Kind of a slow week for me, there’s been a lot going on and even though my fiancee was out of town this weekend I didn’t get to play as many games as I had hoped. I saw Watchmen instead, which was a pretty good substitute. Fans of the comic should definitely check it out (though I’m sure they already have), and those wondering what the big deal is might want to do some homework before they go to the theater. Television Without Pity has a pretty good primer for those who are interested (and it’s spoiler-free). I know this isn’t a movie blog but if people watched it I’m curious as to what everyone thinks (no spoilers!). It’s semi-game related, there’s an over-priced prequel that you can play through!
Halo Wars – Grabbed this on launch day and have been working with a friend on playing through on Heroic difficulty co-op (guess I’m used to playing RTS co-op now). We were doing fine until Mission 6 when the Covenant sent us straight back to Harvest. I was so upset I ended up beating it on my own, but it took me twice the “par” time for the map. I don’t know if I just stink at the game or the mission is unfair. Impressions on the game so far will be up this week. Teaser: Mixed bag.
Street Fighter IV – Finally beat Seth with every single character on medium. It felt more like work than fun, and it didn’t really help me get too much better at the game. I plan on spending all my time with the game online for a week or so, hoping to learn some new tricks to take back to the challenge modes.
Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 – Played this a little over the weekend to pick up some more achievements. Slowly working my way to 1000, but it’s gonna be a bit of a grind. The end of the final campaign was pretty fun, overall I definitely got my money’s worth out of this game. I’m curious as to how it plays online, espion4ge and I might try later this week.
Far Cry 2 – Playing through the back half of the game, still enjoying myself quite a bit. I’m starting to get some better weapons too so that makes everything fun. Also, the second half of the world map feels a lot different from the first half, which I think is a great design choice. More people should have tried this game! It’s not too late…
Leveling Down 
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March 10, 2009 at 11:44 am
LargeLobster
so a question i’ve been having on my mind… SSF2THDR vs SF4? I know they made alot of tweaks for the HDR version of SF2 as far as balance, gameplay, graphics, music – which one do you prefer? Is it worth getting at this point?
March 10, 2009 at 1:06 pm
cmfl3x
I think the shorthand for SSF2THDR is just HD Remix. Haha. Anyway, I don’t personally have it, but HD Remix was designed by Americans (as opposed to SFIV which was designed in Japan) so the online play is pretty different. HD Remix features a lot of the stuff we’ve been clamoring for if I’m not mistaken, quarter matches, the ability to watch others play, etc. In other words, it was designed for online play. SF IV was made with a different mentality.
I’d say tho at this point you shouldn’t pick up HD Remix. It was released to get people amped for SF IV, so if you’re enjoying SF IV, no reason to have two fighting games. Maybe in a few months if you want a more old school feel you can play HD Remix. There are some balance tweaks that’ll throw you off your SF IV game tho. For example, Honda’s um…horizontal attack thingie (can’t remember what it’s called and too lazy to look it up) cancels fireballs in HD Remix but not in SF IV.
To answer your question in short form, and this is only from everything I’ve read:
balance: push
gameplay: HD remix better online, SF IV better overall package
graphics: SF IV, tho HD Remix looks great
music: HD Remix, all the old school tunes!
Final Analysis: You probably only need one unless you want to devote the next year of your life to fighting games
March 12, 2009 at 11:24 pm
The Nature Boy 4 Ever
Totally agree with you on how it was work to unlock Seth. Now that I’ve beaten the game with everyone, there are some characters I never want to use again, unfortunately that includes 3 of the 4 new characters. One good thing that came out of it was I got to see the stories of all of the characters, as well as the rival fights. I would have done all of that eventually, but the desire to unlock Seth made me want to do it sooner, making it seem like work if that makes sense.
One more rant while I’m here… when I was going through the game, I thought Seth was one of the lamest final bosses in fighting games, but his story was actually not bad, but not great. I like his connection with Abel, but he has nothing to do with the main characters everyone cares about: Ken, Ryu, Akuma, Gouken or even Guile and Chun Li. Why can’t Capcom get this right? As a character, he’s sort of overpowered and really slow, and not really that usable.
I have both HD Remix and IV, and now that I have IV, I don’t see myself playing HD Remix again. Yeah, online play might be better, but I think they’ll release a patch eventually that will make online play identical between both games. Despite my criticisms, I think IV is excellent, and I only criticize because I think so highly of it.
March 13, 2009 at 5:41 pm
eeyore
seth is a lame character. it’s just awful character design. i mean any kid can come up with a boss who uses the special moves of the regular characters. at least shang tsung morphed, and rugal had flavor.
and for some reason he’s half-naked just like the boss from sf3! (who was also lame in his five-year old half-fire half ice way)
sagat started off stupid as well, but he’s so key to street fighter it doesn’t matter anymore. also, the fact that he’s not totally evil makes him interesting.
bison as a character is lame(i want all the psycho-power in the world lol), but he has style.
akuma as a concept is also stupid (over-powered shoto) but capcom did a good job of giving him flavor too.