TopLeftCenter

Haven't really had a chance to see the console version specifically in action, anybody out there have experience to share? I'm curious but hesitant to put money down without getting a better idea of what I'd be buying and I don't have a PC.

I've played about a dozen games over the past week or so and run into one person with aggressively bad manners and one, maybe two people who gave up a little early on what was probably a losing match. None would be better but it hasn't been enough to break my stride.

I also like the new card system better. It strongly emphasizes active abilities and more unique bonuses, in the previous system I frequently felt like I was hamstringing myself if I wasn't efficiently maxing out stats and rarely explored the more interesting options. It's still way too early to say how balance will shake out in a competitive sense, but my early impression is that there are a smaller number of options available, but more of those options are useful and interesting.

I think people really undersell Ion. Energy management can be tricky but the vortex shield and the laser are both really strong. There's no end of legions who just keep shooting and handing you a huge chunk of damage to blast back, and I've met maybe two tone players who realized that I can count to 3 just as well as they can and send their rockets right back in their face.

Divekicks are a very powerful thing for Yun, but it's important to recognize that in order for you to use them effectively you need the opponent to be on the ground and mostly stationary, but ideally not thinking about how to stop the divekick. In order to accomplish this you have to make them think that jumping at you or rushing forward will get them hurt, so you need to be reliable at punishing jump ins and using your normals to protect the space in front of you. Once they engage with you in the poking game, trying to use their normals to beat yours that's the time to bring out the divekick. Hit them in the shins and go into a confirm, if they're blocking then either keep up the blockstring for pressure and meter build, bait reversals or go for throws as you think is appropriate.

That's the mentality I used when playing as Yun, and while I don't have much experience I found that my success or failure in any particular match was easy to attribute to either succeeding or failing at some part of this plan.

You're thinking of Hanzo's command grab in Yatagarasu. One neat thing about her is that her teleport move that you do a half circle for doesn't actually require a full half circle, you only need to go down back to down forward. That way you can keep charge while teleporting in and grab them immediately.

I was a huge fan of the combat. I liked the combination of using the cover system and blindfiring to defend yourself and build the meter for bullet time, then get mobile and use it in quick bursts. If you tried to lean out of cover even in slow motion you were a sitting duck, you either had to barely ever poke you head out and not accomplish anything or take a lot of damage as you take out enemies. The key was you be out and mobile while you took out as many enemies as you could, then keep the meter in mind and as it runs out find a way to dive back into cover to charge up for the next run.

Honestly if not for the intolerably long loading making the numerous cut-scenes that break up action sequences unskippable I would be more inclined to replay that than any other shooter of the generation that comes to mind.

The big 2 competitive games at the moment are Ultra Street Fighter 4 and MKX. There's plenty of information about both floating around on youtube, twitch and various easily found fighting game forums. USF4 is an old game, so the particulars of how things work are well known and you can find good explanations of them pretty easily. The downside is that most of the people still playing USF4 will be much more experienced at it than you, so you may have a tough time finding someone on your level to have fun matches with. MKX is the newcomer, so the information isn't quite as clear or widespread but there's still plenty of good beginner advice out there. Also you're more likely to find people on your level. USF4 will work just fine on a pad, but it was made with a stick in mind whereas MKX was made for a PS4 pad and the stick support is the afterthought.

Hooray, another way for Valve to make money by watching other people work. Can't wait for the markets to get flooded with garbage so that they can pawn off the job of fixing it on content producers or consumers.

I've kind of accepted that Valve probably won't make interesting things anymore but I hope they stop shitting up steam with stuff like this before they cross the line where any of this gets between me and buying or playing games. They keep nudging closer and closer to it and when it finally happens I'm done.

That Ryan Hart v Nuckldu match was great. You're gonna throw out Ultra? No thanks, dash in shoryuken.

I just played a bit of this, up until the end of the level where you get waterbending. The small budget definitely shows, but the Platinum pedigree does too. This game doesn't match DMC or Bayo for production value but you can tell it's built on the same foundation. I also get the impression they decided that since they can't polish especially well with the limits of the project they decided to make it fast paced and snappy, and I'm appreciating it. I understand that it's a niche group they're appealing to with this but I'm firmly lodged inside of that niche so I'll gladly take it.