Mortal Kombat – Tag Battles w/ Tier Harribell

Luckily, the first time I play this in a fair while is round my friends house in an entirely relaxed environment. We were going online so who even cares. The main issue I had with this game was literally its general connection quality was through the floor and the general fact that everyone who seems to play this is either extremely bad/salty/eager to rage quit. There was one time before (probably the last time I played it) when literally me and Harribell played about 14-20 games online in tag battles. We won all those that ended legitimately, but everyone else rage quit on us. We had carried out about 3 games to the end. But enough story telling, it is time for more recent stories to be told.

On Mortal Kombat 9, I basically play:
– Scorpion – Like him as a character, motivated to play him and the combo system in MK9 actually works for him really well. Has extremely damaging meterless options (about 38% to 42% meterless on punish) and a decent X-Ray. Good general damage and normals are awesome. Target combos are good – and also the ability to do any jump kick/punch and cancel into an Air-throw for situations and a little bit more damage. Also, IMO, one of the best looking grounded throws in the game. Just sayin’.
– Cyber Sub-Zero – Little apprehensive about the introduction of a cybernetic Sub-Zero kinda dude, but can’t say I’m too fussed. He plays really well. Good options from my understanding. X-Ray is a tracking Divekick for full screen whiff-punishing. Hasn’t got the greatest of normals to be honest, but the combos resulting from them are damaging (33% is my BnB from midscreen, I can get in excess of 40% in the corner (still all meterless)). Can also cancel most strings of normals into his Parry to make people think about pressing a few too many buttons. Lookin’ at you Johnny Cage. Divekick is pretty save and can make jump-ing in general a lot safer. Ice Slide still works well.

In the great scheme of things, I like them, I dunno how they rate at a high level but they work for me – especially when its not lagging.

Eitherway, the reason  for going on this time was to make the time pass a little quicker when we were waiting for the PS Allstars update to download. It’d been ages, but it was still hilarious, mostly for the wrong reasons. Quality of play was horrendously bad, from both ends – the lag was a little bit much. This was probably to do with the download of an update at the same time, but its still seemed characteristic of MK9 to lag in a similar way normally. Unless they’ve fixed the netcode, and I was too busy in stitches to notice. Eitherway, played for about a half-hour, and destroyed everyone. It was obviously lagging pretty badly so no max damage punishes here. Harribell’s sick zoning with Kano was the most impressive thing here. And dat Jax rushdown of (D,F (Insert Button Here)). Half the community seemed to have forgotten the existence of a block button.

Had fun though. Don’t often get to play online on MK… never mind that, I barely play it at all. Will try and dedicate a slightly more serious bash to it. Might still be doing some stuff with Harribell though.

Footnote – Changed GT ( tHis R sParta = Tier Harribell )

Marvellous Madness: tHis R sParta & GamerGuyMax

Likelihood you’ll find these names popping up a lot on this “blog” of sorts. They are friends who live locally, so I generally get decent connections over XBL with each of them. And while I will need to properly take this game “online”, the netcode struggles endlessly against even other UK opponents. Can be frustrating when you can’t even land BnBs and the entire game turns into a mess of Lag-spiking, random supers and various cases of absolute bollocks. But that aside.

My current team (very much subject to change) is this:

– Ryu = Decent when my ignorance of this game surpasses my skill level – easy enough combos for good damage, priority and hitstun. As per usual, lacks gimmicks and shenanigans in comparison to the rest of the roster but still seems viable. Uses far to much meter on point though – was tempted to switch it to someone like Spencer.
– Doctor Doom = Basically there for an awesome Beam assist, switched up with Hidden Missiles on occasion. I barely know how to play the damn game so Tri-Jumping as a concept is quite foreign but I have a general idea of basic zoning and keep away. I can also do “Doom Loops” in the corner – leading to pretty epic damage and meter gain. Aside from that, no idea what I’m doing.
– Wesker = Easy Level 3 X-Factor Anchor. Normally is a strong character fundamentally and has teleport mix-ups to keep opponents on their toes. With X-Factor, admittedly, he’s just too fast to control. Find it extremely difficult to land full combos because of his speed. Damage per hit kinda makes up for it though in X-Factor. Great OTG aswell, allowing for reset situations and assist potential.

