Rsdio

Yeah, at least their great 1995 team mostly stuck around for a year or two. Not so likely to happen now., feels like half of this team is already pretty much gone despite only de Jong being official.

Virtua Fighter as well, come to think of it.

Probably pretty sought after for the Kevin Shields tracks if nothing else.. Seems like the older official pressings go for upwards of £120 on Discogs.

Street Fighter, by quite a distance. They never made another one as balanced in multiplayer though!

Finished Kiwami the other day. Plenty to enjoy from a story point of view of course but it's comfortably the worst of the ones I've played (0, Kiwami, 3, 4 and 5). I'm pretty well used to bosses that are cheap, bullshit-ridden wars of attrition in this series but it feels like they turned it up beyond 11 here for basically every boss rather than just the ones towards the end, then added the terrible Kiwami finisher thing on top for good measure. If rush didn't exist I don't think I'd have been able to finish the game on hard to be honest, and even then it felt like the real boss was the X button I was continually having to mash to get up from seemingly unavoidable hard knockdowns. I gather the Dragon of Dojima style makes things trivial when levelled up but since I was already somehow starting to hate Goro after ten fights I didn't really fancy going to fifty-odd, plus the coliseum, plus pocket circuit. That I found much of it so irritating despite only ever seeing a game over in that chase part (always be carrying a rucksack full of Staminans and/or sushi sets) says a lot really. I'm not prone to getting ragey with games but if I'd had to repeat any of I think I'd have been suppressing the urge to uninstall the thing. At least the fights with weaker enemies are as fun as ever. I'm glad I've played it and finally seen the beginning of the series outside of the brief recap in 3 all those years back (and I enjoyed the little references to the Battles Without Honor and Humanity films which must've been a huge influence) but in the end I'm also pretty glad it's over.

I'm playing Kiwami at the moment. Fuck this fucking car chase shootout shit on hard. I know it was in the original but fucking hell. I guess really, really awful sections dipping into other genres that are weirdly long, unnecessarily difficult, with no checkpoints and an unskippable cutscene in the middle are the sort of price you sometimes pay for liking Japanese games though. God knows why they do it. I assume they think it's dramatic but that's kind of undercut when it's made so irritating that you have to attempt it loads of times. Bah! Hoping I'll do it next go now I've sounded off about it. Edit: Within one shot on the next attempt, done on the one after lol. Not 45 minutes of gameplay I'll be in a rush to repeat!

I think breaking the fourth wall probably goes back as far as the novel does. Don Quixote is often held up as the first modern novel but if that's the case then it's definitely also the first postmodern novel. Many of the characters in the second part of the book are aware of what was written in the first, as well as in other real world books written to cash in on Cervantes' success.

Yeah, plug and play on PC. Think all PS4 sticks will be. I don't know what other PS2 emulators are like but personally I find PCSX2 too laggy for shooters/fighters/action games. It doesn't have an exclusive fullscreen mode for some bizarre reason so there's no way around it as far as I know. I play on a TV with relatively low input lag but I guess a really low latency monitor might gain a frame over it, which could maybe push it into the realms of being OK. It feels like it'd need more than that to me though. Just something to bear in mind if PS2 emulation is going to be a big factor in deciding whether or not to chuck loads of money at a stick.

I use a Razer Panthera, they're pricey but fantastic. The low lag was a big deciding factor, I think it's meant to be like 2ms or something. Like a lot of people I prefer a shorter throw than the stock JLF, for fighters too but especially for shooters, so it does have a Kowal actuator in there as well. Love how it all feels. The cheaper Evo version uses Razer's own buttons which apparently aren't great but can be modded, though apparently that's more faffy than the older Panthera.

It's a treat to see Stallone showing his acting chops as an intellectual. Get some glasses on - job done.

It'd be a shame to write off the genre due to not liking Ikaruga. It's a very atypical shooter and probably about the last one I'd choose to try to get someone interested.

I did think that section went on slightly too long as I was playing it but afterwards I felt pretty satisfied so maybe it was worth it in the end. Also I didn't realise you could hit the guys standing around to refill your soul so my initial feeling could well be null and void. That probably would've saved a couple of restarts.

Good info in that Maximilian video - parries, dodges, just guard, universal overhead. The only thing that's been bugging me a bit about it is that hits seem to lack impact which feels weird when the damage is so high. It's less noticeable watching actual gameplay though, the trailers cutting between hits in quick succession probably just highlighted it that bit too much. The blade clashes are really nice. Roster: Here's LI Joe playing against one of the developers:

Promising article on Eurogamer. Has the dojo stuff been mentioned before? It was news to me. Sounds like KI's shadow mode which could be a big selling point if they get it right.

There haven't been many people through history who tried to challenge their audience and push the boundaries 50 years into their career like he did. I remember when The Drift came out, my mum literally would not believe it was the same Scott Walker from the 60s despite him having one of the most recognisable voices out there. Apparently it was more likely that another Scott Walker with that voice existed than him getting to 'Cossacks Are' from 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore'. Amazing body of work, even his messy 70s had its gems.