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Looks like [url=hxxp://www.video-opera.com]Video Opera[/url] is starting to fall apart, with hella missing images all over the place. The [url=hxxp://www.vidop.com]vidop.com[/url] domain isn't even pointed at anything. Back when i was on VidOp staff, i posted a handful of articles on there. I'm going take this opportunity to migrate them here while i still can. If anyone else wants to do the same, feel free to use this thread as a depository. After all, quite a few members of this forum were involved with VidOp in one way or another.

CvS2 Guile Basics Guide (08.02.03) - (Strategy Guide by Maj)
(originally posted on Shoryuken.com forums)

I've been playing Guile for a while now (since CvS1 actually) on pretty much on every team I used. So in light of Guile's new popularity, I thought i'd share some of my strats and tricks for everyone to use so that we could get better as a community.

Page 1: Basics

Guile's crossup is j.LK and it's pretty much the only one he ever needs. His j.MK and j.HK have very weak crossup ability, so the only time they come in handly is as short jump crossups against some of the fatter characters like Blanka. Otherwise, j.LK is by far his best crossup.

Guile's basic combo off his crossup is c.LP, c.LP xx Flash Kick. The two jabs gives you enough time to decide whether or not you should do the Flash Kick. Against Grooves which have the Tech Roll ability, you want to use the LK Flash Kick since this gives you the ability to punish your opponent's Tech Roll with the s.HK kick. Against the other Grooves, using HK Flash Kick gives you slightly more damage so you may want to go with that instead.

Guile's basic super combos are c.LP, c.LP, c.LK xx Total Wipeout or Sonic Hurricane. There really is no reason to combo into his Somersault Justice super as that will usually miss some hits at the beginning. The Sonic Hurricane is the safer way to go, but the most damaging method is to go with lvl3 Total Wipeout followed by lvl1 Somersault Justice (if you are using N-Groove or S-Groove). C-Groove's best combo is using his lvl2 Total Wipeout canceled after the last hit to the Flash Kick. Again, use LK Flash Kick against Tech Roll Grooves to punish attempts. It's always best to use c.LK as the last attack before the super because c.LK is only cancelable into supers, not specials. So you won't get any accidental Sonic Booms messing up your combo.

When you have an open opportunity to punish an obvious mistake, the best combo to use without meter is a simple c.MP xx Flash Kick. The Flash Kick pretty much always connects, and the combo does the same damage as using two c.LP jabs.

Against people that roll, either use c.LP, c.LP xx Flash Kick (which gives you enough time to see if you successfully hit the roll) or throw them towards the corner with Guile's HK throw. The HK throw prevents any accidental Sonic Booms which happen if you get crossed up by the roll (and often get you owned by supers). Plus Guile has one of the scarriest corner traps in the game so that's where you want to get your opponent as often as possible.

For block strings following crossups or jumpins, Guile has too many options to count. If a short opponent blocks the two c.LP jabs following a crossup, the best thing to do is to tack on c.MP xx Sonic Boom and follow up with c.MK or c.HK for extra guard damage. If a tall opponent blocks the two c.LP jabs, follow up with a third c.LP and then link s.MP xx Sonic Boom, again following up with c.MP or s.HK for guard damage. It's very important to know which opponents can and can't duck under your s.MP from far range. Also, note that your opponent can Reversal after the far s.MP before the Sonic Boom hits them so make sure you don't do this string when your opponent has a capable lvl3 super ready. Since Guile recovers so quickly after his Sonic Booms, you don't have to worry about your opponent rolling after the s.MP because you can always throw them before they recover.

The best guaranteed block string Guile has is c.LP, close s.HP xx Sonic Boom, followed by c.MK, s.HK or F+HP if your opponent is really tall when crouching like Sagat. You can follow this up with another Sonic Boom, which will give you time to walk forward and add on another normal move. This sting should do around 50% guard bar damage and get your opponent in the danger zone where they have to worry about one more thing than you do.

