I haven’t taken the time to chronicle the entire story of the recent Ultra Street Fighter IV tournament that I attended on Halloween at my local Gamestop, so I want to remedy that situation now.
To be quite honest, I didn’t make up my mind to enter the tournament until about 4-5 days before the actual date of the tournament. I just happened to be in the middle tutoring my friend Randy in the game and I was growing impatient with his progress. That’s a pet peeve of mine when it comes to teaching people fighting games. If I take time out of my schedule - especially when I’m supposed to be on a hiatus from this genre - and offer to help you out, I expect you to at least be grinding on your own practicing what we’ve done or in training room/replay channel to review and understand WHY you lost. With him I was going easier than I was with my close friends. We’d run a few sets and I’ll tell him between rounds/sets what he’s doing wrong, how to approach that match-up better, or simply something to work on out of words of encouragement. He was showing a lot of promise - I got him to stop mindlessly jumping in and mashing out Shoryukens and he was starting to understand the ground game better. Something happened and he started to revert to “online tactics” - tons of reckless and mindless approaches and mashing out moves. I guessing he panicked or something, but he was dealing with me kicking things up a notch more than some of my regular casual sparring buddies would. So it was just downright frustrating that he threw all of that progress out of the window.
As a result, it took me back to why I wanted my hiatus from this genre in the first place. I looked at the Gamestop tournament as my last “hurrah” to the game and the genre for the time being. I thought it was ironic that the second that I put my mind towards entering the tournament everything in my life that week went to shit and was hellbent on me not getting a single bit of time to practice until the morning of the tournament itself.
What was my tournament training regime you ask? Mostly I run into Training Room and go through ALL of the moves on both 1P and 2P sides of the screen. I dunno what it is with 2D fighters but my brain “skips” for a second to think of how to input commands on opposing side of the screen at times. I’ve NEVER had this problem in 3D fighters but it always plagues me in 2D fighters time and time again. After that, I run through basic “bread and butter” combos on both sides of the screen before jumping onto Ranked Match for a few random matches. I set the search for ANY in terms of Skill Level and focus on just reacting and studying how my opponent plays. If I run into a tactic that I can’t deal with or completely blows me up, I try to simulate it in training and figure out a counter or defense to that tactic.
Perfect example, that entire morning I was having issues with Dudley’s Jumping Diving Elbow Drop, a move I used to low-profile with cr. MP or cr. MK in previous versions of Street Fighter IV. In this version it was oddly trading, so I had to adjust my timing or just straight out knock him out of the air with st. MK. I think I practiced this anti-air training for about 2 hours straight until I felt comfortable against it.
After I felt good enough to get the nervous jitters out of my system and feel properly warmed up, I ate some breakfast/lunch since I tend to have social anxiety attacks pop up randomly in events if I do have an empty stomach and headed to the mall where the event was held.
I get there, there’s like next to no one there. I felt like a complete nerd - even more so than usual, carrying my bookbag full of controllers and my adapters where it looked like the thing wasn’t happening at all. FYI I play mainly off a PS2 to Xbox 360 adapter and I have one that allows me to use the PS2 controller on a PS3 as well. The clerk at the counter said they were still having the event and just that people were strangling along to get there. This really took me back though. Back in high school, they held a Soul Calibur tournament in this same mall but it was in the center of the Food Court. About the same size of entrants too, I think it was about 9-12 people total - few seasoned players like myself and others ranging from folks my age to kids who didn’t know what the hell they were doing - they were just there for the free candy that Gamestop were giving out.
Here’s the kicker about the tournament before it even started. The clerk hosting the tournament wanted to do 1-round, Single Elimination and the vets along with myself vetoed that idea out. At least give people a fighting chance. So, it was changed to Best of 2 sets (2 out of 3 rounds to win), Single Elimination. Character lock too. The tournament was on Xbox 360 on a no lag monitor but everyone was forced to use those wireless standard Xbox 360 pads.
Right then and there I busted out laughing because I wish I actually practiced on one of those. The clerk hosting the tournament allowed entrants to practice/warm up and I’ll say without a doubt they literally opened up some used 360 pads to use. D-pad and analog sticks were loose and buttons were mashed in from prelonged use. Seriously, how do people ruin their controllers like that so easily? I have PS2 AND NES controllers that STILL play like new.
