Posts by Taylor

Patriot Circle will scale pretty badly but Rolento is about his insane pressure game rather than damage so don’t worry too much. Jabs and jumps are free in this game.

I can’t one-frame stuff with any kind of consistency, but I try and go for it rather than doing an easier alternative, especially when Xiaoyu’s breakdance loop is such a good trump card anyway. Julia's really hard execution stuff will be her

My PS3 is still broken, but I’ll probably replace in a few weeks because I'll be getting income again.

I think Rolento would be able to tag her in off the last Patriot Circle rep ready to do Lift Licks or something cancelled into Lift Licks (cr.mk?). Another trick is doing a normal boost combo, but then Switch Cancelling the launcher for one stock; the camera will spaz a little and the incoming character will have their juggle limit reset, which lets you do some fancier things that would usually just miss.

Julia is hot because you can just do short chains like st.mp > st.lp or (corner) f.mk > mp > mp > hk rising kick and Xiaoyu comes in ready to do her sweeps for big damage. Xiaoyu’s loop is actually six raw sweeps rather than a chain; you float them and juggle with a sweep, cancel into Phoenix Stance, then press down twice to cancel Phoenix Stance back to neutral with enough advantage to sweep again – repeated until you hit the juggle limit. I’m also sure you can setup a Wave Crest from Phoenix Stance on her last juggle instead, which knocks them much higher - this would let Julia Switch Cancel in, do some stuff, then Switch Cancel Xiaoyu back with her juggle limit reset again.

I was playing around with: (Julia) f.mk > mp > mp xx lk windroll, cr.lp, cr.lp, b.mp > lp xx dp hk, tag (Xiaoyu) [cr.hk xx df.PPP, df, df]x6. It basically does the same damage as her shorter chains into Switch Cancel because of scaling and has two one-frame links, but sometimes you’ve just got to be sexy.

Friends still want to play SFxT so I decided to put some time in today. Bounced around a few teams but now I’m Julia/Xiaoyu, which works pretty well judging by the hate mail I get. Xiaoyu can sweep people six times in one combo and it does 45%. Julia is very good at setting it up and, because Xiaoyu doesn't need meter, is usually sitting on her OP super. Good times.

I think it’s a catch-22 situation. For DLC to mean anything they kind of have to remove the bit where they

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undo 3 games worth of decisions

, which is a pretty big chunk if they want to not compromise “artistic integrity.”

If you kara cancel one of “Megaman’s” air specials into auto-combo the momentum is messed up and he will fly upwards forever. All characters with air specials can do it, but it usually results in a weird jump arc or, more likely, freezes you helpless in the air. Kuro (‘dat cat) can also cr.mp forever after a tag because he never loses the dash-in momentum. Game is full of

In other news, I got a Naomi emulator running so I can play Guilty Gear on my PC, as my PS2 stick is broken. God, this game is soooo good. Re-release can’t come soon enough.

Dark Soul's for pansies.

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I still haven't played this but did you guys seriously expect a good ending after the stupidest ending ever on a videogame (Mass Effect 2)?

No, but I didn't expect them to

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leave everything unexplained and invalidate every choice I’ve made through the entire series, including the one that triggered the ending sequence.

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But surely the theory needs those dream sequences, which start very early into the game, to have a leg to stand on? Saying you're indoctrinated just for the part Bioware drop the ball is massively contrived.

Agreed, that post is really good.

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People are holding out for Shepard being indoctrinated during the third game, which explains why he sees those dream sequences. Although it is completely at odds with everything else he did everything up to the “activate crap ending” switch and the third-person flashforwards, but supposedly Bioware are hinting on Twitter the DLC will change things. Not sure if want.

Sweet, our whole Diablo 2 gang is getting back together for this.

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Nope. I think the only quest I missed was the Eden Prime one, though Minos is still blinking as if I have stuff to do and I'm not sure why. I don't really care about doing it 100% now, though.

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Honestly, I was expecting a cop-out ending but not this bad. I suspected there would be a force above the Reapers that wants to stop advancement beyond a galaxy level, so the Reapers are trying to 'save' you by knocking civilisations back to the stone-age every once in a while. The higher threat would be left with an unfulfilling it’s-turtles-all-the-way-down explanation but it would at least provide closure to current plot elements.

Yeah, I've just finished it and the ending is pretty bad. In hindsight I should’ve braced myself when I started playing those silly dream sequences.

I completed all the quests but one, including the five million fetch quests, but I didn’t do any multiplayer because that’s not why I play Mass Effect. If it’s really required for the best ending that is a very poor decision.

