SSFIV Trial completed, and thoughts!

DAMN COLLEGE PROJECTS!!!!!!!

ok.. now that out of the way, I have not been able to write up here regarding new updates for SSFIV :(, but I managed to fight couple of minutes to write this post.

I got SSFIV finally only 1 minute after it reached the shop in AbuDhabi at around 8:30pm for around 190dh, not that bad really.

Went back home and tested it out. So far loving it. The online mode was even more fun, though there was some problems with people unable to join our rooms.

I've later tried the Trial mode and finally finished them all around 2 days ago and I'll mention some of the stuff about trial that are worth mentioning.



I'll be discussing them in order.

Ryu: Lv.24, 3 links and strick timing, took me a while
Ken: Much easier than SF4, nothing was too hard.
Chun-Li: nothing too anoying
E.Honda: There was 1 annoying one but I cant recall which one.
Blanka: was actually easy!, 15 minutes maximum
Zangief: The last level with the 4 links was stupid.
Guile: Nothing to mention
Dhalsim: Had some tricky trials, but nothing too hard
Balrog: OMG, Trial 22, spent over an hour, the rest are easy.

Vega: had 1 stupid link trial, more of luck really for that one.
Sagat: nothing too hard
M.Bison: nothing too hard
C. Viper: almost the same as SF4, nothing too hard for a viper player
Rufus: couple of stupid link combos, but rest are easy
El Fuerte: Trial 23 BLOWS, took me a little over 30 minutes
Abel: nothing too hard.
Seth: Quite easy
Akuma: nothing too hard

Gouken: nothing to mention
Cammy: nothing to mention
Fei Long: Lv.19 took me about 10 minutes, annoying. rest are not hard
Sakura: long combos but not hard to link really.
Rose: nothing too hard, nice combos with her ultra 2
Gen: lv.24 was much easier than SF4 Hard trial 5, but still took me around ~15 min because of his "Aweeewa"
Dan: lv.23 or 24 took some time due to stupid timing for the air ex-senpu kyaku.
T.Hawk: Probably the easiest.
Dee Jay: nothing to mention

Guy: nothing to mention
Cody: nothing to mention
Ibuki: Lv.24 took me some time, but because its almost as viper's SJC to ultra, I didnt struggle much, probable around 20 minutes to get used to the link.
Makoto: Lv.24 had a new idea, loved it, took me some time.
Dudley: nothing too hard
Adon: Annoying.. (As a character, lol), nothing too hard
Hakan: Lv.19 was tricky, but figured it out, nothing else was too hard
Juri: Loved the Lv.24 idea, sweat combo ideas. nothing too hard


I've been loving Makoto lately and practicing her, hopefully I'll be able to play online once i finish my stupid projects. Till next post' ;)

Over 1900 hours of gameplay!

So, I have been playing STREET FIGHTER IV for quite a while, for over a year that is. And here is a Screenie of my record.



I just reached 1900 hours of game play "On my console" not to mention playing in friends' house, playing in cafe, or playing STREET FIGHTER IV on my laptop, So I am guessing over 2000 hours of game play.

I got all Titles and Icons which was fun. I didn't really do much in ranked matches because I enjoyed friendly matches way more, and also the "Lag Factor" if you go to my older entries.

The 7666 is the rounds I played totally online (Excluding offline), with 70% winning rate, I somehow blame the lag :P, but it does not matter now that Super is coming out and me upgrading to a better internet speed. I will be aiming for at least 80%+ in Super!

As for the winning streak I am not sure how that works, I don't remember how I got the 41, but hopefully again in Super I will make it higher.



These are the medals that I got, I had 536 "CHEAP" wins, hahaha. 489 Perfects~

Now I will start showing my Character Record from lowest played to most.


25) Rose: Only 10 rounds online, Rose is a good character, I did not give her her chance probably, but I enjoy playing other characters.



24) Dan: I think everyone has the same thing, Dan is a Joke character, we play him when we feel like kidding around.. OYAJIIIII~

23) Vega: This is a good character, but I didn't try him that much I guess.

22) Gen: Probably I didn't play Gen because he might die any moment in the match? though he is fun to play with if you know how to do his mk hands combo.

21) Fei long: "NOT MY TYPE"...

20) Blanka: I might as well hate characters that lack combos. For some reason, I don't like Blanka :(

19) Sakura: She's fun to play with, and has nice long combos, but has little options once cornered or pressured, not that good with serious matches.

