Malaki-LEGEND.sys

it's one of my favorite combos. Keep in mind I don't really care if people whore out Ken. I just know how to avoid most of his crap at this point. Also, Sakura is great for mixups and crazy fun. First, psych out your opponent by turtling a bit, toss in a fwd mid kick, a few spare charged hadoukens when they get close, then mix up the hell out of 'em with a few well placed combos. I actually use most of the combos from the challenge mode actually. They're pretty effective. jump high punch, crouch mid kick, EX hurricane, sakura otoshi x 3, or mix it up with a focus, mid punch, dragon punch, Haru ichiban.

I'm not advocating that people stop using their favorite characters here, but not EVERYONE can possibly be a Ken player. Case in point, Sakura has always been my favorite SF character since Alpha 2, therefore I use her. She probably sucks compared to other characters, but I haven't noticed since I'm too busy getting better and kicking their asses with her. Guile is cool, but he's been pushed to secondary. I usually use Sakura for my ranked, and just play around with other characters during player matches. Also, I find it strange that people are up in arms about Street Fighter IV not being "casual-friendly." I have a few points. 1. When we say casual, who are we talking about? Are we talking about people who've dabbled in Street Fighter/other fighting game but not too much, people who play other games and not necessarily fighters, or people who are casual gamers/don't have gaming experience period? And 2. Ranked matches in any game are usually gonna be pretty hard and competitive. Learn to deal with it or just stick with player matches with your buddies/random online people. I guess one thing that is a bit irksome(if I had noticed it) is the whole "cherry picking" of ranked matches which I don't even know how to do. Hell, half the time I have to keep refreshing the game list since I can never seem to connect to a game unless I create one. Second, and it's really more anecdotal than anything, but it's funny to see people "respond" to whomever you pick by rapidly switching over to another character. Doesn't really bug me, it's just funny that they think it's really gonna make a difference. As for things I'd like to see improved upon, this whole 2 people only lobby thing has got to go. DOA4 did it perfectly back in '06. A lobby with plenty of people, limited game seats, and the ability to watch other people play. Shit, is it too much to ask for a lobby that can hold 4 people or something? Ok my essay is over.

I feel like I'm the only Sakura player out there...

This is pretty much how it goes. I love wailing on 'em.

Yeah, I'm seeing an intense amount of Ryus and Kens everywhere. A Balrog and a Cammy every so often, and the rare Guile. I'm getting much better the more I spend time with Sakura(yeah, I'm a semi-ansatsu), but what can I say? I love the girl's moves.

Another nifty side effect of all my goofing around is that eventually, my opponents stop using certain moves/combos based on the fact that I counter every time. Great way to ween down their battle strength. For example, focus defend against hadoukens to recover health and close the distance, the aformentioned throws. You'll psych 'em out.

I love destroying these Ryu and Ken whores left and right. Ken goes for that hurricane kick fire dragon punch, I block it all then throw the fucker. Works EVERY time. What's even better is that since I know Guile, I know how to fight him. Same process with his flash kick. I always get a cackle out of ruining their strategy. Also, I wanna play with you all!

What is a man!? A miserable little pile of secrets! I can never resist a good SoTN quote session...

I've been reading around about Battle Fantasia, and I'm pretty interested. A bit more of an accessible fighter from the guys behind Guilty Gear(which if I see a 360 incarnation I WILL buy), that has a cool visual style and looks pretty fun? Yes please. What can you tell me about your time with it?

Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile Guile. Also Sakura and Akuma. I found the perfect way to fuck with Sagat players that rely on their tiger blast for zoning. Spam Akuma's teleport and dragon punch the shit out of the arsehole.

Yes. The exact opposite of what you feel listening to most of The Black Mages III. I think the only track I enjoyed was The Extreme from FFVIII, and that's only because they changed little of the source and didn't use strange instrumentation. Of course we're talking about a hard rock arranged album here, and in that regard it still doesn't deliver entirely.

It really is quite rewarding. Too bad I suck with Rose otherwise. But are all these Ryu/Ken spammers on ranked games? 'Cause I've been running into a fair amount of people who just pick between characters on player matches. Also agreed on the whole stick thing. From what I've been hearing, unless you actually spent the green on the deluxe, you might end up with a defective standard stick. Of course it IS MadCatz... I think I might grab myself a Hori EX2 stick if I can find it/has decent reviews.

I think even the more technical entries to the SF series are still accessible to most people. Also, this game rocks. Hard. Akuma, Abel, Guile, Chun-Li and Sakura ftw.

Played a few matches online finally with Mastertenor. Online works great. Got my ass handed to me about 10 times though... I'll get you back bro!

Well if you want a user opinion, mine is that it works great. Of course I doubt I'd be going on and on about it were the opposite the case...

You can just google it up and you should find a d/l link for it. Basically, it's a freeware program that you install on the actual system from which you'll be streaming, and when you select media center on the 360, it'll be enabled automatically. All you have to do is scroll through your vid files, hit the X button on the videos that would be otherwise unplayable and select "transcode." According to the user manual, certain files might still be unplayable, although I haven't run into that problem thus far and I'm sure it's probably just a matter of installing the right codecs. In the case of HD streaming, I had some bad skipping, slowdown, and no audio but as I said before my system just isn't up to spec for that kind of thing. I'm sure most of you PC connoisseurs won't have that issue. You can also change several of the settings such as how to set up audio conversion and sync, temp folder to which files will be transcoded, etc. Since you're installing it on your PC, there's no modding going on so your 360 is risk free. Just give it a shot and I'm sure it'll help. It'd be nice if MS would have enabled the playback of all types of vid files, but meh.

I agree with the grapplers thing. Zangief is destroying me. On medium. I can't suck this badly.

It does indeed play Matroska, and no Meph, I'm not looking to build a new PC just yet. When I am, I'll hit you up for the 411.

So I was able to get my media center working on the 360 with the help of transcode 360. Now I can watch ALL my videos without having to torture myself with trying to convert them to a playable form of wmv. If my computer were more powerful, I'd be able to stream HD, but for now just being able to watch all my vids and cable from my PC on my 360 with my 32" set in the living room as opposed to a 17" monitor makes my day. It's like Christmas all over again.

I get it today! ...Hopefully. Anyone on the 360, my name is Malakhim. I missed SSF2HDR, but I'll definitely be up for some SFIV.

So Street Fighter IV... I hate you bastards who no doubt get to pick it up today... I have to wait for another few days to grab it as a birthday gift. Can't wait to mix it up with all of you though.

and I STILL haven't played jackshit with you, man.

The general consensus is that the game is pretty terrible to trudge through. Hell, I downloaded and played the demo 3 times each time thinking that I'd actually enjoy it more. This was certainly not the case. Big buyer beware on that one.

Metroid in the survival horror style. 'Nuff said.

I'm in the same boat. I'm a big fan of Ayane, Kasumi, Talim, Amy, and to a lesser extent Raphael, although strangely enough my mains are Hitomi and Cassandra on DOA4 and Soul Calibur IV respectively. Sakura's definitely my girl in Street Fighter when I'm not kicking it with Ryu or Guile. If I had to pick a character who I'm just not that effective with but that I like a lot, it'd be Guile. In games like SF I tend to rely on specials a lot and unless you've mastered the art of the turtle, I can't play Guile worth shit, so I'm still trying to adapt to his fighting which has proven to be pretty fun all the same. ...I think Street Fighter is the only series that I actually use dudes in... Characters I want to try, but currently suck at? Zasalamel, Tira, Yun-seong, and Taki.