So, here we are again; another year and another E3. Over the next couple of days the Los Angeles Convention Centre will open it's doors to draws tens of thousands of professionals to experience the future of interactive entertainment. The most influential people leading the most innovative companies in the business attend E3 Expo to see groundbreaking new technologies and never-before-seen products for consoles, handhelds and the Internet. Over the 6th-9th June LA's gonna be swamped with leading game companies, business partners, media darlings and industry swots from over 80 countries.
Now the introduction's out of the way lets talk about the meat and veg of the show - the Keynote speeches and of course ALL OF THE NEW YUMMY GAMES that are coming the world's way over the next 12 months. As it's the first day of E3, this is more of a run-up to the big event with no real reveals...yet!
From Monday through to Thursday this week i'll pop back on here and give a daily round-up of all the best news, trailers and showstopping moments from this years BIGGEST game expo.
Have a look at this years mental line-up i've grabbed from a close source.
Monday, June 6th
Microsoft Press Conference | 9:30am
Electronic Arts Press Conference | 12:30pm
Ubisoft Press Conference | 2:20pm
Sony Press Conference | 5:00pm
Tuesday, June 7th
Nintendo Press Conference | 9:00am
Mass Effect 3 | 1:00pm
Battlefield 3 | 1:30pm
Batman: Arkham City | 2:00pm
Resistance 3 | 3:00pm
Starhawk | 3:20pm
Twisted Metal | 3:40pm
NGP Demos | 4:00pm
Journey | 4:20pm
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception | 4:40pm
Gears of War 3 (Campaign) | 5:00pm
Forza Motorsports 4 | 5:20pm
Super Secret Remake | 5:40pm
Ms. 'Splosion Man | 6:00pm
Modern Warfare 3 | 6:30pm
Wednesday, June 8th
Spider-Man: Edge of Time | 11:00am
Dead Island | 11:20am
Gears of War 3 (Horde Mode) | 11:40am
Rage | Noon
Prey 2 | 12:20pm
Shinobi | 12:40pm
Saints Row III | 1:00pm
Lord of the Rings: War in the North | 1:30pm
Ninja Gaiden III | 2:00pm
The Darkness II | 3:00pm
Street Fighter X Tekken | 3:20pm
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City | 3:40pm
Deus Ex: Human Revolution | 4:00pm
Tomb Raider | 4:20pm
Super Secret Sequel #1 | 4:40pm
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | 5:00pm
WWE 12 | 5:20pm
Super Secret Sequel #2 | 5:40pm
Prototype 2 | 6:00pm
BioShock Infinite | 6:30pm
Thursday, June 9th
Star Wars: The Old Republic | 11:00am
Dark Souls | 11:20am
Inversion | 11:40am
Warhammer 40k: Space Marine | Noon
X-Men: Destiny | 12:20pm
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning | 12:40pm
Jurassic Park: The Game | 1:00pm
Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 | 1:30pm
Bastion | 2:20pm
Assassin's Creed: Revelations | 3:00pm
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier | 3:20pm
Rayman Origins | 3:40pm
Sonic Generations | 4:00pm
Catherine | 4:20pm
Need For Speed: The Run | 4:40pm
SSX | 5:00pm
Madden 12 | 5:20pm
FIFA 12 | 5:40pm
Pretty decent line-up, quite a few goodies on that list. Hope this puts you in good spirit for this years Expo. I'll be back in 24 hrs with more juice from E3
Firstly, a quick apology on taking so long to follow up my previous article.
(If you haven't done so already, it would be better off reading that first)
In the last article I touched on how I was of the belief that 'Fighting Games' as a genre just didn't have what it takes in terms of depth and staying power, in comparison to other games I owned. I also know for a fact some people reading this will probably have nodded there head along with that statement in agreement, because it really takes something special to motivate you into playing Fighting Games for you to uncover the beauty within them.
Now. Even though I had yet to uncover the depth and endless replay value a good fighting game can provide...I was still arbitrarily buying them, in fact let me go over some of the ones off the top of my head I've bought over the years; Street Fighter Alpha (series) [PS1], Tekken 1, 2, and 3 [PS1], Soul Blade [PS1], Street Fighter ex plus a [PS1], Clayfighter 63 1/3 [N64], Super Smash Bros [N64], Fighters Destiny [N64], Tekken 4 [PS2], Super Street Fighter II Turbo [GBA], Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks [PS2], Mortal Kombat Armageddon [Wii], Primal Rage [SNES], Bloody Roar [PS1], Virtua Fighter 3tb [Dreamcast], Hyper Street Fighter II [PS2], Smash Bros Melee [GameCube], Soul Calibur 2 [GameCube], Capcom vs SNK 2eo [GameCube] Dead or Alive 3 [XBOX], Smash Bros Brawl [Wii], (plus re-purchasing of some classic Snes fighting games on the virtual console), SSFIIT HD Remix [XBLA] Garou: Mark of the Wolves [XBLA], not to mention Street Fighter III as well as plenty of other great Capcom, and SNK fighting games on the Dreamcast...
