Templar Assassin: The Futt Bucker

The last week or so my hero of choice for DOTA 2 has steadily been focused on Templar Assassin. I've tried a few others as well. Heroes like Invoker, Shadow Fiend, and Viper as well. However, as I'm getting used to DOTA, I figured I'd stick it out with one hero per week just to get through all the good and bad matches and just to get an overall feel of the hero. I'll be honest though, I'm loving her.

She's got a great mix of skills. But her best quality is her ability to nuke the fuck out of any hero which she really chooses too at any time. However, conversely, she can also avoid a lot of damage and get out of a lot of sticky situations which other heroes may not be as fortunate to be able to get out of. It took me a while to really get a feel for how to use her properly though. I'll try to explain below.

Templar Assassin's skills are really a creative mix of offense and defense mixed into the same skills. It's just how you use them that defines the benefits you'll gain as a result. Such as her first skill: Refraction.

NOTE: All skill images below can be found on www.dota2wiki.com

Refraction is TA's bread-and-butter skill which she'll be using throughout the entire game. It's her ability which lets her deal out massive amounts of damage as well as avoid near certain death. At it's core, the ability lets her deal out additional damage per attack for a number of attacks after the ability is activated. To start, it's only 20 damage an attack, but it's over 3 attacks. So 3 X 20 = 60 damage at level 1, 160 at level 2, 300 and level 3, and 480 at level 4. It's insane how much she can do, and honestly wouldn't doubt if a nerf happened in the near future to correct this. But conversely, this skill also lets you avoid ALL damage from a certain number of hits up to the same amount of attacks. This is also, independent of the attacks themselves, which means that even if your defensive shield breaks, you still have your bonus damage. This is a major advantage when you're facing heroes that have giant single attack DPS skills like Lina or Lion. If she shield is up then all incoming damage, regardless of the strength of the attack is negated. However, this can also mean that when facing big DoT heroes like Venomancer or Queen of Pain could be a royal pain in the ass (no pun intended) as then can whittle away the shield and leave you defenseless and squishy.

Meld is another ability which depending on circumstances can be used both offensively or defensively. Offensively it allows her to nuke an opponent for a large amount of damage as well as reduce their effective armor granting bonus damage with every attack afterwards for 7 seconds so long as the opponent is in range of TA while she's melding. This is what allows her to nuke so well as the application time for meld is 0. Which means as soon as you activate this, you go invisible and can sap someone's armor. However, you do have to be within attacking range for this to be really effective, which means leveling this up along side with Psy Blades is pretty important as they grant you additional range. Especially since as soon as you move, you break the meld state. Meld is also great at avoiding heroes and potential ganks due to the permanent invisibility so long as you're not moving.

TA's 3rd ability, Psy Blades, is what makes her a great laning hero as well as gives her the additional flexibility to apply pressure to multiple targets without having to run around too much. To start, TA appears to be a melee hero with a minimal attack range. However, she in actuality is a ranged hero. But is the only ranged hero which you have to level up in order to be able to attack at range. Range, though, isn't the only thing this grants you. It also allows you to hit enemies directly behind whichever target you initially hit. The cone behind the enemy is very small, but the distance is huge. With some proper movement and setup, you can really cause a headache for enemy heroes at the start of the game who can't get within range to attack you, but your attacks can be hitting both creeps and the enemy at the same time.

TA's final ability, Psionic Trap, is somewhat unconventional of sorts as an ultimate compared to the ultimate abilities of a majority of other heroes in this game. Most other ultimate abilities provide a major boost in damage output or defensive ability in some way. TA's ability only slows an enemy which is caught within it's blast radius whenever the user chooses to detonate it. However, what it lacks in complexity, it makes up for with it's multi-purposefulness. To start, each trap lasts forever when it's placed, until it's detonated or is erased due to the max-trap limit being hit. And as the skill level increases, more traps can linger around the map at any one time. Second, each trap provides a limited sight range around whenever it was placed. This by itself is huge towards the ends of games where buying wards may not be as easy as before since your inventory will be filling up with items which you will need whenever a team fight occurs. And finally, each trap is invisible. So unless an enemy sentry ward is placed or someone is carrying a Gem of True Sight, they usually will not be destroyed that easily.



