Weekend Update #5: Getting a (Red & Blue) Monkey of my Back

The PS3 was out for repair this weekend so instead I spent my time with Street Fighter III 3rd Strike in an attempt to finally beat it's much hated final boss, Gill.

A face even a mother could hate.

Gill is arguably one of the most hated Street Fighter bosses of all time and not without reason. Simply put, unlike previous SF bosses which were quite balanced and fair, with only the AI simply being able to use the boss character well to beat you. No, Gill is designed for the sole purpose of beating you and stealing your quarters. How, let me list the ways.

1. Range & Damage

Gill is not only large and imposing, but he's got pretty long limbs as well that can hit you from afar and deal alot of hurt in the process.

2. He can revive himself.

Beat down Gill while he still has a full super bar and you'll find yourself with an unpleasant surprise. Upon getting "K.O.ed" he will utter the words "Resurrection" and proceed to regain life. Sure you can cancel the move, but the fact that it pushes you means that he usually get to regain about 2/3rds of his life back anyway. This is made more annoying in that he rarely ever wastes his super meter and when he does...

3. He can kill you with one move.

Gill's Seraph Wing not only hits you from anywhere on the screen, but if you're unlucky enough not to block it, it kills you immediately. If you do block it, then you'll only suffer half the damage, which is still 1/2 of our lifebar.

For the crime of having long blonde locks like Gill, you are hereby sentenced to death... by epic splooging.

4. He's blue AND red!

Think about it, blue and red are opposing colours forever fated to face off against one another in the field of battle. In just about any team based game, one team will always be red and the other blue. Now consider that Gill is half blue and half red, killing the guy nets you both a +1 for killing him and a -1 for team killing!

5. His outfit.

Just look at it.

The less said about what he's NOT wearing, the better.

But anyway, after doing some research and looking for setups and strings that the AI was vulnerable to, I've finally been able to beat him. Granted he did beat me twice and I had to continue, but whatever, it's only my win that matters in the end. Here's the proof:

A WINNER IS ME!

Yeah, I was only ranked D** in the match (grade C overall), but even using really cheap tactics he was still a bitch to put down. As mentioned before, he even forced me to continue a few times before I finally sent his bi-coloured ass packing to next sunday.

With this done, I can put 3rd Strike to rest and concentrate on other things. There's a SFIV tournament coming up in about a month and I'm going to concentrate on practicing for that.

Weekend Update #4: well, not really.

No true update this week as I spent most of the weekend at the MCC. To make up for it however, here are some shots of the SFIV arcade machine at Timezone at SM Megamall.

STREET FIGHTER IV SON! AAAGGHH!

Not visible, crappy Korean stick and buttons.

Chun Li kicks high... but not high enough!

My Sagat is fight!

Thanks to plsburydoughboy for bringing a camera and making me look like a cocky douche.

Umehara Kumite: Daigo VS Shiro

One of the matches from the second batch of Umehara videos from Arcadia magazine. Daigo vs Shiro, one of the top Abel players in Japan.

Thanks to Capcom's Seth Killian for the heads up.

Random Select: Tao is Taokaka

And now I shall proceed to alienate whatever readership I have left with this annoyingly cute but annoying video.

Click at your own risk.

Weekend Update #3: Taking it Back to the Streets!

Didn't really get to spend time with online with BlazBlue this weekend (although I racked up a few good matches during the week). Instead, I found myself back with Street Fighter IV . This is partly due to my younger brother who had installed Street Fighter IV on his MacBook (running Windows 7 via BootCamp). Thanks to this, him and his friends have started running informal "tournaments" amongst themselves. Inspired by this, I decided to join in when a he brought a friend over and they had decided to play on my PS3.

At first, I did notice that I was trying to things that would only work in BlazBlue's engine (air dashing and wake up rolls). It took awhile for me to transition back to SFIV. I also noticed that, while my Cammy was nothing to really talk about before, I was terrible with her now. I ended up using my S-tier crutch Sagat to get a few wins against my brother's friend. Against my brother however, winning wasn't really an option seeing as he really is that much better than me (he runs a terrifying pressure game with Gouken). Still, I had fun, I even got inspired to give Balrog (Boxer) a run and did quite well with him.

Now after that, I was initially ready to go back to BlazBlue the following night, however a couple of other friends dropped by (one who plays a mean Zangief) and, after a few rounds of NBA 2k9, decided to challenge them to SFIV. Now, by this time, I had actually practiced a bit with both Sagat and Balrog meaning that my Sagat was unbeaten the whole night and my Balrog at least gave my friends Zangief a hard time. Also, I was able to get some good wins with my Cammy again (against Akuma no less). The key was not playing it like HD Remix (which I tend to do) and instead build my game around pressuring with her high priority Cannon Spikes. We also messed around with the other characters, including some low tier hijinks with Dan and Rey Mys..I mean El Fuerte.

All in all, it was good to get some decent time with SFIV. While I still will be maining BlazBlue, SFIV is still a solid and fun 2D fighting. Also, the game's more defensive, less combo reliant pace means that I had to really think about strategy and mind games in contrast to BlazBlue where the pace of the game tends to focus on offense and quick reflexes.

Get your SFIV PC skins, all in one place.

This one's for those who are too intimidated to go to the Shoryuken.com forums to get them.

Street Fighter 4 - Super Skin Combo Attack/

This is basically the same list as in SRK, but with FilePlanet download links to back them up.