Some great matches from last week I’m just getting around to posting now. There was over an hour and a half of footage, which is a lot to look through, but I tried to get the matches that I remembered. I need to keep better track of who plays what so I can caption the matches a little better. I will say that I’m the Alex player, and if you see a character being played competently, it’s probably not me. I did have some moments I was proud of, and certainly there are some highlights in the video, so without further ado:

Friday night was a lot of great matches and barbecue, and it’s hard to argue with that. Unfortunately, due to the number of people and last minute changing of setups, there wasn’t the chance to record anything. I did all right with Alex, and I see now how mk xx EX Flash Chop is really good. I seemed to get worse at parrying, which was either a function of fatigue, or lack of practice. At any rate, good shit, both in 3S and 4.

Some more matches, I’m thinking of playing Alex now as well. I used to tinker with the idea back in the day, but I feel like I know a lot more now about mixups and pressure than I did back then. I didn’t play great, but I tried to find notable matches with things that I did well, and matches where I didn’t put enough pressure on. One thing that jumps out at me is punishing better with Alex– too many times I did throw or power bomb where I had super. Also, the difference between some of his “flash” strikes escapes me, and once I got the sleeper hold not expecting to, and missed the chance to deal some stun damage.

If anyone’s interested in how WCWII turned out, the final results are over on EventHubs here. I closed the stream yesterday after trying to weather through the Tekken tourney, but couldn’t quite make it. I’m eager to see Combofiend vs. Alex Valle, that should be one for Abel players to keep an eye on and get some pointers from. He also fielded a Cammy for some matches, which I haven’t personally seen before, so I can’t wait for that footage.

So Youtube no longer allows any type of user to upload videos longer than 10 minutes in length, and Vimeo does not allow gameplay videos. Thankfully, I’m hosting any matches I put up on ScrewAttack, which seems to be working great. Stay tuned, some more videos should be coming up in a few days.

Testing my DVD recorder and (lack of) editing skills. These matches were the first of the night, and not the best, but this is to see how well Youtube works. More match videos to follow.

edit: Youtube let me upload, but no longer allows anyone to upload videos that are longer than 10 minutes. Since I didn’t really split it up, this one’s going to Vimeo now. Transcoding this many times has resulted in some skippage, but hopefully I’ll iron these issues out for next time.

I’ve been playing a mix of 3rd Strike and SF4, mostly 3rd, at least once or twice a week. I’ve been maining Chun and learning Urien as a secondary. I really like Urien a lot more than I thought I would, but I don’t think it’s really teaching me that much except about overhead mixups. If I want to work on execution, I think I’d be best served by playing Makoto and Ken, two characters who would definitely help my links.

As far as cancels and hit confirms go, I’m a lot better about back+hp, but nowhere near consistent with c.mk. I’ll get it if I’m expecting it in a setup, but not if I’m just throwing footsies out there and it happens to hit.

I also have a setup with a DVD recorder now, so I might be able to post the results of weekly matches if all goes well, and I can confirm the whole thing doesn’t add any lag.

Recently, I end up spending a lot more time missing links and cancels into super. My footsies are better, but I think I need more practice, I don’t practice enough. I suddenly find that Chun’s b+HP xx SA2 is easier for me to do than b+HP xx HP Kikouken xx SA2 for some reason. I guess it doesn’t really matter, the only reason Kikouken xx SA2 is any good is for block damage anyway.

Also, here’s a great series of articles about footsies with even better reference material on SRK. I must say, I like SRK’s new push towards more content, I hope they can keep the quality level up to the standard they’re setting so far.

http://www.shoryuken.com/content.php?r=40-Learn-Footsies-to-Make-Your-Ground-Game-Not-Suck

I’ve been playing a lot of SF4 recently, both online and off. I’m somewhat eager to play the upcoming Super Street Fighter IV, but it’s also generally true that the more characters are in a game, the less balanced it is. I suppose you could say that Alpha 3 was an exception to that rule, but I don’t have as much faith in the SF4 dev team.

Played a little KOFXII again, though mostly just for a laugh. It was pretty fun, though I forgot how technical a lot of the combos were.

As for 3S, I’m a little better at hit confirming c.mk and b.hp into SA3 with Chun, but standing hk and kara throw are still sort of at 50%

Got to the Javits Center pretty early today to catch the first games of the day at around 10:00. Flash lost his first two matches in the morning, which sucked, but seemed to give him some focus for the rest of his games. There were some really great matches with his Wolf versus Cidkid. Dennis0201 was in this group as well, and definitely stepped it up, playing Rayblade for the remaining spot. For lunch, we grabbed pizza at this place in Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton? which was definitely a breath of fresh air compared to the other midtown prices we’d been paying for things. The WCG party at ESPNZone Times Square was pretty fun, and could not have been cheap, with that many people and an open bar. Though it was nice to unwind a bit, have a few drinks, and play Daytona, no one really wanted to cut loose since tomorrow was the finals for most of the games aside from Guitar Hero. I headed back to the hotel and to sleep pretty early, but from what I heard, Flash ended up staying up late talking, and Dennis was trying to fix a button that was broken on his stick.

Sunday came and I grabbed some food and ended up taking a wrong turn after stopping by a Duane Reade to get an umbrella, so I got to the Javits center after the first round of matches had been played. Flash was on a roll, and the momentum just carried him through. The videos for the finals are linked below, they was solid play from everyone, and it’s easily some of the best play from a tournament in this country. There’s not a whole lot else to say, I’ll let the matches speak for themselves.

All in all, the WCG event was very well funded, organized, and run. I had a great time, and the tournament was well placed at the New York Anime Fest, which was not insanely crowded, being a first-year con. This year’s games came at a time when the VF community is not at its largest, what with people bound for SF4 or Tekken or proclaiming their retirement in threads on VFDC. What Flash said was absolutely true: VF has by far the most mature and friendly players– it’s one of the few fighting games that I would say actually has a community. Which is to say, not many other games have players who, after the finals, have a tradition of the winner buying all the players dinner. Rayblade stayed up until 4 helping Dennis fix his stick. Shag did a great job of working with the WCG and the players as a liaison, so there were no “WTF?” moments in terms of rules and so forth. VF has always been a small community, but as a result, it’s one of the most cohesive and welcoming, and I hope that never changes.

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