Basically – games on XBL, regardless of connection quality, make it extremely difficult to react late in such a fast paced game. When tHis R sParta begins pressuring with Zero and Sentinel assists, I need to be blocking the right way at exactly the right time, connection can make or break whether my character lives or dies. Eitherway, tHis R sParta was running Zero, Ammy and Sentinel team and it was proving extremely difficult. Giving Zero space allows him to start-up his offence and push-blocking barely does anything against command dashes in terms of creating space. Was running Hidden Missiles for these games and ideally I should have ran Plasma Beam. Something to just fill the screen fairly quickly, unlike Hidden Missiles – providing I get space its great but – against Zero, no space was granted. So for these games it was basically a case of that shut me down – as for the rest of the game, well it may as well have been Random. Aside from the activation of X-Factor with both Anchors on the field. I always cancel through hitstun to try and guarantee a punish and hopefully the K.O. This almost never happens. This is because I struggle to remember some of the more gimmicky properties of moves in the game – and I think my opponent knew this. Cr.M with Sentinel hits 3 times and has hyper armour. Not entirely sure how much, but enough to reverse a situation. I always forget and try to X-Factor straight through it and find myself getting killed for free by my self. S’all good. That happens a lot, but not quite as consistently as then. GGs n’ all though.

GamerGuyMax generally runs a team of Haggar on point, Captain America and Ghostrider as anchor. What would probably be considered a “low tier team” gives me some of the biggest trouble. With Haggar, Pipe, respect it, ’nuff said. Captain America has what seems to be extremely high damage conversion of fairly basic combos. To spice them up with re-launches and such results in even more. Hyper Charging Star. Sweet Christ. Ghostrider, generally proves a bitch to get in on, controls space like a God, and I’m not entirely sure how he’s considered so low tier… likely because he struggles to kill in one combo but I guess then that wouldn’t make him bad, just everyone else better. Eitherway, it usually boils down to my anchor VS Ghostrider and I will inevitably get Level 3’d at somepoint, somehow and then for the rest of the game, he will keep up a mind-numbing keep away game using “near enough full screen normals”. With each character, damage conversion is good, mix-ups are solid and I can’t really find a solid answer to each character. I find that sometimes I just need to get brainless and random and just go in with no regrets. For those games, I will lose. Because I forgot about the Pipe. But basically the strats are now that when Haggar gets knocked out (hopefully), I get reckless with Ryu, I guess thats kinda how you play the game. Go nuts, throw things out, and attempt to convert from the things that happen through your subconscious. I’ll get better at reacting to situations like that, but it is proving difficult.

I understand that  don’t entirely understand the game from a “playing” perspective, but I really wanna try. I think it’d probably help if I tried some other characters, gave Ryu a backseat for the moment and tried understanding someone else in the game that I would actually like:

– Strider Hiryu
– Wolverine
– Dante
– Vergil
– Nova
– Chun-Li
– Firebrand
– Spencer
– Chris
– Nemesis T-Type
– Spiderman
– Phoenix
– Storm
– Dormammu
– Magneto
– C. Viper

… maybe…

TEESPORTS – Fighting Games Tournament 2012

In the weeks leading up to this, there was no amount of interruptions to my Training schedule and in all honesty, to my confidence on SSF4. Was difficult to maintain composure after I’d went to Coventry for my Sister’s Graduation (18th – 21st), backlogs of College work from the days I’d be missing and loads of bullshit involving my Father. Fun times. That aside, that gave me 2 days to try and get back to my ‘A Game’ in time for the Tournament.

Either way, Tournament day came and I went with a few friends (Kesenai Tsumi, tHis R sParta and GamerGuyMax). And, understandably, I was nervous as all hell – just didn’t want to show myself up. It was my first experience in a Tournament setting so I was prepared for the fact that I was likely to crack quickly in this setting, and probably not go particularly far. I think this was a reasonable assumption and I didn’t really see myself taking much with it other than the experience to make a possible ‘next’ Tournament a bit more stress free.

