Stephen's Advice for the day

Remember to close your font tags on blogger or else it will make your entire journal, italics or bold, or both. Really kinda had a fucking time figuring and editing that shit. Pain in the ass.

Ugh, still feeling like shit, only a bit though. Main problem now is the lack of sleep I'm getting recently, 3rd day in a row. It seems odd that since I traded my upstairs nice bed with my dad's bed (better for his back) that I'm beginning to get not that much sleep. It's almost like the notion of no one sleeping in my bed whilst I sleep on a lumpy-spring-in-my-ass matress in my downstairs room actually kept me asleep all this time. Fucking sucks I tell you. But then again it could be that my sleeping habits had made my head almost off the edge of the bed, and that place is harder than anything I've ever felt. Plus the fact that I ate two small bags o candy.

Ah well, we'll try tonight.

Stephen's Advice for the day

When cutting a big batch of onions, it's easier to avoid more eye work when you prepare each onion. When you trim the onion at it's poles (the stem and the part opposite of it) then slice it in half. Peel away the hard skin and then place the onion *cut-side down* when you do that, it prevents the chemicals from the onions fully escape, hit your eyes and cause a chemical reactions which results in sulphuric acid. Yes that's right, that's why you cry when you cut onions.

So if you have a hefty batch to cut, prep them that way before chopping, rather than chopping each onion head individually.

I'm proud to say that half of my brunch now a resident of the North Peace Leisure Pool's plumbing system.

Fairly stupid of me today. I did eat my food within the advised "hour" before any physical activity. When I went swimming today an ex-swim club member was there and swam in the same lane as I. I was pretty responsible to keep my brunch down, when I felt a slight twinge in my stomach, such as my food swimming in the top half of my tum-tum I decided to just relax and do some kick. But course damn my competitive spirit.

Although I do have to blame more for me trying to encourage my friend to do 25m of freestyle 'kick' within 18 seconds. He raced me for a 25m length and I said ok since I felt fine. As he soundly left me in his wake, he father wanted him to do the 25 in 18 seconds, and he was kinda whiny about it, wanting more rest. I "encouraged" him, saying that if I race him, do an 18. So we raced again, after like 15 seconds of rest, he beated me even worse this time, almost half a length as I slowly came to the wall. Damn my good deed.

After you do something strenuous that will cause you to projectile hurl, your body doesn't register right away. I think it's merely waiting for you to think you're alright until it just releases the queasiness. Almost a way to teach you a lesson, smart teacher.

I did another length in order to warm down, but it was more like warm up. I got up to get a drink of water....but then I just knew I was going to flush myself from my "food-goes-in" hole. I think it was when I was sitting on the ledge of the pool and flopped my foot onto the deck. I hobbled to the change rooms.

I don't know why when the sight of the porcelain goddess made me instantly kneel and worship it with my liquid brunch sacrafice. I think that's why they call it a god/goddess since it has such knee bending power to envoke vomit to it's "church-and-holy-water-basin" in one. Gladly I manage to close the door most of the way while my *huh--guhhhhh*-ing echoed around in the handicap/personal changeroom. Eating soup today seemed good since it felt so easy travelling up esophagus at speeds enough to get you to Taylor in 20 minutes by car. Besides it looked oh so pretty when it splatter spread eagle all around the bowl.

Some kid looked at me funny as I walked out, but I didn't care cause I was pretty euphoric by my Sunday worship.

Well it wasn't all that bad, at least I got out of swimming a bit early.

No super attacks disscussion today since I'm feeling like shit [there's a post below this post that kinda explains the start of my day] plus the fact that special attacks are a monster of an article in the first place.

Special attacks

Ah, the ever useful “fireball”. To tell the truth this might be the largest section of this article since special attacks are fairly deep. As all people know, special attacks are usually what results in our good old “fireball wars” where we just wait for one slip-up to land an attack which would have been worth more health if we just jumped over the fireball and comboed the fucker. Although I’m not here to explain each attack, I will explain some of the ways to understand the nature of commands related to the special attacks. But first the general nature of special attacks.

As seen in SF games, special attacks (usually short formed called ‘specials’) each attack corresponds with a different level of the attack button (P or K) used weak, med, or strong. Most of the time use of a weaker attack button when you perform the attack would result in:

- A slower special
- A shorter distanced special
- A less hitting special
- A weaker special

In KOF sometimes the attack results in a totally different attack. One when looking at Terry Bogard nowadays, he has two types of ‘fireballs’ both done by a QCF (quarter circle forward) + P. It all depends on the punch. His WP results in his regular travel-full-distance-of-the-screen fireball. But his SP. results in a small gush of power that hits anything within a few feet in front of him.

As the power of the attack button used increases ( i.e. from weak to medium) the properties could result in:

- A faster special
- A farther distanced special
- A more hitting special
- A stronger special

Now onto: the special commands.

Special Commands

QCF (quarter circle forward) + Punch/kick: The quarter circle forward motion usually represents a fairly offensive special since the very movement of it screams offensive attack. It’s quick with the joystick moving forward.

