to start with i’d like to explain that i took a 2 month break from 3s quite recently when my pc fucked up and i only returned around a month or so ago. in that time i’ve fought to get my form back on ggpo and a bit offline with circle masher and am finally getting back a little bit of sharpness in my play.

it’s been an interesting time for me recently with trips now in the planning stages for stunfest in may and svb again in august. i’ve also got a super turbo tournament coming up on march the 20th in a city quite near to bristol so there should be quite a bit of stuff over the coming 6 months to talk about in more detail. funnily enough i woke up about a week ago and it clicked in my mind that if i could afford the trip then i’d head off to evo 2k10 in vegas for 3s and make a big holiday out of it. so i got and quickly checked how much cash i had in the bank and how much flights to vegas would cost and sure enough i was good to go. then just before taking the plunge and buying the tickets i thought i should just check to confirm that 3s was going to be played at evo this year and sure enough it got replaced! by some game called melty blood actress something or other which i’ve never even heard of at that! i was really disappointed, unsurprisingly, so i thought maybe i could make up for not going to evo by going to the cannes tournament in march. to be honest i think if i could have got the time off work i may have been able to go, but trying to book time off work with little time in advance is near impossible for me so sadly i’ve had to miss out on this one too.

oh i almost forgot to mention there’s a chance i will be heading to leeds some time about 7 or 8 weeks from now for some offline sessions with adzuki in his apartment and some of the good birmingham based players. more news on that as i get it. i can also confirm that i’ll be hitting the arcades in london next thursday so with any luck i’ll have some stories to tell after that.

for now i’m off to record a new song with my band but in my next post i’ll be talking about a recent tournament for uk players on ggpo which i entered and i’ll talk about other tournament formats which i’ve experimented with and how they went. peace.

i am thinking that i might start making some trips to the arcade in london where all the big names hang out. for anyone who would consider going there at some point or is generally interested it’s called casino arcade and is literally nextdoor to the tube station called goodge street (near oxford street). on the sunday of svb i was due to get the coach home at 10pm but around 5pm i realised there was still a lot i wanted to hang around for, the 3s finals had not yet been played and there was talk of a casual 3s team tournament being organised by rakurai. the problem was that i had heard of problems with the london tube (metro) services in harrow on sunday that might mean i had to get the bus, which would mean i would have to leave svb really early (and miss those things) in order to make it on time! as someone who HATES being lost, or doing something i am unfamiliar with, i wasn’t particularly looking forward to trying to navigate the buses  when i had already planned all my journeys via metro, so i ended up putting my beloved game of 3s first and ran all the way back to my hotel to ask if they had any availability of a room for another night! i’m not as fit as i used to be and i only thank god that nstalkie and noprefix were willing to take care of my bag of belongings at svb otherwise i would have been running with a horrible weight to carry too, thanks guys :p). so after some hassle where they wanted to see identification before letting me book a room it eventually got sorted and i was free to return to svb knowing that i could stay as late as i wanted. the moral of this long story is that it meant i could return to the coach station and book a coach home casually in my own time on monday, rather than having to rush straight there.