When I heard of Street Fighter IV coming out, I was definitely excited to see what it would be like. For the most part Street Fighter IV was expected to mainly just be a visual improvement over the previous Street Fighter games, although personally I was excited to see an actual new entry in the Street Fighter series after a number of years of not having anything original released. Now, again...at this time I hadn't really uncovered any of the true depth within fighting games, it just happened to be a big franchise that hadn't been fresh in a long time, and the nostalgia of the series led me to pre-order the limited edition, which I received a day earlier than it’s release date (internet shopping ftw).
When I finally popped it in, I was immediately loving it on a visual level. Straight away I dove into arcade mode with “Ken”, scraped through on “easy” by mashing out the special moves I knew from previous Street Fighter games, and was loving that it had a familiarfeel to it of the great Street Fighter games of the past in terms of controls.
I played about with other characters and used the internet to get move lists handy, so that I would at least know how to do each characters special attacks. Played some VS mode when I had friends round, partly to show them that the new Street Fighter game was cool, and partly to show off anything I had learnt from my time playing it.
Now...here’s where my eyes on fighting games slowly started to become much more open. I occasionally dabbled in the online mode on Street Fighter IV, most of the time getting my ass handed to me by people that would just overwhelm me... similar to how the computer would do on one of the harder difficulties. For a while I just sat with the thought “they’re well good” and just leave it at that.
Eventually though (through more playing), I started to grow more aware. It started with some really close matches online against people on a similar skill level to me. I’d have some narrow defeats where I would actually ask myself...”what do I need to do to beat [insert character name]/ [insert specific move I was always getting hit by]?”, and through playing more and more, I would learn little tactics that seemed to have a high percentage of working for me, as well as getting an idea of what other people would do with different characters, a.k.a. getting match up experience!
I primarily stuck with the character “Ken” for a while, although this was beneficial as through doing so I got fairly good with him. I was no longer simply mashing out move inputs hoping for the move to come out, I knew what I was doing with each button press. I was fully in control of my own actions. Fighting online meant I got to fight a variety of different people using different characters, and not only that but I’d see how different people I played online actually usedcharacters differently. For instance you could get “rush down” type players who will be in your face and be all out offensive, or you could get “turtles”, which are people who sit back, and look for opportunities to punish unsafe moves etc that you have thrown out, there are more types of player than that, but those are just 2 common examples.
Anyway, no longer was I mashing buttons, and hoping for the best.Each match was becoming a mind game. If I won, I felt great for it. If I lost, I would try to recap what I was doing that was getting punished. Clutch matches (when it’s really close) became on par with one of the most intense ‘edge of your seat’ moments I’d ever experienced as a gamer (and on a much more common basis than say...narrowly beating the final boss on Sonic 2 with no rings left).
It was around this point, whilst I was getting more and more interested in getting better at Street Fighter IV that I came across “I Got Next”. It’s basically a documentary on the fighting game community of Street Fighter IV (as well as giving you an insight to the Fighting Game scene as a whole).
I Got Next is free to download via a legal torrent distributed on the official site, a longer and more updated DVD version of the film will be available in late 2011. >>Click here to go to the official site<<
This was a massive eye opener for me on just how intense and how serious fighting games where, and it made me even more hungry to get better and learn more. It was somewhere around this time that I dragged one of my local friends into Street Fighter IV too. I showed him “I Got Next” and it really pushed him into appreciating the depth to Fighting Games, and the drive to become a great player. This was somewhat a blessing to me too, as thanks to this I had someone local I could play on a regular basis, and if I improved, he improved, and vice versa.
I’ve come a long way with fighting games over the past 24 months... To a point where Fighting Games have become like a sport to me. Thanks to a rise in internet streams over the past 2 years, I get access to watching some of the worlds greatest fighting game players going against each other in tournaments with money and respect as the motivation to win. I’ve found myself staying up late into the early hours (due to time zone difference) watching some of these streams as the intensity and hype is equal to that of a major sporting event. Plus at the same time...I can learn things from seeing how high level players use or abuse specific characters.
