STREET FIGHTER IV

I know right, who gives a fuck about war

http://i48.tinypic.com/9l8v9u.gif

as if I even still own this game

so terrible at this ;_;

Jordan - do you feel like it compares to SFII and that the online competition is just better than the competition you were used to, or do you feel like it plays really differently?

Counter-intuitively, you may want to try "Championship Mode" online, as that actually breaks the competition into tiers, so in theory you should be able to find matches against people who are new to SFIV too, and don't necessarily know all that match-ups and/or have as fully developed execution as people who have been playing the game consistently for a year or so now...

I feel like it's a lot of fun when you can find games against people around the same skill as you, but it's horrible to play somebody who is better, and it's even more horrible to play somebody who is significantly worse...

both, i think. it's now clear to me that my SFII "strategy" was based on heavy punches & kicks still being pretty fast, tons of throws, and exploiting the low block. so even though the moves are mostly the same (though i'm constantly wishing for the one-button throw), i need to get a new approach.

i'll try that championship mode, since the people i ended up playing on line were clearly really, really good (all kinds of crazy moves & combos that i have no idea about).

If you try out the training mode (which isn't that great, unfortunately), you can see & learn how to do all of the moves and most of the combos. I think for each character, all their moves are shown if you do the first two training levels & all the levels after that are a series of more complicated combos. Because of damage scaling though, learning the longer combos is more about showing off than about usefulness.

i tried training and it seemed to be a dummy opponent whose life gauge kept filling up...do you finish a level by doing all the moves?

oop - it's not in the training menu, but in the challenge menu, there are three different challenge modes - survival, time trial & (I think it's called) training. If you select the training in there (or whatever it's called), that's where you're "challenged" to do each move (also, press "select" to change the way the moves are listed from their proper names to actually what you have to press.

sweet thx

Definitely agree, the Challenge Mode Trials (especially the Normal level, but the Hard level can be helpful too) are a really good way - if not very well-implemented as Jeff says - to get yourself acclimated to what the characters are supposed to do, their bread and butter combos, what normal moves cancel into what specials and so on. Getting used to stuff like Focus Attack stun into combos and ultras is good. The problem with Trial mode is that it doesn't tell you at all about the exact timing a lot of these combos need, you pretty much have to just guess it, but don't worry too much about it - in actual fighting you won't be doing the longer, crazier stuff ever.

To me a major difference between this and SFII was that jump-in attacks and crossups seemed to get completely nerfed. Eventually I figured out how they do still work, but they're not half as safe as they used to be thanks to FAs, anti-air SRK moves being better, and the oddly stricter, tighter linking of combos in general - it definitely contributes to the game's slower, sometimes awkward-feeling pace, though you can get used to it. And Championship Mode is definitely the way to go for now.

yeah, i thought it felt slower and heavier than SFII, which was unexpected

semi-psyched for the new one

gun fk u all up w/t.hawk

Oh yeah on this bit...

and it's even more horrible to play somebody who is significantly worse...

A week ago I jumped into a single Ranked Match just for the hell of it, probably the first time in 6 months. I whooped some guy and saw that he had 0 BP and seriously felt really bad.

so that was you

Official Super Street Fighter IV release date...
April 27, 2010 in North America and April 30, 2010 in Europe

shit just isnt the same w/o coz multiaccounting the hype for us

DAN4LYFE

http://www.gamingdaily.co.uk/2010/dmmp-street-fighter/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRHLKMxlhh0

daaaaaaammmmmn do want
http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/img/gmw/docs/346/683/07.jpg
http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20100203_346683.html

what's special about that stick besides it (seemingly?) being a replica of the standard arcade cab

it's long

http://www.the-magicbox.com/1002/ssf402.jpg
http://www.the-magicbox.com/1002/ssf425.jpg
Looks like it'll be selectable, not simultaneous Ultras - that roman numeral on the Ultra bar indicates which one is active.
http://www.the-magicbox.com/1002/game100201d.shtml

they had some events where people played a prerelease version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY8G1dj995A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyYc-sVY0Ok

ha, the Art of Fighting fireball! too bad we couldn't see Rose's new Ultra

all the ultras are on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yTa8kQgh48

Ah, cool. Surprising lack of flashiness, especially compared to her first Ultra, and from the other new ones I've seen they're all even sillier with the dramatic cuts and camera angles and stuff.

A lot of them look they came from the feverish imagination of a child

Don't think Gen's have been recorded anywhere yet but they're supposed to be a Vega style crisscross wall jump and a variant on his old touch of death one

Gogamer.com has a sale right now - the MadCatz TE stick, both 360 and PS3 versions, for $80. If you've got the scratch that's the lowest price I've ever seen on it.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/02/500x_custom_1266119320520_image_01.jpg

hey game mags: accepting gifts from game companies whose games you review that you can sell on ebay for $$$$ is called a conflict of interest.

well, that IS Kotaku... what'dya expect? (might as well extend that to all commercial websites)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHHoGHcgK9k
Nicely produced video explaining how option selects work in this game, though I wish they had slowed things down and given more examples of each (especially the meaty selects and air selects). Probably really need a stick be fast enough to do many of these anyway...

ha - yeah, I just watched it (and his other 3-minute video on hit confirming), but instead of three minutes I think I need at least a sixty minute class on stuff like this :(

Nhex - care to admit how many hours you've put into SFIV?