at only 11am on monday morning i was already in central london wondering where to go first, so my first stop was the trocadero arcade at picadilly circus. to warn anyone who’s not been there before but would consider going, the stick had a horrible spot at the downright position which felt sticky and like a circle gate somehow (somehow only in that downright position) and the buttons were mostly broken and only sometimes worked. not a good start to the day! since there was no one else about other than some guys on tekken 6 i didn’t play for too long before giving sf4 a try. my opinions on sf4 haven’t changed, all i’ve confirmed is how god damn easy zangief’s 360s are! so anyway after some wandering through the area i ended up getting directions off some nice guy towards oxford street  so that i could go in search of the casino arcade i was told of. i was walking for ages and ended up in this restaurant asking for a burger and the guy ended up giving me a huge plate of burger, salad, chips (or fries, whatever) and charged me for the whole lot! yes, i know, i got owned by this guy but i was too hungry to really care :p a while later i arrived at the tottenham court road tube station. contrary to what i had heard, the casino arcade is not in that immediate area. i wasted probably an hour walking around looking for it and nobody i asked had heard of the place. just when i had started to get bored and tired of looking i ended up finding it and i was damn relieved to put it lightly. it’s next to GOODGE STREET not TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD goddamnit!
anyway it’s a cosy little arcade with the beat em ups downstairs in the basement. 3s felt a little strange on there to me but it could have been any number of factors:  1) the game speed is faster than on the ps2 version 2) the p1 stick and buttons i was using MIGHT have been a been a little unresponsive or something 3) sitting up close to the big screen was a different experience than i am used to. whatever it is something felt slightly different about it and i struggled to adjust at first. thankfully though i was playing the cpu so it wasn’t very tough to win, but after a few fights zenfire (one of the bigger players from the netherlands i believe) came up and asked me for some games. zenfire had been in the group of death at svb and got drawn with zabuza’s urien (really good), another two really good players (i’ve totally forgotten who) and our very own nstalkie (no introduction needed!) and in fact there was a 6th player who was also good! i don’t remember if zenfire got through the group or narrowly got knocked out when the players tied for second place had play-off matches, i only remember that zabuza didn’t make it through as i wanted him to. so back to the story, we ended up playing for about half an hour or more, mostly my necro vs his gouki and all i can say is i felt sorry for his gouki in the end! the reason being my normally shit super execution was coming off quite reliably and i was going for necro sa1 practically every time he left the floor or made a mistake. i must add that that shit is CHEAP! but since we were in an arcade setting and my money was on the line i decided fuck it and abused it for about 8 fights! hey i’m sick of guys abusing matchups vs me- it’s about time i got some horribly unfair revenge anyway after some more fights i ended up heading off to go home and that was where my first serious arcade experience was concluded.  i loved it and i am now determined to make some day trips back up there for more practise. i bet next time i end up getting destroyed by zak or someone and end up regretting throwing my money away on this silly game…………naaaaah i’ll just go to the cash machine and get more money to waste!

peace

-Renegade

i got up to the venue around 5pm and was happy to see that the venue was full with a lot of nice setups with loads of tvs playing loads of games and big groups of people standing around the screens watching what was going on. it wasn’t long until nstalkie and i had played some games and it was nice getting to meet and play lots of nice (and really skilled) players. it wasn’t until saturday morning though that things got really interesting for me. i got to the venue at 10am just as pecheur was signing up for the 3s tournament! we talked for a while and he told me about how his hugo was destroyed something like 10-0 by yamazaki’s 12 when he went to japan as we played some casuals! adv (aka noprefix) arrived a little later and tehwill also came but not until quite late on.

eventually when the much delayed 3s tournament finally came on things began to get exciting for me. i was drawn in a group with an oro player, a chun player, a ryu player and a gouki player (sorry i forget their names). the format was round robin at this stage with it being 1 fight vs each opponent with character switching allowed. my hugo started my first round vs the oro with a win and halfway through the second round there was a problem with his stick or he slipped by mistake and he paused it by accident (something which by the rules means the guy who paused it loses the round). i didn’t come to svb to win fights by disqualification that way though, so i let the match go on and thankfully ended up winning with a double air parry off an ex fireball into a gigas. one win for me! next up i was against the ryu, against whom i used 12 and that fight also went my way, although i don’t remember if it was 2-0 or 2-1 to me. at this point i was aiming to win the group needing probably just one win from my remaining two matches to top the group, however my 12 was disappointing vs the chun and i lost that in a pretty close match. i was still confident leading into my last match with the gouki but that too ended up going badly with me losing i think 2-1. due to the results of the other games in our group though, it meant that the ryu player had topped the group and oro, chun and i had all finished joint second meaning that we needed to have a mini 3 way tournament to determine who claims second place and goes through into the knockout stages. rather than making it a round robin format they instead made it a 3 way single elimination format. this meant that two of us would need to play a semi final of our group and the winner gets to play the final of our group vs whoever was lucky enough to be drawn (at random) to skip straight to the final. of all the players it was the chun who got to miss the semi and skip straight to the final of our group play-offs whilst i had to face the oro again in the semi! i managed to beat him with hugo again and decided to stick with hugo for the final vs chun player and ended up winning that as well! that result meant i was finally through to the knockout stages as i took second place in my group. i was drawn vs a ken player (seemingly a good friend of zak and ryan hart) called waqs and at this stage it was a best of 3 wins format. thankfully i managed to win both fights with dash-in gigas in the corner and qualify for the next round. i got the draw of death though, as i got put against ryan hart! ryan (or prodigal son as he normally plays as) was untouchable for me and i couldn’t do anything to stop his yun with either my 12 or hugo, he was playing like a machine!

