especially when they look a bit ugly when being fat after having all that cake. Seeing blood everywhere after dealing with hordes of the opposition feels very satisfying to see. If you are a little offended of all the blood and gore, there is an option to turn it off, but you are losing pretty much the point of the whole game as a whole other than rescuing the princess is to also unleash some violent beatings at the same time. There are also a wide variety of maps to choose from from bases being pirate ships, your standard medieval settings, atop high cliffs, or even in lava-like scenarios as the map changes overtime with paths being blocked off at times due to the lava. At times, slowdown might occur due to online lag, but otherwise the game runs at a smooth framerate. The game's medieval theme and tone also applies to the sound as well from the music to the announcer himself, which is not as annoying as I thought he will be as he will say the important things when they happen. The characters' voices do indeed sound cutesy and charming especially when they fly on the catapult screaming out loud. The honorable mention to the game's music is the song being played during its credits, which is completely random, but surprisingly makes sense for a game like Fat Princess, which you can see below the review (note: this is a possible spoiler if you do not want to have it ruined).

Fat Princess is another great exclusive game for the Playstation Network with its cutesy violence, charm, and satisfying gameplay. It indeed delivers on twisting up the capture the flag concept to have fat princesses as flags along with having a simple class system to pick up and play. Of course, with such a game like this, teamwork and communication is where the game truly shines and when everything clicks from forming up the perfect plan to win. I just wish more people had headsets to take advantage of a multiplayer game like this, but that is probably its own separate issue. If you can deal with the game's current online issues with matchmaking and latency, you will still have a great time with Fat Princess especially at its fifteen dollar price point. After all, I do love this game like a fat princess loves cake.

Score = 8.5/10

Pros:

• Loads of cutesy violence and charm
• Simple and fun class-based gameplay
• A clever twist on capture the flag with the fat princesses
• When teamwork clicks, it feels very satisfying

Cons:

• Filled with online issues especially matchmaking and latency (Update - A recent patch fixed the matchmaking issues and so far it has improved from what I played).
• AI bots are not that smart to have around when playing alone
• With no teamwork and headset communication, the game feels like disorganized chaos

The latest on my YouTube channel for 8/4/09

From the calm and beautiful to some manly drama is some 3 on 3 Street Fighter IV tournament last Saturday. This clip (NSFW by the way because of the languauge used) is courtesy of GetYourTournament's PotatoHead as it is pretty self-explanatory in which dudes fight pretty much over nothing. Supposedly, this tourney ended at around 4 or 5 am, so maybe its a good thing I wasn't there and plus, I had other and better plans that night anyway.

A Resort Worth Going To... The Wii Sports Resort Review

If you ever played a Wii at least once throughout its lifespan so far, chances are you played Wii Sports, which is arguably the perfect pack-in game for a console like Nintendo's Wii. You were likely hanging out with family or friends trying to beat them at bowling, tennis, golf, or baseball. As much of a phenomenon Wii Sports is for the past three years especially among the casual audience, there is more what Nintendo could do to make it a definitive experience for the Wii, which is why the sequel, Wii Sports Resort, is out to improve on what was missing and expand on what the Wiimote is capable of. Speaking of expanding on what the Wiimote is capable of, that is indeed the case for Resort being bundled with the Motion Plus add-on for more accuracy and precision with the motion controls. Nintendo already established the formula for casual gaming success with the first game and the sequel is more of expanding on that formula being a great showpiece for the Motion Plus.

Once you first boot up Wii Sports Resort, you have to deal with a tutorial regarding the Motion Plus with attaching it on your Wiimote and then seeing the true difference with the new add-on in an introductory skydiving sequence to Wahu Island. After finishing that, it is pretty much more Wii Sports from there with more mini-games and diverse activities for players to mess with. There are certainly some standouts out of this sequel that take advantage of the Motion Plus while other sports either do not offer much to the table or basically not fun at all. Those specific standouts are swordplay, table tennis, and archery. Swordplay consists of three games which are duel, speed slice, and showdown. A duel is a straight up one-on-one contest as the objective is to knock your opponent out of the field, which is sort of like American Gladiators in a way. It is definitely a personal favorite of mine especially against a human opponent as you can play it in two completely different styles either by being precise or waggling like crazy. Speed slice and showdown are good diversions from the swordplay duels as speed slice is just about trying to out-slice your opponent at certain objects while showdown takes the gameplay to a brawler-like scenario taking out random Miis. Table tennis is pretty straightforward with your Wiimote as the paddle, but fully takes advantage of the precise motions adding along the spin and all that jazz. Archery though surprisingly impressed me the most being more fun than I thought it would be. With the Wiimote and Nunchuk, it feels like holding a bow firing arrows at targets to score points. Even though there are the standout mini-games in Wii Sports Resort, the other ones just feel okay or not as fun as intended.