The infamous Street Fighter III Daigo vs Justin Wong "Parry Video" From "EVO" 2004
Personally, my main game right now is Super Street Fighter IV. I have sunk more hours into SSFIV in the past year than I have any other game (and I'm an avid gamer, I've put 180 hours+ in Pokémon Heart Gold [released March 2010] and SSFIV easily beats that on time played). I've grown much more fond of a lot of the older fighting games I never really understood growing up either, through playing a game for a few hours as well as reading up on them, you can really see what makes a truly great fighting game (as well as what makes a truly awful one).
I also would really love to go to Las Vegas to attend "EVO" one year too. Evo is basically a big 3 day fighting game tournament held annually, where a lot of the worlds best players all meet to battle it out through a double-eliminator tournament bracket to prove there skills at a game.
Last year Daigo Umehara from Japan took 1st place in Super Street Fighter IV, along with roughly $20,000 in prize money for doing so.
If/ when I go, I’m not expecting to go over there and be a threat to the big name players I admire, I will definitely train hard building up to it when I do go though, and do my very best. Although just being at Evo itself will be an amazing experience, meeting some great people, getting some great photo’s as well as doing some Vegas holiday/ tourism stuff once the tournament is over, naturally.
It’s safe to say that I will never look at fighting games as simple shallow time killers any more. Even the fighting games I suck at, I know that if I invested the time into them, I would see a return for it.
To try and break it down simply. You should try and think of fighting games in a similar way to how the mainstream FPS games are these days... In which although these FPS's have solo modes chucked in, the real meat is generally in the multi-player!
It's awesome that online gaming is so commonplace these days, and that all the new fighting games include online modes in them, meaning you can always find real opponents to play with, as well as the internet speeds and netcode to keep up with fighting games online. Although local offline multi-player is truly where it's at if you have the chance to experience that (hence the reason I've tried to round up local fighting game players where I live).
Seriously though, with fighting games...if you play people on a similar level to you, if you enjoy the game you're playing, and if you enjoy levelling up your skills at it, then you'll find yourself wrapped up in one of the most rewarding video game experiences you'll ever find.
Last Saturday I got to spend a decent amount of time playing a near final version of Marvel vs Capcom 3, thanks to the "Capcom Fight Club" event in Manchester.
So, let me take ya for a literary ride on how the game felt.
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The information provided comes from a guy with a big interest in fighting games, in fact no game comes nearly as close to Super Street Fighter IV on my XBOX 360 in terms of the time I've played games on the console...and considering my 360 gets a lot of use, that's saying something. So hopefully I can give you a better insight into the game than someone who doesn't 'get' the true joy fighting games can bring.
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There is no better place to start this off with how the gameplay feels...
Saying that, there is also no better way to give you an impression of how the gameplay is than for me to compare it to other Fighting Games, specifically ones made by Capcom.
So with that I can straight away point towards 2008's "Tatsunoko vs Capcom" (2010 for the rest of world). It's less than a week until Marvel vs Capcom 3 is released, so if you want to get sort of familiar with MvC3 in advance, then I suggest you play a bit of Tatsunoko vs Capcom for the time being.
The similarities to Tatsunoko vs Capcom is a positive one though, as TvC is definitely an improved gaming experience over Marvel vs Capcom 2. I'm not trying to say Marvel 2 played bad, but Tatsunoko vs Capcom was a more sanded off product overall, Capcom had definitely gained a lot of experience with there vs. series of games by TvC. Where as in hindsight Marvel 2 needed a lot of rough edges shaved (especially in character balancing).
Thankfully we're now living in an age of downloadable patches, so even if exploits or problems occur with MvC3 (as players around the world throw everything at it) we will hopefully be able to see any major errors (such as dreaded infinite combo's) get fixed.
Marvel vs Capcom 3 does more than enough to set itself apart from Tatsunoko vs Capcom though, I'll give a few examples covering the more obvious, and the not so obvious.
First up, the controls.
Tatsunoko vs Capcom ~> 4 button game (Light, Med, Heavy, Assist).
Marvel vs Capcom 3 ~> 6 button game (Light, Med, Heavy, Aerial (Launcher), Assist 1, Assist 2).
Strategically you're still mostly trying to work some light attacks through to medium and to hard in regards to the average characters combo methods, however Marvel 3 is a lot more Aerial focused than previous vs series games. Not only are you encouraged to take your combo's from the ground to the air, but you're encouraged to get your team involved if possible to keep those air combo's alive!