I’m not going to label this as an excuse to why I didn’t win as everyone else had to deal with this handicap too. I threw a lot of people off during “warm-ups” as I was playing Hugo - a character I’ve been just randomly messing around with. I knew I wasn’t going to use him in this tournament so playing him now was pretty harmless, but it put a lot of people on edge since I could hear a lot of the seasoned players notice that I knew what I was doing. I was laughing to myself, I guess the jig is up now…
After a SHORT bout of warm-ups, they started the tournament up and I went first. I KNEW it was going to happen because fate likes to play with my emotions like that in these things. If I’m not one of the first matches, it really fucks up with my nerves. I rather play first and get it out of the way to see how everyone else - i.e. my competition fares.
My first match is where my competition came into play as the first of the trio who came to the tournament together as a group of buddies (reminiscent of my old gaming buddies from high school when we entered that Soul Calibur tournament together) who were pretty damn good in warm sets. One of them played a pretty scary looking Juri, the other alternated between Dudley and Seth, while the one who I was set to face first, was another solid Dudley player.
Oh the irony. Pretty much from the second I picked Chun-Li on the character select screen people were confused or shocked. “We got this, baby.” I told myself as the round started. Without a shadow of a doubt, I pretty much bullied the guy the entire match. The guy had decent footsies, but after I pretty much discouraged him from jumping (thanks to the training I went through earlier) he was afraid to do anything. Strange that this match-up is SOOO much easier offline than online. I won that one 2-0 to advance to the next round.
The second Dudley player had an easy first round bout as he fought one of those kids who didn’t know what they were doing, so he just pretty much turned those two rounds into training mode with Seth. You know the deal - one hit confirm into a combo for full stun, one mix-up into the reset, and repeat. Even his friends were disgusted that he played like that against the poor kid. I would’ve at least played Dan just to troll (laughs) and give the kid a honest effort.
The Juri player had another easy first round bout as he fought some random guy I beat prior in warm-ups who was using Ryu. I would end up facing the Juri player in my next round bout. In the Dudley match-up I went with Ultra 2 but with Juri because I think this match is completely revamped in Ultra now after Juri’s buffs, I went with Ultra Combo Double. Reduced damage but I like the added mindgame that he can’t zone me out with fireballs.
Surprisingly enough, this turned into a match of PURE footsies. Footsies = proper spacing and zoning where you’re in a tug of war fight to control onscreen space. I have two friends who main Juri and I haven’t seen one this good like EVER. I had him beat in one round and I dropped the Ultra Combo ender and lost the round because of it. It happens to the best of it. I’m not even mad at that goof up. Regardless, it came down to tied to win, last match, last little scrap of health. I went for a Focus Attack fake-out but he didn’t fall for it and got the jump-in for the win. GGs dude. The clerk and everyone there said we had the best match of the tournament afterwards, with my opponent saying that I was his only “true” competition. Even his buddies were impressed with my play, jokingly asking if we were trying to play like it was the finals of Evo. I can’t even be mad when in past tournaments, players were so intent to get me eliminated that they had to get the tournament organizer to play and beat me himself so this was a change of pace.
I stuck around to watch the remainder of the tournament with the two buddies finishing it out, as the Juri player completely wiped the floor with his Dudley. That was just ugly to watch. Hell, our match could have been the finals as far as I’m concerned. After those two were crowned the winners of first and second place, I had to play a final match against the other person who lost in the semi-finals. I could've won that match blindfolded to be honest. The only thing I did was play Gouken and parried everything he tried to do and after he got frustrated to death I spammed charged Gohadokens high and low.
First place won a $25 gift card to the store, second place won a $15 one, and third got $5 that could be used towards any reserve. Better than nothing as the only thing I could remember getting from that Soul Calibur II tournament back in the day was a few preorder decals/stickers from Ace Combat 4 (I think?) that they were trying to get rid of.
All in all, I felt this was a good last hurrah to end on. Like Ivy before her in Soul Calibur II, Chun-Li gave me a good ride to the end of my tournament life in this game. With my mind at rest, I feel like I can finally move onto something else and not invest all of my free time on this game any longer. We'll have to see what's the next fighter that's going to hook me in to want to play competitively in the future. For now, I'm taking it easy and continuing to catch up on games I've missed out on the last few years after allowing Street Fighter IV to take over my gaming console for the last 7+ years.
