Friday, May 17, 2013

Shoryuken!!! Or Capcom vs SNK 2


It was Christmas 2001, I would receive a game that would eventually turn into an ongoing infatuation, and would cause my love of 2D Fighting games to return to me. Oh and return it did, because with the exception of two 3D fighters I've pretty much exclusively played 2D fighters, some of the series I enjoy are Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Art of Fight, Fatal Fury, Capcom vs Marvel, Guilty Gear, and many, many more. I could list so many games I've developed a love for hours, but one game has held my interest for longer than any other, Capcom vs SNK 2: Millionaire Fighting 2001(aka Capcom vs SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001).

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Capcom vs SNK 2 is the sequel to Capcom vs SNK 1 (derp), it's a team based fighter, much like King of Fighters, in the home port of the game however there are a few options for play. Options include 3 vs 3, and 1 vs 1 with the Ratio System removed. The Ratio mode is still included in the home port, in Ratio Mode you select your team of 1 to 3 members and assign them a Ratio between 1 and 4, with the total team Ratio equaling no more than 4. So you could make a 3 person team with two 1's and a 2, a one person team with a Ratio of 4, so on and so on. The Ratio determines how though your character is, Ratio 4 Ken is stronger than Ratio 1 to 3 Ken, so if you just wanted to play Ratio 4 Ken vs a team of three characters it would still end up being a pretty even fight number wise, but more than likely that Ratio 4 is gonna run roughshod over the team of 3 since it will be so much more powerful than the others.  I personally like the 3 vs 3 team battles as they offer the most even fights and the most entertaining in my opinion. You also select a "groove" from various Capcom or SNK games.

 The cast of characters offered in this title is amazing, so amazing in fact I'm going to list the entire roster!

On the Capcom side of things we have:
And on the SNK side of things:

And thank you Wikipedia for the awesome links and list :3

Now, with that impressive roster of combatants you can put together some pretty amazing teams, this is one of the main reasons why I love the 3 vs 3 mode, one of my favorite teams is Evil Ryu, Haomaru, and Sagat, although I am also partial to Ryu, M. Bison, and Terry. The roster however allows for many many awesome combinations. It is those many many combinations of fighters and groove styles that make for tons of exciting potential fights. 


I have played many fighting games throughout the years, but I always find myself coming back to CvsS2. An HD re-release would absolutely make my year, so here's to hoping for that. Well folks, this concludes today's article, I'm hoping to have another article for you all to read soon, till then.

Posted by at 1 comment:

Been A While...I know, I'm slacking, but...

I have some decent articles lined up to be published in the near future. I promise I haven't forgotten about you all, and I'll get something posted tonight to tie you over.
Posted by at No comments:

Monday, April 1, 2013

Peering in to the Darkness, Our first look at H.P. Lovecraft


Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Galactic Saviour, Visionary, Master of the Macabre

 

As you may have gathered, I have a reverence for the man above, he's sort of my literary Jesus, and by that I mean he saved me from dull and drab stories of grade school, and brought me into a world of untold horror and suspense that I find I enjoy so very much more. First off we'll start with a little background about the man, then I'll tell you about my first experience with this amazing author, finally, some more ranting about why I love his works so very very much. 




H.P. Lovecraft was born in late August in 1890, in the town of Providence, Rhode Island. He was the only child of his parents Winfield and Sarah Lovecraft, and by the time he was 8 his father had passed away due to complications from syphilis, and as was suggested by the author or his biography, young Howard was not aware of the true nature of his father's death, thinking instead he died as a result of "over exhaustion" due to the nature of his work. Lovecraft was a sickly child, as a result of his frequent illness he barely attended school until the age of eight and he was withdrawn from that the following year. Another thing plagued the youth, Night Terrors, a rare parasomnia disorder, in which he believed he was being assaulted by faceless devils he refered to as "Night Gaunts". In 1919, after dealing with depression and hysteria for a long period of time, Sarah Lovecraft was committed to the same hospital as her husband was 21 years prior, nevertheless Sarah and her son communicated through letters and remained close until her death in 1924.

