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The new SF 30th lobbies are the best bit of the collection’s update

30th June 2018 By Qazimod Leave a Comment

It’s fair to say that the SF 30th lobbies turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments when I first tried Capcom’s most recent collection of fightjng games. You can talk about how the product is just a lazy collection of roms with a few token extras, how the museum could have had more content, how the display filters seem limited, and so on… but online play has the potential to inject new life into those old classics. That potential, however, was not shown in the initial release – attempting to set up SF 30th lobbies on launch day only resulted in a bizarre situation where the game would never register your opponent readying up at the lobby – and when your opponent had the same issue on their end, it led to some amusing exchanges. Happily, a patch was released this week that addressed the SF 30th lobbies (as well as fixing sound issues in the SFIII games, adding a connection-based matchmaking filter and banning Akuma from ranked Super Turbo games), and I was able to play a few games of Street Fighter II recently.

(Note: as I was joining a friend’s lobby I didn’t check to see if the previous issues with filtering by game were resolved, but the next day I tested some filtered searches myself and they still seem as bizarre as before, with search results ignoring the deselections you make – once again, if you only tick Super Turbo in the filter, you’ll see lobbies that only host Super Turbo, lobbies that host ST and Hyper Fighting, lobbies with all four games available, etc. So this is still a curious oversight.)

SF 30th lobbies – the stutter

Embarrassingly, the biggest issue I faced during my matches was probably a result of my own connection – I noticed a few momentary split-second pauses in a few matches as the netcode and my own connection tried their best to keep up with the action. These micro-pauses weren’t really an issue with a game as slow as Street Fighter II, but I think they may have had a worse impact if we were playing Street Fighter Alpha 3 or Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Like I said, I’m willing to take part of the blame here as I don’t know how much other network activity might have been going on at the time, but in casual friendly games where I don’t care about frame-perfect actions I think that these momentary stutters can be overlooked a little.

SF 30th lobbies – the spectators

When not in the middle of a match, waiting players can pass time in one of two ways. If they hit the Spectate button before the next match is underway, they can spectate the next match in the way we’ve become used to in SFIV, SFV and SFIII 3rd Strike Online Edition. If they don’t push the button, the lobby’s player list updates to show not only the active combatants, but also a crude graphical representation of their lifebars, a basic indication of round wins and the characters selected by the players. It’s a cute way to keep the spectating player engaged in the lobby activity even if they missed the button prompt, but it probably would have been better to assume players would want to spectate, and instead offer a button press if players want those basic lifebar and round win indicators. (As an aside, I didn’t look into voice chat that much, but I would assume it’s perfectly fine to use something like PSN’s Party feature – making sure that you have a headset that slots into your fighting game controller or a USB port, of course!)

SF 30th lobbies – getting there

Like a lot of aspects of the collection, online play doesn’t feel revelatory but at the same time you can still play it without wishing you were in the middle of another Fighter with seemingly solid netcode. Online play in this game is neither flawless nor a disaster, but it is “good enough” and perhaps makes up for the lack of substance elsewhere in the collection. I still have to give the other online-enabled games more lobby time, but if you’re keen on killing a few hours with online friends, SF 30th lobbies might tick that box for you.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is available now for PS4, Switch, Xbox One and PC.

Samurai, gods, big rosters – notes from my E3 2018

13th June 2018 By Qazimod Leave a Comment

Stepping out into the mid-June sunshine, away from the hype and noise that follows any series of E3 press conferences, I couldn’t deny that some of that hype may be rubbing off on me. Before we even get to my E3 2018, let’s remember that we’re already in the middle of what people are claiming to be a new golden era of gaming – one where modern classics are being released with uncommon frequency. Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Nier: Automata, Persona 5, Cuphead, Sonic Mania, Celeste – the list just keeps going, and it looks like the list will grow even more if my E3 2018 was anything to go by. Rather than one platform holder emerging as a clear winner or loser (and let’s not pretend that there haven’t been clear winners and losers in the past), my E3 2018 had Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo revealing exciting and interesting new games.