Page 2: Anti Airs

Of course the next thing to discuss is anti-airs. Since you will be throwing a lot of Sonic Booms, and more importantly since you will be staying at a range where most opponents are ineffective, your Guile will have to deal with a lot of jumpins. Unfortunately, Guile has no absolute anti-air. The only good Flash Kick for anti-air is the HK version, which has horrible recovery and requires you to be charged. On top of this, the Flash Kick is only one hit and can always be air blocked, parried, and just defended easily. On top of this, it doesn't have very good horizontal range, so it's not very good short jump defense either.

Thankfully, Guile has one of the most extensive arsenals of normal anti-airs in the game. Unfortunately, you have to take the time to learn what range each and every one of these works on. Doing the s.MP antiair from too close a distance for example will give you the close s.MP attack which will most likely wind up getting you killed.

The most versatile of Guile's anti-airs is the c.HP uppercut. This move has pretty good priority, and trades against almost everything that it doesn't hit cleanly. The best part is that in order to counter it clean, your opponent has to do their air attack early, meaning they can't combo you when they land. Also, since the c.HP can be done from down/back, this still leaves you with charge to counter throw attempts and loose pressure strings. The best position to use this from is under your opponent. Walk forward if you have to, but if you get under them, this move will almost always hit clean. Another thing to keep in mind is that you have to keep track of your opponent's tendencies and play mindgames carefully. If your opponent does their attack early to counter your c.HP, you can wait crouching until the high priority part of their attack finishes and then hit them clean with the c.HP. Be careful though, because if an opponent knows you will wait for them and does their attack late to counter your late c.HP, they will be able to combo when they land.

This actually explains why the s.MP anti-air is Guile's best. Since it reaches so high up, the far s.MP anti-air forces your opponent to reveal their intent early on. Once you know what ranges you can safely use s.MP from, your air defense will become nearly impenetrable. To do this though, you need to keep your ground ranges carefully. If you let your opponent come too close, you won't be able to do the far s.MP anti-air when they jump. The best antiairs for the threatening airborne Grooves (P-Groove, K-Groove, and A-Groove) is to counter with an airborne antiair such as jump back j.HK or jump up j.MK if you know you've got your spacing right. This greatly reduces their opportunity to hurt you since the most they can do after parrying an air attack from the air is to get you with a jumping hard attack. But this doesn't mean you should be scared to use ground based anti-airs against these Grooves. Remember that they are only threatening if they can predict what you are going to do.

Also, with C-Groove Guile, using his airthrows as anti-air is an excellent strategy. Since airthrows are zero-frame, you can jump at your opponent holding back and push the button to throw them when you are in range. If they attack before then, you will block it. But there's no such thing as getting hit while attempting an airthrow since airthrows have no startup. This comes in very handly against P-Groove and K-Groove since neither of those Grooves can defend against airthrows. Just watch out for characters with air supers since you can't airblock those.

Guile's best anti-crossup attacks are his lvl2 or lvl3 Somersault Justice, his c.MP to hit poorly spaced crossups, and his fully extended c.HP uppercut. The c.HP is the best of the three, but you rarely have enough time to get it out there fast enough. Therefore, the best anti-crossup defense Guile has is his excellent ground game. Don't let people get in range to cross you up. If you aren't expecting it and you don't have an anti-crossup ready, just use the roll to get out of the situation and regain your positioning. Guile is perfectly capable of using his ground game to prevent opponents from getting in range to cross him up. So don't try to deal with crossups in a sloppy way, because that will cost you way too much damage for no reason. Just roll out and don't let it happen again.

And finally, with Roll Canceling, Guile has an excellent anti-air in the form of RC Sonic Boom. Basically this is an excellent way of hitting short jumps and defending against Grooves that can defend in the air (C-Groove, P-Groove and K-Groove) without any guesswork. The RC Sonic Boom will always hit the short jump attack because it is a horizontal move. C-Groove can't punish you after airblocking an RC Sonic Boom and neither can K-Groove. By using good zoning, you can make sure that P-Groove never gets close enough to punish you after air parrying the RC Sonic Boom. And the best part is that you never have to worry about trading hits with air attacks. But this isn't absolute anti-air for Guile either. It covers one angle very well, but it still only covers one angle. Learn to use all of them.