So to recap, I think TA is an extremely flexible hero which can provide decent offense and defense for herself, but as a team player is quite limited. She can push lanes very nicely. And once she gets a blink dagger or other initializing item which gets her quickly in range of enemy heroes can be a very good ganker. Against any DoT heroes though, she will struggle for a while as they severely disable her defensive abilities.

DOTA 2: First Impressions from a Rookie

Most of the past week or so I've really getting into the DOTA 2 beta. If you haven't heard about DOTA before or what it is, it was originally a mod for the original Warcraft 3. To be completely honest... this game is pretty fucking amazing. I'm now seriously kicking myself in the ass for never really getting interested or even trying the original DOTA. The game mixes several of my favorite components of online games to start. It's a team based multi-player game. It's real-time strategy. It's role playing. It's incredibly competitive. It's purely a win.

The game play is pretty fast and simple at it's core. It's a 5v5 game where every player picks a "hero" from a pretty huge pool of heroes and then compete against each other in a Tower Defense meets RTS style match. If you've ever seen or heard about League of Legends, it's the exact same thing. Only better I think. The goal of each team is to ultimately destroy the opposing teams Ancient which is really just a massive tower which sits in the middle of each of the bases located on opposite ends of the map. To be able to destroy the opponents Ancient, the heroes must roam the map killing enemy creeps, neutral creep camps, and enemy heroes to gain experience. However, just killing units isn't enough. To gain the advantage over the enemy you also have to be someone good at planning your builds in terms of skills and also in terms of the items you purchase.

The economy system in DOTA is without a doubt the biggest challenge I can see any newcomer trying to overcome when they first start playing. In fact, depending on your hero selection, I can see how some people can become completely overwhelmed with frustration as to why some heroes have such an easy time with killing other heroes, or killing large groups of creeps for example. The items you buy and the speed at which you acquire them almost always are the deciding factor into which team will win. To buy these items you have to acquire gold, which can be done in a few ways. Naturally every player will acquire gold at a rate of 1 per second. However, you can obtain bonus gold for yourself by causing the last hit which kills an enemy creep or by killing an enemy hero outright. Either way though, you want money, and you want a shit ton of it quickly. Because the richer you are the more shit you can by and the more powerful you become.

This is the item list for DOTA 2. You can buy anything if you have the gold and each has it's own special properties. Good luck parsing this through your head when your playing when you first get started. I know i needed it...

But beyond that, you can do whatever the hell you want in the game. Especially depending on the type of hero you pick. They all come in various types and abilities. From the ones which are super tanky and can take a shit ton of damage. To the ones which work better during certain times of the day (in-game). To others which can slice your face off in a couple seconds flat even though a couple bitch slaps to the back of their head will do the same to them if they're not careful.

I've been experimenting with a bunch of heroes. I still haven't found the type that I really enjoy playing the most per se, but I do know that a couple types of heroes aren't the best fit for me. Pretty much anything tank or gank related just annoy the living hell out of me. I'm not sure if it's just the fact I can take a shit ton of damage, but don't really deal out as much and have to rely on the other people on my team to dish it out. Or if it's the fact that I haven't yet mastered the art of being stealthy enough to corner someone or pick them off in an awkward position without feeling awkward myself. I'm way more comfortable being someone quick and agile and extremely mobile. Who can get into and out of most situations relatively easily. It's kind of funny though thinking about other role-playing games I've played and how I've picked the same kinds of heroes or at least preferred them. For example, In Diablo I'm a demon hunter... In Fable, I maxed out agility first... In Elder Scrolls I was a Thief/Archer... You get the point.

That being said. I've got a lot of experimenting with this game left to do. And EVERYONE needs to pick up this game and play it. No one has a reason not to. Why? Oh, maybe because you don't want to spend your hard earned (or not) cash on it? Tough shit... it's FUCKING FREE! You just have to register on Valve's website for it and usually in a week or two they give you access. Since technically it's still in beta phase right now, but you'd never know it. The game is getting polished each week with better stuff and is still getting more and more heroes. I believe Valve has said they are dedicated to releasing 2 new heroes every week until the game's official release. So there's still a lot to come.