Microsoft favourites from my E3 2018

The biggest reveal of Microsoft’s show was undoubtedly Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. A new IP from revered developer From Software, it promises polished third-person action with a samurai flavour. The trailer was only about two or three minutes long but showed the mechanical arm first seen in the “Shadows Die Twice” trailer, and its owner – a character who can go toe-to-toe with swordsmen, use said arm in a grappling-hook fashion to ascend to higher positions or cross chasms, and supposedly rise to his feet after being “killed”, which seems appropriate given the subtitle. Elsewhere, it was revealed that the once PS4 and PC exclusive Nier Automata would receive an Xbox port with the release of Nier Automata: Become as Gods Edition (perhaps to make up for Scalebound’s demise), so hopefully more people can enjoy the weird and wonderful combination of slick Platinum gameplay and distinct Nier quirkiness. Also of note was the first true reveal of Cyberpunk 2077 and news that Devil May Cry would be getting a new numbered sequel, but the lack of substantial gameplay footage for either game suggests that these are very early announcements.

Sony familiarity in my E3 2018

By comparison, many people criticised the lack of new reveals in Sony’s conference; there were many games we already knew about from previous shows (such as Spider-Man, The Last of Us Part 2 and Death Stranding), and with the remake of Final Fantasy VII still early in development, there was little hope of seeing anything new from that game. Despite this, we did get confirmation of an exciting new PSVR title with From Software’s Deracine, reaffirmation that Mizuguchi’s The Tetris Effect still looks superb, and more gorgeous footage of Sucker Punch‘s Ghost of Tsushima. (As an aside, it seems that samurai games were the general theme of this year’s E3, with Tsushima, Sekiro and a trailer of Nioh 2 all making appearances somewhere amongst the conferences.) Another notable surprise was Remedy’s Control, a game that seems to combine shifting geometry with conventional gunplay and creative mind control mechanics. It was a fun looking title, even if it did make me wish for a sequel to Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy…

Nintendo’s contribution to my E3 2018

As is to be expected these days, Nintendo combined the bizarre with the exciting, from making me question the need for a Pokéball peripheral used in conjuction with Pokémon Go (which will transfer Pokémon data from the mobile game to a new console game) when you already have wireless communication technology in your primary gaming devices… to the surprise reveal of Daemon X Machina, an exciting action game from Marvelous Entertainment that boasts bright and colourful visuals and shows off the kind of gameplay that brings to mind games such as Omega Boost and Transformers Devastation. Elsewhere in the show, the unveiling of a new Mario Party was hardly a massive surprise – at the same time, the immediacy and social nature of the series is an obvious fit for the Switch hardware – and the new Super Smash Bros seemed hell-bent on including every character from previous games in its roster, to the delight of series fans. It was also revealed that these characters will all be tweaked slightly, hopefully resulting in a balanced game and some exciting re-learning of old favourites.

The highlight of my E3 2018

All of the three main shows succeeded in giving fans something to look forward to, but the reveal that interested me the most was Babylon’s Fall. This was one of the new announcements from a very short Square Enix showcase scheduled separately from the three main conferences – a new IP being developed by Platinum Games, Babylon’s Fall only revealed a glimpse of CG at the end of its trailer, but was introduced with text-heavy stills that promised a tale of clashing ideologies, of gods striking down against mankind, and of huge armoured characters and electric (or perhaps arcane) powers. It was perhaps the only trailer I went through frame by frame as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing, and it’s definitely something I intend to keep an eye on between now and its 2019 release.

Obviously, I saw some criticism levelled at the three main conferences as people collected their own thoughts on discussion boards and in social media – people claimed that Sony’s show repeated the same announcements as last year and didn’t have enough new reveals, or that Nintendo’s show needed to give fans more details about known games in development (precious little was seen of Metroid Prime 4, Yoshi, or Starfox Grand Prix)… Microsoft’s show was perhaps the most refreshing, but I noticed people claiming that their conference pushed 4K and the Xbox One X a little too much for owners of older Xbox models. Despite all of this, I’m remaining optimistic about the future of all three platform holders – there’s something for everyone to look forward to in the near future, and the absence of any big new hardware reveals (certain optimistic individuals expected the unveiling of a PlayStation 5 before the show commenced) suggests that the current generation still has some life left in it for the time being. As ever, let us know if there were any reveals that stood out for you in the comments below.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection review

