The Block Button...[]

There is feature which has divided fighting games since the days of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat and which continues to divide them today. Seen in both 2D and 3D fighters, it is either hated or loved (or just accepted, but rigid dichotomies are so much more interesting!). It is the block button.

While offense is the only way to win in a fighting game, defense can never be ignored; it is central to any fighter's strategy. In many fighting games, defending against attacks is accomplished by holding the joystick/directional button away from the attacker, a tradition that goes all the way back to the original Street Fighter, if not earlier. However, games such as Mortal Kombat, Virtua Fighter, and Soul Calibur use a separate button for blocking and defense-related techniques (such as Soul Calibur's parrying system, mastery of which separates the experienced from the rookies). Yet why have a separate button, when it seems so natural to use the joystick for defense?

One reason might be for mobility reasons. Soul Calibur uses an 8-way movement system with the joystick/directional buttons, making deft sidesteps easy to perform. Crouching must be done by holding down while pressing the Guard button, and similarly for jumping. But why? The Tekken series, for instance, seems to have no trouble combining a hold-back-to-block system with sidestepping (although in only four directions), and Virtua Fighter has both a block button and crouch-by-hold-down. There must be other reasons.

Parrying also comes to mind. In Soul Calibur, one can block a series of attacks and parry midway through the opponent's barrage to take the upper hand. Yet games such as Street Fighter III: Third Strike have parrying as well, using well-timed directional inputs (toward the attacker as opposed to away), and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has the Advancing Guard maneuver, which involves pressing two attack buttons while blocking to push the opponent away and avoid being trapped by a barrage of attacks.

When you get right down to it, what sense does it make to tie up a button when a directional input could do the same thing? Is it just to make the game system stand out among others? Certainly, Mortal Kombat had to do something to pull arcade-goers (an endangered species these days) away from Street Fighter. It can be something of a trip-up to go from playing a game like Tekken to one like Soul Calibur (especially when you're the one guy who plays the same character in both series), which has the potential to turn away players who might otherwise have gotten into the game.

Arguments can be made for either side; I personally like being able to press a button and know that I'm now entering a blocking state (except when I forget to block low), although force of habit often finds me holding back at the same time anyway. If nothing else, it makes for a more diverse cast of fighting game systems. If they were all the same, after all, playing one would be enough. What a horrible world that would be...

Peace,
JT

Saturday Morning Gaming...[]

Had the urge to play Super Street Fighter IV again this morning. I always feel bad about abandoning a game, so I like to revisit old favourites every so often. Still a lot of fun to play.

Also, the Dreamcast arcade stick I won on eBay arrived yesterday, so I played some Project Justice this morning as well. Wish they'd make a third game in that series. Still hoping... 

Peace,
JT

Thursdays, Tekken, and Coincidental Languages...[]

Well, I've just finished One of Our Thursdays Is Missing. I can say confidently that fans of the series will be thoroughly pleased all the way through, except possibly at the end, for two reasons: (1) it means that the book is over and a new waiting cycle has begun, and (2) there is a slight feeling of being rushed, although given some of the plot concepts it does sort of work in the book's favour. Don't want to spoil anything, so I'll leave it at that. Series highly recommended, but best to start at the beginning with The Eyre Affair, and to beware of misleading titles (Thursday Next: First Among Sequels is not the second book, but the fifth).

So more on fighting games. I was speaking with a friend of mine who prefers 3D games and — to put it mildly — disprefers 2D games. Again, he makes some compelling arguments, and his personal preference is his own, but one of his points did strike me as interesting. I noted that while there are still more traditional 2D fighters with hand-drawn sprites being made, and as I mentioned in a recent post, Street Fighter 4 revitalized the subgenre of 2D fighting games with 3D models. His retort was that the same thing could be found in Tekken 2 and earlier (Tekken 3 was the iteration of the series that introduced the sidestep, and more realistic jumping height).