The SoCal Tournament Scene Without SHGL (12.17.03) - (Editorial by Maj)

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the fall of Southern Hills Golfland, the center of Southern California's fighting game tournament scene for over seven years. With revenues steadily decreasing since the close of the movie theater next door, Golfland Entertainment Centers, Inc. saw no reason to keep the small arcade open. The high value of the land it occupied lead to the demolition of the arcade to make way for a gated community of single family houses.

There is nothing left of SHGL now, with the newly constructed buildings almost completed. The entire area, including what was the SHGL parking lot, is enclosed in a brick wall perimeter. The main access road is named Stepping Stone Cir, which meets Beach Blvd at the entrance to the community. Within the walls are over twenty separate houses, at least one of which serves as the sales office.

The deserted movie theater has since been replaced by Super Autobacs, a Japanese automotive store specializing in rice rocket power ups. The Yoshinoya and the Burger King are still open, along with a new Quiznos restaurant and a new Poofy's Pastrami restaurant. The Pho place near the mysteriously vacant donut store has been revamped. Finally, the furniture store next door with the crazy neon lights remains completely unchanged.

Camelot Golfland, the supposed replacement for SHGL, has nowhere near the management support that John "SHGLBoss" Bailon provided the regulars at his arcade. Camelot may be a much bigger and better funded arcade, but it caters solely to children's parties and family outings. Where the SHGL management encouraged its big name players and recognized their valuable ability to help bring in new customers, Camelot has made an enemy out of every player who requests tournament support and demands working equipment.

Because of these conditions, the only fighting game group to survive the transition to Camelot Golfland was the Marvel vs Capcom 2 crowd, but only as a shadow of its former glory. SHGL's considerable Capcom vs SNK 2 and Third Strike scenes started frequenting Family Fun Arcade in Granada Hills instead. The Tekken 4, Soul Calibur 2, and King of Fighters communities completely vanished. Where SHGL had enjoyed a sizeable Guilty Gear X following, all of the best SoCal Guilty Gear XX players now play at Family Fun. Most of SHGL's Bemani game fanatics now either play at home or frequent Arcade Infinity in Rowland Heights.

The most important function SHGL served was providing a regular meeting ground for the best players from all of the Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego area arcades. Everybody knew that the only wins worth bragging about were those collected at SHGL, so the entirety of the SoCal fighting game scene improved together. In fact, this reputation was so well respected that even regular tournaments were reason enough for top players from as far as Las Vegas and Seattle to make the trip to the surprisingly small arcade in Stanton. Even after a full year, no arcade has been able to take its place as the core of the SoCal fighting game community. Not surprisingly, the scene is nowhere near as cohesive as before and SoCal can no longer claim to be the best in any major game.

Obviously, SoCal has too many great players to ever disappear off the tournament circuit. And with a community this large and this dedicated, SoCal will always pose a threat to the rest of the country at major national tournaments. But for this region to regain the championship status it enjoyed before the first Evolution tournament reshuffled the national rankings board, it's going to take a lot of cooperation, a lot of friendly rivalry, and a lot of personal dedication. Because no matter how perfect or how poor the situation is, the most important factor of all is somebody deciding to do whatever it takes to be the best and following through every day until it happens.

However, for those of us who thought of SHGL as our home arcade, nothing can ever replace that run-down hole-in-the-wall we all loved. There will never be another hangout that is as easy to go to or as important to defend. And the sad truth is that most of the players responsible for SoCal's reputation will never care as much about practicing or take a loss as personally as they did during SHGL's glory days.

Really, it's the people of this community that matter most of all. The SHGL regulars were a group of the most diverse individuals imaginable. That's what made the whole thing so magic. From Watson parrying chairs, to Thao telling someone to hold his kid when his turn came up at SFA3, to Wizard the orange token machine letting everyone know what's up with the Golfland jingle, to Alex Valle giving some new kid the twenty questions, to Crackhead Bob losing countless tokens in shady card games with Scan, SHGL had a personality all its own. Ultimately, this is also what makes the fall of SHGL so depressing - these people are so diverse that aside from that arcade, there's just no way to get them all back together. And there's no drama like Golfland drama ...


