Does anyone not notice how bad these games actually are? I am somewhat of a douche bag when it comes to criticizing the 2 companies which kick started the whole 2D Fighting genre and their newest efforts in “rebooting” this genre back into our lives. If I were a professional reviewer for a reputed site, I’d be fired. Why is everything rebooted like Hollywood has lost all its creative originality? We barely saw the first Spiderman within this decade and they are talking about rebooting the franchise, why don’t they reboot Harry Potter with a new bunch of kids? But I am not here to talk about movies. Games, yes. Fighters. SF4, KOF XII, the truth is that both games stink. The Media concentrate on how good the graphics look and ignore almost everything else that is wrong with the games, who cares about graphics when you fight, it is all about the adrenaline, the guessing game, the tightness of the combos, abuse of the system (and yes, in order for you to abuse the system, there has to be some kind of system, and finding out how to abuse it, is part of the journey).
Let’s start with Street Fighter 4, the lesser evil of the 2 games (and I confess, not being a fan of Guilty Gear, as of this moment I have yet to try BlazBlue). I am not going to praise it at all and come out to say what is broken about this game, the system. Have you seen a 3rd Strike tournament video where experts tests their limits in becoming simply super-human, which leaves you in an awe-struck jaw dropping can’t-get-any-girls idiocy face. After seeing that, SF4 is simply, retarded. And let me see how my skill as a writer is tested to explain this retardation in layman terms. You have 1 super bar which has 4 levels of it (but no, you don’t actually have 4 supers), which you can use 1/4 to execute an EX move and 1/2 to execute a cancel focus attack, both are much more useful than the actual super which depletes your whole bar and gives your opponent minimal damage. 5 points to retardation. Now you have this Ulta move, which is sort of a desperation move which you will get when half of your HP is gone, so you basically get to use this move when you suck at the game and getting your ass kicked. This move is strong enough to take off half of your opponent’s life meter so that he gets to use his ultra, to kill you, do you absolutely have any idea how retarded this scenario is in an actual match? It ends up that all experts rely on 1 combo to play this game, they use some kind of normal move (an uppercut), cancel Focus, cancel dash, some kind of juggling move (another uppercut), and ultra your ass to death, and they only do this when an ultra is available and when their opponent can be killed. And so, are you actually smart enough to ask this question yet? Why does the Level 1 Super exist at all? And not to mention, this game is more unbalanced than your grandma and her cat sitting next to an orangutan on a scale. Ryu and Balrog rules this game and try playing a new character like Viper and be eternally frustrated at how bad it is actually designed. If you don’t believe me, go watch some SF4 tournament videos on youtube, then watch some Third Strike videos, and then… hang yourself. IGN gave this a 9.0 (and no, out of 100).
On to the next, KOF XII. I have one thing to say, is SNK on crack? They simply trampled the one good thing about the series (the plethora of characters and the complexity of the system) and turned it into garbage (or in other words, a Capcom game). If I wanted to play KOF 94, I would actually go back in time to the arcade at UCLA, to play it. But here, 15 years later, we have a game that has less characters than the game and worse than the one that was 15 years ago, and half of them simply aren’t playable, and terrible net-code on the console versions. I have not had a decent match without network latency, but SNK, take my advice and don’t fix the net-code, because it won’t improve the game in any way, it is simply bad, give us KOF 02 UM on XBLA or hang the whole development team outside your office building. What is exactly wrong with the game, you ask? Just about Everything, from the art direction, to the lack of characters, the simplicity (and stupidity) of the system… it’s so stupid that I can’t find words to describe it. And does every professional reviewer out there has to complain about the lack of Mai (which is why I put her picture up), who cares about Mai, which isn’t a unique character in the first place? If you wanted to jerk off while playing video games you can pre-order Bayonetta. And who cares about how difficult and innovative to render everything in 3D, paint over it again, render it again.., blah blah blah…, gives us a playable game, damn it, even if you had to give us one in 8 bit pixels, if we wanted CG porn we’ll be watching Michael Bay. IGN gives…, ah… who gives a rat’s ass.
Watch the legendary SF3 Tournament EVO 2004 -Justin vs Diago
Now watch SF4 US National Championship – Justin vs Diago
