In Third Person

A few nights ago, after a match of Street Fighter IV, I received a message from the guy I just beat. Usually, when I receive these types of messages, it's either something like "good game" or some form of verbal harassment. This time though was different.

He asked me in a voice message (not in an exact quote, but you'll get the idea), "How do you do moves and combos? I've only had this game for 2 days."

My instinctive response was to refer him to the training mode. He then replies with something like, "I know there's a training mode, but what buttons do I hit? I don't understand this."

Uh oh.

If you know anything about Street Fighter, you know that's a very ambiguous question to ask and an even weirder one to answer. Moves are dependent on your character and button configuration, while combos mostly rely on the "canceling" system, all of which is far too much to explain within the 250 character limit over XBOX Live.

I learned how to play Street Fighter IV primarily because I've been playing Street Fighter II for almost 20 years now. We learned by either playing similar-skilled people in person at the arcade or at home, or played with people better than us that were willing to give us pointers. Even back then, Street Fighter was a complex game to learn and you couldn't really get better unless you dedicated a lot of time and effort into getting good at it.

That environment to go hands-on and learn doesn't really exist anymore.

There is no arcade scene pretty much anywhere outside of Japan. People aren't really getting together to play at other people's houses like they used to. Fighting games, while making a comeback, are still not even close to mainstream. If you strictly play online, odds are you're playing a seasoned veteran who will just beat you up and go without giving you any sort of advice. If you're not able to spot patterns or observe the right things in an online match, you'll just get beat repeatedly without learning anything.

So how do you learn now? Well, unlike my generation, there is more resources on the Internet than ever before. Just Google it and you'll pull up a ton of beginner guides. There are also a ton of beginner and expert videos to watch on YouTube. Those helped me transition into IV a lot, but part of that was because I have a Street Fighter II foundation to build on. Without that, reading the guides and learning from the videos becomes much more difficult.

I hope the guy who messaged me on XBOX Live eventually figures the game out to a point where's he's happy playing it. Sadly, the best ways to learn just don't naturally occur in today's gaming environment.

"I Got Next" is a documentary about the fighting game scene. Filmed during the Sinsation tournament earlier this year, its goal as a movie is to cover the scene and the people behind competitive fighting games. I watched the short version of the film at www.igotnextmovie.com. A longer version of the movie is due out this winter, with footage from Evo 2009.

After seeing "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters", my hopes were high for this one. What made that movie so special wasn't the game, but the people stories behind the games. While the story was fudged a bit for the sake of entertainment, it ultimately became a video game version of Rocky with a clear protagonist and antagonist.

From what I've begun to learn about the fighting game scene, there is definitely enough of a people story there for a film. After watching a few tournaments online, listening to podcasts and playing a ton of Street Fighter IV myself, I was really psyched to learn more about the pros that drive this scene. Did it succeed? From what I saw, I felt the documentary left a lot to be desired.

Before I begin to criticize, I must preface by saying that the two movies are very different productions. The King of Kong was a fairly big venture, while I Got Next is basically a one-man project. Also, unlike King of Kong, which had a clear story and progression that occured over a long period of time, the majority of material for I Got Next was cobbled together mainly during a tournament that spanned only a few days. Considering the limitations holding back I Got Next, Ian Cofino did a pretty good job with what he had.

Maybe it's just me, but I really felt like it could have gone so much further. With the exception of Gootecks and the East vs. West thing, I felt like the film only scratched the surface of the guys they spotlighted for the film and the scene that holds all these guys together. I was watching it, warming up to the film, and then it abruptly ended without really satisfying any quenches I had for what the film was talking about.

If you're a fighting game fan, I still think it's worth a watch to get a glimpse of the pro scene you may be oblivious to. There's a lot more going on to Street Fighter than what happens on XBOX Live or PSN. Here's to hoping though that the next cut of I Got Next goes a little more in-depth.

