Tag Archives: 360

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Yes, that’s the whole title.  And yes, it’s still Super Street Fighter II Turbo, it just looks a little different.

Okay, a lot different.

Okay, awesome.  It looks as awesome as I remember SSFIIT looking when I was playing SSFIIT in the arcades.  The lens of nostalgia is affecting my memory, admittedly, but it’s really quite a good looking game.  It’s Street Fighter, but it looks a lot better.  The gameplay was already sound, and the tiny changes that they’ve made affect a very small portion of the hardcore street fighter community, but they’re good changes.  They’ll never affect my level of play, but from what I’ve read, they’re improvements.  This is apparently the definitive version of Street Fighter II.

Which would make it the sixth or seventh version, depending on how you want to count “versions.”

I’m not sure that Ryu needed a fake fireball, but apparently he has one now.  I’m not complaining.  What’s neat is that CAPCOM actually went to OverClocked, which is a video game ReMixing community and asked if they could compose the new music.   You know, instead of sending them cease and desist letters.

The worst part of playing this game is the fact that I don’t really have anyone to play against.  I mean, that was the whole point.  It’s not really a fighting game unless you’re competing.  I’m more interested in getting folks to play in informal tournaments at my place, but that will have to wait until I have decent controllers.  The 360 controller, while fine for most games today, really does not fare well as a Street Fighter II game controller.  Hell, the SNES controller was a better controller.  At least the directional pad worked on the SNES.

I find myself punching way too often when I feel like I’ve input a down, downforward, forward, punch.  Or maybe it’s just been too long.

I remember the days when I would put my quarter up on the machine to indicate next.

Sadly, that arcade is gone now, replaced by a Mongolian BBQ.  Yellow Brick Road at University Town Centre, I will miss you.

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Technolust 2009

Bleah.  This cold is totally being passive aggressive right now.  I’ve been dealing with it but then I totally forgot that CES was going on.

As in, right now.

Just catching up with all of the announcements and everything.  So far the most interesting things so far are the MadCatz Street Fighter IV tournament edition stick and the tiny DLPs from Wowwee.

Finally there was the Palm pré which is just, “Wow.”  They’ve come a long way since I owned a US Robotics palm device. Continue reading

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The Fog. . . of ROCK!

We were playing an engagement party gig that had gone on for a solid three hours.  It was three in the morning and the air is thick with solid beams of light, blues and greens and reds made manifest in the swirling fog.  Our vocalist Lisa wants to sing Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill and I nod because she’s angry and drunk enough to do it justice tonight.

I know she’s there because I can hear her, but I can’t see her through the milky white.  I don’t have time to think about it because I’m playing lead guitar and it’s complicated.  Maybe we should have practiced more, but now it’s too late and we’re playing.

Then the strobes hit and I see the crowd, floating faces lit up by the light show and made bodiless by the too thick cloud that fills the too small space.

We finish strong and Lisa, her voice raw from the performance,  asks if we can do it again.

Someone shouts Aqualung from the back of the family room.

And I knew then in the fog and the lights and roar of the half dozen or so people that were there that evening on the couch, that we could never go back to playing Rock Band 1.

–  Praxis Loki, Memoirs of a Rock Band

Rock Band 2 is simply an improvement to the Rock Band interface.  That said, they also made some changes to the administration of the band.  I’ve heard that they also changed how you unlock songs, but since we play to party, we pretty much punch in the unlock code and then play whatever we want.

It’s not about the game man, it’s about the music. Continue reading

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Prince of Persia

Prince of Persia.  The name for some conjures images of a white clad, rotoscoped prince running, jumping, climbing (and often dying) his way through an underground prison.

Then there was Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time for the Xbox.  Which was a great reboot for the series.  We’ll pretend that Prince of Persia 3D never happened.

The sequels to Sands of Time were okay.  I never really liked the direction Warrior Within went.  Overall it seemed too grungy, trying too hard to be “edgy” and “serious.”  After just a few hours, I grew tired of the combat and then didn’t come back for the third game in the series, The Two Thrones.  I may come back and revisit them at a later date, but for now I can just read the plot synopses and be done with them. Continue reading

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We'll turn this team around 360 degrees

I really do enjoy the xbox 360.  To be honest, it’s one of the better things to come out of Redmond, Washington. When given the choice, it’s my console of choice when it comes to titles that appear on more than one console.  Mainly for multiplayer, but sometimes because I am an achievement whore seeker.

It does online gameplay correctly.  (I’m pointing at you, Sony.)

Netflix is “in the box.”  It’s how I watched, Lust, Caution.

What they did not do well was the actual physical hardware.  You may recall I had the infamous Red Rings of Death failure on my xbox 360 last year.  This year, it’s a different failure. Continue reading

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