WHAT VIDEOGAMES ARE YOU PLAYING RIGHT NOW?

About to fire up Pokken Tournament for the first time. Disappointingly, it's apparently less like Tekken than I thought. Rad logo, though!

Also, I may be the only person who prefers the Wii U pad controller. It feels more comfortable in my ogre hands.

(Super late) It's decent, but pretty content starved. Only like a dozen fighters, and two of them are pikachu.

Also, the Day of the Tentacle remake is out today, so I guess I'm gonna go play that now.

I'm playing Wipeout 2048, and it is freaking sah-weet.

I'm still balls deep in Street Fighter V. Great post I've seen on reddit if you're like me and you're getting back into the groove.

author=guy
I've read over all the posts here before commenting because I wanted to make sure I wasn't giving you redundant advice. Man, does your story sound similar. I started playing SF4 about a year ago, and my goal was merely to be able to beat my brother at the game. I currently have ~500 hours between both SF4 and SSF4:AE, and just recently, I feel like I'm starting to "get it." So firstly, I would say 200 hours is nothing. Realize that some of people you will play against in this game have been playing fighting games their entire lives.

Some of the people you will play against will meet the standard "10,000 hours" definition of a virtuoso. It sounds like at this point, you're just playing the game somewhat in autopilot and hoping knowledge of the game confers itself to you by way of failure. While this is possible, it's not the best way to learn how to play the game, and it will never bring you to a level of play where you can compete with the virtuosos.

Street Fighter is a game where you have to think on your feet constantly (at least, until you know the game well enough that you can go on autopilot--remember the virtuosos will have played matches with people just like you before, making all the same mistakes--but they've done it thousands of times.). While playing a match, you're probably waiting for a reasonable gap in which to throw out whatever attacks you're comfortable doing. You can't play the game this way.

A pro player will leave no reasonably sized gaps. You have to know what's "safe" and what isn't. A "safe" attack is one that leaves you (or, crucially, one that leaves your opponent) at a frame advantage. You can perform this attack with no fear of your opponent punishing you if you hit with it--and there are moves which are safe on hit or block! So a very general framework for how you should be playing the game is to wait for your opponent to do something unsafe and punish them for doing it.

For example, let's say you get a knockdown on your Shoto opponent. You move in to attack them on wakeup, and what do they do? Your typical scrub (not pro) Shoto player will take this opportunity to shoryuken. If you choose to attack, you will lose. Every time. Because SRK is evil. The move has invincibility frames and an incredible generous hitbox. If you choose to do anything and your opponent chooses to SRK, you will lose. BUT! SRK is also one of the most punishable moves in the game. If your opponent uses it and you block or it whiffs, now you have a reasonably sized gap in which to punish their attack!

This is your chance to do your combo, your knockdown, your throw, whatever. If you go for a combo, you need to make sure that combo is tight and leaves no frame gaps (if it is, you won't see "XX Hit Combo!" post on the screen until after your combo is over), otherwise your scrub Shoto opponent can just mash SRK at any time and break through and get you. If you choose to throw or go for a roundhouse (crouching HK) for the knockdown, now your opponent has to guess what you're going to do on wakeup again. And if you just punished them for SRK on wakeup, they'll think twice about SRKing this time (giving you a greater chance to actually attack them on wakeup this time).


That entire last paragraph describes only a small part of the shoryuken mindgame for your typical shoto character. Learn to think about every possible move your opponent can do this way. If Ryu throws a fireball, that means he's not pressuring you for the time it takes him to throw that fireball. That's another possible opening (depending on your spacing/position).

Other people draw comparisons between fighting games and chess. In high level play, this is definitely true. On your level of play, however, I recommend you think of the game like Rock, Paper, Scissors. Everything you do can be beaten by something the opponent will do. And if they know what you're going to do, you're going to lose. Remember this. Both for yourself and for your opponent. Never attack unless you're sure you aren't going to give your opponent an opportunity in.

If you lose a match because you sat there blocking the whole time and got beaten to death, you've at least learned when not to attack. Training mode can help you learn when to attack. For example, go into a training mode match against Dudley. Put the AI on the hardest possible difficulty. And just block. Once you're comfortable blocking all he can do, try to figure out where the computer is using unsafe moves. Like someone else here mentioned, it's almost always (especially if you're playing against a hard AI or a good human opponent) when they do a special attack.

This is where frame data can get involved, if you're super serious. You want to know what attacks your opponent can use, how safe they are, and you want to punish the attacks that aren't safe. Normals do no chip damage on block, so if you're blocking like a pro, your opponent has to use specials, throws, or mix-ups (make you think they're going to attack low, then attack high--make you think they're going to jump in front, then do a cross-up, etc) to make you take damage. They will get more desperate as the round goes on--especially if you have the life lead.
Don't always attack. This is hard for newer players, who think the point of the game is to kill their opponent. It isn't.