so that’s where my tournament ended- at the hands of europe’s best player at the last 16. the ryu player who topped my group went on to make th final 8 before losing to zak, so i am pleased to say my 12 beat him along the way :p

well i am ridiculously tired as i write this and there is so much i could say about svb i could be here typing for a whole week, so i think i’ll leave it at this for now and add some more tomorrow.

peace

-Renegade

i have my hotel booked- the kempford house hotel

i have my coach booked

i have my svb place booked

i will be going up on the friday, meeting up with nstalkie (and presumably will) sometime in the afternoon, i expect at trocadero or something. then stalkie and i will presumably head off to harrow and get to our hotels. depending on the time then i might go check out the last stuff happening at svb, then on saturday it really begins for us. 3s for me and 3s + blazblue for him. noprefix is going to be there for 3s and sf4 (also a saturday game) and i dunno if will has signed up to any other games.

if i can borrow someone’s stick or something i’d consider signing up to sf4 on the day despite the fact i’ve only ever played one match on it (when it first came out, on a 360 controller!) so that could be funny. anyone who wants to meet up with us at any point over the weekend let me know.

below is the schedule for the event:

DAY 1: Fri 11th Sep 2009 (Groups)
Venue will open at 10:00
12:00 Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD REMIX (360)
13:15 Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Playstation 2)
14:30 Capcom VS SNK2 (Playstation 2)
16:00 Soul Calibur 4 (Playstation 3)
17:30 Guilty Gear XX Accent Core (Playstation 2)

DAY 2: Sat 12th Sep 2009 (Groups)
Venue will open at 10:00
12:00 BlazBlue (Playstation 3)
13:15 King of Fighters XII (Playstation 3)
14:30 Street Fighter III 3rd Strike (Playstation 2)
15:45 Street Fighter 4 (XBOX 360)
17:00 Tekken 6 (Playstation 3)

DAY 3: Sun 13th Sep 2009 (Finals)
Venue will open at 10:00
11:00 Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD REMIX (360)
12:15 Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Playstation 2)
13:30 Capcom VS SNK2 (Playstation 2)
15:00 Soul Calibur 4 (Playstation 3)
16:15 Street Fighter III 3rd Strike (Playstation 2)
17:30 BlazBlue (Playstation 3)
18:45 King of Fighters XII (Playstation 3)
19:15 Guilty Gear XX Accent Core (Playstation 2)
20:30 Street Fighter 4 (XBOX 360)

Having played 3s for more or less a year and a half now, I’ve grown quite fond of the music. It is a great mixture of jazz, funk and dance. I actually found the damn album at a bargain price on ebay not too long ago, and although it is not a thing for everyday listening, its quite nice to occasionally here each characters theme tune by itself, without characters grunting over the music every time they do something.

My favourite track has to be Q’s theme tune. It hypes me up whenever I hear it. Featuring a thumping bass kick and a looping synthesizer over the top, you can’t help but nod your head to the beat and feel a little bit scared that a man in an iron mask and a trench coat is watching you in the cupboard. It sounds really mysterious, and makes me glad that the coolest character in the game has the coolest theme tune.