I can't even begin to go into the advanced details of the possibilities MvC3 brings, mainly because the game still isn't out, and there is soo much yet to be fully explored! However just going off the brief streams I've seen already, as well as the information gathered and posted on the likes of Shoryuken.com and other Fighting Game Community hot spots, it seems MvC3 does a lot in terms of allowing for some very creative and unique set ups. So once you find that team of 3 you like, and you start putting in the hours of training and matches to see how your team can flow together, you'll be "wow'd" by all the unique options there are. Heck! I myself and many of the local "serious" Super Street Fighter IV players still manage to find new little things that we didn't know worked to this day during casual sessions, and that's after nearly a year of heavy play on a game that [in comparison to Marvel vs Capcom 3] is quite linear. So I think it makes sense to presume that MvC3 will be making jaws drop and we'll be seeing new things for a long long time.
Below: Some of Wolverine's high damage combos as shown in the "Bradygames Strategy Guide". That should shut up those whom believe Fighting games are determined by button mashing and luck ¬_¬
It's not just the new combo and team interaction possibilities in Marvel vs Capcom 3 that set it apart from TvC though. Marvel vs Capcom 3 is also a faster game than Tatsunoko vs Capcom. I don't think it's quite as fast as MvC2 was, but it's still a very frantic game. The first time I got to play a game was on an arcade cab that was missing a configured "Assist 2 button", I was trying inputs to get some moves out (not really knowing what the characters I'd picked where capable of), and had my 3 character teams' ass handed to me in just over 1 minute by a guy who'd spent the morning cramming valuable time in. Importantly though, you can get an idea of the pace of the game from the video below, as well as get a basic idea of how n00b mistakes can and will go punished by those whom know how.
You can also see in the video above (as well as from the other trailers you've probably seen by now) that MvC3 is also a visually impressive game too. The videos can only do so much justice too...it's even better in person. The cel shaded art style works very well, not just at delivering a game that will still look great in 10 years time (unlike Marvel 2), but the cel shaded art style is pretty much the perfect fit for bringing comic book characters off the printed page and into video games. Another thing I should mention is that no matter how much was going on at screen at a time, the game always ran at a consistently smooth frame rate too (which is more than I can say for SSFIITHD Remix :|).
Some of the stages you fight in have some cool fine details too, in fact some that you'll only catch when you're watching a replay or a friends match. Although some stages were a bit on the bland side, or that didn't press enough nostalgia buttons to make them that memorable, although at the Capcom Fight Club there was no stage select option, and I'm pretty sure it was only a limited number of stages in rotation in the 'near-final' build of the game that was on show, so hopefully in the final game the 'good' will out number the 'meh' in terms of the background scenery.
Another area of improvement in Marvel vs Capcom 3 over previous games is the differences in the character selection. It's usually common to have a few "copy and paste" type characters in a game like this, or to have too many characters that require pretty much the exact same sort of play style. Whilst playing this game last Saturday I experimented with around 24 of the 30 characters we had to choose from, and I can certainly say there are some big contrasts in terms of play styles. Super Street Fighter IV did a nice job of having a nice range of characters that play different (apart from the 6 shoto's).
[Below: 30 character's we had available to us last Saturday. 36 will be in the final game, with more available in time as DLC]
It'd be too ambitious of me to say Marvel vs Capcom 3 does a better job at making all characters feel unique, as some of my play time with certain characters resulted in nothing more than eating big combo's with them, but I think it's safe to say it is at least on par with SSFIV in having enough different character types amongst selection for you to eventually find characters that 'fit' with the way you like to play the game.
To elaborate a bit more on what I mean about the differences, you have characters like "Haggar" and "Hulk" whom are grapplers, they're generally slow in speed, useless from afar, but if they manage to get close and in your face, they'll deal heavy amounts of damage, then you have characters like "Ryu" and "Deadpool" whom are somewhere in the middle in terms of speed, but seem to be like the all-around types in terms of having options to deal with a variety of opponents. Characters such as "X23" and "Jill Valentine" are unbelievably fast, and at the other end of the speed scale there is "Arthur" and "Modok" whom are slow, but rely heavily on fighting people from afar (playing keep away). As well as numerous high execution characters in the middle of the foray for those who go to bed at night dreaming of combo chains.
Hopefully those whom are familiar with previous "vs. Capcom" players overall can sort of get the impression from my comparisons and observations above of what to expect when they finally play the game.
