Crunching Numbers and Skulls ~ Fighting Game Theory #2 - Dantes 40+ Special Moves - 3 of 40+

After some delay I give you the third edition of Dante's Move List. The prior chapters can be found  here and here with the full explanation for what this is in the first iteration.  I'd feel worse about my slow updates but I don't expect anyone out there is hanging onto my words here.  In this chapter we move on to the third from the top of his official move list and most excitingly, to me at least, we're adding a new button.  It is pretty special that I've already covered two whole moves yet only one command input, oh Dante you rebel you.

Down, Down-Towards, Towards + Medium nets you Dante's Crystal attack.  He'll briefly wind up, giving time to cancel into the next move, then strike downwards which causes four large pillars of ice to fan out from directly in front of Dante; the first is vertical thrusting straight upwards while each of the subsequent pillars of ice come out one after another in a fan like motion, so each at a gradually greater angle until the fourth comes out almost parallel to the ground, basically creating a huge semi-circle of damaging ice.

Beatiful Horrors -or- Can You Imagine?

I love that we've come to a point that we can basically just translate stylized art into videogame form pretty much without losing a beat.  Why?  Ever seen a piece of cover art, or maybe a scribbled drawing on the inside of an old Blizzard game instruction manual, then said to yourself "Man, I wish the game looked like that".  Concept art for anything usually goes above and beyond the final product if only because the artists making them aren't limited by anything but their imaginations.

Dark Souls makes me smile.  This is the kind of imaginative madness you don't often get to see brought to life, let alone with such realistic qualities.

The monsters of Dark Souls - Playstation.Blog

Get Some Common Sense -OR- At Least Be Self Aware of Your Thought Process

Just a great article over at Discover Magazine I wanted to share.  All about human perception and reactions to risk assessment. But really it's interesting.


Now personally I would call someone who would disregard global warming based solely on the fact it's snowing outside, where they are, a moron.   Not saying its real or fake (It's real. Moron.) but you need more information to base your oppinion on then an unrelated local weather report.  That's just common sense to me.

Basically its all about the idea that people will step in front of a moving bus thoughtlessly, killing themselves, because they were afraid they'd get hit by a meteor if they didn't move off the sidewalk, an event that had no realistically probability of actually happening.  Where as walking into traffic suddenly and without looking should have a very obvious and immediate risk value attributed to it.

Here's an excerpt that I really thought horrifically ironic:

"During the year following the September 11 attacks, millions of Americans opted out of air travel and slipped behind the wheel instead. While they crisscrossed the country, listening to breathless news coverage of anthrax attacks, extremists, and Homeland Security, they faced a much more concrete risk. All those extra cars on the road increased traffic fatalities by nearly 1,600. Airlines, on the other hand, recorded no fatalities."

Spooky huh? But that's the most sensationalistic bit in the article, mostly its more immediate stuff that we could effect positive change over by exploring this aspect of human nature.

HAPPY OCTOBER!! -or- Skeleton Jack Might Get You In The Back

Happy October, month of choice for Halloween and all things spooky.  Including claymation ghouls covered by Marilin Manson. Enjoy.

Crunching Numbers and Skulls ~ Fighting Game Theory #2 - Dantes 40+ Special Moves - 2 of 40+

This is the second installment of my little Dante move guide for Marvel vs Capcom 3, check out part one and a deeper introduction here.

Ok so this one is just plain disgusting. Second from the top we have Dantes Acid Rain attack.  The first of Dantes special move cancel specials.  Which sounds more awkward then it is.

So you preform the down, down-towards, towards + Light attack command that results in Multi-Lock, then you immediately do it again.  Multi-Lock has that slow start up I mentioned and you need to preform the second command, which is of course the same command again, while Dante lifts up the gauntlet but before he fires it off.  So a quick double fireball motion, nothing too tricky yet.

But you don't have to take my word for it -OR- Well that's convenient

Yeah so conveniently enough the kind folks at Gearbox actually went and posted some tasty tasty footage for Aliens: Colonial Marines.

It's 11 min and partially narrated by Gearbox head honcho Randy Pitchford and you can tell that the guy is a huge Aliens fanboy.  Hey me too though, some people like Star Wars or Harry Potter, but Aliens was always the franchise that spoke to me most growing up.