That's a good point. While Tekken 3 (1997)was not the first 3D fighter with a sidestep — Battle Arena Toshinden (1994), Soul Edge, Virtua Fighter 3, and even Tobal No. 1 (all 1996) preceded it — there was still a considerable span where the typical "3D" fighter still only allowed 2D movement. This, I think, makes one wonder what the definition of "3D" vs. "2D" is. It's not a trivial question; one can simply redefine "3D" as any game with the ability to sidestep or side-walk, but then you can no longer point to Virtua Fighter as the first 3D fighting game. Do we really want that honor to go to Battle Arena Toshinden? </sarcasm> The other option is to keep the definition the way it is, but then do we have to redefine the likes of Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 3?

I'm just going to leave it as a puzzle for now, as I'm still sorting it out in my own head.



Anyway, I put "Coincidental Languages" up there in the title because I had an interesting idea creep into my mind during lunch. The best place to start would be a confession: I'm a conlanger. I like creating languages, and I make no apologies for it. My second major in college was Linguistics, largely for that reason (but also because linguistics is fascinating). Several of my favourite linguistics classes (primarily 76-457 Historical Linguistics, taught by Dr. Paul Hopper) focused on the development of languages over time, which has always struck me as the most intriguing part of the study of linguistics. I like to get into the workings of things and see how they fit together, how they came about ("How It's Made" marathons make me lose whole days).

So anyway, back to "Coincidental Languages." I had the vague notion of creating two parallel language family trees, completely unrelated to each other, that nonetheless produced two great-great-granddaughter languages who would be close enough in morphology and syntax to be mutually intelligible. Yes, inspired by a Simpsons episode (which oddly enough, I've only read about and never seen...but that's another story), but still...would like to try or see done sometime in the near future.

So, in other news, I have a black belt recertification test tomorrow at 4:00pm. Not too pleased that they moved it from the typical morning time to the afternoon/evening, but I'll survive.

Peace,
JT

2D vs 3D...[]

So I'm the type of fighting gamer who splits the 2D-3D divide. I'll play Street Fighter or King of Fighters as soon as Tekken or Soul Calibur. There are those who only play one or the other, and I respect their opinions. However, I find enough depth in either style to satisfy me (pun severely intended).

My friends who play solely 3D fighters are of the viewpoint that the extra dimension allows for a more in-depth, realistic experience. To a point, this is true; most people can't jump twice their body height, and linear footwork almost never happens in a real fight. However, anyone who's played Soul Calibur, for instance, knows that there can't really be any claim to realism, as characters who are hit by swords, axes, etc. don't even bleed, much less lose limbs. Even Tekken has its glaring moments of hypo-realism, as gameplay often revolves around juggling the opponent's body in mid-air, which can be accomplished with something as simple as a jab.

Come to think of it, that brings up another weakness of the 3D genre, which isn't so much a genre weakness but a market weakness. While the 2D fighting scene has several Capcom series (including the Vs. series with Marvel, SNK, and Tatsunoko), at least one currently-running SNK series (King of Fighters XIII will hopefully make it to console soon), and now even several Arcsys series running (Guilty Gear, BlazBlue), along with any number of other companies entering into the fray (I don't care what anyone says, Battle Fantasia was fun), the 3D fighting scene, at least here in the States, is Tekken, Soul Calibur, Virtua Fighter, and Dead or Alive. Half of that is from a single company, and the other two have only made lackluster appearances of late (DoA's Xbox exclusivity is a real drag, since the Xbox controller is just not made for fighting games, and Virtua Fighter 5 made the "bold" move of going to the then-new generation of consoles without an online multiplayer mode). Even Mortal Kombat has jumped the 3D ship and is returning to its 2D roots. Street Fighter 4's popularity has opened the door for 2D fighters with 3D character models to return (Street Fighter EX3 tried, but couldn't quite make it, and King of Fighters Maximum Impact/2006 didn't go far either) with a vengeance. So really, there's just a dearth of variety, compared to the 2D scene.

I also counter the argument that 2D fighters are lacking a dimension compared to 3D fighters, since they do have a "third" dimension which isn't used much by 3D fighters: height. In 3D fighters, characters move forward, backward, and to the side. In 2D fighters, characters move forward, backward...and upward. Jumping is vastly more important in 2D fighters than in 3D fighters, whose characters hardly ever jump more than a few feet from the ground (again, realism).

I guess my overall point is that I'm a fighting game fan, pure and simple. If it's a quality fighter, 2D or 3D, I'll play it.

Peace,
JT