The Ibuki and Makoto tunes are really cool to listen to for laid back times. It just features nice, soft sounds that sound good to the ear, with a catchy melody that just allows you to get on with the chores of life with a good bit of music in the background. Ryu’s theme tune is also exceptional in my opinion. It’s one of those songs you stick on when your feeling a bit angry or agitated, and end up feeling calm and bouncy by the end of it. It really puts me at peace with myself and the world :p

Another neat thing the album features is every single spoken part of the cast, even their death noises and hit noises. It was pretty cool listening to how the voice actors spoke each characters line, but I havn’t gone back to it since. If I had to say who has the best sounding voice, it would be Dudley lol. In case you’re wondering, Q does in fact mumble everything.

I don’t know where you can buy the album from that does not cost something ridiculous, so I’m guessing I got quite lucky with my find. Apart from the voices, Ryu’s theme and Q’s theme, the album is nothing special but is nice to listen to once in a while. I’ll put up some pictures in a little while, as the camera is charging.

Ryan: so tell me when did you sart 3s and what has kept you playing it?

Arsalan: Back in august 2004 when it came out for the ps2. It was the Japanese version. I built a harddisc in my ps2 just so I could play the jap version haha

Ryan: and you only play 3s?

Arsalan: I always like sf2, never really liked alpha it felt so loose. Not a solid game. When I saw 3s, I was like whats this game?!

Ryan: yeah i know what you mean. crouch cancels ftw

Arsalan: and it was way too cartoony for me back then I just didnt like it

Ryan: the graphics lack character, they aren’t vintage like sf2 or impressive like 3, although i do like a3- it was the firt sf game i played seriously

Arsalan: 3s was bit more like sf2 for me, no crazy 50 hit combos just pure zoning and poking

Ryan: so are you sill playing sf2?

Arsalan yea! I still like it very much. It never gets old

Ryan: too right! who are your mains?

Arsalan: I just play ryu lol, he’s such a solid character in the game

Ryan: ye he’s very well rounded

Arsalan: I guess i never took the time to really learn other chars
but I always liked the game

Ryan: so you prefer 3s, right? why is that?

Arsalan: Its depth I think. The amount of situations that can occur in a match makes it a great game. You can never play a match the same way you did before

Ryan: i suppose as a yun player the inclusion of karas in the game is a big deal for you, aren’t they important for many gj combos?

Arsalan: well not that much tho, apart from kara commandgrab sometimes or kara palms, yun really doesnt abuse the kara system alot, sometimes for enders or if you want to be fancy but a solid genei combo is kara free

Ryan: i’ve played your yun a fair bit now, he seems your best character. i am right in saying he is your best?

Arsalan: Yea def, I used to main Ken but switched like 2 years ago

Ryan: was there something which made you decide to switch? or did you just pick him casually and over time and get better with him?

Arsalan: Whenever I got bored and was playing the cpu I always picked yun because he always takes alot of time to learn, so I was  practisicing genei’s just to kill time. Eventually I started using him in matches and found that I wasnt that bad of a Yun so in tournies I was using Ken but in casuals Yun because I got really bored of playing Ken

Ryan: what effect do you think learning yun has had on your overall game? perhaps now you have superior zoning, better execution, or something like that?

Arsalan: Well Yun is a really offensive char with little stamina so that means that everything you do has to be safe…the way you zone etc. Because he’s so fast I discovered new ways up cracking open defenses of different chars

Ryan: my hugo has very little chance vs your yun, you give very little away

Arsalan: Well If i get too close ill be killed real fast!

Ryan: what qualities must a yun player have to have a chance of being successful?

Arsalan: Well, execution is a big thing ofcourse, but have to be able to adapt really well and fast. Cant make too many mistakes with Yun

Ryan: so have those things you learned applied to your other characters? maybe you play much safer with ken now too?

Arsalan: oh yea def. I dont just blindly attack anymore, try to attack as safe as possible and I see new diff openings I didn’t see when I was playing only ken

Ryan: i thought that might be the case. as a 12 and hugo player the one thing i’ve learned most is how important good mindgames are as characters which (generally) don’t land many combos, with these characters you have to learn how to bait lots of mistakes and constantly try to be one step ahead-but as a hugo player you’d know that already!