Casuals came up first at 10am. I couldn’t really say how I actually performed, but I remember VSing a Gen and playing a few games. I pretty much double perfected him twice – which felt decent. In addition to that, I VS’d (GamerGuyMax’s Honda), Ken, (tHis R sParta’s Cammy and Evil Ryu) (Kesenai Tsumi’s Ryu) Cody and El Fuerte. All of which I expected to go as they played out really. Mindset at the time was not to fight Kesenai Tsumi until I may have to fight him in the Tournament – that way I’d be able to keep my playstyle fairly fresh for our fights. However, due to sheer politeness – that wasn’t the case. I asked him for a set when we were sat around and he obliged. I showed myself up and won about 2/3 games out of around 10. Was pretty rough, but I let on how I was playing at that time. Almost foreshadowing… Even then, I couldn’t adapt until I had played him again in a Tournament setting. I’d set the odds against me for that match if it happened. Either way, shortly after that, King Of Fighters XIII was down to Top 4 and SSF4AE was up next.

Shitting bricks is not the word. I was so freakin’ nervous. All matches were best of 3. Anyway, first game went as such:

VS Sakura 

I cracked during this game. First game went well. I was abusing tick-throws and Ryu’s decent footsie potential. And trying to make him hesitant to throw projectiles by HK Tatsu. I won first game. But then I cracked. I kept trying to Tatsu for some reason and I still can’t explain it to myself now aside from nerves. Either way he pretty much took the next to games of frame traps into Crouch Fierce and punishing my Tatsu’s with Crouch Fierce. I was so jarred that I couldn’t get in, that I lost the game almost through my own indecision and my determination to NOT adapt. Interesting I know…

o0 InFraRED 0o – 1
Sakura – 2

I was salty, but only annoyed with myself. He played very well and identifies my weakness and exploited it solidly and consistently. Props. Eitherway, I was not in the mindset for the next game at all. Decided to try and calm my nerves more that anything and just be patient and tone down the rash decision making. Concentrate on playing the player as opposed to the match-up itself. Play my own game, and force them to play mine. Next was a Makoto:

VS Makoto 

He did say that he only plays this game casually at the start. Which is fair enough. That in itself just kinda clicked something in my head. I just immediately relaxed and just felt a lot better and my nerves kinda dissipated. It would be nice to do well, but not essential. Eitherway, played out this match and it went well. Kinda exploited the idea that if he did only play casually then he probably wouldn’t have great anti-airs. So majority of my damage came from Counter-Hit Jump Fierce. I won both games fairly comfortably.

Makoto – 0
o0 InFraRED 0o – 2

VS Rose

With my limited match-up knowledge, I was placed almost immediately into this match. He was a familiar face around the Fight Club but I never played him… or learnt his name. InFraRED the Anti-social! Anyway, he played Rose and I decided on being slightly more random. Going for fairly obscene set-ups for the pursuit of unpredictability. It worked. He was clearly getting frustrated with me throwing him a fair bit. I buffered OS Sweep after everything but he didn’t backdash like I expected so I ate reversal EX Soul Spiral a few times. However, he used it as soon as he got meter, so I just exploited this lack of meter management and won. Punishing to the best of my ability when the time arose.

Rose – 0
o0 InFaRED 0o – 2

I noticed that I had stopped taking stupid risks even though I was in an unfamiliar setting, and that was a sign of progress. I was settled down and I was playing to a satisfactory standard.
Up next was a Cammy. However. There was news from Kesenai Tsumi. Basically – who every won in my next game (Me VS Cammy) would VS Kesenai Tsumi. This was pretty annoying to hear to be honest simply because I’d set the odds so against me in the match against Kesenai that it almost wasn’t worth bothering. But I tried my hardest not to let this affect my performance.

