Monthly Archives: April 2012

Introducing … PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale

Well, i guess the cat is officially out of the bag. I finally get to show you guys the game i’ve quietly been working on for the past eight months!

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is a new four-player fighting game developed by SuperBot Entertainment, studio presidented by Chan Park and game directored by Omar Kendall. I’ve been working in the combat design department under lead combat designer Paul Edwards.

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SF4 Biyearly TACV 18: Seth

As the primary end boss of the Street Fighter IV series, Seth’s moveset contains quite a bit of boss character nonsense – including an EX move that grounds airborne opponents. He excels at pretty much everything except dealing high damage. Making this video was more fun than i expected, but finding the time for it also took considerably longer than i might’ve anticipated.

0:11 The entire goal of this setup was to integrate two F+PPP Yoga Teleports into a single combo. Seth’s teleport lasts for 40 frames while his s.HP only causes 22 frames of hit stun. How do you fill the gap? Put a Sonic Boom in the middle! Unfortunately, Seth’s LP Sonic Boom travels annoyingly fast whereas his walk/dash/jump movement speed sucks. Furthermore, the SF4 camera resists scrolling which drastically impedes Seth’s ability to race past his own fireball. Luckily it turns out that M.Bison’s HK Knee Press Nightmare pushes (slightly) past the edge of the screen, which creates that tiny bit of extra space necessary to delay the fireball impact enough to make this sequence click. Of course, the SF4 engine hates crossup combos so there isn’t much Seth can do midscreen with Bison leaning into him. I thought s.MK would look more interesting than another s.LP, c.MK rerun. By the way, that c.HK sweep at the end is a one-frame link off lvl2 Focus Attack xx dash forward, F+PPP Yoga Teleport.

0:22 Trading with Seth’s Hyakuretsukyaku produces roughly the same hit stun duration as a standard hard attack, but interrupting him shortly after it connects maintains its unique extended reaction. Both instances are shown here. First, Seth’s LK Hyakuretsukyaku trades with Rose’s close s.LK, then her LP Soul Spark interrupts another LK Hyakuretsukyaku to set up crossup j.HK, c.HP, HK Hyakuretsukyaku back into the corner for the stompy super finish.

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Game Spotlight: Skullgirls

What is Skullgirls? If you haven’t heard, Skullgirls is a brand new 2D fighting game developed by Reverge Labs – a small but talented team in Marina Del Rey, California. The full game is available for download on both PSN and XBLA today.
Skullgirls logo
Skullgirls is also Mike Z’s love letter to Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. I’ll skip over the game’s charming aesthetics and storyline because they’ve been covered plenty. This is more about the remarkably elegant system mechanics you’ll discover as you learn to play.

Skullgirls is a truly hardcore fighting game which pulls no punches when it comes to offering challenging gameplay. Yet beneath the surface, it’s extremely clever about staying accessible and streamlining basics to minimize drudgery.

As you delve into exploring Skullgirls, you’ll notice that the smallest details feel like someone put genuine thought and effort into improving conventional designs. Air dashing, throw teching, input buffering, infinite avoidance, assist selection, and even 360 commands have been brilliantly implemented – with subtle innovations that you’ll be delighted to uncover.

In this day and age of developers dumbing down the genre to conceal that steep learning curve from new players, Reverge Labs has taken a huge risk by making a title for fighting game veterans – and i think the community should support them for it.

If you really want to play the game well, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty and learn all those scary things that make fighting games rewarding. The interactive tutorial will teach you the essentials as quickly as possible, but that won’t keep better players from putting you in frightening situations that only skill and experience can overcome. There’s no escaping that simple fact, but isn’t that what the genre is all about?