For the punch, it usually translates into the traditional fireball. For non-fireball characters, it would translate most likely to an advancing special that ends with punch. However for the kick, it usually ends up with some two different connotations. Just another advancing special but ending with a kick, but in the case of Sagat in SF2, depending on whether you use QCF + P or QCF + K, it would results in a high or low fireball respectively. This shows that especially in the Capcom button layout, punches and kicks also represent where they are position on the arcade pad, high and low. So this emphasizes the idea that punch = high special and kick = lower special in the special attack world.

QCB (quarter circle back) + Punch/kick: This too equates to the above, however it must be understood that sometimes these types of specials have a more defensive nature. Not to mention that sometimes it also can be associated with atypical specials since the act of rotating the joystick back is fairly atypical especially when associating it with an offensive special. However the interesting thing is that specials such as these using kicks, usually result in a type of specials that actually “rises” above the ground and kick the person in the famous hurricane kick of Ryu.

DP (F, D, DF) + Punch/Kick: Now I should mention I also had problems performing this move long ago. I would sometimes individually tap each direction really quickly in order to try and get it. But in order to pull it off consecutively, just press forward and do the QCF motion. Practice of course makes perfect.

Now usually the DP motion refers to Ryu and Ken’s dragon punch move from SF2. It was usually regarded as an anti-air attack. Anti-airs are basically attacks that defend yourself from opponents jumping towards you and attacking you. Usually it’s a move that fairly vertical with little horizontal movement at all. It can involve many things (usually a flying uppercut) but still it could also involve a throw, a kick even a column of fire. However it could also represent a powerful attack since it’s association with the early days of SF2 where the DP was very powerful indeed.

HCB and HCF special (half circle forward/back) These are special are usually associated with grappling special, especially in the KOF series. As you can see these specials emphasize more investment in time, therefore getting more of a reward in damage against your opponent. When associating with grapplers/wrestlers, these are usually toned down versions of the dreaded SPD (a full 360 on the joystick) special moves, although are very useful due to how easy they are to perform.

SPD/360 specials: Since Zangeif was the first to utilize the 360, from herein any reference to a 360 joystick movement would be called ‘SPD’ (spinning pile driver). Relatively it should also be mentioned that moves that require a 720 joystick movement would be referred to Zangeif’s super ‘FAB’ (Final Atomic Buster). Now as you can see, this move is primarily regarded for a lot of grapplers. Note that in some faqs, 360 and 720 are usually used in place of it.

The very mention of trying to pull off a SPD shows how much effort is needed in order to land it, hell, sometimes you need a set up in order to go totally around in the joystick in order to complete the move. A hell of an investment for a hell of a payout. In the early days, landing one SPD would results in about 50% of life GONE. It’s been toned down incredibly now but nowadays still puts fear into the person on whether or not you are going to SPD their ass into the ground.

However to tell the truth in SF, the SPD doesn’t truly needed a 360 nowadays. So no more jumping around spinning your thumb to a nub in order to pull of an SPD which you’ll probably never land or just get the shit kicked out of you.

It’s just that it requires at least 7 points on the joystick to be ‘touched’ with a punch in order to really to pull off a SPD. In fact less than that since most players starting to SPDs actually only do a simple F, D, U +P motion (forward slide to down, up). Granted at most this is like only 4 points but it really does work since you hit enough points and leave the jumping “point” on the joystick left, the punch button is pressed before you actually leave the ground, but the game actually registers that joystick command. So on the ground SPD!

Specials that require you to hold a button: Easy enough to know, just think Mega Man and his charge shot, and you should know what holding down a button means. Longer means more power in the attack. Of course it’s very hard to pull off sometimes since it leaves you stationary in your set up time. However like Mega Man who appeared in the Marvel VS. Capcom (MvC), if you hold down FP (Fierce Punch) for a long time, his ‘fireball’ would charge longer for more hits. In the meanwhile, he can do anything such as jump and do other attacks, except for FP.

Before I go onto the idea of “Super Moves” I think I should also elaborate on some special move properties.

Invicinbility Frames

Long ago in SF2 the first one, Ryu and Ken’s Dragon Punches (DP) actually was truly invincible. Nothing could knock them out of it on their ascension to aerial ass kicking. You couldn’t drop kick them out of it, nor punch them out of it. They could be right under you and as you jump, they’ll still knock you flat on your ass. This is what is meant by invincibility frames. Every move has a certain amount of frames, and sometimes the programmers assign “invincibility frames” to some of the moves, usually the beginning.

An example would be to put a Ryu and Ken match in SF2. Let’s just say Ryu and Ken are fighting, and they’re about a few feet away from each other. Ryu tosses out a DP, and about half a second later, Ken tosses one out as well. What will happen is on the way up, (the attack phase) they would actually touch, but not hit each other.

Ryu would be the one that gets the damage from this meeting in the sky. The reason why is that since both characters DP are just totally invincible going up, going down meant their open for an ass-whupping. Since Ryu went first, he would be the first one to get hit. Therefore Ken is still in his rising animation while Ryu is going to recovery by floating down to earth, but will get hit.

