A marathon of a weekend concluded last night at Las Vegas for Evolution 2009, aka the big daddy of fighting game tournaments. Yesterday was finals for all of the games and even though I wasn't at the Rio to watch the madness and the HYPE, watching the online stream throughout the weekend was pretty good being the first time Evo streamed the event LIVE for the folks at home. As if more than 2,000 people were sitting in one hot sweaty ballroom, more than 20,000 viewers watched the stream live at times especially the Street Fighter IV finals. Even though SoCal represented big at SF4 as most of them made past pools, only Edma and Shady K made top 8 as well as a somewhat disappointing performance at the 5v5 exhibition not making the grand finals as one of the favorites to it. The SF4 Grand Finals got the dream match we wanted to as Justin Wong, arguably the best SF4 player in the U.S., faces off against Daigo, aka the best Street Fighter player now. Here's the epic grand finals match between the two below via the stream (keep in mind its a stream, so it will be slow, but the audio enough describes how HYPE it was as it felt loud and rowdy, but amazing at the same time). This is what u expect out of the two of the best players in the world, but maybe Justin celebrated too soon at times especially coming from Losers and winning the 1st set. I'll post something later about the other highlights of this year's Evo.
UPDATE - Since these videos are taken down, go to the post above for the Evo 2k9 stuff.
Nintendo lately has been known for distancing itself away from their hardcore audiences due to their astounding success of their casual titles on the Wii. The return of Punch-Out!! has been the faithful's hope of Nintendo actually still giving a care about their old franchises that date back to the NES days. It turns out that this new Punch-Out!! is both amazing and old-school for those who played the original NES game like crazy in the late 1980s. It recaptures the same old feeling that was both simple to control, but still challenging to the point of throwing your controller at will. It also brings new audiences in nicely with the new motion controls, but even with motion controls, the challenge might not be what they're looking forward for. All of that being said, Punch-Out!! is indeed the hardcore Nintendo fans have been waiting for that is both challenging and rewarding at the same time.
Punch-Out!! for the Wii consists of two control schemes, which are motion controls with the Wiimote and Nunchuk, and old-school NES style with the Wiimote sideways just like playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! There is also balance board support for the motion controls, but that makes the game feel like you're working out in Wii Fit rather than trying to beat the game. Out of the control schemes the game offers, I prefer the old-school controls than the new motion controls as playing it NES style provides more precision and the old-school experience, but if you want a more fresher experience than you used to, the motion controls do work fine with punching on both arms. The motion controls do indeed draw casual audiences to a game like this, but the pattern recognition gameplay that it provides is something consider that hardcore audiences have had for years.
There is the obligatory career mode in which you play as Little Mac through three circuits of increasing difficulty towards getting the world title belt. This Punch-Out game has it all in terms of the opposition you face from the lazy Glass Joe, the annoying Great Tiger, to the heavy drinking Soda Popinski. As you progress through the career mode, the game does indeed get harder, but not NES Punch-Out hard as these fighters especially in the last circuit are very beatable. The fun does not end when you beat career mode and get the world title as a new mode gets unlocked for an even harder game called Title Defense mode. Title Defense makes the normal game feel like a warmup as this mode is where the game truly begins. This is also when controllers are being thrown to a point of them not working as the opponents you beaten before are tougher with new looks, moves, and other tricks that make you mess up and lose. Despite Title Defense being the "true game," the satisfaction of beating it again increases tenfold where you just want to scream really loud like a nerd almost like beating Mike Tyson for the first time in the original Punch-Out. Good thing there is a practice mode in the game to practice up the opponents' patterns and get better of unlocking star punch opportunities. Along with the practice mode, you can fight the various characters at any time in Exhibition where achievement-like challenges are there to attempt as well. These challenges are pretty crazy requiring certain tasks that seem impossible at first to be done during the fight. Punch-Out!! for the Wii provides enough replay value for players to be challenged even further after beating Title Defense along with doing the challenges in Exhibition mode.
For the first time in the franchise, this Wii iteration has a versus mode where two Little Macs can fight each other till someone gets knocked down three times in traditional Punch-Out fashion. The twist in this versus mode is that it is split screen vertically where you try to gain meter to become Giga Mac, or basically Little Mac hulking up, and suddenly it becomes a traditional Punch-Out game. Once becoming Giga Mac, it becomes a David/Goliath matchup where Giga Mac can just destroy at will, but Little Mac can still avoid his punches traditionally and dish out the punishment in which players being Giga Mac have to mix up their game to surprise their opponents. This versus mode as a whole feels like a tacked on mode that is not meant to be anything special or worthwhile in the overall package, but still a nice feature to have around regardless in which the developers can improve on if a sequel is happening.
