Sean R's blog

Here's a tip: if you live outside of the US and like Capcom games, don't order from the Capcom Store. My pre-ordered copy of Street Fighter IV PC was held up at Customs -- took about three weeks to get here, and Capcom said it could take up to six. I had to, though, as I hate credit cards and they take PayPal, unlike any other online shop in Canada with a decent PC selection, so...

Anyway. I've been enjoying the shit out of this game! It's as great as I remembered from my Alpha 3 days. My cousin Mark had bought that for me (for Christmas or just randomly, I cannot be sure) -- one of the best gifts I've ever received. Him and I played the shit out of that game, especially the tag mode. There was a period during which he was playing the World Tour mode and building up his Bison character to the max level, then later I did the same with Akuma, and we finally managed to have a showdown between them at his place later. It was epic. I'm pretty sure I won, ultimately, but it's been awhile.

The feel of the two titles is similar enough -- quite a bit different from the last major iteration, 3rd Strike. I really like the changes they made to put the focus on regular combos and away from super and ultra combos (as you can see above though, those are spectacular as ever ;)).

I've unlocked all the characters except Seth -- slowly but surely working on that. Gotten quite a few achievements too, which I find quite addictive..I'm gonna go for the Legendary Champion one eventually, which must surely be one of the most difficult in any game, but I think I can do it once I get really good (at the moment I'm just "good"). Basically you have to fulfill the conditions for unlocking Gouken (Arcade Mode: one perfect, five first strikes, three Ultra and/or Super Combos, no continues) and then beat him, all on Hardest difficulty. This would be absurdly hard, but Akuma makes it a lot less so with those Raging Demons. ;)


The hardest single part of it is beating Seth on the first try on this difficulty -- I could do it within a few tries, sure, but one, after beating like ten guys already on hardest? Yeesh, that's annoying. But eventually.

Traditionally, Akuma has always been my guy (sidenote: the EX moves allow him double air hadoukens, similar to Alpha 3's Shin Akuma -- I was worried about this!), and as a result, all the other Hadouken/Shoryuken-y characters (Ryu, Ken, Sakura, Sagat, etc).


This still holds true -- I've gotten fond of Ken and Sakura -- however just today I've taught myself how to play Vega, something I'd always avoided cause his Super/Ultra combos scared the bejesus out of me. Apparently I've just been silly -- it's actually one of the easier ones to do, at least for me. So I've been playing as him and having a blast; it's refreshing to play as a non-Hadouken/Shoryuken-y character, especially online, cause I know a lot of players are sick of seeing them. I'm also kinda okay with Chun-Li and Abel -- those I'll get properly good with later.

So yeah, been having a blast, getting a bit better all the time. This is a game I'll be playing for many years, particularly with the scarcity of fighting games on PC, and the online play.

If you haven't picked it up yet, I can't recommend it enough, myself. Plus, there's all those mods. Chun-Li as a maid? Seriously. Can't advise purchasing the DLC though. $15 for a bunch of costumes? What the *bleep*??? Whatever, I still love you, Capcom. And they did leave the game openly moddable, so bless 'em for that.

I'll probably have some match footage up on here within a month or two, and maybe occasionally after that. For now, there's a ton of photos in my gallery -- just click any of my screenshots here to head to it.

Okay, enough typey...I'll write more in a few days about some games I've picked up recently, probably with some photos of my game collection.

peace and happy trails.

:)

(What have you been enjoying?)