Now Capcom knew that this posed a problem since it was basically too powerful of a move. So nowadays, the DPs are only a few frames in the start of the move, which is still good since to some degree it could be used both as a defensive and offensive attack. Some people will take advantage of their invincibility frames in order to blow through one attack and hit the opponent.

Now this mention of invincibility frames brings to mind…

Recovery time

Often called recovery time or recovery frames, this is the time it takes for you to regain control back from your character when they perform any move. When you are in this time, your opponent can basically have their way with you.

A jab would have really small recovery time, where as a fierce punch would have longer recovery time. This is fairly important since special you make would have a element of risk sometime because of recovery time. In the case of Ryu and Ken, their DP havehuge recovery time because the height they go up might be invincible, but the exact same height they come down is all recovery time AKA being vulnerable. Recovery time really varies because often it depends on the type of special move that is performed. Usually the more elaborate/powerful the attack, the more recovery time that it usually associated with it. Also usually on the technical side, recovery time is measured by frames, as well as set up time.

Two in one

You probably heard this term before for it’s been used very much. Easy enough what it means is when a special move is “buffered” from a basic attack. Prime example would be:

Holding down, pressing Jab, sliding the joystick DF to F and then pressing Jab again, results in a fireball.

What results is a Cr. Jab into Fireball. Basically what happened is part of the command for the fireball special move, has already been inputted by initially crouching straight down. This means that it is possible to have basic moves come out (and not interrupt you making an attempt to perform a special move motion)
and have a special move (or even super move) come right out after it, resulting in a combo.

Now that isn’t always the case since sometimes some back moves cannot be interrupted period or it just takes too long to recover from leaving the time you actually input the special move, it doesn’t come out. This brings up the point of “linking”, which basically means the ability for certain moves have their recovery frames interrupted to perform another attack to extend your combo (or at least have their moves recover fast enough to do something else).

This technique is very powerful since it would help set up some special moves, or supers with just basic attacks but with less risk of merely pulling off the special move or super.

This technique can also be related to “buffering” which means basically doing a basic attack in order to perform a motion for a special. Prime example would be Zangeif who would often do a basic move in order to buffer an entire 360 in order to perform a SPD.

Priority

I mentioned this term before when I described the potential of offensive and defensive crouch. I don’t know where exactly to put this, since this applies to all forms of attacks, basic, command, special and super. However I decided to put it here since it seems to be a misc. type thing.

Basically priority is exactly what it sounds like. Which objects or actions gets performed first. Generally speaking the highest priority attack is those who have invincibility frames, such as the DP of Ryu and Ken of SF. This means, this move will basically hit you opponent out of any attack they might do at the same time, hence your attack takes priority over *any* of your opponents attack.

Below attacks that have invincibility frames (or are invincible period) anything is game. A Cr. Jab might over-prioritize a Roundhouse, or a standing Forward Kick over a jump Short Kick. The point is that it’s good to find *basic* attacks that are high in priority since it can be used with less risk than the other attacks. A prime example would be:

Capcom VS. SNK 2’s Sagat’s Cr. FP. Why? It’s because Sagat’s Cr. FP is insanely high on priority. It would basically nullify almost any attack short of attacks with invincibility frames. It doesn’t just end with priority. As you can see, reach is also a high point since his attack extends fairly far, in-fact farther than most characters with a Cr. FP. And since it’s so high in priority, it can also be used as poke. (Pokes are attacks [usually jabs or shorts] that are used for the sole purpose of causing people to block in order to perform another move such as a throw or force opponents to back the fuck off.) Hence priority is often a big thing, and as recently it is has been also somewhat of a game-breaking feature (Capcom VS. SNK 2 has only Sagat and Blanka as the top characters to use, essentially making all the other characters useless).

Ugh, still under the weather today. Could be related to that KFC I ate on thursday. I think it's actually was food poisoning. A lot of people don't realize that sometimes gas, spset stomachs and such, are a result of mild cases of food poisoning. Not the "puke all fucking day" kind, but maybe some extra gas or farting might commence. I think this is why my gassiness lasted for the past 3 days.

Stephen's Advice for the day

Quoted by Bob Fosse

"Live like you'll die tomorrow, work like you don't need the money, and dance like nobody's watching."

Attacks

Another thing I would like to bring up related to health is viltality. This is otherwise known as the durability of the character. Most of the time, characters are relative to what we expect from characters. So therefore small petite characters such as children, fairly flowerly girls, and the ever sneaky ninjas are prime candidates of those with shit vitality. This is somewhat logical because in exchange for basically dying from any hit beyond a wet napkin, they have speed in their attacks. This would mean attacks that hit multiple times or are attaacks of a decieving nature such as the ninja.