18) Cammy: to say the truth, I HATE PLAYING AGAINST CAMMY, maybe thats why I dont pick her a lot, but lately I started playing her and she's quite fun to honestly.

17) Sagat: "CHEAP" enough said, lol, I dislike playing him. I might give him a shot in Super because he's gonna be better



16) Rufus: I probably picked him to try couple of combos online, I dont enjoy playing him though.

15) Gouken: Fun character.

14) E. Honda: I love this character, he got some nice moves and tricks.

13) Ken: Probably I chose Ken so I show those many scrubs online how to actually use him, none the less, I don't like Ken myself.

12) El Fuerte: A good character to ANNOY THE HELL out of your opponent, I played him mostly to do the RSF online.

11) Abel: Very good mix-up game, fun to play.

10) Seth: Really fun to play, best zoner in the game.

9) Zangief: Lately I started enjoying playing Gief, I DO NOT SPAM LARIETS! :P, I love his normals, and his grabs, I like these type of characters, T.Hawk gonna be one of my mains in Super!



8) Chun Li: was my second main after I bought the game, though I left her later.

7) M. Bison: I love this guy, his pokes are TOO GOOD, although he didnt have many ultra set-ups.

6) Dhalsim: Probably I fell in love with this guy after Iyo has won Japan's national SFIV tournament 2008, he got many tricks and long long pokes o.o

5) Akuma: Very interesting character, WAY TOO MANY WAKE UP SETUPS, amazing combos. all in one character, though not many ultra setups to speak of.

4) Guile: My 3rd main after Chun Li, I played him quite a while before finally switching off. he has really great normals.

3) Ryu: My first main when I bought the game. Come on, who didn't choose him when he bought the game? :P, Though I started hating him when I realized he had way too many options with easy setups and combos.

2) Balrog: I won Dubai World Championship with him last year. He is a fearsome straight forward IN YOUR FACE character. I stopped playing him now though, I got rusty with him!

1) C.Viper: 3000 online rounds with her! Almost as double as the rounds I played with Balrog, my ex-main. Yet I am having trouble playing against Balrogs online with viper. I love this character, Very hard to master, but the reward is really great. she's a very tricky character with all her feints and cross ups. With her new Ultra in Super and increased hit points by 50, and with Sagat/Zangief being nerfed, Viper will definitely be more noticeable now.

I did not show my Arcade Stick that I got in my Arcade Stick Entry, so, here are some pics :P

Dubai Gamerz Tournament

This thursday Dubai gamerz tournament launched for both SFIV and some other game, football i think, whatever that game name is, I dont give a damn :P

It was group system for people who came before ~5pm, and elimination for people who came after 5 but before 6.

Each group had 8 people, and only 3 from each group qualifies, everyone fights everyone in the group, 1 set, 3 rounds. There was 6 groups, For me, I came in late, So i joined the elimination rounds, 1 set, 2 rounds. My first round was against a good chun-li, I won 2-0, my second one was with an average Boxer, I guess he had no experience whatsoever against C.Viper, as Balrog can destroy viper easily. So after my win I went to semi finals!

If i recall correctly those are the people who qualified from each group:

Group 1: Ryu, Sagat, Zangief
Group 2: Zangief, Chun Li, Akuma
Group 3: Dhalsim, Zangief, Chun Li
Group 4: Blanka, Zangief, Ryu
Group 5: Gen, El Fuerte, Chun-Li
Group 6: Guile, Ken, Rufus
*From Elimination* : C.Viper(me), Ryu

As you can see there were 4 Zangiefs.. (lol).. though only 1 Sagat, which was kind of nice..

I've seen many great rounds from these group fights. one of them was an El Fuerte player (Akashwan) from group 5 that won 7/7 matches, he destroyed everyone in his group which was great because fuerte is an almost forgotten player. Another player Ken (Tan_UAE) has showed a very fearsome Ken. Also a Chun Li (Dukefleeed) from group 5 was playing in a really interesting way, not to mention Guile player (Booom300) who destroyed a good boxer in his group and showed really good matches. Also a very scary Gen player (UAE4HAMAD) who showed no mercy for his opponents though he is too old and going to die at any second now (Gen..) lol.
Rufus (Mho-J) from group 6 was also performing a great job.
I haven't been able to see group 1-2-3 matches, so I'm not sure how those worked out.

2 guys came from Kuwait specially for this event. One was Ryu and the other was Chun Li. The Semi-Finals has finally started. I cant remember the order of the fights, but I'll write what I remember.
First the order has been decided by drawing the names, the last name was El-Fuerte who has been qualified by chance.