Arsalan: Yea thats one of the reasons I started playing hugo too
I was getting hit alot with Yun, so started playing Hugo, and gradually playing him, I build up my defense, and trained myself to abuse every oppertunity I get. Because with Hugo, you have too. So when I applied this with my Yun I won alot more matches than I did before

Ryan: so if you could be either superior at executions and huge combos or superior at mindgames, which would you prefer if you had to use a character depending on one or the other?

Arsalan: superior mindgames with a low tier char always wins. its the mindgames which decide matches never the guy who can karapalm 100%

Ryan: you did great at battle of destiny last year, what other tournaments have you entered?

Arsalan: oh alot , domestically like 20 or so and internationally like 6. I think there were a lot in Brussels where I went. Twice in france too

Ryan: stunfest?

Arsalan: yea

Ryan: so what are you biggest achievements in those?

Arsalan: With Stunfest our 3 man team got till the top 8 and also we got top 8 with tougeki qualifiers same event and domestically I think I reached the final, because there was always the Belgians who took the top spot or Doom, he has always been the nr1 3s player in holland

Ryan:i’ve heard of him i think, your friend, right?

Arsalan: Yes. When we started playing he was only 16-17 but was kicking all our asses in 3s haha

Ryan: haha! so how old are you now?

Arsalan: im 25 now

Ryan: so tell me what has been the biggest thing you’ve learned from your tourney experiences?

Arsalan: I think how stay calm in the worst situations. If i play I tourney now, I never panic…atleast in Europe lol

Ryan: you played akahori’s hugo in the cooperation cup last time. how was that for you?

Arsalan: Yea. Well we got out of the groups so alot of people were watching us play. Doom went first and lost by 1 pixel to him, which was a shame! Nuki was making alot of noise like everyone else when Akahori landed a 360 or any other big move, so we did feel a bit more pressure than usual also because we thought we had to show them that Dutch players arent that shit haha. alot were surprised we were from Holland lol
“They play games over there?”
haha

Ryan: xD so what was it like with nuki behind you making a fuss? did you feel like maybe you wanted to try something impressive even if it wasn’t a good idea?

Arsalan: Nah, it was more like “Dont mess up, just play solid, no fancy combos, just win”

Ryan: sadly you lost the fight in the end! was your fight close?

Arsalan: Yea, we got till the last round where he had about 30% left, I remember activating 3x genei in 1 round haha, rest is blur man. His defense is really solid, and he figured out my tactics

Ryan: i guess that’s the difference between top europeans and the top japanese, they tend to just find that extra bit to get the win

Arsalan: Yep , they will always find a hole in your defense or let you make a mistake which is really annoying, even the average Japanese players gave us alot of trouble. We didnt have a chance against the like of Boss or KO…no chance at all

Ryan: i can imagine it would be funny to see great playerrs like yourself vs those superhuman guys. i always find it funny when you see these amazing players at sbo and they are easily destroyed by the japanese- like the americans at sbo this year

Arsalan: haha yea I even recorded a couple of matches and put them online, you can see it for yourself

Ryan: which team did you support at sbo this year?

Arsalan: Well Kuroda was doing great, but I really wanted either KO or Boss to win, because they really deserve it. simply because we got our asses handed by boss, so if he won sbo, I would feel much better haha

Ryan: yeah there’s been a lot of talk about their curses too.
haha it’s ridiculous to consider that kuroda ocved akahori’s team…it shows just how sick the top 10 or so players really are

Arsalan: oooh man, you know we lost to Akahori team which included Nuki and Yakkun too

Ryan: yeah exactly

Arsalan: And Yakkun was on fire during coop cup, Nuki didnt even had to play! Yakkun was even destroying KO in casuals afterwards
So I when I read that Kuroda beat them with Q, I couldnt believe it
Akahori ok, but Yakkun AND Nuki? Now thats crazy

Ryan: guys of your level lost to them and they got ocved by kuroda! i heard he beasted akahori, which is funny because how the fuck do you beast hugo with q? not only is it a bad matchup for q, but if he attacks he loses

Arsalan: Kuroda is full of mysteries. He’s simply on another level

Ryan: well i guess we will end this here! thanks for your time man!