On the other side of the spectrum, muscly looking guys and huge ass wrestlers (called grapplers because often being werestlers their repretoire of moves consist of grappling moves) usually are candidates with higher viltality because of their steroid use. Of course they would need all this extra vitality due to the fact that they slowly lumber almost retarded-ly (due to steroid use) towards their opponents because they usually have hold or throw attacks. Note that there are people such as “semi grapplers”, most notably people like Ralf, and Vice from KOF who do have grapple moves, but half of their colleciton of attacks also non-grappler associated (i.e. fireballs, long distance moves, being quicker than the average grappler)

Of course this is generally speaking, because there are *always* exceptions, especially in KOF where SNK usually mixes and melds different aspects of each of these characters.

It was kinda weird since in SF2, the booklet actually mentions these differences in viltality (as well with many prominent gaming mags) but to tell the truth, all the characters’s basica attacks in the first SF2 did the exact same damage, save for special moves. But of course as time went by, the conventions explained above came into focus and now get out of focus as games advance.

But now that we have explained what we are going to protect, now let’s go on how to befeat your opponent.:

Button layout and attacks terminolgy

There are a lot of button layouts, but I’m going to heavily focus on a few series mainly:

Street Fighter (SF)
King of Fighters (KOF)
Tekken (T1,2,3,4)

I admit I don’t know all the properties of the buttons layouts or even have played all the games I mentioned above, but they are helpful towards understanding the fighting game genre.

First of all SF (3x2 button layout):

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It has been a long time since the days of naming all the punches and kicks of the SF games by their strength such as Weak: Punch and Kck; Medium Punch and Kick; and Strong: Punch and Kick; The thing is Capcom had adapted a new way of assigning names to each basic attack so to streamline things more and probably not to confuse terminology between punch and kick. They are:

Weak punch = Jab (jp): Kinda obvious since it’s like boxing terminology. Quick attack with the first.

Medium punch = Strong (sp): When you see what the last of the punches are, you’ll understand why strong has been regulated to fierce.

Strong punch = Fierce (fp): oh yeah baby fucking hardcore. Strongest punch.

Weak kick = Short (sk): should be since this is usually a really short kick. Note that most crouching kicks for characters are the only means of attacking “low” on opponents.

Medium kick = Forward (fk): now I might be wrong, but I think why this is named as such is since a lot of times, this kick has actually moved the character forward in fighting games. Whether be just standing, a command move or crouching, this kick is pretty special and usually the most used Cr.Kick in the repretoire in continuing combos due to it does not knock the opponent flat on their asses

Strong kick = Roundhouse (rh): Once again obvious since the roundhosue is this grandiose type kick that inflicts a lot of damage. Almost always the kick that when performed crouching, will sweep/knock the opponent flat on their asses. The only exception would be a character from the SF3 series whose Cr. Fp is the one that sweeps people off their feet. But that’s in the future.

KOF (4x1 button layout):

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Kof is a bit more insteresting in the sense that actually how they set up their attack buttons since they are in a row. They have a more of a through back to old fighting games since they have only two punches and kicks each. However since SNK has been using their own motherboard from over a decade ago, their set up for all their games has always been with the same buttons, aptly named A,B,C,D. Therefore you have:

Weak Punch = A button (A/WP) What is different with this set up of attacks is that in SF it’s loosely associated that a level of kick = a level of punch. So kinda like how a jab punch’s damage would roughly equal a short kick’s damage. In KOF it’s different since the damage hierchy grows stronger with each advance of the button right (usually SNK games (like KOF) have a straight line of 4x1 buttons layout as opposed to the 3x2 layout of SF). So weak punch is actually the weakest attack of basic attacks.

Weak Kick = B button (B/WK) An up in damage from the weak punch.

Strong Punch = C button (C/SP) strongest damage of the punches but not as powerful as the…

Strong Kick = D Button (D/SK) strongest attack of the basic attacks, aside from the attack that requires the buttons SP. and SK. (called a ‘CD’ attack) to be pressed at the same time.

Note that sometimes reading the attacks in a guide or FAQ would actually interchange depending on the preferences of the author. Most of the time though, to avoid confusion it’s used with the WK, WP, SP, SK variety.

Tekken (2x2 button layout):

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Tekken is an intresting game since it possibly gave the most control to their characters through their unique button layout. Done in a 2x2 manner, the buttons are actually associated with each limb of the body. So starting from top left corner and counting across:

Left Punch = LP (Button 1)

Right Punch = RP (Button 2)

Left Kick = LK (Button 3)

Right Kick = RK (Button 4)

So easy enough to associated, left side of the buttons associated with the left side of the body limbs and the upper buttons associate with punch with lower buttons associate with the kick. This is a neat set up since you can control better the use of all your limbs; becoming more natural and not just have a standard limb doing a standard attack all the time. Instead a more natural control over the fight had come since each tap of the button can be associated with a certain limb. Since Tekken is a 3D game, usually it is easier to animated and therefore more moves, basic attacks, and specials are crammed into the game. Tekken is probably one of the more combo friendly games (aka ability to construct a variety of combos) because of this set up. Of course as always there are limits, you can’t be a total dork in Tekken and press buttons 1,3 at the same time (LP and LK) and expect a punch and kick and your character to fall flat on their side.