Gen has faced a Gief in his first semi-final round, as though this Gen was very good, he had a bad match-up against Zangief, so naturally he lost, but he had a great performance to speak though~

A friend of mine Chun Li (Dukefleeed) has faced the Kuwaiti Chun Li, First the Kuwaiti Chun was winning, but Duke has done a great comeback and won in the end, it was an interesting mirror match.

Guile (Booom300) "Who won last UAE tournament" had this minor injury in his thumb, so he did not perform that well, though he did qualify to semi-finals regarding the pain he had :P . He faced a Sagat (Ammar_) who was also one of the Organizers of the tournament. They both did a great job but Sagat won in the end. Hard luck to our friend Guile :)

Then comes my game, I, C.viper(SedoSan) Faced a Zangief(alain599)!!, My luck! :P, last tournament in the semi-finals I met a Zangief as well, (lol)... But this time I had much better concentration than last time. I did not screw up my combos this time at least. I lost my first round though I was leading, I won my second round, Lost my third then won my fourth, the last round we both had less than 5% hit points left. I know Zangief was going to jump on me. AND HE DID JUMP! A flash came across my mind that I won.. I used my Ultra!!!, Usually my ultra will punish jump-in attacks. The thing is, My ultra did not come out! *Bummer* and I got kicked in the face :P and So, I lost and was disqualified.

I cant recall what happened between the Blanka(SoulEliminator) and the Kuwaiti Ryu (Najeebi)sp? As there was a strong battle going on the other screen between Ken(TAN_UAE) and Zangief(RMT)sp?
The Ryu has won in that round against Blanka. But in the other battle, Ken was leading and DOMINATING in the first couple of rounds, he totally annihilated Gief, though I dont know what happened to him in the 3rd round. Looks like Gief has casted a Spell in his heart and GAVE HIM FEAR. Ken was almost paralyzed, he kept defending, RMT has totally changed the outcome of that fight and finally won 3-2. btw this ken has won 2nd place in last UAE tournament, but he was playing Akuma that time.

I dont recall Dhalsim's round, but he lost, The other Chun-Li has lost to the Kuwaiti Ryu If I recall correctly.

Rufus won an average Ryu in his first round. Then Rufus has met Zangief(Alain599) and won him, I dont recall who took out Akuma, but that akuma was an average player.

Then there was Fuerte's Match against Sagat who took out Guile. First round Sagat won, Second round Fuerte has done a great come back. Third round Fuerte has baited sagat to tiger shot and used his ultra! Everyone clapped once the Ultra animation went off, but what shocked everyone is that Fuerte did not land on Sagat, though he was close!! Then we realized something was wrong with the controller, but Fuerte couldnt do anything about it, and under frustration he lost his 3rd round as well.. But lesson learned from this is "Bring your own controller next time" :P

Sagat then Faced Rufus, and it ended with Rufus winning. This Sagat was an average+ Sagat though.

Kuwaiti Ryu has lost to RMT's Zangief. Al though this Ryu was a great one, it looked like he had no experience against Gief fights, he kept falling for his grab traps and his wake up cross ups.

Sagat has faced the Kuwaiti Ryu to decide who would be ranked 3rd, it ended with Sagat winning.

In the final battle, Rufus(Mho-J) has faced Zangief(RMT), this is the youtube link. As you can see, Zangief has won the tournament, From the video you will notice TOO MUCH NOISE coming from cheering :P, Those guys were cheering insanely. Some of the "Sentences" that came out were:

Show him that the Kitchen is his place! (Fuerte vs Sagat)
Let the Russian teach this Beautiful girl that fighting is not what she should do (Viper vs Gief)
This Indian Guy came in without a VISA! (Dhalsim vs *I cant remember*)
And lots of their comments were like: "Come on, you dont have to fight, you will lose 3 rounds perfect, Just sign him Victory!!" Usually saying this to people against their friends in fights.

Some were funny, Some were just annoying and uncalled for.

Over all, the tournament was good, great players, had lots of fun, though i wish i won :P

There was a Draw in the end for the guests and viewers. 5 prizes, They drew the first name "Name 1 here", a little kid comes and pick up his PSP. The second name was "Name 1 here" again! they said wow, really lucky, but they didnt give him the 2nd prize, a third name was drawn and it was "Name 2 here", so another kid "Kid 1's friend" comes and take the prize, a PSP. The 4th name was "Name 2 here" AGAIN!!!, people started doubting. They checked the names in the box. almost 50+ of them were both of these kids name. THERE WAS MANIPULATION! These prizes were revoked from these kids and justice has been received! *MUWAHAHAHA*...
So what they did is they took the name tags from the participants and did the draw from it later. and everything worked normally then.

