Well, my Lakers just rocked the rat bastard Celtics to force an NBA Finals Game 7 for the first time since forever ago, so i’m in a pretty good mood. I also happen to have nothing to talk about today, so let’s try something different. If i could ask for anything (fighting-game-related), this would be my impossible wish list:

1) Footage of SF2WW testers playing the game the week before release, just to see how the design team intended the game to be played versus how Street Fighter is played today.

2) Any original TZW Tape or DVD. To this day, i’ve never seen a genuine copy in person.

3) A complete history of the Street Fighter scene written by Watson, Choi, Valle, and Killian. Yeah i know this is a hopeless request, even without adding Ohira or Osaki to the mix.

4) Playable beta of Capcom Fighting All Stars. I can’t help but wonder how fun it would be to mess around with that bizarre game. They even gave Charlie his own Sonic Hurricane. I feel like there’s a void in my life, and the only prescription is Ryu’s Shin Standing Fierce fatality.

5) CvS3 in 2D!

Okay, your turn now. What’s your top five?

I just got home after buying the game and of course picked Guile (vs Balrog) right off the bat. The very first button i pushed was DF+HK. The second button i pressed was DB+HK to check if they had changed his High Kick command. Guile did a sweep. And it comboed.

SSF4!

Now that we’ve finally seen the first official Super Street Fighter IV footage of Guile’s Sonic Hurricane ultra, i have no excuse not to babble about it on sonic hurricane dot com. (Click on the purple-colored “II” link to check it out.)

Right off the bat, i have to say that i’m pleased with the way it looks. The total number of hits is somewhat underwhelming, but the cool startup animation makes up for that. Judging by the sound effects, it appears to kill Bison after only two hits but continues connecting, which means it has at least some juggle potential. Hopefully it works as well as Ryu’s Metsu Hadoken ultra currently does.

1) The first order of business is figuring out how it interacts with other projectiles. Can Guile perform Ultrasonic Hurricane while he has an active Sonic Boom onscreen? How about vice versa? If an attack interrupts Guile after he summons it, does it stay active or disappear immediately? What happens if it collides with a multi-hit projectile like Ryu’s Shinkuu Hadoken?

2) Assuming the last hit causes the knockdown, it should be possible to keep an opponent grounded by nullifying it with a slow projectile at the last moment. It looks like Guile recovers relatively quickly, so maybe it’s possible to continue the combo. Starting a combo this way may even muster enough damage to potentially kill Seth.

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I’ve noticed that every single time i release a video, someone writes a remark about English versus Japanese voices. To be honest, my preferences aren’t set in stone, which makes me curious about everyone else’s reasons for choosing one setting over the other.

Obviously the vast majority of these decisions come down to a matter of personal opinion. There’s no right or wrong answer, regardless of how strongly certain people feel about their favorites. Granted, there may be some voice samples which we can all agree are bad – but they’re few and far between. Guile, Dhalsim, Balrog, Sagat, C.Viper, Rufus, El Fuerte, Abel, Dan, Gen, and many others sound perfectly fine under English language settings.

Generally, i like being able to understand what my characters are saying. Since i speak English but can’t speak Japanese, my default starting choice is to leave the sound setting on English voices. Each character remains that way until one of them says something so unbelievably corny that i decide i’d rather not know what they’re saying. Prime examples include Ken’s idiotic “Try this on for size!” cry during EX Hurricane Kick and Akuma’s inane rambling.

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