As much as I HATE the fangirls from Arrow, I’m going piss them off and say that I’m still keen of the idea of Barry hooking up with Felicity Smoak. Her on that “double date” with Barry and Iris was just too great. Fuck your “Olicity” fanfiction pairing that the creators of that show was forced to make a reality to not upset you clowns.
Moving on…
As for Barry’s first encounter with Zoom, I have to say that I was a little underwhelmed. It’s roughly the same as the first skirmish with the Reverse Flash. I said this on social media last night too. I don’t see myself watching this show for several seasons on end if EVERY season is another skirmish versus another “evil” speedster. Barry gets the shit beat out of him and becomes a martyr for other heroes and heroines to step forward to help him. Isn’t that same shit that they did on Smallville, Arrow, and even The Flash last season? C’mon, I want to see Barry beat this one on his own, especially after seeing Eddie Thawne take Barry’s man card from him in defeating Reverse Flash in the season one finale.
I’m just getting REALLY sick of this preset template to almost all of these Arrow/Smallville-style DC Comics-based TV shows. You got the support team setup in a Command Center that’s just as corny and comical as an episode of Power Rangers, the hero/heroine going through teen angst-style puberty with learning/mastering their powers in the vein of Spider-Man, and the “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!!” Pokemon/13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo mash-up subplot. It’s getting VERY redundant.
In Supergirl, she doesn’t have not one Command Center but at least 2-3 of them - her apartment, the DEO HQ, and now Catco where she works underneath her secret identity. C’mon, how the hell people aren’t figuring this shit out while she’s at fucking work?? Between The Flash, Arrow, and now Supergirl, you’d think DC Comics’ superheroes don’t know the meaning of secret identities. I’m sure there’s going to be that one nerd who’s going to argue that Marvel Comics does the same thing but in their defense, they haven’t had a reason to “conceal” their identities when they have been dealing with an alien invasion and other various terrorist and planetary threats. They aren’t stopping the small street level criminals like DC’s heros until Daredevil came around into the picture on Netflix.
I remember win this show was first announced, people were saying that it was going to be the start of a “movement” of female empowerment for the superhero genre. Nah, this show is doing nothing but enforcing the idea to frowning upon that idea. The second it was looking bad against Reactron, Superman showed up and saved Kara and took her home without a second thought before leaving to take care of more “important” business like he was metaphorically saying that what Supergirl was dealing with was beneath him.
May’s ex-husband turned out to be Lash after tampering with Daisy’s mother’s Inhuman junk that SHIELD acquired after last season’s finale. Somehow it was rigged with Terragen Crystals that released the mist that “unlocked” his powers, turning him into that monster. So pretty much, May is reduced to being his Betty Ross for his Incredible Hulk rampages. A rare touching moment between her and her former husband, but I was ready for Ward to kill the guy off see her become an even more hardened warrior. Sad to see her and Mockingbird’s manhunt or rather womanhunt? for Ward end prematurely. Speaking of Mockingbird I didn’t know Palicki was so much taller than Ming-Na. Good grief. She’s a fucking amazon. I feel like that was a bit of an oversight in terms of Marvel’s casting for that character as Mockingbird is usually depicted as shorter than most heroes and heroines as she uses her petite size to her advantage. Her Amazon stature doesn’t diminish her character here, but that’s just me being a little nit-picky as usual.
What REALLY bothered me about this episode though? The end teaser where Ward’s new HYDRA buddies confirmed that Rosalind was one of their own. I have to remind myself that every time they add one of these one-off characters that haven’t been in the comics prior nine times out of ten they are HYDRA operative. I hope it’s not true, but to see Coulson falling heads over heels for her is a bit much. It seems like they have thrown the tension between himself and May out of the window completely that they have been hinting at for the last few seasons.
All in all, I felt this was a good last hurrah to end on. Like Ivy before her in Soul Calibur II, Chun-Li gave me a good ride to the end of my tournament life in this game. With my mind at rest, I feel like I can finally move onto something else and not invest all of my free time on this game any longer. We'll have to see what's the next fighter that's going to hook me in to want to play competitively in the future. For now, I'm taking it easy and continuing to catch up on games I've missed out on the last few years after allowing Street Fighter IV to take over my gaming console for the last 7+ years.