Generally speaking most of the FAQs for Tekken combos are in the number format 1,2,3,4.

Now that I have somewhat explained basic attacks, I should explore:

Command attacks

I might be going a bit fast but I think this might be the right track. It’s just that basic attacks are usually very easy to learn.

Command attacks are different from the next level of attacks which are “special (command) attacks”. However they should not be ignored at all. This can be related exactly to my explanation of crouching attacks in offensive and defensive stances. A command attack usually results in a different attack or even a variation of an attack of the button you pressed. The most easiest one to point out is Ryu from SF.

If you hold the forward and press strong (medium punch) a strong punch would not come out. Instead his overhead attack would come out. The main point is that usually really useful attacks come out from these command attacks. They sometimes have longer reach, more combo-bility (or even start combos) and even help with increasing your offensive power.

Just to explain overheads very quickly: they’re attacks performed by your character on the ground that can hit a opponent who Cr. Blocks so you do not have to risk “jumpimg” in order to merely attack a blocking character.

Although useful, command attacks are also fairly sparce, usually regulated to the strong (sk) and forward (fk) buttons. However in other fighters, since they don’t have as many buttons as SF, they often associate command attacks with all buttons.

Next time: Special and Super moves

I cut my fighting gaming thing a bit short because I just did. To continue.

Blocking Part 2

Notice that most games do not have the same block principles. Usually it would be the most natural thing in the game, holding back (or DB for crouching block) but as you can see there are some games that require a touch of a button to block, which brings us to two entirely different games Mortal Kombat (MK) and Soul Calibur(SC).

The thing is MK is a regular fighter with a block button. The funny thing is that this game at the time defied all other conventions of fighting videogames. That meant almost every character had the same basic moves (aside from special/command moves), block was done by holding a button, fireballs didn't cancel each other out (instead the first one to hit an opponent won out while the other one would just disappear as oppsed the usual fireballs nullifiying each other when they hit each other.) and regular attacks caused block damage. The thing is, this was a bad way to do the entire button blocking thing since the entire notion of blocking was based on our inherent instinct of defense, go back. Defending yourself meant going back getting away from attacks and pulling "back" on the joystick should have been easy enough. The awkwardness of pressing an actual "button" as a means of defense seemed just fucked up.

Of course when SC game came out, it was a game that's basis was in a 3D realm fighting games which had a "Guard" button which makes you "Block" with your weapon. This seemed more natural since it was the idea of a 3D game, and more realistic, the idea of having to push a button to block seemed more logical. It could have been the weapons based combat or it could have been the idea that there were other means of defense (running away in a 3D arena, side stepping in and out)

I fucking nullify any rock that fucks with me.....don't fuck with me granite!

Stephen's Paranoid Advice for the day
Do not eat out right now since the SARs is going around. who knows where your food had been imported from and what major city personell has handled the food.

Since my friends lack the certain knowledge of being able to actually befeat me at fighting games, I think I should go about ushering them into the basic concepts and techniques of fighting games.

Basically there are a lot of different fighters. The most common one would be just a fighting game where two opponent battle it out for the best two of three rounds. Of course the amount of rounds could differ depending on the amount set up the arcade operator.

A new trend in games is the tag-in feature. Anywhere from four to 6 players are chosen (2-3 each per player). A button or combination of buttons causes the designated character to pop out, while letting the tagged out player to rest and regain energy.

Movement

Why I decided to focus on "movement" first is due to how important it is. I mean to hit someone you have to be within range to hit them. Usually movements have consist of primarily 3 things; walking back and forth, jumping (backwards, forwards and straight up) and ducking. Some more advanced tactics would be the inclusion of dashing, and running (both usually performed by tapping forwards [or backwards] quickly twice.) and short/hops or long jumps. But that's later. First I would like to emphasize blocking.

Blocking

Blocking has always been a natural convention of merely holding back or diagonally back. What always happens with new people (aka newbies) and never fails to amuse me to tears is how easily I can defeat them by the way of just sweeping their sorry asses to a KO mainly because they don't know how to block low. To understand this it's very simple.

Regular blocking is holding back/away which means it will block high/jumping and standing/mid-level attacks.

That means almost any attack that comes your way with your opponent firmly in their up-right (non-slouching position) or flying through the air, will be stopped by you merely holding back.

BUT this doesn't mean pure invincibility, otherwise you just get off the first hit and block all day long holding just back. Going with common sense, there is lo and behold a low block. This meaning that:

Low blocking is diagonally back which means it will block standing/mid-level attacks and low sweeping attacks.

I put high emphasis on how powerful this technique is because usually, especially in early fighting games, blocking low was fairly important. The idea behind that is that it's much more of a risk to do a jumping attack that leaves you very vulnerable regardless of whether you do anything or not; than to just merely stay on the ground whether you do anything or not. Not many moves in general of the fighting game world is a specfically low attack since because there are just so few.