30th May 2018 By Qazimod Leave a Comment

Never underestimate the strength of “convenience” as a selling point. A new compilation of games from your favourite series has been released – that’s great! Oh, but what about when you move on to the new generation of hardware, or when more games from the series have been released? You’d better make sure that you pick up the next compilation as well. And so it goes on. I’m bringing this up because when I saw the amount of games listed as part of the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, I felt relieved that I didn’t have to dust off my Xbox 360 to play 3rd Strike or the SFII series – similarly, I thought it would be nice not to be left digging out the PS2 every time I wanted to play the SF Alpha games on the Anthology. And sure, there’s nothing on this collection that you couldn’t emulate on PC, but even that would involve BIOS hunting, controller configuration, hooking the PC up to the TV and more bits and pieces that feel… well, inconvenient. Let’s take a closer look at those listed games – the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection has the original Street Fighter (itself something that I haven’t seen since maybe the Capcom Classics compilations on PSP), all major SFII games (with the exception of the Switch-exclusive Ultra SFII), all three SF Alpha games and all three SFIII games. It’s the most generous and convenient collection of Street Fighter games I’ve seen in a while, and you can play it on the same system you use for SFIV and SFV matches. Well, if you own a PS4 or PC.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection – curious lobbies

Unfortunately, some people may be disappointed if the best thing to say about the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is “well, all of the games are there”. Training modes are stuck in the past as you practice against a dummy – there are no trial modes or combo examples that help you learn. Online lobbies are a welcome feature, but searching is unusual – first, you toggle the games you wish to find lobbies for, and then it shows results based on those toggles. You’d think this would be useful if you’re never going to play Alpha 3, but instead the results ignore the games you’ve deselected. If you just want to play 3rd Strike, you’ll see results for purely 3S lobbies, but also lobbies for combinations of games that include 3S. I’m not too bothered because most of my online play will probably come from invites to private lobbies from friends, but it’s still peculiar.

There’s also a Museum segment with a series timeline and zoomable art, character details (including bio details and a neat sprite viewer), a “Making of SF” segment and – my favourite inclusion – a Music menu with playlists from all twelve games. There are even shuffle and repeat modes for when I want to listen to Jazzy NYC all day. The repeat function won’t go as far as making clean loops from the songs, but it’s a fun distraction.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection – memory lane

As for the games themselves? They mostly play how you remember – SF1 is still a nightmare to control, Alpha is all about daft custom combos and neglected ISMs, and 3rd Strike isn’t the labour of love that Iron Galaxy released last gen, but it’s still lots of fun. The online play seems smooth enough – I’ve had hardly any issues jumping around with my SFII Honda, getting guard crushed in Alpha or dashing through opponents with my Ibuki in 3S. After a win or loss there’s the option to rematch, but again, there aren’t the bells and whistles seen in 3rd Strike Online Edition such as visible ping or disconnect rates. Of greater concern is the weird nature of joining friends’ games – right now people are running into situations where both players will try to ready up for a match, but they can only toggle what looks like the ready status of the opponent, and even if both players try this it still looks like only one player is ready. Cue a lot of “why haven’t you hit the button” confusion until both players realise that the game can’t communicate the ready status correctly. Hopefully this gets fixed soon.

For the time being – especially in terms of local play, where a lot of my time will disappear – I’m satisfied with the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection. Again – it’s hard to think of another Street Fighter collection that’s this generous in terms of games offered, and whilst more could have been done in terms of training/challenges, better lobby filters, more display options (there are screen size and filter toggles but they seem more like a token gesture) or even dipswitches (something I appreciated in 3S: Online Edition)… if you just want to play the games without swapping consoles or configuring emulators, it might be worth a look.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is available now for PS4, Switch, Xbox One and PC. The official website can be found here.

Capcom announces a new SFAC for consoles and Steam

10th December 2017 By Qazimod Leave a Comment

Just as I was about to tune out for the night, I recently heard news on Twitter that there would be a brand new Street Fighter Anniversary Collection on the way. This new SFAC seems like one of the most well-rounded packages yet, although of course as the news has only just emerged we may need to wait and find out what kind of other details will be made available. The announcement of the new SFAC comes more than a decade after the release of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for the original Xbox – a collection which contained Hyper Street Fighter II, Street FIghter III: 3rd Strike, online play and the (censored) Street Fighter II animated movie.