Howard Lovecraft was referred to as prodigy as far as poetry was concerned, reading poetry at the age of three and composing and writing his own by age six. His grandfather encouraged his reading, and Lovecraft became quite a voracious reader, consuming the classics and articles of pulp fiction. In 1917 Lovecraft returned to writing fiction gave the world stories such as Dagon and The Tomb, the former being his first professionally-published work. 

That's enough of that, the man lead an interesting life, on top of being an amazing author he was was on the most prominent correspondents of his time, and if you're interested in finding out more about the man just take some time to read his biography or some articles about him and his many works online. 

 As I mentioned before, I would like to quickly talk about the story that I first read and what really got be hooked on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Most of what I hear from folks when it comes to the story that broke that Lovecraft cherry it was one of his more well known and popular works, The Call of Cthulhu, Shadows Over Innsmouth, The Dunwhich Horror, or Into the Mountains of Madness, and don't get me wrong, those are all great stories, all among my favorites, however the work that got me was The Music of Erich Zann. The story is set in Paris, the main character, a student of metaphysics, is forced to take residence in a strange part of the city he has never seen before on a street named "Rue d'Auseil" which is not a true french word but was like derived from the phrase "au aeuil" which means "at the threshold" which make a lot of sense given the nature of the story. Any how, back to the story, the main character finds an apartment in an almost empty building. One night he hears one of the other residents, an old and mute German man named Erich Zann, playing a most strange melody on his viol. The main character approaches Zann and over time begins to gain the old man's trust and eventually he learns Erich's secret and the meaning of his wildly strange melodies. The old man has discovered melodies and rhythms of sound of an almost otherworldly nature, and he must play these sounds to keep ay bay unknown and unseen creatures from his window, which is said to look out into a black abyss, most likely some unknown dimension of horrible origin. I don't want to ruin the story, if you find yourself able to read it, please do, recently I've started doing readings of Lovecraft's works to online friends in preparation of potentially turning some of them into radio drama-esque podcasts.

I plan on future Lovecraft centric articles to discuss his influence on modern horror, video games, comics, and most anything otherworldly. Till then I'll leave you with a quote that I believe to be rather true:
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
 
Posted by at No comments:

Guest Review- Mortal Kombat(2011)

Mortal Kombat (2011)

A soul worth taking


Mortal Kombat, a series famed for it’s over the top violence, and fighting system that
was arguably one of the best around in the mid 90’s. The first Mortal Kombat brought midway
into the lime light for it’s over the top violence and realistic approach on the Snes, Genesis and
height of the arcade days of gaming. Midway produced 3 more games one being better then
the last, kept the 2d aspect, and eventually went into the 3d realm, with Mortal Kombat 4, it
was okay, but wasn’t ground breaking, and they did some spin-offs, added fighting styles, and
then the unthinkable happened.

They went up against the DC universe and…..it…..was…..garbage……pure indescribable
garbage. The last game Midway did before closing there doors, then WB bought the rights and
pretty much bought midway, they just renamed them Netherealm studios. They then brought
us Mortal Kombat, rebooting in a sense, they made some changes, but did it through the story,
they didn’t just make the changes, they gave a reason for the changes…..you in a sense, I’ll
explain later.

Mortal Kombat was brought back into the light, they made some changes, brought a
lot of things back, and added so, so much more to the game. And it was for the good, I’ve never
had so much fun in a fighting game before in a long, long time. I had been playing soul caliber
for a while and then Mortal Kombat came out and I totally forgot about it, honestly I went on
line to play against other people, I even invested in a fight pad, and eventually got my hands on
a fight stick, just because I enjoyed the game so much. So I’m going to start with the Pros of
the game.

Pros

The controls in this game, feels so right, they are tight and responsive, what
ever you input the game registers, there was never a feeling that I was cheated
because the game misread a button input, very solid and just was a great feel.