With this new iteration, Punch-Out!! for the Wii is filled with personality and lots of it. From awkward characters like Disco Kid, Bear Hugger, and Super Macho Man, there are certainly those personalities that make you laugh. Perhaps the star of having so much personality is your trainer, Doc Louis. While he can be a little annoying at times trying to help you between rounds, his random quotes regarding his love for chocolate bars makes your mind spin a little trying to realize what did he actually say. Just playing as Little Mac makes you feel like you are the true underdog against these opponents that are bigger than you and the size truly shows in this Wii game compared to older games. All of this personality is also shown in the graphics, which are pretty good for a Wii game. The characters themselves look very colorful for who they are and even the pre-fight cutscenes showing off your opponent's off-the-ring activities look great as well showing who they are. Performance-wise, this lives up to being a Nintendo game with no slowdown at all when running at 60 frames per second. However, the framerate does drop to 30 frames per second in the versus mode when two Little Macs fight each other. This is somewhat of a recurring trend for Nintendo games with local multiplayer as Mario Kart Wii has a similar framerate issue regarding multiplayer.
As for the sound, the modernized take on the old-school Punch-Out!! soundtrack sounds beautiful. That opening tune of that modern remix in the first circuit just puts a smile on your face especially if you recognized it from the late 80s. Later on, the Punch-Out theme does get remixed for the various opponents you face like a Russian version for Soda Popinski and a Hawaiian-like version for Super Macho Man as examples. With all the personality the game has, the characters' voice-overs sound great as well being true to their character. From Disco Kid's awkward voice that sort of questions his gender, Great Tiger's accent, to Super Macho Man's cockiness, Punch-Out!! offers arguably the best voices in any Nintendo game out so far even though they are mostly one-liners and smack talk.
Nintendo and Next Level did a superb job bringing back Punch-Out!! to the modern era of video games. It feels new enough and yet it still fells old-school like the original games as if you're playing a NES game. It definitely feels like a NES game in terms of the difficulty especially in Title Defense mode, but the challenge makes the reward of beating it even more sweeter in the end. Versus mode does feel like an afterthought of why not put something in for two players to play with no online support, but still a neat idea that can be improved on in the future. What definitely impressed me with this Punch-Out!! other than the familiar gameplay is the style it presents and the personality this game offers as whole. All those characters look great and live up their true personas that makes you want to beat them up even further. Also, what remains intact is the satisfaction once beating the game, in which gives it its old-school appeal. Punch-Out!! is back in a big way as I gotta hand it to Nintendo for actually caring about a franchise as legendary as this and giving it the modern treatment.
Score = 9/10
Pros:
Definitely feels like old-school Punch-Out!!
The satisfaction of beating these opponents feels as sweet as it was in the late 80s.
A challenging game (on Title Defense) for the hardcore
Motion controls do give the game its casual appeal
Filled with personality and style
Enough replay value to keep players busy
Cons:
Versus mode feels like an afterthought and tacked on
The challenge might scare new players especially later on.
UPDATE - This post is now updated with changes to the setlist and links to all of them in action on Rock Band.
I was watching a stream last weekend of someone playing Rock Band 2 and a setlist of what he considers the 84 best Rock Band songs to play. This me want to play the game again and buy it again (wait for Rock Band 3). So yesterday, I put together my own setlist of 84 songs I would rock to in Rock Band. Considering my tastes of rock music, it does has the hits for sure along with some underground stuff. Here it is (84 different artists - I didn't want repeats, so it was a little hard picking a definitive song to represent in this list):
Keep in mind this list would likely change over time as more songs come out. When I feel like it, I'll post links to all these songs. Now I'm tempted to play Rock Band again...
UPDATE 2 - I posted this a bit ago on my Twitter which is a taste of what's to come for Rock Band Network with "Uprising" by Muse as an example.
