“- AH3 and Skullgirls and most anything with an airdash, even with these I can look beyond some of the worst aspects (fanservice in ways I get seriously uncomfortable with) because I just really, really, really want to play.”
I can relate to that in some way. I don’t personally get uncomfortable about it, but when you try to introduce somebody to it that’s not anime or anything like that, it can get kind of awkward. Persona 4 Arena might wind up being a bit easier to deal with in that regard.
Playing AH3 while my wife was next to me on the couch prompted her to say the following things:
“…where are her pants? Michael, she needs pants.”
“So…do you just beat up on 12 year olds in this game?”
“I, um…I think that should probably be illegal.”
“Does NOBODY IN THIS GAME HAVE PANTS?!”
“Oh, so now you’re beating up on 6 year olds? I guess that’s different than 12 year olds.”
The list went on.
Graphics arent very important to me, I’m the guy who played Counter-Strike 1.6 up till last year. Don’t want it to seem like I care that much. I just want a solid experience. It must be because I grew up on it but I don’t understand why people think mk9 looks dumb. I just don’t see it. Graphically I thought SC5 was stunning. If it just had a wake up game I would give it 10/10.
I’m summation, I just want a sexy 1v1 game that isn’t bogged down with dumb shit and crazy shenanigans.
My main gripe with MK9’s visuals (aside from the blood, gore, and overwhelming urge of the camera to have Kitana and Jade’s T&A in every close-up possible) is that it doesn’t know what it wants. (This is mostly during the cinematic stuff, keep in mind.) On one hand, it wants to look realistic, like it tried with the digitized look back in the 90’s. On the other, it wants to be a fantasy game. It’s difficult to do both. Liu Kang is a perfect example. His build is WAY over-exaggerated, and because the game tries to look realistic the end result is just so hilariously bad I don’t know what to think. Also, Sonya has a neck that must stretch a foot while her head is oddly tiny. Like, Beetlejuice tiny in comparison. Every time she’s on the screen I cringe.
Comics, most cartoons, and many (especially sprite-based) games that have less of a “Mature” feel to them can get away with it more easily because, well, they’re comics and cartoons and less mature games. The need to look serious doesn’t show itself.
Again, this is mostly the cinematic aspect of the game I have that particular problem with. All my other problems with the game involve its desire to appeal to junior high school kids. The blood and gore and violence just…it just looks dumb and juvenile.
And yet, I’ll gladly get beyond all that if the game is fun enough. I’d even rank it higher than SC5 on the enjoy-o-meter.
My biggest gripe with the way MK9 looks is the weird way it’s animated. Everything looks… kind of stiff…
I still enjoy watching the game being played, though. I may not enjoy it much myself, but it’s fun to watch a community support their game. It’s not like it’s a bad game either.
After playing 3D games for the last 16 years and watching the stupidest-looking juggles in history, along with all 2D games involving chain combos (GG chains look goofy as hell), I don’t even notice MK being jerky or stiff mid-match. Like, I was practicing Jade stuff last night, and it took me like four times doing a chain into a special before I noticed how weird it looked. Then I didn’t notice after a couple more times. Really, any game that has some sort of chain/cancel system outside of canned moves and animations is going to look REALLY stupid when it comes down to it. Even 3S and KOF13 look goofy when you start canceling c.HK into some move that involves standing upright or do some exaggerated j.HP or HK or whatever right before hitting the ground and go right back to neutral, but you don’t notice because you’re TOO BUSY HAVING SO MUCH FUCKING FUN.
The problems only start when the presentation becomes offensive or awkward (AH3, SG, MK). Otherwise, go back and play something on the PS1 right before you start playing a current game you think looks bad. Believe me, that game will be like a balm to your wounded eyes.
Basically it comes down to this, mk9 is a game where they clearly spent a lot of time making some extremely nice looking models (and I admit, in stills I actually think the game looks really good outside the stupid amounts of blood that gets everywhere), but then they tried to emulate the movements of the characters from the older MK games. And it just doesn’t work. 2d sprites get away with such frantic and jerky movements because of the fact they are sprites. Even when sprites transition instantly from two odd stances, it looks less jerky because our (or at least my) brain has less of an expectation of them to move fluidly.
Now when I see a 3d model, it’s easy to use keyframes to fill in gaps created by doing cancels. Keyframes are HUGE in making animation look good, which is why (while I will not say the actual models look great) the animation in SF4 looks mostly fluid. In MK9 they seem to have purposefully skipped that step, and it just makes it look to me like it was animated by someone who’s never done 3d animation before.