In the future, I think I'm going to take a break from Diablo 3 for a while and focus on this. I'm not sick of Diablo 3, but I'm starting to get burned out on doing the same repeating this of just trying to farm items and sell them for gold for days. I need to switch things up and this game definitely does that.

If you'd ever want to join up and get into a DOTA group just let me know. I'm definitely looking for others who are interested in this game since I think it'd be even more entertaining with a group of people you know. But until then...

Happy Gaming!

I haven't forgotten...

Just so everyone is clear, I'm still alive and kicking. Last week has been pretty busy for myself. Mostly taking advantage of the awesome weather I've been lucky enough to get.

Probably tomorrow I'll be putting up pics of the rare abilities I've collected. I think I've got most of the ones which can be seen.

I've also been experimenting with DOTA 2 heroes and will probably put up my impressions of the heroes I've gotten to play.

So stay tuned. New blog coming tomorrow.

Happy Gaming!

Inferno Mode Rare Abilities: FU#@!

Imagine you're in a park, at a bar, on the beach, wherever you'd like. It's a nice day outside and you're having one of those days where things just seem to be going your way. You're looking damn hot (and i'm talking Ron Burgandy steak and scotch hot). At the start of the day some kid decides he wants to be an asshole and try to start shit with you. But guess what, you beat his punk ass straight into the dirt and he hobbles off. Applause erupts! Hooray! You decide you're not going to let that little fuck throw off the awesomeness in your day you pick up where you left off being a boss. Everyone knows you. Everyone is envious and wants to be you or just hang around and talk with you. The rest of the entire day has been like this. But now you're tired and thinking it's time to go back to your place and just chill out for the rest of the night. (If you want to make this an R to X rated fantasy throw in the hottest man/woman you can think of here and the fact you're bringing them home with you). Now... just as you're about to put an end to your outing and head back home you see something coming up from the distance, but you're not sure what it is. So you hang around a little bit longer to see if you can get a better look at it. Nope... still kinda blurry, but you get the feeling you recognize it. You give it a couple more seconds. Oh yeah! Now I see! It's the bastard child of an asshole who wanted to start something earlier. Looks like he/she is back for more. Well, time for an encore performance of earlier. You walk up, take a swing... nothing. The kid just looks at you unphased and smirks... annnnnnnnnd then beats you over the head with a crowbar covered in acid and weighs about 100 poundsl. You go down, hard! You're feeling woozy. Then out of nowhere a stampede of rhinoceroses come out and start trampling all over you. Throwing you up in the air and ransacking your innocence. Then when you think it's all said and done and you're lying there bleeding, broken, bruised, and motionless, Tiger Woods hops out from behind a tree and gives you a 5-iron shot right to the balls (or labia if you're a woman). End of imagination time. Did everyone get that? Great! Because that's what it felt like after I beat Diablo 3: Hell Mode.

Welcome to Diablo 3: Inferno Mode!

Ok, first things first. It's kind of ironic that I didn't go into Inferno mode expecting it to be THAT much harder than Hell mode. Even after in a previous blog post I go about saying how much harder Hell mode was to Nightmare mode. Well, I'm a dumbass and apparently have trouble listening to the advice I can give myself. Or I'm a glutton for punishment. Which wouldn't totally be out of the norm either. Regardless though I reallllllllllllly underestimated what I was in for when I started.

Enemies feel like they've had their health quadrupled since the last playthrough. Although normal enemies aren't really the biggest rage-inducers in the game anymore. It's the rares and champions that get my blood boiling. Both of these types of enemies had a huge upgrade since the last difficulty. Both rares and champions both stack 4 different special abilities which are applied completely at random. Also, their strength and damage output has been raised to a level where I can get easily 2-shotted by almost any rare or champion and occasionally 1-shotted by some larger enemies. Now for reference, I'm currently at 27k health, ~180 resistances across the board, and somewhere around 2300 armor at level 60. So if my math is right, and it better be since I'm an engineer, an average hit does somewhere between 15k-20k damage. Which means that from this point on standing face-to-face with any of these kinds of enemies is nothing less than an early grave.