I've talked about how true art has to come from a place of passion, well Randy here clearly gets and loves what he's making, but to that end I'll just shut up and let the professionals speak for themselves.  Click start to continue on to the video but remember to stay frosty.

A Game I Don't -THEN- A Game I Do

So if you've stumbled upon this there's a decent enough chance you like videogames.  So allow me to give you my brief thoughts upon one of the biggest games coming out this year, where "big" in this instance means millions of people are going to buy it and if it's good millions more will as well.  This as opposed to a game that's not "big", which really just means those kind of sales figures aren't bankable quite yet. That one comes second.

I'm talking first about the latest rival to Call of Duties "shoot guys in the face while playing soldier" Throne, Battlefield 3. Here are my impressions based on the newly available Public Beta aka the multiplayer demo.

The New "Spielberg Show" Terra Nova -OR- DINOSAURS!!!!

So a new TV show has aired with the usual two hour opening shebang, only what's interesting to me about this one is that it has a rather unique premises compared to most of what we see on television.  To sum up?  The world is fucked, brought down by the thoughtless and mindless ecological and social practices the rule the very real, non-tv, world around us.  Basically Al Gore and Roland Emmerich were right.

Luckily, or so we're led to believe after the pilot, Science has saved us from ourselves by discovering a rip in the fabric of space and time allowing us to colonize our own world, 85 million years ago.  A second chance to live on Earth without ruining it for ourselves if you will.

Seth Killian interview OR a breath of air

I always enjoy Seth Killian in his role as Online & Community Strategic Marketing Director.  Considering some of the questions he gets lobed in his way from time to time it's probably not as perfect a job as it might seem on paper.

EGM interviewed Mr. Killian about the recent resurgence of the fighting game genre, his role in it, how online has positively effected it and so forth.  Nice read.  Now personally I believe that true art comes from a place of passion, you need to have a great idea and great care about it, this opposed to just mimicking several other successful things and trying to do them better, or worse, merely at the same time.

Crunching Numbers and Skulls ~ Fighting Game Theory #2 - Dantes 40+ Special Moves - 1 of 40+

So in the interest of keeping things different, plus I've a short attention span at times, this second edition of fighting game theory will actually be a multipart ongoing series.  The topic?  Find a use for all of Dante's Special Moves in Marvel vs Capcom 3.

Basically I took one look at Dante and realized that there was a guy you could play as for a long time and still not properly get the hang of, so I put him to the side thinking that MvC3 had years of shelf life ahead of it in which to learn the character.

But Capcom's tunrover on the next iteration of the franchise this time around was lightning quick, with Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 out this fall, so it seems like a good excuse to take this original version of the guy out of the box at least once before Ultimate Dante shows up.

There's always something else to buy OR Oh yeah, KoF 27 or something

So you know the bad habit that you keep telling yourself you should stop, the one you really mean to knock, until you actually get the opportunity to indulge in it and bombs away.  Well I've many of those, but the King of Fighters is the video game version of it.

Well... I did just quit smoking. What's one more game? Can't be worse then XII. A cheap shot but deservedly so. The commercial looks good at least...

The King of Fighters XIII wants you to buy it - GameTrailers.com

High Spots from Monday Night Raw, Sept 27 2011

Monday nights mean Monday Night Raw, where men toss each other around in order to become the World Heavyweight Champion. Ah professional wrestling, the guilty pleasure no one likes to admit they watch, but everyone knows of.

I've been a long time fan of pro wrestling, though I've gone through long periods of time where the product just hasn't been able to hold my interest.  I went seven years between tuning in not too long back and it's kind of sad that because of that I missed out on the best parts of the careers of guys like Chris Jericho and the late great Eddie Guerro.

But oh well, that's my tiny cross, point is that these days the WWE seems to be making great strides towards being, well, fun again.  I'm actually tuning in each week not because "I like wrestling" but because they've been doing a truly tremendous job of turning the stale WWE product of the last several years into a true ensemble television program that just happens to be about pro wresting.

In other words I'm fully  on board with all the direction changes they've implemented of late in  WWE programming and here's a few reason why care of tonights Monday Night Raw;