I’ve been getting into 3D animation and modeling as of late and pretty much agree with what Murph said. Though to be honest MK9’s problem just seems to stem from a variety of modern animation trite and laziness. The jerkiness is most likely because a lot of the animations were done with motion capture. You can tell that most are almost too life-like, and not nearly as concise as hand-made animation. Plus I believe early tweets of MK9 stated that actors were brought in for motion capture. This is something I think many modern American companies are abusing.
As far as aesthetics go(Not graphics) there aren’t too many fighting games I prefer in that regard. I always thought the Soul Calibur games looked beautiful. Probably whats most impressive is the amount of maps(specular, normal, m/vray etc) pre-baked to make the game look nice from most the angles you’ll be viewing from. This was one thing that had me pretty much mindblown back in SC3 as to how some of the stages and armor could look so nice for a PS2 game. It was clever budgeting on the development teams part and made an incredible difference.
With 2D games 3S has great animation. KoF looks nice but overall still lacks some visual character imo. I think the older KoF games had this down and its just something we don’t expect as much anymore in games. I honestly think Arc Sys is probably the worst offender when it comes to jerky animation. Though I think the opposite was true for GG in the respect that it had a lot of character, even with its rough animation.
Skullgirls has great animation, but I’m just not into its style. More frames does not always equate to better for me. Especially when a lot of the extra frames are spent for random upskirts and panty shots. Literally just watch Cerebella do just about any move and her skirt begins to move on its own.
Sup everybody I’m David and I live in Davenport. I play skullgirls and i’m about to get into SF4 I just started getting into the FGC and no one I know plays around here. Would anyone be interested in either a weekly tournament or just as a place to hang out and play over here at Gamerzarena in Bettendorf? From looking around it seems like beyond online and big events which aren’t that close to us there’s not much going on here. It’s a LAN center and i’m not sure how many regulars here would be interested. Let me know what you guys think.
It’s official I can’t beat faux honda in VF.
now what i would suggest is maybe make it a monthly to start it small to see who you can “recruit” in your area. I would be interested and maybe talking to the rest of my group we would be down to go, and the idea of the it being a monthly so that way you can try blowing it up and see if its worth your time setting it up. also a good idea also when do want to advertise this type of tournament invite people from other scenes (West Illinois and north east Missouri) I say in the location that you are in would be great to attract players from neighboring states.
THANK YOU SRK FOR NOT SENDING ME UPDATES. I FUCKING LOVE YOU.
Anyway, a word about SCV: It really only died here. Game is still very popular, but you figure we only had a few players to begin with, then we lost a couple, so… not much to fill a tourny with. But people are still playing the shit out the game, their feelings toward the patch notwithstanding.
Also, word on monthlies since it was brought up: Not sure how realistic it is that we’ll be doing another in CR in August. July had EVO at the beginning, then my work schedule kicked in shortly after, and we’ll be busy until the second full week of August. After that, I’m going to be out of town the last 2 weekends of August, leaving only the weekend of the 11th open… but, with the time off I already have scheduled I don’t know if that’s really possible for me to get that weekend off as well. Plus, MOK and other life stuff which consumes my time, blahblahblah. TLDR: “Monthly” is mostly an empty moniker at this point.
So, WhiteFury, please pick up my slack and throw some monthlies for these kids. 
Im also in davenport and would gladly come to any events, whether they are formal monthlies or just a “for shits and giggles” get together.
Would Battlezone let someone else (i.e. me) run a tournament there?
I see no reason why they wouldn’t. If you (or anyone else) are interested in doing that, I can get you in touch with our friend who is part-owner there that I set things up with. For the most part, as long as they’re kept in the know and it doesn’t interfere with an event they already have scheduled, I don’t think they care who runs it lol.
You guys heard the man. Is a tournament this month feasible for anyone here? Is Joker having a get-together this month? How about Pixels? Is there anyone going to Rob/HeartNana’s Chicago 4 Ultimate on the 19th?
Not that I wouldn’t want to but I’m tied up doing house work at my parents this summer until we’re done, only times I’m not there is when the morning of they text to say it’s too hot aka we don’t want to deal with a corpse on our property.
I’ll be out of town the weekend of the 11th, for now i dont have anything else planned on the weekends but that’s subject to change.
Coincidentally, I’ll be in Chicago that weekend. I might make an appearance at the event just to say hi to Rob.
Lincoln tourney this weekend, KC tourney the weekend after. As far as I know nothing planned besides that.