After the match lots of people stayed and played against each other. It was great. In the end, everyone left :P Duh..

So.. Tournament finished.. There is another tournament in 3 weeks in AbuDhabi. But SSFIV would've been out already by then.

Thoughts about changing to Arcade stick.

So, I've finally gotten myself a Sweet SFIV MadCatz TE arcade stick. These things feel smooth and pretty!

This is my second day trying out the arcade stick...
IT IS HORRIBLE! LOL.. no not really. I used to play with an arcade stick back in the arcade shops in the city, (Happy Land and Wahda Mall) and in the old days where Action Zone existed and KOF was still there. So, in other words, I do not totally suck in Arcade sticks!

My wrist begun to swallow from the stick wrist handle? I am not sure if it is because of their design, or my hands.. but I might just get used to it eventually.

I am happy about placing the stick on my lap while playing, It does not slide nor affect my input. I like the buttons and how smooth they are, they are (Sanwa) parts, a very good if not the best company that produces arcade equip.

Now for gameplay.........
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It was sad.. lol
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Well, I started my very first character with the stick with Cammy, her instant cannon strike was much much easier to perform on the stick. I'm used to this move input because I used it a lot with C.Viper for her instant burning kick. It is the same motion.

I was able to perform FADC to either forward or back dash with no problems. I perform ultra no problem, but not as fast as the joystick.

I found myself to keep getting confused over which is a punch and which is a kick. I kept trying to do a canon spike with a punch button!

I found myself not being able to perform option select inputs with the arcade as easy.

Viper's Free FADC is much harder to do on the stick (for now). Also lots of viper tricks is harder for me to do (now) on the stick, instant SJ BK, Ex-Seismo xx Ex-Seismo. SJC-Ultra, and lots of other stuff, I have to work hard on them all again now :(

Though, Viper's FFF is much easier to do in the stick, and chances I'll screw and get super or ultra is much less now.

I still use 3 buttons to perform EX move instead of 2 buttons, this troubles me when a 3 buttons is used for characters for different moves such as akuma's teleport, and akuma's EX-Shoryuken. Also, sometimes an Ultra will come out instead of the EX because I press all 3 buttons, I have to get used to 2 buttons only.

Seems I still have some execution problems when trying to perform a qcb motion. a SRK comes out!! its ridiculous, I go from down to left on the stick, and a SRK comes out, I try to do viper's thunder knuckle, yet a seismo comes out! how sick is that? I have no idea why that happens, but it happened to me in the arcade shop as well, so I guess I am doing something wrong.. I have to work on this.

Piano input works BEAUTIFULLY, i am very happy with this. I am doing Honda's hands out of his jab everytime. its crazy! I have not tried blanka/gen/etc yet. I tried Chun-li's ex legs, but did not spend long time on it. Seemed kinda tricky.

Trying to press up alone seemed also tricky, Pressing down alone is way easier coz of how your hand is shaped, you can push your 4 fingers down to go down, but to go up, you have to push the stick with your thumb, and it has to be exactly up, I found myself sometimes go up right or up left, so I try to be extra careful when trying to press up, but when I do that, i almost left my hand off the stick and causes some trouble so I have to work on that as well.

I've tried Double tapping and P-linking, Its very hard to get adjusted to them at first, But I hope this gets better with time. I found it much easier to link 2+ frame links with double tapping, but its hard to adjust to that in the middle of a combo, as my mind will focus on double tapping and forget to continue, so that I have to work with.
I found it easier to link 1 frame link with the traditional on the spot press, but that's probably because I got good timing, I'd get 7+/10, but if with priority I can increase that, I would go for it, but from what i've seen now, p-linking is somehow difficult, and as I said above, I have to adjust to it when in a middle of a combo.

Guile and Vega's Ultra are much easier to land with the stick. I'd say 90% to 65% on the joystick.

Basically, Stuff your muscle brain memorized with the joystick wont help you here. The timing only might help you, but the places of the buttons wont.
I'm used to punish some moves that get a little range with viper's cr.mk to m.TK, I found myself never doing this on the arcade stick, I have to rebuild my muscle memory all over again.

Well, I hope this is going to be worth it. But starting today, I will only use the arcade stick!.. well, there is a tournament next week, so I might use the joystick one last time before completely converting to the Arcade Stick. Till then, Have fun ;)