It also means I had to re-tool my character to adapt to this new problem. Which currently, the easiest way I can find to get around Inferno mode without too much rage face was to make an extreme kiting build where the run-and-shoot method is the only way you'd survive. For the most part, it works pretty well. I can get through just about all normal enemies and most rares. Champions are still a bit of a pain in the ass depending on which special abilities they are given (same with rares). In fact, there's a few of them that actually make them almost impossible to kill. You can see why I think that below. Mind you this is all based on the Demon Hunter build, so other characters may have an easier/harder time dealing with each ability.

Rare/Champion Special Abilities (Inferno)

Arcane

Effect - Rotating beams of arcane energy spin in a circle causing high damage output if you hit them.

Rage When Encountered - 5/10

This ability isn't TOO bad to deal with as long as you have enough room to maneuver around. If you encounter one of these in a cave where there's very narrow strips of room, these can essentially become walls of death when 3-4 of them appear next to each other and you have no where else to go. Otherwise, just using Vault to get around them isn't that hard to do.

Avenger

Effect - Whenever one of the rares/champions/minions in a pack dies, the other ones still alive get bigger, faster, and deal more damage. Whenever there's one enemy left, it becomes incredibly strong.

Rage When Encountered - 4/10

The avenging ability really isn't a threat to me unless there's 1 or 2 enemies in a pack remaining. Then comes worry time. Since they gain speed and damage, a 2-hit kill from an enemy can become a 1-hit kill which makes the kiting even more essential.

Desecration

Effect - Enemies will spawn a pool of energy under you. After a 2 second delay, physical damage will be applied if you're still standing in the effected area.

Rage When Encountered - 2/10

I'd be more than happy to encounter this ability. Honestly. The damage output isn't all that bad when you're standing in it... IF you're standing in it. Since there's a 2 second activation time, you can usually take a step in any direction to get out of it. Unless another ability locks you in place as they cast it, but even then there's a host of ways for a Demon Hunter to get away.

Electrified

Effect - Whenever an enemy takes damage, electrical sparks flow on the ground dealing damage.

Rage When Encountered - 1/10

Probably the easiest ability to deal with when an enemy has it. The electrical sparks move along the ground pretty slowly and their range isn't all that great. So as long as you're not standing directly next to an enemy dealing damage (which you SHOULDN'T as a Demon Hunter), you'll be fine.

Extra Health

Effect - Doubles the normal health of an enemy.

Rage When Encountered - 7/10

This one kinda blows when I see it. Because it means I have to be even more careful with whatever abilities I have since I don't want to run out of energy while I'm grinding it down. It's even more of a pain in the ass with champions since they already have an obserdly high amount of health as it is. This makes them super hard to kill.

Fast

Effect - Enemy gains a large increase in movement ability.

Rage When Encountered - 10/10

Fuck... This... Ability. It sucks. Hard. Demon Hunters rely largely on kiting. This single ability really negates any real ability to kite. Which means you're getting hit. A lot. And when it only takes 1, 2, or 3 hits to kill you. Good fucking luck. Sucks even worse when already fast enemies like frogs or spiders get this. They're like lightning bolts that do nothing but fuck assholes. YOUR asshole.

Fire Chains

Effect - When enemies in a pack are close enough to each other a chain of fire appears between them. If you stand in the way of the chain you are dealt damage.

Rage When Encountered - 3/10.

Usually not the worst thing to encounter since I'm usually kiting around. Plus since it only works when 2 or more of them are together, you can bet your ass I'm not standing around. Just kite, win, profit.

Frozen

Effect - Random balls of frost appear on the screen. After a 3 second delay, the balls burst and if you are standing within their blast range you take damage and are frozen in place for 2 seconds unable to move or activate most abilities.

Rage When Encountered - 6/10

This one kind of sucks, but really only depends on how lucky you are in where the balls are placed (insert dirty joke here) and if you have room to run around. If you do get hit by one of the frozen landmines, it could really mean a fast death for you if you don't have a way to break stun (Smokescreen).

