I thought I liked beat'em ups...

[buzz909]

I really like King Of Fighters 2002 for some reason. Most people seem to dislike the Eolith games. Then again I came to the series late, and I just play it casually at the moment. I really like the intro too, when that bald guy comes up from below the letters. The music's cool too.
I haven't played SF3 for a while now. It is a really good game, but for some reason I find the music a bit lame. I've recently got an arcade stick for my DC so it will be a good excuse to break it in

[Shoju]

I think a lot of you don't understand 3d fighters well. If your used to 2d fighters and are looking for what made that fighter work in a 3d one obviously it's gonna seem off. Unless you have a deep understanding of the mechanics of both types how can you say one takes more skill than the other? Obviously there's a lot of variation in the 2 categories though.

Why are people judging 3d fighters by SC4? That's aimed at the casual market and is a far cry from SC1. Tekken has been going downhill since Tekken Tag. Mashing's not gonna get you anywhere against a good SC1 player and would would get you annihilated by a serious Tekken Tag player. Quite a lot of what made those games good however has been lost in the followup games.

VF is the one I play the most nowadays and it is an excellent game. VF5 however is more a forgiving and accessible game than the VF4 games (still good and deep though). Supposedly VF3 (I never understood the system at the time) is the hardest of the VF games to play competitively.

I really appreciate 2d fighters though and want them to continue to be made. When the 3d fighters first came out I gave up the on 2d ones cause I much preferred a more grounded realistic fighter with better animation and lateral movement. I have been getting back into 2d fighters in the last few years though and been enjoying them and yes there are some very tough skillful games there.

As for being motivated to learn a fighting game I think good competition makes all the difference. Id much rather be competitive at a fighter than a FPS like COD4 or Halo 3.

[RuBiQ]

Im 32 now (gosh, a OAP gamer in here i guess)

I loved SF2 and Mortal Kombats on the SNES around that era, even Killer Instint got a hammering as well as the SNK 2D beat em ups but I havent had the heart nor the interest to stick with the newer 3D fighting games, I did play Teken1 and 2 and even Toshinden when PS1 first came out and enjoyed them but now I simply cant be bothered to learn 100s of new moves of PPKP<- to do a move. The old SF2 fighting style is nice and easy to learn and is more fun than memorising so many moves for characters I can even attach myself too.

They all look very similar say for example in SC4, I looked and all the female characters looked very similar and made me wanna turn it off after a short time.

Looking forward to a go on SF4 but thats where it ends for me really...

[Dazzyman]

I understand 3d fighters fine but a lot of em are broken or have serious flaws in em and make em too easy for us 2d fighter nuts. Only ones Ive seen not to do this are from VF4 onwards (VF3 is pretty broken against AI on DC). Ive always been able to kick the crap out of the AI on Namcos like SC & Tekken and DOA is a doddle their just very easy compared to your SF/MOW etc.. on harder levels. One of simpliest ways to break em is to down em stand back and time it for a running jump kick as their getting up will either nail or stagger em everytime against AI and you can keep repeating it as they dont learn, you try that on a 2d fighter and they just block or roll away and smack you. VF4 series and 5 at least learns against this. You can also cheap win on loads of 3d fighters by doing low shin kicks over and over. Alot of em seem to break easily against the CPU with staggers as well and AI is abit crap for counters compared to 2d gaming (VF works ok tho). I dunno why the AI has taken such a step back on VF5 from VF4 evo though we really need a fine tuned AI home port I think.

SC4 yet again has turned into a button masher easy trip em up with same routines of before for me against AI.

Im really looking forward to SF4, even more so with the new vids come out in last week as it looks fantastic, nice and smooth (only thing I dont like is the slightly floaty jump rolls in air) but its still on a 2d plane.

[Shoju]

No 1 on 1 competitive game should be judged solely on it's AI but more far more importantly on how it plays between 2 players offline. That's where the true depth and balance of a game gets tested. You can't exploit the full potential of these games against bad players or AI. What works against a bad AI isn't gonna work against a good player and then you'll have to learn the game properly in order to win. When I mentioned VF3 I meant VF3 competitively between 2 highly skilled players.

But enough about 2d vs 3d what about SNK? Plenty of mentions of SF4 but few of KOF12.

Back when SF2 was big I played an awful lot both in the arcades and and on console and after getting bored of fireball & dragon spam I needed a change and SNK provided that. Fatal Fury was decent but I really liked Fatal Fury 2, even more than SF2 but there were never the same number of players for FF2. SNK fighters never really caught on for some reason despite offering a good alternative.