The point of the game is to end the round with the most HP. If you nail someone with Juri's fireball at the beginning of the match, and you're at full HP and they're not, you now have command of the match. You are under no obligation to attack the opponent unless you lose the life lead. This is why your opponent's attempts to do damage to you will get more desperate if you're good at blocking. I play Rose often, and I can't tell you the number of times where I've taken the position "I have the life lead. I don't need to attack. I can wait for them to come to me." And guess what? If the opponent has to come to you, now their options are more limited. I can sit on my side of the screen waiting for the fireball or the poke or whatever. If I can predict a jump-in, I can anti-air and get an even bigger life lead.

It's been said here before--most new players won't die from poor defense. They'll die from poor offense. If you leave holes in your block strings, you're leaving opportunities for your opponent to get in. Watch the screen for the indicator that says "counter hit" to pop up. It's important for a variety of reasons, but for your case, I would say it's most important to make sure you get that notification as infrequently as possible. If you keep getting counter hit, you're continuing to attack when it's not safe to do so. Leaving gaps in your block string to cause the opponent to attempt to get in--only to get counter hit--is known as frame trapping, and it's something your opponents will try to do.

Look, I could keep going. As this and the other posts here indicate, there's just way too much to know to explain it all in words. Remember--your opponents could be virtuosos, and you need to play every match like they are. If they're not, the next one might be. The best way to learn what attacks are safe or unsafe for your opponent is by playing other characters.

Don't look at this as diverting from Juri--look at it as practicing for Juri. If you're playing another character, and you notice you're always getting nailed after a certain attack, that's a vulnerability for that character that you can exploit with Juri. Watch the Vesper Arcade tutorials to learn any basics you might not know, and feel free to friend/play me any time! My GFWL is yoshemitzu47, steam: KenJennings.

The original Star Fox is super fun. I should fire it up now that I'm in NFLD with my SNES again. Honestly, the musicis what does it for me- the soundtrack combined with that super FX atmosphere is so totally unique and mindblowing that it remains impressive even now. I can't imagine how it felt back when it was new.

I've honestly been getting chemically addicted to GB Tetris now that I'm at home. I feel that the pure gameplay of it is very sympatico with a vacation mood.

I've just finished the main game of Tales of Zestiria. It was quite fun, but also disappointing.

The story started out great, but got reduced to decent for the second half. For the first half of the game, the story gave you a main character with enough power to change the tide of a war between nations, but also presented the dilemma of how little that does help in solving social problems. In the middle of that, a greater threat was looming in the background. For the second half, the main character interacted much less with the political powers and instead the game settled for just blabbering about humanity and human society. The looming threat also felt more like it was patiently waiting for the main character to do whatever, something that immediately nullifies the sense of danger. The writing itself was good though and that prevented the second half from becoming a train wreck. Well, with some exceptions, like Seymonne, who's lines were just as ridiculous as her outfit.

The battle system is okay, but nothing special. The game gives you a load of options in battles, but most options have rather a low impact. The basics of the battle system like attacking and defending worked okay, but not great. Adding a ton of middling option on top of a middling base isn't really a super recipe.

What is good all the way trough though is the character interaction. Not only that, but despite having a total of eight character (two non permanent), almost all relevant two character combinations interacted meaningfully.

author=Red_Nova
Second thought: Dafuq is with this framerate? How is it possible that a game that ran at 60 FPS on the GAMECUBE runs at 30 FPS on the PLAYSTATION 3?!

It's based on the later PS2 release, which had 30 FPS due to the PS2 not being as powerful as the GC. Now, why they couldn't bump the framerate back up to 60 for the PS3 I have no idea. But, I suppose it really doesn't matter for this game.

Started playing Child of Light. It's fun so far. The interrupting mechanics work great and is easy to use. The game also successfully managed to make offensive spells into something you use in strategic situations rather than always or never, which is the usual JRPG fare.

The skill tree seems more like an opportunity for players to make mistakes rather than offering real customization. It does serve the purpose of making level ups more desirable than they would have been if you got skills at set levels though.

Quake II, again.

author=turkeyDawg

author=Red_Nova
Second thought: Dafuq is with this framerate? How is it possible that a game that ran at 60 FPS on the GAMECUBE runs at 30 FPS on the PLAYSTATION 3?!

It's based on the later PS2 release, which had 30 FPS due to the PS2 not being as powerful as the GC. Now, why they couldn't bump the framerate back up to 60 for the PS3 I have no idea. But, I suppose it really doesn't matter for this game.

Important things tend to get tied to framerate or something

That really surprises me since you're on your way to being a professional sprite artist, pizza. Even in turn-based games (not that ToS is one), the fluidity of menus and the flow of animations feels so much better with 60+ FPS. XP games feel so choppy and awkward since I think they're locked to like, 24 or something? Guh.

Higher FPS means better inputs, snappier reactions, and smoother visuals. There's no reason for anything to be 30 or under nowadays =/