Not many people catch onto this, even when I give them a chance and all I do is low sweep them to death. Usually the best position to have when not moving back and forth and your opponent isn't sky bound is to just be in crouching block (by holding diagonally back). When your opponent is moving, it might be better to hold onto just standing block (back). Of course this talk of being in the defensive mode especially when in DB leads me to:

Offensive and defensive crouch

What other people fail to recognize is that sometimes characters don't just have moves of a standing nature, jumping nature or crouching nature. An emphasis on offesive attacks and defensive attacks are also divided into each type of nature. That's why a lot of people miss good opputunities when they just press the attack button and decide not to test the waters with different standard joystick directional holds and attacks.

I emphasize offensive and defensive crouch for the main fact that it could help me with two items with one article: The emphasis on different attacks with different standard joystick movements and awareness of defenseive crouch and offensive crouch (from herein be referred to defensive crouch = [DB] offensive crouch = [DF] or crouch = [D]).

The thing is people usually associate the Cr. with two things. Ducking and low blocking. The thing is, although DB and D does do both of these things, it shouldn't be just reffered as such since it does open a lot of offensive capabilites. Especially in Capcom VS. SNK 1 (CvS1) where doing a offensive crouch plus one of the heavy attacks causes a medium attack to come out. However to outline the general standards of these capabilites.

Defensive crouch (DB) or crouch (D) usually results in standard low attacks, aka kicks, attacks, sweeps.

The only exception I could think off the top of my head is Dhalsim of Street Fighter (SF) fame. In the Street Fighter Alpha (SFA) series, Dhalsim gained almost a extra set of low attacks (and standing ones if holding B) when someone holds back in the crouching position. The thing is, Dhalsim usual bunch of crouching kick attacks result in him "sliding" to kick the opponent. This can be both in DF (offensive crouch) or just D

Usually an attack would force someone back when blocked, but this provided somewhat a bad positioning strategy since if you just wanted put distance bwteen you and your opponent. You crouch kick them, they block, you slide into them still end up in the same place, only a few feet more to the left or right. The opponent is still in your face and you actually might have left yourself vulnerable with recovery time from the slide. With Dhalsim you can see the problem.

However when in DB (defensive crouch). Things change. Dhalsim gotten the basic crouch non--sliding kicks of all his counterparts and results in functioning just as good as the rest of his comrades in arms. This means no more slding and even the potential of a new set of moves with different priorities.

Offensive crouch (down forward) usually results in attacks that are a variation of sweeps (or something entirely different) that results in advancing low attacks.

This is really important since usually a lot of people over-look this avenue of attack. The thing is in the old days there would be one crouch attack for all three positions of crouch (back, down and forward). Defensive crouch was used often because of the fact that you could both attack and block, and crouch was used often because it was just fast to tap and hold down. But offensive was hardly used because it posed a threat to you since it too the same amount of time and effort of defensive crouch, but not the same reward of being in block as well.

To really emphasize this point home, regard Capcom VS. SNK 1/Pro (CvS1/Pro). Since Capcom had made this game and decided to adapt SNK's usual four button system (Capcom has a six button system) the medium attacks were lost (Med. P and Med. K). To compensate, they instead used the not often used offesive crouch to brng out the "medium crouching attacks". Now regular combos that required the medium attacks were left intact for most of the Capcom characters. Although this mean a bit more to learn, people got accustomed to it.

However for a more pratical sense, I would have to regard Kyo Kusanagi of The King of Fighters (KOF) fame and Zangeif of SF.

Both their heavy DF (offensive) kicks result in them going further and advancing than their regular DB defensive/just Cr. attacks. This helps out since it increases the range of their effectiveness. Kyo's attack doesn't result in a knockdown, but instead a two hit attack which can be linked into other combos. Zangief's attach reaches out, but the trade off is usually it takes him longer to kick out that his regular kick. Usually the trade off for range is either in speed, power, recovery or priority (meaning which attack would beat out the other attack if they both struck each other at the same time).

The Var on Iraq

The war on TV.
Like thunder in the distance.
Never to hit us.

-Stephen Louie

Stephen's poem of the day

A peacock feather
On a plum-tree limb
You catch me,
And
I'll
catch
him
-Chinese Mother Goose

Stephen's Advice for the day

There's no real use of hating yourself. Especially when there is a few hundred million people who are potentially going to hate you. It's a waste of time.

Stephen's Advice for the day

Failed relationships are like failed experiments. In order for the next one to have a decent chance to succeed, don't bring in the "failure" of the previous experiment for the new one. It's better to learn from your mistakes and not bring them along.

Obviously a big change. I did it on MSN and I like the sound of it. Plus it seems more agressive than my old passive one of The little picture of pain. LOLLY.

Stephen's advice for the day

Go watch "Old School" right now in theatres. Oh yes, apparently you should order industrial sized K-Y jelly 4-5 days in advance of your planned event. Happy hunting campers!