The Graphics, are amazing, the battle damage and gore are awesome, the
characters literally look like they just got the crap beat out of them as the fight
goes on, I can’t get over it, it’s just amazing seeing someone’s cheek hanging off
the skull is amazing and the blood effects are top notch. Fatalities are basic for
the most part, but are extremely bloody. Kinda like they where giving a nod to
the original Mortal Kombat, nothing over the top, but still looks effective.

The Story is pretty sweet in all honesty, how they explain the reboot is pretty
cool, they still recognize the original games, but then change it up, again I will
explain a little later.

The DLC they gave out for the game is pretty sweet, they gave out alternate
costumes for a lot of the characters, which where from the original three Mortal
Kombat games, and added 4 characters, 3 from past games, and Freddy Krueger,
seriously game over man, that was awesome, and he fits so well in the universe
it just felt right.

They put so much into this game that I couldn’t believe it, they brought back
test your might, test your sight, and test your skill, and they added test your luck
which is pretty amazing, they give you either bonuses or hindrances based off a
slot mechanic.

Online is pretty solid in this, I didn’t come across any lag issues what so ever, and
king of the hill mode was awesome, it felt like I was in the arcade in line waiting
for a chance to take out the head dawg, and for Xbox users you see your avatar
waiting in line as you wait in the lobby, I believe you can actually watch the
match too, but it’s been a bit since I’ve played that mode.

Cons


-Shao Kahn is a arse, seriously he isn’t hard because of the A.I., he is hard
because he literally hits like a mac truck and has a move that literally stuns
you long enough for him to spam it over and over again, until you die, no
joke happened to me a couple of times. The best strategy is to keep your
distance and just peg him with ranged attacks, everyone in the game has at
least one range attack.

-DLC, I know I included it in the Pro section, but I also have to add it here too,
what they gave out was awesome, but it felt like they still could’ve done so
much more, and it’s just not this game that did it, countless of other games
do it too, I was just hoping they would go through and add more characters
from past games, or even add alternative costumes from past games, that
would’ve been cool to see.

-Spam characters, and again, ,most fighting games have that one character
where the best strategy with a certain character is to spam the same move
over and over again, and in this game it’s really the teleporting characters
that are kinda wack about it, no big grievance here, I’m honestly nit picking
at this point.


So that’s the basic review, I’m going to go over what I explained earlier about the story,
a slightly, so for those who have not played and wanted to see the story for themselves I’m just
putting up a heads up about a possible spoiler.

The game opens up to a scene of destruction and dead bodies laying around, the bodies
are all the contestants in the Mortal Kombat tournament, and Shao Kahn is shown walking
up to a beat up Raiden, and Shao Kahn grabs him and right before delivering the final blow,
Raiden sends a telepathic message to himself in the past, we then cut to a ship and it has Liu
Kang, Johnny Cage, Sonya blade, and Raiden as he receives the message and all he got was, “He
must Win”. He believes the message was ment to say Liu Kang must win. And the story goes
from there, I’m not going into full details, but as you go through you play most of the roster in
the game, if not all of them, and certain Key events are changed, for example, during the 2nd
or 3rd tournament, Smoke and Tundra (Sub-Zero’s younger brother) where being pursued by
the Lin Kuei clan, and when they are attacked, Raiden changes the time line and saves Smoke
instead of Tundra, and Tundra is the one who is turned into a Cyborg like Cyrax and Sector,
instead of Smoke. Other Key changes is Stryker and Kabal are Cops, with Kabal being a former
member of the Black Dragon Clan. The story tends to be over the top, but honestly Mortal
Kombat has always been over the top, I look forward to more from this franchise now, and how
the story ended was amazing, I’m not going to say anymore then that, I want you to go out,
grab that game, and play the ever living crap out of it now!

I give this game a rating of, “Why the Hell aren’t you out at the store, buying this game,
and playing it right this moment!?”

-Jack “Orangetom” Haythorn
Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Dungeon Crawls...A Quick Look

Today we talk about something dark, something that few of us would ever be happy to find ourselves in; Today we're talking about monster filled holes in the ground, we're talking about Dungeons.