In a deal that sounds too crazy to be true, Activision is for a limited time, offering those who purchase Guitar Hero 5 can get Guitar Hero: Van Halen for free before it hits stores.

If I were a Guitar Hero fan, I'd be all over this.

Key word: "if".

For a myriad of reasons big and small, I've hated every single Guitar Hero game since Guitar Hero 2. It's also worth noting that I began hating the series once Harmonix got bought by MTV to make Rock Band instead.

As someone who has played every single Guitar Hero game not made by Harmonix and disliked it, and as someone who has dropped hundreds of dollars in Rock Band instruments, games and downloadable content, a free copy of GH:VH pre-Hagar only isn't going to get me back into the series. However, don't let me rock your boat. If you're a Guitar Hero fan, there's much reason to rejoice.

If you bought the regular edition of BlazBlue like me, you missed out on the sweet bonus tutorial DVD that shows you how to not suck at the game.

Well, we're in luck. Thanks to Youtube user Jaxelrod, we have access to all of the character guides in that DVD. Above is the Noel tutorial.

Having watched a few of these, I still feel horribly lost and confused. Maybe if I keep at it I'll eventually figure this game out.

If you have any sort of interest in pro-Street Fighter IV play, definitely check out the live stream above. A lot of the top Japanese players are there (including Diago and Mago) as well as a few of the top North American players.

It's really interesting to compare and contrast this from how players were playing at EVO a few weeks ago. The styles of play for the same game are very unique to each region.

The Rock Band series of video games are hands-down my favourite video game series this console generation. I could go on for days talking about how awesome the games are. However, this time I wanted to highlight one major gripe I've lived with since I bought the full band kit on launch day of Rock Band 1:

The Rock Band 1 instruments are some of the worst-made video game controllers of all-time.

While my guitar technically still works, the strum bar feels horribly mushy and makes it difficult to consistently hit the notes.

My drums though, have given me way more problems.

I've sent them back 4 different times over the course of 2008. All 4 sets broke. In that time I've had 3 kick pedals. All of them have snapped in half.

Unfortunately, the warranty ran out on my drums a while ago. So what am I left to do? Besides drop $100 on a new set? Attempt to fix them.

My first attempt at fixing the drum pads involved me snapping the cracked pads back together and taping them up. That worked for about...two days. Then, I got more serious.


In order to prevent the pads from cracking apart again, I taped plastic butter knives across the cracks. This worked...for about a week. Unfortunately, directly around the middle piece is a round crack where not even a broken piece of butter knife can properly reinforce.

My next step? Construction glue.


They're drying right now on the table. I'll re-enforce these with something else once the glue is dry.


My kick pedals had to go through this shoddy surgery too. In order to keep them together, I've taped plastic butter knives to the bottom of the pedal.

It's so frustrating to be in this position. I could just buy new drums, but why should I if there's a way I can fix them on my own? I know my fixes feature terrible craftsmanship, but if it works, why not? The Rock Band 2 drums as far as I know work fine, but for the millions of people who got punked by the Rock Band 1 drum set, I feel your pain.


Top image from PS3 Attitude

I'm a huge podcast junkie, and the Player One Podcast has been one of my go-to shows since the very first episode. This week's episode from Chris Johnston, Greg Stewart and Phil Theobald (all former EGM editors) is a tribute to former EGM editor Andy Baran, who recently passed away at the age of 35 due to pancreatic cancer.

Growing up, EGM was a huge part of my life. Andy Baran worked at EGM during the early to mid 1990's, which many hail as the glory days of the magazine. While I personally don't recall much of his work in EGM specifically, listening to this very touching tribute makes me wish I had paid more attention.

The show features a ton of voice mails and the Player One crew celebrating the life of Andy Baran, and it's very touching to hear all these great stories about him. If you have a heart, definitely check out this week's episode of the Player One podcast if you don't subscribe to them already. Below is a link to listen to the show:

Player One Podcast Andy Baran Tribute