Health Link

Effect - Whenever one enemy takes damage, the damage is spread evenly between all other alive enemies in the group.

Rage When Encountered - 4/10

Since damage gets split evenly, its essentially not possible to pick off a single enemy in the group at a time. But it will also reduce the number of shots you have to make since hitting just one of the enemies effects them all.

Horde

Effect - Only appears on Champions. The champion has additional minions with him.

Rage When Encountered - 4/10

This one's a bit of a trade off. It does suck that you have to kill more enemies which can be stronger, but it also means that the champion has one less special ability since this doesn't really apply to them.

Illusionist

Effect - Enemy will cause 4-5 copies of themselves with highly reduced health and damage.

Rage When Encountered - 2/10

Not a big ability to face at all. Since usually I'm spamming high AOE attacks anyway, the illusions which they create are in a big pile and usually get hit by the same AOE attacks I'm using anyway and die. Plus there's a minor possibility the illusion will drop a health globe which it does. Which makes rare/champion fights much easier.

Invulnerable Minions

Effect - Only appears on Champions. All of the champion's minion are invulnerable. To kill them you must kill the champion. Once the champion dies, all minions die.

Rage When Encountered - 8/10

Who was the bastard who decided this was a fun ability to throw in the game? This one is a royal waste of life. You have to be VERY precise and picky about when to use your abilities. If it hits one of the minions instead of the champion, it's a waste. I usually have to use nothing but abilities which travel through enemies to kill these ones.

Jailer

Effect - Enemies will occasionally trap the hero. Forcing him/her to be immobilized for 2 seconds.

Rage When Encountered - 7/10

Again, any ability which tends to reduce or neutralize a Demon Hunters ability to kite and/or run away it a pain in the ass. Most of the time this ability will only allow the enemy to get dangerously close to you, but with a Vault or Smokescreen can easily get away again. However, the problem with this ability is the frequency of which it happens. It happens a LOT. Which seriously strains your discipline.

Knockback

Effect - When an enemy hits you, you are flung into the air several yards away, dazzled, and move at a reduced movement speed for a second.

Rage When Encountered - 3/10

This one can actually help you as much as hurt you. The fact you're flung a good distance away from the enemy is definitely a plus. Problem is the stun afterwards. Depending on where you are and where you're flung too.

Missile Dampening

Effect - Very rare ability. Only appears on champions. Causes a bubble shield to follow the champion causing any ranged projectiles within the shield to slow in speed a great distance. If the projectile hits the champion it still deals full damage.

Rage When Encountered - 2/10

Ok, so ironically you would think that this one would cause me a little more stress than what I indicated, but it doesn't. It's because of my build. Since I use Evasive Fire, the projectile is instant, so there's no travel and it's not effected by the slow effect. And secondly, since I use Lightning Ball, when they go into the shield, they can actually hit more times since the enemy it by it longer and in turn can deal MORE damage than normal.

Molten

Effect - Enemies leave a trail of fire behind them which deals damage if you walk over it. Also, when enemies die a ball of fire charges then explodes for massive damage over their corpse.

Rage When  Encountered  - 5/10 (sometimes 10/10)

Dear Blizzard,

When taking ideas for abilities, please don't take the one ability which a lot of people raged over in Call of Duty (a.k.a. Martyrdom). It's bad enough I have to essentially play a mini-game of Tron and/or caterpillar with the bad guys. But every now and then I forget they live a nice surprise to which I find and then bang my head on my desk afterwards.

Mortar

Effect - Enemies fire off volley's of fireballs which have to travel a minimum range. Standing within the minimum range makes you unable to hit with the mortar shots.

Rage When Encountered - 8/10

This is an anti-Demon Hunter ability if I ever saw one. To avoid it you have to either stand super close or super far away. Makes ranged fighting a pain in the ass. Plus of you're dumb enough to stand still and fight. It'll only take one volley of mortars to kill you. Or drop you down to almost no health.

Nightmare

Effect - When hit, you are unable to use abilities for a second and run in fear away from the enemy.