Photographs taken by MrWizard on 10.10.2002


Photographs taken by Maj and ALTANertive on 10.26.2003 (the [url=hxxp://www.video-opera.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=249]SoCal Armageddon[/url])

Addendum to SHGL Editorial (01.01.04) - (Forum Post by Maj)

It's crazy how much the scene has changed since SHGL closed. In fact, it all started going downhill when Valle got his crazy 3am job at Coke. That's when the EC started owning up SoCal in Marvel and NorCal started dominating us in CvS2. Now the only place to find Valle is playing P-Groove on Xbox Live and winning random UCLA tournaments without having played the arcade version of the game in months. It's good to see Alex winning again, but every time he does, it shows how little the rest of us have improved.

As for the core SHGL crowd, most of them are reachable in one way or another, but everyone seems to have gone their separate ways. MrWizard's got some crazy orange variant of Thao's job. MIC went from Tekken champ to old man in no time flat and Dan Chen went with him. Scan has turned into a bitter, lonely dude who counts his money all day and talks shit to fighting game players about not having careers. He used to be a team player, too. Rob (CaliSean) and Don (GhettoD) show up randomly to 3S tournaments and rep top tier characters from 1997, but neither of those two is around nearly as much anymore. DjLiKu is discovering how time consuming it is to be gold digger bait for multiple random asian girls. Nobody even knows where sicdic has been for the past year.

In fact, a lot of people that showed up every week seem to have disappeared completely: Duc, Tom Nonaka, that random fool that used to bring his wife or whatever and mop fools up in Ultrarcade HF. Crackhead Bob, the resident Guitar Freaks champ (at least when he was high) who ran his Corvette into the SHGL fence has moved on to Arcade Infinity. James Chen still plays random games like Samurai Shodown 2 with his buddy Aric Tetley, but i don't think i'd believe him if he ever said he was going to an arcade again. The last two SHGL workers to really be a part of our group, Scott and Eddie, both quit working there a few months before SHGL shut down and got jobs at a PC cafe. They would always be down to go to Norms with us after closing the place for the night, but they probably haven't been to an arcade since then. It seems that every few days, someone we know discovers either Jesus or Warcraft 3 and devotes their life to one of the two.

It's pretty cool that a lot of the OG SoCal fighting game scene works for Paradox now. We're talking Gilley, omni, edma, waterb0y, Liu Kang, and some more fools you guys are all too young to know. FlipMeign and tragic used to work there too. It's like a tournament players' retirement home, complete with geographical and psychological barriers separating it from the rest of gaming civilization. Even if those fools wanted to spend the hour and a half to come down to hang out with us, they spend so much of their day playing games that they certainly aren't going to want to do that on their time off. Still, it doesn't sound like a bad deal moving on to game desiger jobs. Too bad all they make is console wrasslin games.

Viscant talks a lot about playing CvS2, saying stuff like Nakoruru beats Sagat and Yamazaki beats Cammy, but nobody's actually seen him at an arcade for months. The rest of San Diego crew doesn't really hang out in the OC anymore. Maybe they all grew up.

Used to be, the only Mexican that could threaten Watson was Valle (and Valle's actually Peruvian so he had an excuse). But now, hella random Mexicans play 3S nonstop at Family Fun, and Watson only cares about games these days (or maybe always) when people talk shit. Though now that he's made friends with all of them, he's already mentioned quitting again. I suppose the blame for that should be shared by all of us.

There's a lot of people missing from this list, but that's inevitable. The SHGL community was enormous. Sure, people moved on while SHGL was still up. But it would happen gradually and we'd have some warning. Since SHGL closed, the vast majority of the people that i used to see every day have simply vanished. I never really knew how i wound up a SHGL regular or what i was doing there most of the time, but the closest thing to a reason i had was the community. Then a huge chunk of that reason just disappears. And the worst part is, there's no conceivable way that i could have done anything about it. It's like moving to another city or something. Sure you can keep in touch with people, but all save a handful are inevitably going to disappear from your life forever. It's just an odd feeling. Really odd.