The Flash - Season 2: 1st Appearance of Zoom
To be honest, I wouldn’t have stuck this long with this show if it wasn’t for Tom Cavanagh AKA Harrison Wells’ actor. The guy has an amazing presence in every single scene he’s in and it’s a completely different side of the coin that he’s playing with his character - who’s not the Reverse Flash/Thawne in this timeline. I’m starting to like Patty’s character more and more each episode, but I’m glad that they are scaling back on Iris’ character this season. She’s NOWHERE as annoying and sickening to watch this season as compared to the first season. I was to the point where I absolutely hated her character in the first season. That being said, Barry’s love-interests are disposable and interchangeable as his underwear, so Patty might want to look out before Barry moves onto the next big thing.As much as I HATE the fangirls from Arrow, I’m going piss them off and say that I’m still keen of the idea of Barry hooking up with Felicity Smoak. Her on that “double date” with Barry and Iris was just too great. Fuck your “Olicity” fanfiction pairing that the creators of that show was forced to make a reality to not upset you clowns.
Moving on…
As for Barry’s first encounter with Zoom, I have to say that I was a little underwhelmed. It’s roughly the same as the first skirmish with the Reverse Flash. I said this on social media last night too. I don’t see myself watching this show for several seasons on end if EVERY season is another skirmish versus another “evil” speedster. Barry gets the shit beat out of him and becomes a martyr for other heroes and heroines to step forward to help him. Isn’t that same shit that they did on Smallville, Arrow, and even The Flash last season? C’mon, I want to see Barry beat this one on his own, especially after seeing Eddie Thawne take Barry’s man card from him in defeating Reverse Flash in the season one finale.
Supergirl - Superman saves Kara's ass from Reactron
Don’t ask why but for some reason I’m STILL watching Supergirl. Call me crazy or call me stupid, but I’m waiting to see if this gets any better. The CG effects look better than they did in the pilot now, but everything else is meh at best.I’m just getting REALLY sick of this preset template to almost all of these Arrow/Smallville-style DC Comics-based TV shows. You got the support team setup in a Command Center that’s just as corny and comical as an episode of Power Rangers, the hero/heroine going through teen angst-style puberty with learning/mastering their powers in the vein of Spider-Man, and the “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!!” Pokemon/13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo mash-up subplot. It’s getting VERY redundant.
In Supergirl, she doesn’t have not one Command Center but at least 2-3 of them - her apartment, the DEO HQ, and now Catco where she works underneath her secret identity. C’mon, how the hell people aren’t figuring this shit out while she’s at fucking work?? Between The Flash, Arrow, and now Supergirl, you’d think DC Comics’ superheroes don’t know the meaning of secret identities. I’m sure there’s going to be that one nerd who’s going to argue that Marvel Comics does the same thing but in their defense, they haven’t had a reason to “conceal” their identities when they have been dealing with an alien invasion and other various terrorist and planetary threats. They aren’t stopping the small street level criminals like DC’s heros until Daredevil came around into the picture on Netflix.
I remember win this show was first announced, people were saying that it was going to be the start of a “movement” of female empowerment for the superhero genre. Nah, this show is doing nothing but enforcing the idea to frowning upon that idea. The second it was looking bad against Reactron, Superman showed up and saved Kara and took her home without a second thought before leaving to take care of more “important” business like he was metaphorically saying that what Supergirl was dealing with was beneath him.
Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD - Melinda May’s dilemma
***HUGE Spoiler if you haven’t been keeping up to date with the current season… ***May’s ex-husband turned out to be Lash after tampering with Daisy’s mother’s Inhuman junk that SHIELD acquired after last season’s finale. Somehow it was rigged with Terragen Crystals that released the mist that “unlocked” his powers, turning him into that monster. So pretty much, May is reduced to being his Betty Ross for his Incredible Hulk rampages. A rare touching moment between her and her former husband, but I was ready for Ward to kill the guy off see her become an even more hardened warrior. Sad to see her and Mockingbird’s manhunt or rather womanhunt? for Ward end prematurely. Speaking of Mockingbird I didn’t know Palicki was so much taller than Ming-Na. Good grief. She’s a fucking amazon. I feel like that was a bit of an oversight in terms of Marvel’s casting for that character as Mockingbird is usually depicted as shorter than most heroes and heroines as she uses her petite size to her advantage. Her Amazon stature doesn’t diminish her character here, but that’s just me being a little nit-picky as usual.