Rage When Encountered - 3/10

Not the worst ability in the world to see. Anything that gets me farther away from champions or rares is a plus. Although the loss of abilities sucks. Just try to keep mobile since it only activates if you're hit.

Plagued

Effect - Enemies leave pools of poison which damage you if you stand in them.

Rage When Encountered - 5/10

The only real problem with the plauged ability is the length of time the pools remain on the screen. They feel like they hang around FOR-EV-ER. And if you're in a cramped area the entire floor could be covered in poison which means a...... happy day! Oh shit.. brain fart... FUUUUUUUUU...

Reflects Damage

Effect - 2% of damage caused to enemies will be reflected back at the caster.

Rage When Encountered - 8/10

Guess what? I'm going to do a little math lesson with everyone today. 2% of what number is roughly 25,000? The answer is a shit ton! And guess what else? The total health in a rare or champion pack usually equals a shit ton! Yay!

But seriously, you pretty much have to have some major health regen or some awesome kiting skills WITHOUT causing damage so you can use health globes to deal with these without dying. It's a pain in the ass.

Shielding

Effect - Frequently, shields appear around enemies making them invulnerable for a short duration.

Rage When Encountered - 6/10

All this does is prolong a fight. If you're gonna die, you're gonna die more with this. If you're gonna win, it's just gonna take longer.

Teleporter

Effect - Enemies will instantly appear next to you.

Rage When Encountered - 8/10

Why wouldn't I be raging after I just spent all that energy kiting and avoiding an enemy just to have him instantly appear next to me, cold cock me in the throat, and kill me. Yeah, that sounds like fun! But seriously, this one is just more annoying than anything since it forces me to be even more mobile than usual. It can lead to spontaneous deaths though...

Vampiric

Effect - 5% of damage caused by enemies onto you is converted into life for the enemy.

Rage When Encountered - 4/10

Not a big deal as long as YOU DON'T GET HIT. Then it kinda sucks. But just kite and you'll be fine.

Vortex

Effect - Enemies cause a gust of wind which forces you back to a position immediately next to the caster.

Rage When Encountered - 7/10

This one isn't as bad as Teleporter but it's pretty damn close. The only reason this one isn't on the same level as Teleporter is because there's a maximum distance before this ability can be used. Which is somewhere around half the screen. So if you're good enough to stay really far away from these enemies you can avoid it all together, but most of the time it's just as big a pain in the ass a Teleporter.

Waller

Effect - Enemies cause walls to spring up out of the ground preventing movement past them unless they are destroyed or disappear after 6 seconds.

Rage When Encountered - 6/10 (Annoyance when encountered 10/10)

Walls suck in enclosed spaces. Walls are useless in open spaces. I really shouldn't go any further into description because it would just be dumb. But i'm feeling not-so-bright so here goes. If you fight a Waller, be prepared to run back-and-forth a lot. Probably past the enemy which casted it. As long as you're fast enough, you'll be fine.

I'm going to make it my mission to update this blog with pictures of each of the abilities as I encounter them to better identify them. Might be a little while though since it's my gf's birthday weekend coming up and I'll probably be spending all of my time with her. It will be done though, guaranteed.

Secondly, on an unrelated note, I'm strongly considering spending a good chunk of time diving between Diablo 3 and DOTA 2 in the near future. I'm not sure what I want to talk about with Diablo 3 next, so it's gonna be more spontaneous blog posts with it. However, with DOTA 2 slowly coming out of it's own, I want to probably blog about each of the heroes and what I like and don't like about them.

But at the same time I want to entertain whoever reads this, so if you have any opinions/suggestions I'm all ears. Just leave a comment and i'll see what I can do.

Happy Gaming!

To Fight or Not to Fight - EVO 2012

It's been a while since I last posted, but just wanted to get my thoughts out while I have some time. The past few days have been a great time for me to unwind. I took a couple days off work for the holiday, had some friends over, had a mini-LAN party with Diablo 3 and have been watching the EVO tourney stream in Vegas.