Returning from the original Wii Sports are golf and bowling. Golf is pretty much the same old game you played last time if you played the original just with Motion Plus. Then again, there is already a better golf game that takes advantage of the add-on with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 even though if you just want a simple game of golf without all that depth Tiger has, Resort's golf is still fine. Bowling at its core is also unchanged being the same old classic game you love for three years. The new big addition to this mini-game this time around is a 100-pin game, which is pretty self-explanatory being the same game just with more pins. Bowling is still as fun as it is especially playing with friends. Other new mini-games to this sequel are frisbee, basketball, wakeboarding, canoeing, jet skiing, cycling, and air sports. Wakeboarding lets you use the Wiimote sideways to steer around while flicking up lets you do tricks. This mini-game is not that bad, but a little harder on tougher courses to come up with a big score. Basketball also has its fun moments with the three point contest and a light version of a 3 on 3 pickup game. The three point contest is the standout out of that mode as you try to get the perfect rhythm of nailing shots while the pickup game is a stripped down version of a normal basketball game with less rules, lots of slam dunks, and lack of strategy. Frisbee can be enjoyable if you enjoy that activity letting the Wiimote be the frisbee making the motion to throw it, but I did not see it as fun. Most of these other sports depend on personal taste which is the case with me not enjoying jet skiing, cycling, canoeing, and air sports. The jet skiing and cycling do not utilize the Motion Plus that much as they feel like generic racing mini-games. The jet skiing is arguably the closest thing Nintendo will do to bring back Wave Race, but it feels like a wasted effort as it is just a slalom time trial trying to get high scores. Cycling also feels generic as you just drum the Wiimote and Nunchuk to accelerate, but also stamina is a factor in these races, so going at a nice consistent pace is recommended. Canoeing and air sports at first feel like decent diversions, but in the end they are just boring mini-games. Even though Wii Sports Resort has a lot to offer with tons of mini-games, it is likely you are not to enjoy all of them depending on your personal tastes.

Graphically, Wii Sports Resort looks like just another Wii whatever title with the same style seen in Wii Play and Wii Fit. Sure, some effects have been improved especially when playing the water sports, but obviously this game is not meant to be a graphical beast on the Wii. As for the presentation, everything feels organized and simple to access menus especially for short pick up and play sessions. There is also an achievement-like system in the form of stamps of performing certain tasks like a hot streak on the three point contest or a turkey in bowling. These stamps are nice to have around especially for goal-oriented players that want to complete everything. Wahu Island itself feels like the perfect place to fit all these activities in, but I'm not completely sold on it being a character like Shigeru Miyamoto intended it to be. The sound also feels like another title in the Wii whatever series with tunes that will fit certain themes, but do not expect too much from that either.

Despite its hits and misses, Wii Sports Resort is still another must-have game on the Wii. It is great to have it around for short sessions along with playing it multiplayer with more than two players in which the game truly shines. There are definitely some standouts in this mini-game collection with swordplay, table tennis, and archery that utilize the Motion Plus to its full potential. However, there are certainly some clunkers that feel like generic games like cycling, canoeing, and jet skiing. The other mini-games have their fun moments as well along with the returning ones from the original game providing those same good times throughout the years. It is also recommended to have another Motion Plus around for at least two players even though some games let you pass the Wiimote around to take turns, but other games will require more than one Motion Plus for competition among friends. In the end, Resort is a great showpiece for the Motion Plus add-on as well as a great Wii game at the same time which will be another hit among the casual crowd even though hardcore audiences will have fun with it as well.

Score = 8.5/10

Pros:

• A great showpiece for the Motion Plus
• Standout mini-games archery, swordplay, and table tennis take full advantage of that same add-on as well as being great mini-games in general
• Still fun for family and friends especially multiplayer

Cons:

• Not all the mini-games are great as some are indeed clunkers, but still it depends on personal tastes of the sports
• One Motion Plus might not be enough for multiplayer as another one is needed for some of the head-to-head activities