What REALLY bothered me about this episode though? The end teaser where Ward’s new HYDRA buddies confirmed that Rosalind was one of their own. I have to remind myself that every time they add one of these one-off characters that haven’t been in the comics prior nine times out of ten they are HYDRA operative. I hope it’s not true, but to see Coulson falling heads over heels for her is a bit much. It seems like they have thrown the tension between himself and May out of the window completely that they have been hinting at for the last few seasons.
Star Wars Rebels
I did a marathon of the first season and the second season thus far over the weekend and I have to say that I’m pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed Clone Wars for the most part until it’s last few seasons as I felt that it overstayed it’s welcome, but this is a nice change of pace. It took majority of the first season to make me give a damn, but they got me hooked after tying the series completely to the original Star Wars trilogy AND the Clone Wars cartoon after introducing Ahsoka Tano and Darth Vader into this cartoon. I know that I’m dying to see Ahsoka’s confrontation with her former master more than anything else now since we were shafted out of Ahsoka’s character being “killed off” during the end of the Clone Wars cartoon after mixed reactions from fans and parents who were fans of the show, despite knowing what happened during Order 666 in Episode III. I seriously doubt that they are going to kill her character off now that she has such a strong following after Clone Wars, but her past with Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is going have to be addressed sooner or later.
And seriously, where do all of these Inquisitors keep showing up from? Don't get me wrong. They all look totally bad-ass but do the Empire have an endless supply of them?
I know I completely forgot about Lady Une’s schizophrenia/multiple personalities and the cause for it isn’t explained very well. It’s like her and Trieze have ONE minor disagreement between the end of the first major story arc and then the next episode she’s acting like a completely different person. I’m sure her voice actress had some fun with that one.
Speaking of voice acting talent, Gundam W sports a ton of great voices that are still floating around English anime dubs today. Quatre’s VA voices Light Yagami in Death Note as well a lot of other noteworthy roles. Trowa’s VA (Kirby Murrow) voiced Miroku in Inuyasha as well as Vaan in Vision of Escaflowne. Duo Maxwell’s VA voiced Protoman and Dr. Wily in the Mega Man cartoon and went on to voice tons of other anime characters following the success of Gundam W in the US, including Hohenheim Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist. Brian Drummond (Millardo Peacecraft/Zechs Marquise) is one of the most popular voice actors from one of the original English dubs of Dragonball Z’s Vegeta. Majority of the cast came back together to work on Gundam 00, that sports a similar tone as Gundam Wing did.
As for the fact of understanding why this series isn’t part of reruns on Toonami, there’s a LOT of religious content to edit out along with some suicidal tendencies of the pilots that parents would not be okay with nowadays. On top of that, this anime (much like most of the Gundam franchise) speaks about war in a way that most people don’t want their children exposed to. It’s a mature show for mature minds and doesn’t have a lot of happy endings - the pilots find this out the hard way on multiple occasions throughout the series.
As overpowered the Zero System was during the series’ final act, it’s no more overpowered as the essential “Newtypes” that have become the series staples in this genre To be honest, it’s literally the same idea without the genetics involved.
Looking back, the animation is still top notch - especially for this time period in the mid-90s but now that I’m older I can notice the same corners that were cut as other anime series during this time period, like Dragonball Z. For example, when Heero and Trowa fought Zechs in space with the Mercurius and Vayeate versus the Tallgeese, the same scenes from mobile dolls being destroyed are recycled into almost EVERY episodes’ space battles following this encounter. The same thing is done with the Wing Zero’s space battles. After reading up more onto the series, I found out that the mecha designs were simplified on this series due to budget limitations in terms of animation. That explains why the designs for the Gundams are DRASTICALLY different between the original anime and the Endless Waltz OVA movie as the series creator had the chance to redesign and detail the 5 Gundams as he originally envisioned them.