Measured against the 600 cozwn posted above, not much - somewhere above 250 hours, last I checked. A drop in the bucket against the total number of hours I've likely put into Capcom games or the fighting genre in total. I played pretty hardcore for 2-3 months, but after that dropped in rarely - I doubt I've played more than 20 hours since September, and only really play upon the random times I was requested on Steam by someone on the friends list. Probably the most time I've put into any single fighting game since the SF2 days, though.

By comparison, over 14 months I've put in ~486 hours into Team Fortress 2 - the ease and general quality of online experience kept me coming back, vs. SFIV's lackluster matchmaking system. Never did make it to G1.

c/o Ars Technica:

Imagine a game that relies on split-second timing, one for which competitors spend impressive amounts of money on their own arcade-quality controllers. Now, imagine a platform that seems completely unsuited for that title. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Street Fighter IV is coming to the iPhone!

I'm only(!) at 110 hours, but I've been going back to it a bit and feel like I'll probably, hopefully be playing a lot more until SSFIV comes out. I might catch up to you (hour-wise). I want to learn at least the basics of all the other characters - I pretty much only played Balrog the first time around. Tonight I was working on Guile and that was fun. But yeah, I'm not even bothering with online right now - just playing in the arcade mode and fooling around. Hopefully the online system will be improved in Super, but I have some doubts. I've also been practicing a fair lot of Super Street Fighter II Tubro and I feel like that has been helping my reflexes and execution quite a bit - that game is so much tougher! I want to start playing that over GGPO, but still feel I've got some work to do.

The supposedly basic things I still haven't figured out about SFIV are how you're really supposed to incorporate the Focus Attack - maybe because I just find it physically hard to even hit those two middle buttons quickly at the same time & weirdly, how to get up quickly from a knock-down correctly (timing-wise). I guess my play style and understanding is kinda Super Turbo based...

Been meaning to cane this, but I can never decide whether I'd rather get really good at a new character or learn the basics of everyone a bit so I can mix it up

Also tempted to just play Third Strike to get good at Dudley, who is now confirmed

The problem with sticking to only one character (which is what I did for a looong time) is that it gets a little boring. I'm definitely having more fun again now that I've started trying to switch around and (slowly) learn everybody, or most everybody. In the long term, I definitely think learning at least to be average with most of the cast would really help with learning the different match-ups you could face if you ever do decide to concentrate on just getting really good with a couple of characters.

Has there been any word yet on what they are doing to help out Guile, or some of the other limited characters in SSFIV?

Maining is a lot less fun and more quickly leads to burnout. With so many characters, why deprive yourself of the richness of the game? And it's definitely true that knowing the basics of all the characters helps you fight those matchups.

Besides the second Ultra, they haven't revealed any major gameplay changes, but I think the fact that Guile and Vega will have a decent horizontal FA-able Ultra (Sonic Hurricane and Red Impact) will help a lot. Most of the other new ultras seem to be similarly better. Won't help Rose, though! The leak post from last year said there would be some kind of new multilevel FA, but they also said the new Ultras would be simultaneous with non-interfering inputs, so we'll see.

I still wonder what they're going to do about the whole SRK > FADC > Ultra - I believe there was some talk about how the other characters would have more options against it or some such, but I'm becoming more skeptical about that.

Jeff, if you want to try ST on GGPO, give me a Steam msg if we're online at the same time. I'm completely rusty and didn't play much of that iteration TBH, so you'll probably completely murder me, but I'll give it a shot. (There are quite a few other fun games on GGPO, too...)

Apparently Guile is still crap, Seth is better and Gen is even worse?

Nhex - will send you a steam message next time (p.s. I'm complete crap with everybody except for Balrog, who I've maybe reached average with - still got a lot to learn myself / possibly too old to properly develop the reflexes for these games). I do want to learn some of those other games too - in particular Garou & one of The King of Fighters (98?), but have never really found the time (despite buying the Xbox360 versions of each). Actually been thinking of making a GGPO thread...

there were some interesting developer interviews although i can only find one right now:

http://www.capcom-unity.com/s-kill/blog/2010/02/16/super_street_fighter_iv_dev_blog:_systems_and_character_balance

i'm not following the megathreads on neogaf or srk however.

Cozen - if you're reading this, there's apparently now a way to get GGPO running fine on a Mac with Crossover...
http://ggpo.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2896

so sick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxke7BGgMow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zY1WGnnlLk

so now they just need to announce the wrestler obsessed with oil

nice trailer!

thx for the interview link above, too

"looks like it's time to oil up."