As a gamer of multiple platforms, both digital and pen and paper, I constantly seem to find myself in these monster and trap infested pits of despair. You kind of wonder sometimes when your wandering through these places.."Who makes these things? Really? Acme Instant Dungeons?" That's not to say that I wouldn't enjoy that job, but It just makes me wonder why so many places have these labyrinths just dug out beneath them. Can you imagine going over to a friends house, and he's like "Dude, you wanna go down stairs and check out our dungeon?" Now wait a minute. That might have been pretty cool, I'm sure I wasn't the only child that ran around outside with a stick or a plastic sword and pretended to slay all matter of monsters, ninja, robots, or bullies. 

 As you spend time adventuring and slaying your way through these countless dungeons, you run across some common foes, skeletons and all other measure of the undead, slimes and oozes, giant insects, and goblins...green skinned, cowardly, sneaky little goblins. Most of us have something we hate dealing with most in dungeons, for some its the traps and puzzles, for others its just the constant grind, for me...its Goblins. There is nothing more embarrassing to a would-be hero than being taken out by the most lowly and and weak creature to ever inhabit the realm of fantasy. Not only is it bad for a hero's ego, but it's bad for the dungeon unions, I mean, once the Goblins realize that they have the ability to be more than cannon fodder they're gonna want more pay, better equipment, and do you have any idea how much that's gonna cost evil overlords? I mean it's ok to pay a dragon the ridiculous fee because there is only one of those...but on average there are hundreds if not thousands of these tiny bastards in a dungeon, that's a lot of money...I ain't got time for that.
DC 30?! Push the Gnome into it, we can find another one.

Moving on...some other aspects of dungeon crawling include dodging traps like pitfalls, spike traps, falling rocks, zombified drag queens from beyond, the list goes on and on, but you should be able to navigate and handle these traps without out too much difficulty, and if a trap is too hard to handle you simply push the most useless or most annoying party member into the trap. Personally, I always choose the Gnome, as they are small and easy to throw, and the sounds they make are hilarious.
  
 Last, but not least in the dungeon crawling experience, haha experience..., yes...last but not least LOOT! Now we all expect to be rewarded in some way, shape, or form at the end of the dungeon. You could have been seeking a legendary weapon, or trying to rescue a princess, or just been on a genocidal quest to end the green menace. However you could arrive at the end and find out the princess is in another castle/dungeon, you could lose the roll on the +10 Sword of Flaming Unearthly Doom to the wizard who wants it cause it looks cool, or you could get taken out by a damn goblin...but none the less, we want that reward, so we're gonna keep crawling through the holes in the ground in search of that thing he jumped into the darkness for in the first place

Posted by at 2 comments:

Thursday, February 21, 2013

A Link to the Past, still amazing all these years later!

As I began to write my article on Deadpool: Circle Chase a familiar song began to play back into my head. It was one that I had not heard since...

If you're unfamiliar with this than you may want to leave now

  It would seem as though I have traveled back in time, back to a place before the harsh realities of life and all the drama of high school started to dog me, yes, I traveled back to Hyrule...to A Link to the Past

 I was only 10 or 11 when I got to be involved in this amazing experience. I was at my aunt and uncle's house in the mountains of West Virginia and I see this interesting cart in the stack next to the Super Nintendo, so I pop it into the system push the power switch and I don't remember how it happened, but I was transported into a world of high fantasy, magic, monsters and something I knew I had to find: The Master Sword. Usually I skip intro videos for games, I usually have no patience for these things, but I say there and ate up the back ground story for game, having never played either of the NES Zelda titles at this point. I was enthralled, at this point, I should mention I was just starting to get into Fantasy books and such so this was right up my ally at the time. Then I was awakened by the voice, She said her name was Zelda and she was trapped in a castle. This game was so easy to just pick up and play, no learning curve, no hours and hours of trial and error, I crept into the crypt, got my sword and shield from my uncle, and proceeded to defeat evil minions and rescue the princess. However, that wasn't the end...on no, this game had plans, and places for me to go, evils of greater magnitudes for me to defeat. So it was that I was sent off on a great journey to retrieve three amulets that I would need to pull the Master Sword from the stone block that it rested in, like a tiny, green clad, Arthur Pendragon.