Yomi Perspective on Character Matchups (01.29.04) - (Editorial by Maj)
(originally posted on [url=hxxp://highervoltage.net/mb/showthread.php?threadid=1100]HigherVoltage.net forums[/url] on 06.02.02)

One of the touchiest subjects among avid fans of fighting games has always been the issue of character balance. It's perfectly logical to assume that some characters in a fighting game are better than others. However, the seemingly contradictory argument that any character can win if used by a sufficiently skilled player appears to be equally reasonable. If the player's skill level outweighs all character discrepancies, then how can matchup predictions or tier listings ever be accurate? To answer this question, the operative level of ability to be used as a basis in this discussion must first be defined.

Where "necessary skill to win" is concerned in fighting games, the most important factors are the experience, dedication, and play styles of the participants involved. There's not a lot to argue here. If one contender plays the game twice times as much as the other, he will win simply due to
experience - a better understanding of the game and what it takes to win. If one player spends twice as much time practicing combos as the other, he will win by consistently inflicting more damage. Naturally, this can be extended to reaction time, dexterity, and other such easily identifiable physical values.

To put it simply, if you use the same team that Duc Do does at MvC2 but you only play against your brother maybe once or twice a week for a few hours, there's no point in even bringing up terms such as "skill" and "cheap" and "broken" or whatever else. Even if you had a spider-sense that warned you about everything he was going to do, he would still mop the floor with you simply because he plays the one-player aspect of the game a hundred times better than you can. He hurts you more when he gets the chance, he leaves himself open far less often, he needs a much smaller opening in order to punish you, and he knows the flowchart of the game way better than you do. Discussing matchups between an entry-level player and a highly experienced, well-trained player like Duc Do is akin to discussing a matchup between that same entry-level player and his kid brother who doesn't know how to switch characters safely, how to protect assists, how to bait supers, or what he can punish and what is going to get him killed if he tries to punish it. The entry-level player can not do any of these things against Duc Do just as his kid brother doesn't know how to do them against the entry-level player.

Now, assuming both players can play the one-player part of the game proficiently, know their characters' pokes, ranges, counters, combos, and are able to do all of these things consistently, we wind up with some matches interesting enough to analyze because now there's some actual thinking going on. Probably the biggest factor in arranging such a high-level game is the matchup between the opposing characters. Fortunately, these character relationships can be expressed concisely in terms of yomi layers.

Yomi is a Japanese term used most commonly by Virtua Fighter players. In simplest terms, it means to predict your opponent's next action. For a very clear and thorough definition, check out Sirlin.net's Yomi Layer 3 Article. It's also a very good idea to read through the remaining articles under the Multiplayer Games category. They will help solidify the concept and provide a number of good examples to further flesh it out. The rest of this article will assume that you have taken the time to do so or are already familiar with the basic terminology surrounding yomi.

If defeating the opponent's character with your character requires no yomi on your part, then the match basically comes down to following the gameplan/flowchart step by step for the free win. For example, Vega vs Guile in CvS2 requires no thinking and no risks on the part of Vega no matter what grooves are being used. In every situation Vega possesses a clearly superior button to Guile and there's never any risk to using it. Therefore, Vega vs Guile is pretty much considered a guaranteed victory and demands no real skill from the Vega player.