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I chose to destroy the Reapers because that seemed like the most reasonable option: The galaxy would be free to advance from this point without the Reaper threat and to sweeten the deal Shepard wouldn’t die and the Mass Relays would stay intact (supposed side effects of the other options). Then all the relays explode regardless, Shepard is not shown to survive the citadel explosion, and my space girlfriend needs to help two dudes populate a planet.

But what really pisses me off goes back to the first game. There’s a Prothean VI and the conversation goes like this:

Shepard: What is the Reapers motivation?

Hologram: You have to defeat them anyway, does it matter?

Shepard: lol I guess not.

No, git-features, it does matter! All we get is some guff about order vs. chaos that doesn’t actually mean anything. It doesn’t even make sense in context: Letting every generation get advanced enough to kill you is bloody stupid for a machine intelligence with no other motivation whatsoever except stopping generations advancing.

Also: Morinth appearing as a banshee during the Earth invasion with no dialogue from either side was irritating too. All that decision in ME2 does it change the name of a generic enemy?

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Vanguard is hilarious in this. Biotic Charge fills up your shields on impact and everything else you do can be specialised to make it cooldown faster. You can just heavy melee Brutes and use point-blank charges to negate the damage if they manage an attack. Of course I’m on normal. I imagine on insanity it’s like ME2 where spending 2 seconds out of cover is game over and playing this class is just gimping yourself.

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yeah the dlc part is fucked, but i'm still picking it up for ps3. hopefully it won't be that bad, although the gem system really just seems like a cash in

Unfortunately my PS3 has exploded so I'm on 360. I'm running with Rolento/Lili and, although they don’t really have any “synergy” (i.e. no long special moves), they seem pretty skank by themselves. Lili is a bit of work because she needs to force standing for her Angel Knee combos but I'm used to that stuff from Sakura. Online is full of shoto-only teams that disconnect.

Oh well, time to boot up Mass Effect 3.

So I’m playing SFxT as well now. I realise I said some unprofessional stuff about this but nobody reads what I say anyway. Just a quick rundown of the storm:

• [*:2nwz3cak]12 DLC characters on the disc, fully playable by hackers but not unlocked for paying customers until November (who will have to then pay for them, of course). As a developer I know this isn’t that evil but the perception of on-the-disc DLC will always be withheld content; 70% playable for 100% cost.[*:2nwz3cak]Online play is messed up and every other sound doesn’t play. Capcom promise nothing and say this is because the net code is very complicated and supports up to 4 players! None of the new sites I’ve seen copy and pasting the press statement have remarked this is a ridiculous excuse.
  

  [*:2nwz3cak]Teaming up with a local friend for online play is not possible on the 360. Capcom cite technical issues and again, despite plenty of other games doing this (most noticeably Mortal Kombat), nobody calls them out on it.

  [*:2nwz3cak]Pre-order gems and Collectors Edition gems give a power advantage over people who brought the regular version.

  [*:2nwz3cak]Gem DLC that provides a straight boost over existing best gems with no downsides.

  [*:2nwz3cak]Auto-combo DLC that does very powerful stuff. I don’t mind this so much because even the later ones aren’t too difficult, but if it’s successful it’s going to encourage making execution barriers for auto-combo monetization, which is a scary thought.

  [*:2nwz3cak]DLC costumes (again on the disc)

  [*:2nwz3cak]DLC costume colours.

  [*:2nwz3cak]Dan telling you to buy gems when you lose.

  [*:2nwz3cak]Achievements for accessing the online store.

Yeah, it’s been a rocky release. However, there is a game under all this and it’s pretty fun. I think it’s pretty obvious this a modified Street Fighter 4 and a lot of the new mechanics don’t really feel ingrained: such as the gems, stored counter-hits, Pandora and whatever that double team thing is called. You could happily lose any of these and none of the other systems would really notice.

But I played through arcade mode a couple of times, ran the trials, played ~20 games against a friend and did some coop. It's neat. If anyone wants a game you know my tag. But if you do play this game you’ve got to play the Tekken guys. It’s a very free combo system but they copied and pasted most of the Street Fighter 4 guys over without much individual adjustment so they can’t really do much; lots of boring link timing, while all the Tekken guys are bouncing people off walls and being all fancy with stances. Characters like Juri, Ibuki and Rolento work pretty well because they have chains and/or were from interesting games.

Ignoring the controversial stuff I think it’s Capcoms best fighter from this generation.

I guess you guys know you can get infinite height off the jetpack? Though I tried to fly above volcano island and I got a freeze :X

lol @ the internet's reaction to Tali's face being a stock photo

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Gem system is there to monetize, just like those 12 characters on the disc you can't play. It's got nothing on Isms, Grooves, and Arcanas for customisation imo, which also don't take ages to setup.

Edit: People have found DLC combo macros on the disc now. Buying power. #esports

I tried to buy twice using my credit card but I just got shouted at in German. Managed to get it via paypal, though.