On and on I ventured, picking up nifty little treasures that would assist me further in my adventures, things like the boomarang, a magic mirror, magic wands, and one of my favorite game items of all time, the Hook Shot. Also I would learn the location of several other items, including the Pegasus Boots, which would let me run and dash, the Titan's Glove which gave me the strength to lift up boulders and throw them like they were nothing to me. So I was fast, strong, I had a pretty cool sword, this neat shield, and I wasn't some lame boy scout like Superman(that's right I take shots during game articles too), I was a badass hero, I'd already saved a princess, defeated monsters, murdered a bunch of bushes, I was on a roll. I traveled to three different temples, figured out puzzles, defeated bosses, and retrieved the three amulets I was sent out to find, then I traveled back to the Lost Woods...and there it was...right before my very eyes: The Master Sword, I approached the stone and like HE-MAN calling upon the powers of Greyskull I HAD THE POWER! Now that I had the Master Sword and my Mirror Shield, I was

off to beat the ever loving crap out of that evil pig looking wizard Ganon. Well It took a little more effort than just using my magic mirror, nope I had to watch my darling princess get taken to the dark world and got myself zapped into the dark dimension by that rat fink Agahnim that mofo just left me on top of the pyramid of power, but I was still ok, because I was Link, master sword guy and overall Badass, with a capital B. Then I was told I needed to rescue some maidens who were trapped in these crystals. After many more trials I finally defeated Agahnim who turns out to be Ganon, I chase him into the depths of the Pyramid of Power, and after a long and epic battle the likes the world had never seen, I defeat the evil monster, and make a wish upon the Tri-Force. Then it was as if everything was back to normal...the world of Hyrule had been restored, and the Master Sword once again rested in the depths of the Lost Woods.

 It was a thrilling day and night of game play. It left a mark upon me that never washed away, and I continue to hum the Overworld theme to myself to this day. So thank you Nintendo, and everyone else involved, you managed to keep part of me a kid despite the best attempts of the world to force me to grow up completely and leave these things behind.
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, February 15, 2013

RDM-001 My favorite little robot Minion

Today, I felt that I should open up the book on something that is near and dear to my heart, something that many of my fellow Mad Scientists know all about: Robot Armies.


RDM- 001
 Yes folks, today we discuss a staple in all Ev- Completely mundane and Good Natured Organizations - The Robot Minions. Despite my repeated attempt to gain government funding, I have received no such assistance so I have begun constructing prototypes on a budget. Some of you will recognize the one on the right, given the designation RDM-001, short for Robo Death Machine 001...I mean Robotic Dusting Machine 001...You may be wondering why he was equipped with a stainless steel steak knife attachment. Simple, his own protection, you see in this day and age you can never be too safe. What would it have done if it went out for a bite to eat with his other robotic comrades only to get mugged by a shady individual. Well I'll tell you what it did in that exact situation. It poked the hell out of his foot, and then when it tripped him up it went in for the KILL like any highly trained soldier would. Unfortunately for RDM-001 he soon found himself surrounded by the flesh and blood 5-0 who in this persons opinion are a bunch of technophobes with too much spare ammunition laying around. Anywho...The RDM-001 valiantly charged his new attackers but was brought down in a hale of gunfire.

RDM-001 you will be missed.

01101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 01100111 01101001 01110110 01100101 

 Having learned from our initial mistakes here at Geek Is Good, we have decided that our next prototypes will need some significant work, perhaps some armor plating, active camouflage technology, or better yet, some actual AI. So while while I take this time to draw up new schematics I'd like to hear some of your ideas for slick new killer helpful minions.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)