If beating the opponent's character requires on average being at the same yomi layer as your opponent, then your character wins that fight as long as you know what you're supposed to do and don't do anything really stupid. For example, C/N/K-Yamazaki vs C/N/K-Shotos in CvS2 is very much in favor of Yamazaki. There is very little that Shotos can do against Yamazaki in any situation at any range. In order for Shotos to beat Yamazaki, they need to keep track of a large number of situations, survive long enough to take one or two critical, extremely well calculated risks, and do a large amount of damage in one shot. Furthermore, this must occur while they have meter (while the Yamazaki player is playing extremely carefully). In other words, Shotos need to be nearly a full yomi layer above Yamazaki in order to beat him. Therefore, while winning against Shotos with Yamazaki or Geese or Cammy requires being on nearly the same level as the Shoto player, it doesn't really take enough skill to deserve much praise. Despite what some people may think, top tier in CvS2 beats a lot of the weaker characters in a similar fashion. Some people claim that Sagat and Blanka win matches for free against their beloved fanboy character, but there are very few predetermined matches as described in the previous scenario. The Vega vs Guile match, for example, has been that way ever since Vega first became a selectable character back in SF2 Champion Edition. Despite the fact that Guile was a very strong character in Champion Edition, his base character design simply loses to Vega's base character design unless Vega is laughably weak (as in the first CvS, for example).

If defeating the opponent's character requires on average a slight, but noticeable yomi advantage over the opponent, then for all intents and purposes the chosen characters are balanced. You can not beat your opponent unless you outplay him, and your opponent must stay on your yomi level in order to stay on even ground with you. He must gain a yomi advantage if he wants to win. In theory, most mirror matches have this quality but a lot of those tend to become boring turtlefests because both players are afraid of the opponent's version of their character. A number of the top tier fights involving Sagat, Blanka, Bison, Cammy and Yamazaki also wind up this way because one player's low fierce is just as good as the other's so both are forced to look for alternatives and experiment with further yomi layers. Fights like these are the best ones in fighting games, but are very difficult to identify. They are actually very few and far between in CvS2. Even when one does come up, it doesn't take very long for someone to find something that skews the fight yet again. This is the case simply because too much of CvS2 is borrowed from too many different games.

At some point in any two characters' parallel development, something is found that does not have a reasonable counter on the part of the other character. Oftentimes this happens because one character gained a move in some game that his opposing character wasn't in, and therefore was never given the appropriate counter. Unfortunately, the first CvS created countless such disparities all by itself. Ratio 3 characters in CvS gained a number of moves or properties on their moves that the lower ratio characters were simply not supposed to be able to reasonably counter, so that the system as a whole balanced out. But because of flaws in the ratio system, these characters still sucked, so Capcom made them even stronger in CvSPro. Since nobody played that game enough to realize how broken they had become, Capcom just ported them over to CvS2 without a full game in-between to test them out and balance them correctly. The same goes for Cammy, who actually gained all the garbage she is famous for now in CvS2 from her upgrade in CvSPro. There simply weren't enough people that played CvSPro to raise a loud enough complaint for Capcom to hear.

Now, an interesting aspect of CvS2 that a lot of old school players have trouble adapting to is that even in a balanced match where a yomi advantage is necessary in order to win, simply having a yomi advantage is not sufficient to win. You must have a significant yomi advantage and must be able to maintain this yomi advantage throughout the fight in CvS2. In older games such as ST, A2, and A3, exhibiting an even slight yomi advantage at key points could win you the match and allow you to progress beyond your opponent in a tournament.

For example, let's compare ST Ryu vs Dhalsim to CvS Pair Match Ryu vs Dhalsim. In ST, Dhalsim has a noticeable advantage over Ryu - he wins that fight 6-4. In order to win, Ryu needs to have a significant yomi advantage at two or three points in the match, and be able to defend himself the rest of the time. If he can gain this advantage a sufficient number of times, he will win the round. This takes a lot of work and a lot of vitality lost trying to get in on Dhalsim when he's able to keep you out. Usually when Ryu wins, he winds up losing over 70% of his life trying to get inside. But if he accomplishes this and wins, he gets a full life bar back to try again the second round, and yet again the third round. Now in CvS, if Ryu loses over 70% of his life trying to get in and finally beats Dhalsim, Ryu starts his 2nd round with 10%-30% of his life, and can easily lose it all trying to get in on Dhalsim without any luck. Essentially, instead of Ryu needing to win 2 out of 3 rounds, or 66% of the time, he needs to win one giant round, or 100% of the time.