**interview concluded**

i just want to finish by saying how nice it is to play and talk with such a nice guy. he might be one of the best players in europe but he is a top guy and deserves all the respect he gets. i’ll  be showing some videos of his play over the coming days.

-Renegade

i’m too annoyed to spend the next hour doing the same thing again, so i’ll get it up tomorrow. god fucking DAMN that’s annoying!

Click Me

I have also uploaded the bradygames street fighter 2 and 3rd strike game guide. It is a useful guide for both 3rd strike and sf2, and is worth checking out. It covers a load of stuff, from frame data and super jump cancels to costumes and cool pictures. It’s on Megaupload, 120 MB in size and is in PDF format:

Click Me

I believe the only way to fully unlock Q’s potential is when you have extremely high knowledge of the game, which can only come after years of playing, look at Kuroda for example. I still struggle to identify Yun dive kick cross up combos, how can I play defensive Q if I don’t even know what other characters are capable of? In my opinion, Q is a beast when he is played as a defensive character who capitalizes on mistakes and out thinks his opponents, and the only way to do this is to have extensive experience dealing with all sorts of situations you will face in a match. I can safely say my defence is above average compared to most other 2df players. I’m no turtler, defending just for the hell of it, but I defend because I know what to expect and know how to counter it. When a guy like AQH comes along and busts out combos in situations where I would expect something completely different, I’m not accustomed to it and I thus get busted up.

With other characters, mainly Gouki and Chun, you do not need this Godly knowledge to be able to play at a competent level. Gouki can rush down before your opponent can move and Chun requires random use of HP and hit confirms. At least a character like Yun requires some form of in depth learning. I’m not bashing characters, I’m just trying to point out that my Q isn’t good enough to bring along to SVB and I believe the reason is because of my lack of experience playing guys like AQH. I don’t believe in tiers when it comes to 3rd strike, I think its a game of pure skill. I don’t have the skill to out think good opponents yet, but I do have a competent offensive ability. I will have to capitalise on what I’m best at, and Gouki fits that criteria for now.

SvB is on the 11th and I’ve been out of action for 7 weeks, bringing Gouki will give me a much better chance to actually stay in the competition and will thus provide me with a better learning experience.

-Will

I recently got me a hori fighting stick ps for the playstation consoles, as 3rd strike will be played on ps2′s in svb. This thing has some lame buttons, so I had to put in some sanwa’s.

I firstly unscrewed the back plate, which revealed all the buttons and circuit boards etc.

The buttons were all cheap versions of sanwa obsf-30 snap-in buttons, so they were a breeze to take out.

Here you can see the difference between the sanwa (right) and the standards (left). The standards used contact pads, meaning that when you push the button the pad hits the circuit board thus completing the connection. I don’t like this, as it is not as sensitive as the sanwa, which uses a direct connection due to the connectors sticking out at the bottom.

After each sanwa button was inserted, I got some wire and connected them all up using the daisy chain method. I couldn’t be arsed to find my wire crimper’s, so I tried using my teeth which just didn’t work and ended up using nail clippers. I used 7/0.2 wire from Maplin. I recommend using 16/0.2 wire as it is slightly thicker and easier to work with in my opinion.

Once the daisy chain was completed, I put one more wire in and soldered it to the ground connection on the button board. I stripped some blue wire and wrapped it around the other connectors on the sanwa buttons. I then proceeded to solder the other end of the wire to each corresponding button (bottom picture).

I then put the plate back on, AND GOT SO INCREDIBLY HAPPY.

The new buttons gave it such a difference. Now I don’t have to slam the thing in order to make Akuma kick, and I can actually taunt with Q. In due time, I’ll be ramming in a sanwa joystick, but I am a bit poor now. Fortunately, the standard joystick is livable, and I will just have to make do with it for now.

Bring on SVB!

-Will