VS Cammy 

This guy was good. Very good. He knew exactly what Cammy’s vortex encompassed and after the first round I expected to lose this game. But I stayed in it. Trying to at least land a shoryu every time she entered the air. Doing DP on reaction to jumps rather that giving her time to decide whether to screw me over with a Cannon Strike or a jump-in. That gameplan worked sufficiently. But he took the first game through a fairly elaborate Ultra Combo finish. Was solid and I was trying to keep tabs on what he liked doing. Figuring him out if you will. In this case, I figured I can’t afford to let him move in. At all. So I went in. Using limited shenanigans and mind-games I managed to pull the second game. It was clear he was getting quite nervous at the sudden implementation of aggressive play – so I minded out for Cannon Strikes this round slightly more-so. Also realised that he was using Blocked Level 2 Focus’ to get in more-so that jumps. So I did my best to back-dash on reaction to Focus Attacks. It was clear when he was doing one because he’d dash forward and do a Lvl 2 focus. I looked for these moments. During the final round, I punished it with Super, and crossed him up on wakeup to take the game.

Cammy – 1
o0 InFraRED 0o – 2

I’d done what I wanted to do. I’d made a decent impression and shown that I wasn’t some retard going in out of his depth with Ryu. I had fun aswell. Now I was up against Kesenai. I had a feeling that if I was going to go far, the person who’d knock me out would be Kesenai Tsumi. Nevertheless. Ryu was up next:

VS Ryu (Kesenai Tsumi)

This was easily the hardest match I’d played. The nerves had set back in for me, and they visibly had for Kesenai Tsumi. Not too much to say about this one aside from it was close and our nerves showed. He never usually does DP quite so often during blockstrings and frame-traps. I got a few more punishes on these than I should have because they were often. However, I got hit by my fair share and it ultimately cost me the game. Shame, but I couldn’t adapt to the change in the space of 2 games. But it happens.

Kesenai Tsumi – 2
o0 InFraRED 0o – 0

That’s where my tournament experience ended. I stayed to see how far Kesenai Tsumi would get. After me, he went on to VS an El Fuerte. It looked difficult and it’s a match-up that hardly anyone knows. Kesenai won but it was close. Up next for him was a Honda/Balrog player. He shut down the Honda almost completely so his opponent switched to Balrog. Kesenai beat the Balrog fairly convincingly too. After that, he was in Top 4.

Top 4 for SSF4 began after every tournament had wrapped up their competition aside from Top 4. Again it was on after KOF in the evening. Due to time constraints because of KOF taking too long, Kesenai Tsumi fought MetallicMike (Juri) on a monitor at the side while KOF wrapped up on the main stage. Without too much exaggeration, MetallicMike got pretty much bodied. Kesenai Tsumi seems just completely in control and Mike just seemed lost in that match-up.

Then, he was up on the main stage. Seemed fairly surreal seeing someone I knew personally on stage fighting it out on SSF4. But either way, his first match on stage was against an Adon – I believe his name was Shek. So much hype in the room too, the atmosphere was incredible. This Adon was clearly knowledgeable of the match-up and played it well. However, it appeared Kesenai’s anti-airs were on point and he was just DP’ing Jaguar Kicks. Kesenai eventually won the game but it was a close game and both sides played very well. Next up was Grand Finals.

Kesenai Tsumi was up against “Big Fool”. An extremely robust Gen player. The same player had won KOFXIII about 15mins before this match. Because Kesenai came from losers, he had to win 2 sets in Grand Finals to take the game. I can’t even explain what really happened but it looked hard. Kesenai did however finish the first set on top to reset the brackets. Now it was ”proper” Grand Finals. After some intense Shoryu and OS action – Kesenai came out on top after an extremely close set. Kesenai Tsumi came 1st in his debut Tournament. I kinda figured he’d would stand a very good chance of winning this thing. Solid performance all round. Admittedly pretty aspirational stuff.

Eitherway  – I’m satisfied with my performance. It lends itself to improvement but I don’t really think I should expect anything more after my first tournament. I’m happy. Definitely room for improvement but that will come with time. GGs to all.