Review of Old School

SPOILERS

This is one of the few movies that I will step outside my usual scope of standards for movies. It's just that usually, a movie comes along that has only one good thing and one good thing only. Of course Old School has definately more moments than said movies. Why I also decide to rate it differently is the sole fact that it is a comedy and for the longest time, comedy anything have failed to make me double over in laughter.

Well I would have to say that Old School is by far the best competitor of the coveted title "Animal House" of our generation since it does focus on one thing that makes Old School great....lack of focus. I've notice that nowadays there's been a lot of movies who decided to think, "Hey let's try to bank on appeasing all categories of movies." The result are movies that become so involved in every aspect of human emotion or typical movie making (from action, drama, oscar material monologues, etc.) it really begins to take away from everything other aspect.

Generally, I'm that type of person who would want that kinda shit, usually on a high level.

Old School taught me otherwise, how to actually enjoy a movie for the sole purpose of what it's supposed to do, laughter in and out. However I managed to toss out my conventions because it is a comedy that succeeds.

The thing is, when I was watching the movie, I was really over-analyzing it. I wondered what the hell Benard (Vince Vaughn) was doing with the guys all the time, and even considered the fact that he was there to fullfill his homosexual desires. The other thing was he was there just to peddle his wares. However interestingly enough, from me just letting go and accepting that he was there as a stock character, gave me the insight that he was just a power-freak, but going through all the spectrum of a power-freak. The same with Frank (Will Ferral) I over analyzed, expecting what kinda shit is going to happen with his relationship. Not to mention the tension of expecting Nicole (Ellen Pompeo) to at least catch dirtbag Mark (Craig Kilborn) red handed but fuck, even that was done off-screen. This was a movie of stock characters where the only thing that is developed is the comedy, as it probably should be.

This disregard for regular conventions of fullfilling the viewers with blatent scenes actually turned out to be good considering that the result was more time for comedy comedy and more comedy. The van scene was masterfully done, with it's choreography almost making the van alive, a comedian upon itself. I nearly vomited my pop-corn and pop up from my stomach I laughed so damn hard. I almost needed to leave the theatre because it caused me so pain. The tranquilzer dart scene was faboulous, just fucking with your mind.

But once again my high and mighty reviewing expectations came up since those were the only two parts where I laughed my ass off. But for such an occassion for such a (for me) rare type of emotion/action, I must rate this movie very high.

(4.5)/(5) stars

Stephen's advice for the day

When cooking roastbeef, it is good to let it out early because the cooking process still continues afterwards (wow kinda like hair growing after your dead!), for about 5-7 minutes. So a perfectly medium rare roast, might turn out to be a well done roast by the time you serve it. Also it's good to let it stand because since it's still hot, you need time for the juices to settle down. If you cut into it right away (same for steak) it just leaks out all that good juice.

SuperPro.Stick Arcade Controller fucking owns you!

This version includes PS One, PS2 & XBOX support and comes standard with your choice of either the Ultimate (Soft or Hard Spring) or Competition Joystick (Medium Spring). The Optional Perfect 360 can also be used (additional cost is required), an all Optical device using only Infrared Emitting Diodes, instead of mechanical micro-switches to detect the Joystick movements. In addition, you have the choice of either the standard concave Ultimate or convex Competition Push Buttons (Japanese style) at no extra charge (Push Button colors available: White, Black, Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and Purple

war

I came home to war tonight after a strategic management class.

I really had high hopes that Bush wouldn't be fucktarded and at least postpone the in-evitable order to war until a few days later.

I feel more connected to this war than the Gulf War a few years back. It's just that this time, I was here to unfold and actually realize what was happening. In some ways I've been beginning to believe that this war was needed, but mostly holding onto the idea of peace. As always the praticality of what America has to do for the greater good outweighs what lofty ideals we hold dear to our hearts. I don't know really what to say about war this time, since when I was a child, the Gulf War was so clear cut. We vs. them, black and white etc. This once again just proves a life-lesson that POVs are mostly grey areas in life. I would like to hold peace as my platform, but alas I do not have the passion of those who are willing to do so.

I just hope that this war is quick with minimal bloodshed and not World War 3.

Stephen's advice for the day

Buy a poetry book and place it in your bathroom (preferably a complilation). Read poem everytime you take a deuce. By the end of the month you'll have read 60 poems; hopefully memorized. Constapation and diarrhea? You'll learn 120 poems by then!

Stephen's advice for the day

Itchy asshole? Use handcream on it. Soothes it right down. It's fucking skin too man.

I've decided to put off my porn editorial for a more serious and selfish topic...me.

It's been a while what with running out of shit to say but one of the most things that really scares the fuck out of me is sometimes this feeling of dis-connection from my life.

Note this doesn't meant that I'm disconnnected from reality, I'm happy that I'm very grounded in reality, at least mine. But the fact is for the past 4 years of my life I been having this feeling that I ain't myself.

It's like I'm a seperated or even cut off from the rest of my life. I know that I have a past but I don't really feel it's really connected. I know that I have a family but I almost could think of them as adults I know, not flesh and blood I love. It's like I'm a thing, just existing for the sake fo existing.