I’ll admit that Gundam W is a VERY slow build to the good stuff, but there’s not the comedy to fall back on to ease the grind like G Gundam had. (Laughs) Gundam W started the “pretty boy” anime craze in terms of getting girls exposed to anime in the US in the 90s, along with Sailor Moon and Inuyusha. If you were lucky to wake up for Vision of Escaflowne being HEAVILY edited on Fox Kids that my girlfriend at the time watching with her when I was in high school, you can add that to the list too. Kids WB tried to match that dynamic with Cardcapturers/Cardcapturor Sakura, but I don’t remember that anime airing completely on that channel before being elbowed off the network in favor of more seasons of Yu-Gi-OH! and Pokemon.
One more thing to laugh about concerning Gundam W to end on…
Dorothy’s fucking eyebrows.
Revisiting New Mobile Report Gundam Wing
Watching uncut, unedited, and in gorgeous HD from the Remastered DVD/Blu-Ray boxset that someone was awesome enough to upload on YouTube. I’m up to episode 37 after grinding away at the series over the past week. Definitely not as “amazing” as it was when I first watched it back on Toonami when I was in high school but still a great Gundam series nonetheless.I know I completely forgot about Lady Une’s schizophrenia/multiple personalities and the cause for it isn’t explained very well. It’s like her and Trieze have ONE minor disagreement between the end of the first major story arc and then the next episode she’s acting like a completely different person. I’m sure her voice actress had some fun with that one.
Speaking of voice acting talent, Gundam W sports a ton of great voices that are still floating around English anime dubs today. Quatre’s VA voices Light Yagami in Death Note as well a lot of other noteworthy roles. Trowa’s VA (Kirby Murrow) voiced Miroku in Inuyasha as well as Vaan in Vision of Escaflowne. Duo Maxwell’s VA voiced Protoman and Dr. Wily in the Mega Man cartoon and went on to voice tons of other anime characters following the success of Gundam W in the US, including Hohenheim Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist. Brian Drummond (Millardo Peacecraft/Zechs Marquise) is one of the most popular voice actors from one of the original English dubs of Dragonball Z’s Vegeta. Majority of the cast came back together to work on Gundam 00, that sports a similar tone as Gundam Wing did.
As for the fact of understanding why this series isn’t part of reruns on Toonami, there’s a LOT of religious content to edit out along with some suicidal tendencies of the pilots that parents would not be okay with nowadays. On top of that, this anime (much like most of the Gundam franchise) speaks about war in a way that most people don’t want their children exposed to. It’s a mature show for mature minds and doesn’t have a lot of happy endings - the pilots find this out the hard way on multiple occasions throughout the series.
As overpowered the Zero System was during the series’ final act, it’s no more overpowered as the essential “Newtypes” that have become the series staples in this genre To be honest, it’s literally the same idea without the genetics involved.
Looking back, the animation is still top notch - especially for this time period in the mid-90s but now that I’m older I can notice the same corners that were cut as other anime series during this time period, like Dragonball Z. For example, when Heero and Trowa fought Zechs in space with the Mercurius and Vayeate versus the Tallgeese, the same scenes from mobile dolls being destroyed are recycled into almost EVERY episodes’ space battles following this encounter. The same thing is done with the Wing Zero’s space battles. After reading up more onto the series, I found out that the mecha designs were simplified on this series due to budget limitations in terms of animation. That explains why the designs for the Gundams are DRASTICALLY different between the original anime and the Endless Waltz OVA movie as the series creator had the chance to redesign and detail the 5 Gundams as he originally envisioned them.
I’ll admit that Gundam W is a VERY slow build to the good stuff, but there’s not the comedy to fall back on to ease the grind like G Gundam had. (Laughs) Gundam W started the “pretty boy” anime craze in terms of getting girls exposed to anime in the US in the 90s, along with Sailor Moon and Inuyusha. If you were lucky to wake up for Vision of Escaflowne being HEAVILY edited on Fox Kids that my girlfriend at the time watching with her when I was in high school, you can add that to the list too. Kids WB tried to match that dynamic with Cardcapturers/Cardcapturor Sakura, but I don’t remember that anime airing completely on that channel before being elbowed off the network in favor of more seasons of Yu-Gi-OH! and Pokemon.
One more thing to laugh about concerning Gundam W to end on…
Dorothy’s fucking eyebrows.
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