For all of those who didn't know EVO is the biggest fighting game tournament in the world and it's held once a year in the US. It's a 3-day long tournament held in Vegas and some of the most popular fighting games in the world are played there over those 3 days. It absolutely blows my mind how freakishly amazing these players are at their own games. Sometimes even multiple fighting games. As I'm writing this I"m watching one of the final rounds for King of Fighters XIII which I didn't even know really existed. Although as I'm watching the match it really reminds me a lot of Marvel vs Capcom. Just goes to show how clueless some of us (including myself) can be at keeping up with everything the video game industry has to offer. But it also shows what kind of hype can occur when a bunch of people who have a common interest get together to share something they really enjoy together.

It kind of gives me hope that eventually something along the lines of a championship will come to the east coast as well. Right now there's not much in terms of big-name highly-advertised video game championships that occur on the east coast. In fact, in the past few years I can only think of a single one. The IPL Starcraft 2 Championship Final Weekend which happened in Atlantic City about a year ago. The only problem with it is again, it wasn't that highly advertised and there was only a single game being played there. So as an advertiser I can understand why not putting a lot of money into increasing its publicity would be the right decision. I just don't know how much of a return on investment someone would get there. But then again I think that if enough time and energy is put into something it can evolve on it's own over time.

But ok, I think that's another blog post for me to talk about in the future. Going back to EVO and some fighting games, I should probably point out that I'm pretty god awful at them. I've tried for a couple years and have tried multiple games and series such as Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighter, Tekken, Soul Caliber... All of them are fun to play casually for me, but whenever I try to play against other people online or in person I just get slaughtered. Like I don't even come close most of the time. In fact, if the characters in the video game could respond to what I was doing, I would probably get a Ryu fireball to the face or a Scorpion spear to the throat. Which is why it impresses me even more to what these players can do. Below was a match between arguably the #1 fighting game video game player in the world Diago Umehara and the #3 fighting game player, a player known only by his in-game name "Gamerbee".

Do me a favor if you do watch the video. Take note of a couple things. First, the number of people who are there just watching and second the reaction and feeling the crowd gets (and possibly gives you) when something spectacular happens. It really shows off the power of a great game.

(NOTE: The match starts around 1:50 if you want to skip all of the commentary)

Did you watch the video? Jesus fucking christ... I just watched it again after posting it. We should put some of these people in control of some fighting robots and let them go after some terrorists or something. Or even worse... I'll just keep my fingers crossed they don't really come into control of some of these robots and get pissed off at the world. It's going to be like real life rockem-sockem robots with more blood.

Fighting games really have taken on a life of their own as of late. A lot of developers are getting behind them and are even reviving some of the classics which some people thought were long gone except for the few dedicated fans. Probably more so than most other games which are coming out. So yes... there's the Call of Duty "fanboys/girls" if you want to call them that for example. And yes, Activision does a good job at putting out a new version of the game very year. But all they're really doing is remaking the same old formula of a game year after year with a couple new variables and a surprise here and there. Whereas some of the fighting games which have come out lately have completely redrawn the genre and what can be done with a fighter. Just look at Street Fighter X Tekken. It not the greatest fighting game out there right now mind you, but it contains a bunch of features which a lot of fighting games haven't done or haven't done CORRECTLY. Things like the gem system, 2 players on the same team fighting against the other characters at the same time,  are things which make the game interesting to watch. Even if you don't understand anything about the game.

If you haven't watched EVO as of yet, and you're reading this sometime on Sunday the 8th... for the love of god turn on the EVO stream. I'll post the link below. Unfortunately we haven't reached the point where we can watch video game players of this caliber as much as I'd like... but here's to hoping it'll happen eventually. I'm off to watch the Ultimate MVC finals as the SSF:AE finals.

Happy Gaming!