A new SFAC – lots of games

This new SFAC sounds almost too good to be true – the trailer posted by the official Street Fighter Twitter account reveals that the new SFAC will feature twelve games. These are: Street Fighter, Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II CE, Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II, Super SF2 Turbo, Street Fighter Alphas 1 to 3, and the three Street Fighter III games. Also, there will be various galleries with art and music… however, most notably, there will be online play for a select few titles, with Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and SFIII: Third Strike supporting ranked and casual play, lobbies and leaderboards.

A new SFAC – will it meet expectations?

It all sounds remarkably generous – I would have been happy enough with a current-gen port of Street Fighter III: Third Strike – Online Edition, but this is so much more. I have to wonder if the netcode used will be good enough, and if the price is right. That said, for the amount of content promised in the package I’d expect them to charge accordingly. In the meantime, I may have to reconsider shelving Street Fighter; I expected one of the many other new fighters in 2018 to vie for my attention, but the new SFAC could keep fighting fans occupied for weeks if not months.

The Street Fighter Anniversary Collection will be released on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Steam in May 2018.

My highlights from the E3 2017 conferences

14th June 2017 By Qazimod Leave a Comment

As I write this, the last of the E3 2017 conferences has come to a close and – if you are to believe more cynical types – games journalists everywhere are scrambling to draft their hot takes, expand their wordcounts and plug whatever rubbish they were talked into endorsing via promises of promotional swag. Naturally the likes of Disposable Media are in a different scenario, since we’re a general entertainment website that features content from people who just talk about the things they like to talk about, but it would be remiss not to give the show some coverage. Despite the extent of my eighth-gen hardware being limited to a PS4, Vita and half-decent PC, I made time for each of the main shows – happily, it was worth it, as pretty much everyone presenting the E3 2017 conferences had games worth talking about.

E3 2017 conferences: new hardware and anime “FighterZ”

Let’s focus on the big three for now; there were other E3 2017 conferences but I’d like to cover their games individually as more news surfaces. Microsoft was the first to show their hand in perhaps the most conveniently timed show for people in the BST zone. As expected, they opened the show with news of the Xbox One X and proceeded to show off incredibly pretty Forza Motorsport 7 footage; it’s an obvious candidate for showcasing the graphical fidelity of new hardware, and the large fanbase will ensure it enjoys success on the system. Amongst the more predictable reveals – a new Assassin’s Creed, the aforementioned Forza segment – was news that the terribly-named PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was coming to Xbox, and no annual conference would be complete without the obligatory Minecraft segment. More promising trailers included Dragonball FighterZ (a 1v1 fighter based on an anime I barely follow, but the presentation and gameplay look superb), a new Life Is Strange game and the gorgeous Anthem, so there was a lot to get excited about. (Of course, a number of the games shown off will be multiformat, so it was worth tuning in to the show even if you don’t own an Xbox One.)

E3 2017 conferences: PSVR support and updated classics

Sony’s was the second of the E3 2017 conferences and, as is tradition, it went live during the small hours for UK gamers. Catching up with the conference revealed a mixture of familiar names (Days Gone, God of War), bizarre trailers (FFXV: Monster of the Deep) and some more daring ventures – a number of PSVR titles were there to reassure people that Sony weren’t about to let the headset follow the Vita into obscurity, and a PSVR update to Skyrim could be a huge hit depending on controller requirements and performance on various PS4 models. Another bold gamble came in the form of a new Monster Hunter – it seemed somewhat more simple and bombastic than the handheld titles, and observers have accused it of being a dumbing-down, but I’m curious to see if the new direction pays off. (On a personal note, I was happy to see a new FFXII: TZA trailer after my recent revisiting of the original, and news that Undertale is coming to PS4 may finally prompt me to try out the game.)

