Thanks Mike Z / Stefan for posting those, I think it’s a good explination of why games have or don’t have depth.
Let me offer my own experiences now.
I once knew a group of gamers, who shall remain nameless, who went to Tekken tourneys all the time. They were good, too. They knew how to be proficient with every character in the game. However, when asked about why certain moves behaved like they did, the answer was something along the lines of:
“This beats that, but only sometimes, if you’re on the side, sometimes, not always.”
This group also played SC2 briefly, but they quit because they didn’t like the system. They called it rediculous and “kiddy”. One specific complaint I remember was that you could GI, and a few frames after the apex of the GI animation, if a move of the appropriate hit level hit you, you would still GI.
This sent the group in to an uproar, and everyone quit the game there, or soon after.
The fact of the matter is, this was a lack of understanding. The window for GI effectiveness does extend past the midpoint of the animation, however mechanics weren’t a very strong suit of this group. I mean no disrespect, as I’m sure EVERY one of you who is reading this (And maybe even some from that group) know who I’m talking about. . . . But the types of people in this group relied a LOT on reactions. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but because of how much they excelled on executing moves on reaction, they tended to not get in to the actual mechanics of things.
That’s where Tekken is disgusting. The overprioritized moves of certain characters make it so you only NEED one or two moves. Also, the hit levels in T4 were so unbalanced that ducking was just not worth it. You basically took low hits as free damage, because the moment someone ducks, you get a half life combo.
As far as Soul Calibur, it too suffers from the same fate, being produced by Namco as well. There are certain moves on nearly every character that are just completely safe. One of them being Mina’s 3B, if I hit you with that, I get 40%. It has a 7 frame advantage on block, and when the fastest move in the game is 8 frames (which has a 10 frame charge startup to begin with) you can just toss this move out over and over.
The new people may have noticed when playing me in SC2 that I hardly ever used flash. The obvious reason for this, is that I know which moves are just a bit too good for what they look like, and I can basically sit and eat damage the entire fight, then take it all back with very minimal effort.
As far as Halo goes, I know there are people here in MN that play it very seriously. . . . Being a retired FPS tourney player myself, I can’t see why. Halo is mediocre for a Single Player game, and just absurd for a Multi-player game. But hey, what do I know.
When it comes down to it, here’s the breakdown.
It’s not that group A will only play 2d, and group B will only play 3d, the fact of the matter is group A and B are completely different types of people.
Look at us 2D folk. How many computer science / programmers do we have? I’d say it’s half or more. Then we’ve got people who deal with computer graphics every day, and others who cross these lines occasionally.
The 3d people are almost exclusively students, if I remember correctly.
The type of people decide what game to play, it’s not really the people . . . I used to hang out only with the 3D people, but I grew a bit tired of it . . . . . It’s hard to explain really, but when I would ask questions about a move or character, I would never really get the answer I was looking for.
With the 2d people, if I say “Is this kick good?” I can assure you that at least one of us will say “It has a 6 frame execution, stays out for 12 frames, is safe on block, and on hit can go in to a DP, which then can be followed up by a fireball” etc.
And . . . finally, about the moves from game to game . . . . as Mike Z said, the movelists in Tekken, VF, and SC2 are HUGE. The movelists in GGXX/#R are half a page to a page, with a few more considered “normal” moves.
I can tell you right now, every move of Dizzy’s has a use. Want to know them? Just tell me the two positions of the character and what they’re doing, I’ll easily tell you which move of Dizzy’s is the appropriate one. (And if you say “Throw”, I’m going to hit you.)
However, looking at SC2 and Tekken, the same move tends to cover every situation, with few exceptions. It’s basically a “When all else fails, do this.” type scenario. That appeals GREATLY to people who have exceptional reactions.
I’m not saying that the 2d group doesn’t . . . but. . . while I’m shattering my attempt at neutrality here, the 2d group has more than just reactions.