This doesn't exactly put great fear into my heart, becasue the only fear that I have actually going so far as to lose myself into that feeling forever. In other words I feel devoid of any connection to anyone I know. I think this might be the feeling that psychopaths have when they kill someone or nymphomaniacs have when they just start fucking people behind their lover's back.

Oh yeah I like pie

Hero: The Book

I watched off and on some of the epic Chinese film Hero today. Mainly because since it is in mandarin, I would like to have my dad watch the entire movie with Chinese sub-titles first before watching for my selfish self in english sub-titles.

Well to really start out with, I didn't have any expectations of this movie, I haven't even seen the trailer. I knew that it was epic size proportions, and it starred Jet-Li, Donnie Yen and Ziang Ziyi, a five course meal of China's finest actors and actresses in martial art films. I also had the wonderful criticism of many people on the net saying that it wasn't too good. However what was said in defense of the movie is what had un-conciously set my disposition of what I think of this movie:

This movie is not geared towards Western audiences, but more towards Chinese audiences.

To tell the truth, it was only after I saw a bit of the movie that I understood the meaning of that defense and it rings very true. The fact is, it isn't geared towards Western audiences. If Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was the new age rock and roll example of a great martial art film, then Hero is the old school rock and roll example of a great.......ok bad metaphors.

The fact of the matter is, I am tempted to say that this movie is art, and even rivals in tenacity and pretenciousness of most Oscar worthy films but to tell the truth, after hearing said "comment" above it had created a mindset for me that grew into my final comment that summarizes the feeling that this movie envokes:

Hero is the movie that you would see if you were to see a reading of a literary work be made into a film.

No seriously, stop laughing. This would be as close as anyone would be to watching a book reading experience come to life. What do I mean by this? I mean that the actual experience of reading a book is suddenly direct feeded onto the screen from someone's imagination. This isn't a perfect recreation of any literary work but it's definatly no slouch. Basically, Hero is a book first then a movie. This is what Harry Potter: The Chamber of Secrets could have really been but lacked the consideration of a book reading experience.

Whereas Lord of the Rings was a movie first, then a film adaption, Hero is the exact opposite.

But first I have to explain how I came to this conclusion. It really first started out with the whole comment about this movie not being for American audiences. I worked upon that, steeling myself for something very traditionally Chinese. What exactly would that be? The only movie that has sort of the same style of direction would the The Emperor and the Assassin. This film was done very cleanly and very epicly, but I can't really describe anymore since I only saw ten minutes of it.

Well back to what I was saying. I could totally see why it would not appeal to Western audiences. The movie has a lot of straight on shots, much like portraits. That's one thing that really made me think about how Chinese culturally movtivated this film might be since it really emulates the traditional Chinese paintings of the past. Times where people's faces were all clearly shown in the same manner, always able to cleary see the entirety of their face despite their body positon. Also the whole idea of how paintings (as with Japanese paintings as well) had people positioned where they were floating in the air, but it was merely the lack of proper prespective.

The other thing is when the fight scenes appear. To tell the truth, it is magical not in the technical aspect of the fight scenes, (nothing truly eye blistering fast) but more of grace of a dance. That too adds to how this is more of a Chinese film than a film geared towards the Western culture, not because it's slow, but it's so very descriptive of the martial art scene that my grandmother once described. This lead me to my actual final conclusion of this film being a film of the reading experience.

It's the fight scenes.

For me, reading is purely based on imagination. Of course depending on how greatly immersive one's imagination is. The thing is, I would imagine mine is just like any others, I can't really see what it is I'm imagining, but it's more of this haze that blocks my mind. It's hard to describe, but the best way I can describe it is that for me, without sight, my imaginary objects seems very half-complete. As of now I can't really produce what I imagine in any form of medium, especially that of film, because those seem to be totally seperate entities, almost never to become together. Whereas film produces something into reality with logical sense, imagination is the un-reality with illogical sense.

Hero brings both of these worlds together. How? Ok like the first fight scene, it's slow, it's precise and there are a lot of single shots of single actions. Even at the same time there is music that fits the movie, but not the mood or even the scene. The fact of the matter is it is exactly what your imagination would do when you read a book.

You can understand this because that is how reading a book is. Delayed reactions towards actions that you are just reading about, much like how your mind pieces each and every scene without the small details of what else is going on, but just the details that count. It's like how your mind would jump back and forth without logic but it's own in actions imaiging this is how it would end up, and every word that describe the most minute detail is also shown in the film, not as an addition or support to the already large scene, but as a scene itself to be totally enjoyed and taken in.

The music is very Chinese operatic, but like most books (save Scud the Disposable Assassin) there are no soundtracks included. If they were, they would obviously not coincide editingly precise. But it is neat to a degree that it would be something that a different person than you would listen to. It's like the music you let become ambient sound in the background as you read which once again fits the film, but not necessarily the scene or the mood.

Hero is a book first and movie second. Remember that and you shall enjoy this film to tears.