In matchups where one character has the advantage over the other, the longer you make the life bar, the harder you make it for the underdog character. Dhalsim's 6-4 advantage goes from being a 2000 point difference in vitality to a 4000 point difference in vitality. As such, CvS2 lends itself heavily to counter characters - even if you do work twice as hard as the scrubby overpowered Geese player and manage to beat him with your Ryu, there's no way you're going to do it with very much life left, whereas it's very likely that he will beat your Ryu down and end the fight with over 50% life left.

Because more is on the line (a whole round), because you can win it all in one shot, because older games lend themselves more often to clutch playing, a lot of people prefer classic round-based games to CvS2. CvS2 only becomes half-decent when you realize that you can only have fun with it as long as you clutch it out 100% of the time. This is also why a lot of people can only enjoy CvS2 in moderation - in order to win an underdog fight, you have to clutch it out 100% of the time instead of just at key points. Unlike older games, in CvS2 it's not only important to win, but to win with a lot of vitality left over. Once you're too tired to clutch it out 100% of the time, your Kyo will lose to Sagat s.LK without even scoring a single damaging combo or super.

Let's get back to the yomi analysis. The final category of matches consists of those where one player needs a significant yomi advantage in order to compete with his opponent. This turns out to be the flipside of the first scenario. Whereas it takes no skill beyond having learned the correct way to play CvS2 as a one-player game in order to beat a Vega player with Cammy, it takes a lot of work and thinking to beat a Cammy player with Vega. These are the fights where if the underdog player wins they deserve a lot of props and praise. Unfortunately yet inescapably, in most of these types of situations, only the expert players that do play top tier characters and do understand the game well enough to see this will be able to realize what's going on and know who to praise. They will be the ones that see Vega keep his distance, utilize the whole playing field, play the clock, and be creative in trying to stop Cammy's ticks. In the meantime, the scrub players will just say, "Vega did nothing more than run away for 70 seconds, pulling nine million cheap tricks only to get out of the corner so he could run away some more."

In order for scrubs to recognize that one player has outplayed another, it needs to be glaring in front of them in bright lights that say, "I'm winning with ratio 4 Rock!" Furthermore, they fail to realize that chances are, that ratio 4 Rock player is a very proficient Sagat/Blanka user who gets a lot of experience playing other players able to play the game the way it has developed. How could you possibly respect someone for beating you with ratio 4 Rock then turn around and talk trash to tragic or Viscant for beating you with Bison or Blanka or Sagat or whatever top tier characters they use? If Viscant picks Sagat against you, that means he's taking you seriously! Would you rather some fool came to your arcade and told you that you all suck, aren't worth his time, and he'll just use you as a training mode dummy to kill time while he waits for his friends to show up or his next class to start? Because that's 100% what he's doing when he picks ratio 4 Rock! I'd choose Sagat over that any day! Only those who make this choice will ever wind up good enough to dominate with ratio 4 Rock.

Yomi layer analysis has many more interesting nuances, especially involving Shotos. Ever notice how Shoto players always wind up claiming top spots in tournaments no matter how much Shotos get watered down? It's because using Shotos forces them to exercise yomi against their opponents at all times, so that they know what to expect; to make intelligent choices while their opponents are just guessing and abusing one-player strategies. However, Shoto analysis is too complicated to fit into a footnote, so we'll save that for another time. If you have any questions, try to figure out the answers yourself - it's good exercise. Thinking for yourself always means everything. Just remember that it's ok to reach a lot of the same conclusions as the experts.

LoK Defiance Advanced Tactics (03.04.04) - (Technical Article by Maj)

Some of the advanced tactics mentioned under the Gameplay segment of our [url=hxxp://www.video-opera.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=271]Legacy of Kain: Defiance review[/url] merit further explanation. The game's combat system is flexible enough that there are some creative things to do to the generic peons that try to rush you in groups. Seeing as how this is a site for relatively advanced fighting game players, we expect most of you to have gotten over any rookie obstacles regarding the camera angles. In other words, camera complaints won't be discussed here. Just adapt.

The command inputs are transcribed using Playstation 2 default control conventions, but the text explanations refer to all actions by their general names. The PS2 and Xbox versions of LoKD are virtually identical, so everything discussed here works on both versions. The only thing left for Xbox users to do is to quickly convert everything to their button layout.