EVO 2012 Fighting Game Championship - Las Vegas, NV

Multi + Player = ^_^

So random thought here... I was considering playing some COD today, but at the last second backed out and loaded up some DOTA 2 instead. Looking back it's making me think as to why I like to play most of my multi-player games on the PC versus the console. There's a bunch of personal reasons which nobody would probably care to hear, however the main reason I do is simple. I have way more fun playing against other people on the PC than playing anyone on a console. With a PC you have better control so I feel like it's more personalized, the people who play on PC's are usually dedicated gamers and play more seriously and respectfully, and the maturity level is usually much higher. Last one gets a double bump... The number of wanna be "gangsta's", do-nothing in real lifers, and kids under the age of 12 who think they're mature is down right laughable on consoles. I understand some people like playing against people who are like that and that's fine. It's just not the kind of group I like to play against. Although, every now and then it's a great way to get some entertainment, even if I have to be the one who is trolling to get it.

Now I can totally appreciate a good console game given I was born and raised on them. But that was just the way it was back in the 90's and early turn of the century. If you wanted to play against other people your only real choice was to do it on a console. Sure people watched your screen while you played against them, fight ensued because of it, but whatever, it was social! That was the point. It's not like today, were people play anonymously and you never see them again. It's kind of sad really. It was the biggest draw to why I loved to play multi-player over any other game in single player. Ever. Even though there were issues with playing multi-player games with everyone on the same TV. Two words, Screen watching. EVERYONE who played multi-player games (especially fps games) screen watched. Case in point... Goldeneye.

When the game first came out there wasn't a 24 hour period where I wasn't playing it. And when I wasn't playing it alone, I had one or more of my neighbourhood friends over or was at their house getting in a good console fragfest. And since the number of ways you could play a Goldeneye multi-player game was seemingly endless the fun was extremely high as was the variability. Which is why it probably was as popular and as genre defining as any other FPS of its time. Without even thinking I can think of my favorite modes to play. Proxy mines only, rockets only, and slapper mode. How fucking hilarious and aggravating all at the same time was it to run up behind someone (only for them to screen watch you and turn around) and then get into a Bruce Lee style karate match to see who could land the first hit. And then whoever lost went on a suicidal revenge binge for the one person who killed them. Unless someone else wanted to engage in another kung fu match along the way...

However, it does bring me back to why I was talking about console gaming in the first place. It was a foundation, but over time I've outgrown what a console has to offer for multi-player. I do appreciate everything Xbox Live, for example, has to offer and I think Microsoft is on the right track by trying to make their console an all-inclusive media center for the living room. And with some work on their ends it could very well eventually bring me back to being a console gamer. But there's still some work there which needs to be done before. Mainly on the way I find other people to play against and how I can tailor my multi-player match finding in any game in particular.

I think with some enhancements to the types of people you'd like to play with or against on a console, it would open up some pretty incredible possibilities. First off, you could easily begin to filter out the people you would never like to play with, but at the same time indicate your preferences and delight when you find someone who you had the pleasure of jabbing sticks with (insert gay joke here). Possibly do something along the lines of how internet radio stations work. When you find someone you liked playing with you could favorite or "like" them which in turns tweaks the search settings for future games. Or countering that indicating your absolute hatred, disgust, rage-face, etc... against someone who just made you want to track that son-of-a-bitch down and beat the shit out of him with his own TV. Yes, I've been there... as with many millions of others. It sucks. You can't do anything about it. So you just try to ignore it and move on... But I think that's a pretty poor way to go about it. Which is why I bring up the search preferences possibility.

The criteria for which something would be compared against would be the hard part. Simply relying on say everyone honestly describing their likes and dislikes in a profile would simply never happen. This is the real world and there are just as many assholes as there are honest people. (The Law of Polarity ftw). There would probably have to be some kind of algorithm tracing a gamers history. Like what games they played, how often there were on, whether they talked a lot, whether they spammed a lot, etc... From this data some kind of a personality profile could be constructed over time and when the profile has enough data it would allow a gamer of all types to be matched against people which match his or her personal criteria. It could also open up all sorts of lobbying possibilities if someone wanted to switch the kind of people he wanted to play against at any time. Again the metrics for all of this would all have to be worked out, but it does have promise if it was ever to be implemented.

On that note, I think I'm going to get a few good rounds of DOTA 2 in before I crash for the night. If anything I'll get a couple good laughs reading the ragers/trolls in the chat. ^_^