E3 2017 conferences: working titles and series extensions

The last of the E3 2017 conferences I watched was Nintendo’s, and whilst Microsoft was busy showing off a new hardware platform, the Kyoto giant was tasked with building the library of the console it released this March. Happily, they’re never shy of falling back on familiar names, and fans welcomed news of more Mario, more Zelda, and more Metroid. As a fan of the side-scrolling platformers I was particularly fond of the trailers for the currently-unnamed Yoshi and Kirby games (unless they really will be called “Yoshi” and “Kirby” as per the trailer outros.) However, with so much to play on my existing gaming hardware I’m still in no hurry to pick up a Switch.

In short, it’s a good time to be a fan of games. Everyone had plenty of trailers to show (and the ratio of trailers to preamble was most welcome) and I know I have a few more upcoming games on my radar now. As always, if you have any thoughts on the E3 2017 conferences that you’d like to share, leave a comment below.

E3 2016 shows – a brief recap of the Big 3

15th June 2016 By Qazimod Leave a Comment

By the time you read this, the main E3 2016 shows from the big three will be more-or-less over – and for the first time in a few years it seems like each of the hosts of these E3 2016 shows can rightfully feel happy about the quality of the conference (or Treehouse) they held. Since I don’t own every current-gen home console and/or handheld, the Sony conference held my interest more than the other E3 2016 shows… nevertheless, I like to watch all three to get an idea of what’s going on in gaming lately.

E3 2016 shows: Microsoft

Microsoft had a lot of reasons to be happy in their conference – the first of the E3 2016 shows. Whilst rumours may be circulating about the Scorpio machine and other hardware revisions, they had a lot of interesting news about the games that owners of current Xbox hardware will be playing. Even when a lot of the cheers were for further instalments in old franchises such as Gears of War and Forza, those new instalments still looked impressive enough in their own right. (My best failed guess at a teaser also happened during this conference, when I thought that Tekken 7 would be Tekken X Street Fighter just because Akuma was in the footage.) Meanwhile, Hideki Kamiya was in his element in an environment where he could engage with the audience without worrying about them engaging back, but Scalebound still seemed a little sluggish next to Bayonetta 2, Transformers Devastation and other games in Platinum’s back catalogue (not to mention the forthcoming Nier Automata), so it remains to be seen whether this new game meets the expectations of Platinum’s fans.

E3 2016 shows: Sony

Following this, the next of these E3 2016 shows was hosted by Sony, who had the thankless task of trying to follow-up the remarkable conference they held last year, but like Microsoft they showed a strong commitment to showcasing forthcoming games rather than talking about infrastructures, statistics or other media. Alongside franchise extensions and sequels (God of War, Final Fantasy) we saw more of Horizon: Zero Dawn, a new Quantic Dream game and a number of Playstation VR titles, as well as Kojima’s magnificent stage appearance and new footage from The Last Guardian. Some games such as Nier Automata, Gravity Rush 2 and Persona 5 were notably absent from the conference but new trailers for the former two games emerged outside of the conference and a new P5 reveal may have happened outside of the main conference by the time you read this (if it has, expect a seperate news update shortly.)

E3 2016 shows: Nintendo

When browsing the schedules of the E3 2016 shows I was never in a massive hurry to watch Nintendo’s offering – I haven’t owned a Nintendo system since the original DS and I just don’t enjoy Zelda, Metroid, Smash Bros, Kid Icarus, Pilotwings etc – but they had Zelda, and Pokemon…and Zelda again. Even so, I can’t be too hard on Zelda; the series has gone on for so long and shifted in so many different directions that the Zelda franchise is pretty malleable and can more-or-less pretend to be other games – When reading news about the new Zelda – titled “Breath of the Wild” – I saw opinions online ranging from “Zelda Skyrim” to “Zelda Souls”. And if the game can deliver that kind of gameplay it might attract people who find “traditional” Zelda (whatever that is now) unappealing.

E3 2016 shows: exciting for everyone

I watched the main three E3 2016 shows with the intention of writing some brief general impressions here but I’m not about to provide in-depth speculation over any one title just yet. In short, everyone had various reasons to be excited about gaming’s future. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft all showed a lot of great games (and in some cases new technology) in their E3 2016 shows and the presenters were all entertaining and put on a good show. Maybe not everyone was happy with the conferences because their most-wanted game didn’t make an appearance, but there is still a lot to look forward to.