If u have been paying attention to my Twitter in the past week, I have been busting out a new feature unoriginally called Soundtracks to SF4. Basically, as much as I love Street Fighter IV's music, it does get tiring after a while especially if the same stages keep getting selected. Even though it is pretty much my version of custom soundtracks, its better to hear some actual music once in a while. So I have been busting out all spectrums of music, from N'Sync, Jeremih, Maxwell, LMFAO, and more. Might as well multitask especially with the grind that is Street Fighter IV's Championship Mode on G2. I'm currently at G2-B with 7800 something GP now and G2 is slowly becoming G1 in terms of skill level, which is starting to get frustrating if you're expecting better competition. Turns out it is the same old deal as I hope G1 feels somewhat elite compared to the rest, but then again, I could be wrong. Maybe playing Street Fighter IV online is a mistake after all as Shoo told me against random players, but at least I should play more player matches against SoCal's best especially last night against Keno, which was fun times. Speaking of Keno, here's him in action above in the AI Ranbat 2.4 Grand Finals against Viscant's Zangief as his girlfriend Teresa provides commentary (lol!!!).
While I was rocking my Street Fighter IV Comic-Con 08 T-Shirt at the Ladies of SF4 tournament, I was asked by various folks that recognized the shirt wandering if I'm going to this year's San Diego Comic-Con. Unfortunately, I'm not and I have been going there for the past four years already. The tickets have been sold out for a while, but it is best not to go to the crazy opus or I should say "Nerd Prom" (whatever). The convention itself has been getting bigger and bigger of all the times I went there, but I don't think I could handle it anymore. As much as I love Comic-Con, it has gone way mainstream as it is more than just your convention and more of a spectacle. Plus, that weekend if things come through, I'll have other plans in mind anyway.
I also don't see myself going to Evo next weekend at Vegas either. As much I as want to go to Evo at the Rio this year because it will be the biggest one yet and I never been there to see the HYPE in person, it is not going to happen. Even the SoCal SF4 community is asking me if I'm going to Evo, I respond with I wish I can go. In case you don't know what Evo aka the Evolution Championships are, it is the biggest fighting game tournament here in the United States where all the big boys from all over the country to come and try to make a name for themselves in the community winning the grand daddy of them all. Besides being the big tournament, it is at Vegas again and more good times will ensue throughout, but hopefully no drama will go off. I can't even the imagine the numbers for Street Fighter IV alone of those entering and there's other games going on as well like Marvel, 3rd Strike, Tekken 6, and SSF2T HD Remix. Yeah I hope the people I know especially here at SoCal have an awesome time and represent at Evo.
The highly anticipated video for Drake's "Best I Ever Had" came out last night as the hate for it on Twitter is staggering. I'm sort of on agreement with the majority that the video could have been better considering the song, but one person on Twitter pretty much said this right: "Drake made the song for the ladies and the video for the guys." I still think Kanye didn't want to make just another typical R&B-like video trying to be original as he always tries to be, but then again maybe this video as a whole is sarcastic. Who knows...
Last weekend's episode of Top Gear was pretty awesome with the new Lambo Murcielago at the desert and the epic drag race between the Bugatti Veyron and the McLaren F1 (shown above). Why is this show so good as I just started this recently. I'm not much of a car nut, but this show seems so brillantly put together with the cinematography and all those camera angles besides the cars and the personalities.
Here's a Street Fighter IV match at Arcade Infinity Ranbat 2.4 last month with Kai's El Fuerte and Keno's Balrog. Pretty epic match in terms of comebacks and the whole clock being used. Gootecks and Sanchez provided commentary as they mention randomness like Fuerte's crappy English voice on the console version to a 12-minute wedding Gootecks attended. Hopefully more LoSF footage gets uploaded soon, so I can add it to my epic blog post about that epic day.
Speaking of Kai, here's him along with Paul (somuchdamage) on Part 2 of their episode on the Dogface Show. He discusses his hate for Street Fighter IV in which I understand why he hates it in terms of how random the game can be and the fact you can get away with many things compared to 3rd Strike. He also talks about his story of a coyote exploding at the Arizona desert, which is funny.
Other than the Ladies of Street Fighter IV tournament happening that awesome Saturday, I decided to take a shot of the return of DJ Max Technika in Arcade Infinity. This game costs a dollar to play and six dollars for a card tracking your data. DJ Max Technika is a rhythm game that uses two screens (one on top for display and the bottom for gameplay like playing a Nintendo DS) as you use your fingers to touch the screen along to the beat. Yeah, it is Japanese-based in terms of what music is being offered for the anime crowd, but its not bad if you're into that type of music. My experience with this game playing for the first time was trying to get used to the speed as I underestimated how fast it can go and as a result I failed the song. It is still fun to play and hopefully get better as I play it more if I get the chance to go to AI more frequently. This definitely feels like you're playing a Nintendo DS game, but at an arcade which is cool in some way. Definitely an unique arcade game worth checking out if you see it around.