For those that are reading this out of curiousity, or those whom have never really given fighting games a proper chance and want to board the MvC3 hype train, then you'll be happy to know Capcom included a "simple mode" in this game. It's basically an option to overly simplify the inputs required to do some of your characters special moves. I didn't try out this mode myself, but the mode does seem to do a nice job of making the unskilled players put together some basic flashy moves (as opposed to just random punching air and trying to break the controller). Simple mode doesn't give you the range of moves or the creativity you'd have if you put the time into learning the game properly, nor will Simple mode make it so that you can hang with those whom have banked 50 hours+ into the game. It will allow 2 people with no fighting game experience playing the game to have fun easily pulling off some of there characters trademark moves though, which makes for a more entertaining experience for that type of player.
Overall...
Marvel vs Capcom 3 is a fresh experience and a lot of fun to play (unless you're one of those "all fighting games look alike" prejudiced types). It also makes fantastic use of the 2 licenses with many subtle references, alternate costumes, background cameo's, story crossovers, and more...
It will no doubt prove to be the next big multi-player sensation in the fighting game community, with tournaments already popping up all around the world. Not forgetting that the online multi-player is meant to be one of the best Capcom have produced yet, as well as hinting at being more rewarding than the already fun SSFIVs online experience.
All that's left to say now is...Roll on February 18th!
[p.s. If you happen to be reading this from Preston, or even just the North West of England, take a look at "Street Fighter Preston". It's a group set up to try and round up Fighting Game players from the region. Allowing for some great local players to level up there skills by playing each other online and offline].
When I was growing up my first exposure to fighting games was Street Fighter II’ Turbo - Hyper Fighting on Super Nintendo. I didn’t actually own the game myself, but I played a lot of it at a friends house. This was back when I was about 7 or 8.
Having served my years with the NES I had seen my share of games where the objective was to kick ass...but Street Fighter II was different. It was 1 vs 1, I could either walk towards or away, crouch or jump, and every button initiated a punch or kick of varying strength. This was my first true taste of a “Fighting Game”.
Basically you had 2 ways to play... either against a friend, or we could choose a character and then try and complete the arcade mode with them. Although both ways of playing were essentially a mess, not because of Capcom (who made this great game) ...but because in “Arcade mode”, we would get our ‘n00b’ asses handed to us by the computer, and in “VS mode” neither of us had any real grasp of our characters, and thus the natural human instinct of “button mashing” kicked in. Although because of that, any wins (via button bashing) never really felt like wins.
Still, regardless of the frustrations and the complex difficulty the game threw at me...my fondness for the Street Fighter series was born with my very first hands-on with it.
I credit that to a mix of the following; the characters stood out, it was my first taste of a true fighting game, and although I sucked at it...it was rewarding when I managed to learn something, whether it was remembering 1 of a characters ‘specials’ or simply a tactic that would work against the computer (M. Bison’s Slide for instance, [cr.hk]).
There was also a sense of unique-ness to every fight too. Sure I’d taken Little Mac to as far as I could memorise attack patterns for in “Punch-Out” [NES], but that was more about timing than fighting... I’d also fought my way through random henchmen a plenty in “Turtles” on the NES, Final Fight on SNES, or Streets of Rage/ Cyborg Justice/ Golden Axe, etc on the Megadrive, but your movesets in these games were always quite limited...
However with Street Fighter... as well as Mortal Kombat, Clayfighter, Killer Instinct, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, and other crazy fighting games I played as a kid. It felt more like what a fight should feel like...even with the addition of fireballs and many other crazy shenanigans.
Fast Forwarding to my teenage years... I still had respect and nostalgic love for Street Fighter II, backed up by the fact I usually had a copy of SFII on each and every system I had (except my N64...because the once rumoured Street Fighter 64 never got made). Still though. Even during my teenage years, and closing in on hitting twenty, I had never really “up’d my game” in terms of making any real improvements at the fighting games I would occasionally pull out from time to time. At the most I would go as far as to perhaps look up a characters move list on the internet or someplace, and try to mash those moves out as much as I could in hopes it would get me the win...and sure it would work against much less experienced friends, and perhaps get me through the first 3-4 matches of the 1 player Arcade mode, but this never was enough to motivate me into putting that many hours into whichever games in question.
It was a trend between many of my friends too. Everyone I knew had at some point or another owned a fighting game, but in comparison to the rest of the games they owned, they barely got that much play time. Nor did I know anyone who was actually truly impressive at any of these fighting games.
I didn’t really give it any extra thought though. I just presumed fighting games were just destined to not really last you that long, that they pretty much where the kind of games you would whip out every other month...perhaps to see if you would randomly be any better at the game now... or maybe you had some friends round and wanted to mix up your multi-player gaming sessions with something violent and different to whatever else you’d be playing...
...and that was that. I remained oblivious to the true depth, the true reward, that lay within fighting games. That was until...February 2009, but I'll fill you in on the rest in Episode II.