Wavedash

(hold L1), (hold desired direction on left analog stick), press X, tap R1, press X, tap R1, press X, tap R1, press X ...



The most basic and most useful trick is wavedashing. Both Raziel and Kain can use this trick. While holding the L1 button to engage combat mode (different stance, camera angle, and basic moveset), pushing the jump button (X) along with any direction on the left analog stick causes the character to perform either a quick dash forwards or backwards or a sidestep left or right. This dash seems to get most of its speed burst during the middle portion, and has a bit of lag towards the end. Pressing the jump button again during this dash causes the character to cancel into a jump. In fact, this dash can be interrupted by almost any action.



The quickest wavedash is done by interrupting the dash animation near the end by tapping the feed button (R1), which is a sustainable move with no lag after the button is released. This requires a bit of timing to optimize, since you must wait until the very end of the dash movement to interrupt. Of course, the coolest thing about this is that it can be used without any enemies around, making your treks through the vast landscapes of Nosgoth much shorter.

Kain's TK Relaunch

press and hold Triangle (to launch and jumpcancel), tap Square, Square, Square, (land), press and hold O, press and hold back on left analog stick, release O, press and hold Triangle (to relaunch and jumpcancel) ...



Kain can use this combo at the very beginning of the game without needing any extra upgrades or skills, and Raziel can use it near the very end. The trick to this is to wait a bit before starting the air combo so that your character is close to the ground. The TK hold will take effect before the opponent reaches the ground, but it seems to be able to OTG as well. Once you see your character go into the TK hold animation, press the left analog stick towards your character and release the TK button to pull the opponent towards you, Scorpion style. When the opponent is close enough, press the pop-up attack button again to relaunch and repeat as desired.

As an alternative, you can also use the air TK attack as the air combo finisher, then land and use the TK hold the same way as above. This combo is most useful when you are fighting in flat lands with no walls to use in executing extended combos. It does lots of damage and looks really cool.

Raziel's Delayed Air Slash Relaunch

press and hold Triangle (to launch and jumpcancel), wait until Raziel is about to land, tap Square, Square, (land), press and hold Triangle (to launch and jumpcancel) ...



By delaying the aerial followup to his jumpcanceled pop-up attack, Raziel is able to land while his opponent is still suspended high in the air. This allows him the opportunity to easily relaunch the opponent with another pop-up attack and continue the combo as desired. It's important that Raziel's air combo be left incomplete, since performing the third strike will knock the opponent out of range. If properly timed, it's also possible to relaunch after the Phatasmal Tempest special attack.

Video Link

We've prepared a few short video clips demonstrating the techniques explained above. Simply download from the link below, open with WinZip or any unzipping program, and view with Windows Media Player. Once you've see what we can do, try to come up with tricks and combos of your own and share them on our forum.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance - Video Opera Advanced Tactics media clips
(6,504 KB, WMV9 format, Zip archive)

Foreign Language Website Browsing Tricks (03.15.04) - (Tutorial and FAQ by Maj)

With so many awesome videos and tactics originating in countries such as Japan, it pays to know how to traverse websites that don't cater to English-speaking audiences. While the only way to be sure that you haven't missed anything requires learning an entirely new language, there are some tricks that make browsing foreign language websites more efficient than simply clicking on everything that looks like a link.

Website Translators

Several popular search engines offer automatic website translators catering to the most common languages, including most European and Asian ones. These allow you to input either text or a website address, specify the original and target languages, and get a full translation with the click of a button. The most well-known of these are Altavista's Babelfish service and Google's Language Tools.

Unfortunately, none of these are very precise. At best, they give only a general idea of the main point expressed in the original language. They also tend to be pretty limited at translating slang, and exceptionally horrible when attempting to translate fighting game move names. Still, it's the definite first step in navigating any foreign language information source.

Browser Status Bar

All popular internet browsers have a Status Bar at the bottom of the window. The option to activate or deactivate it is usually located the View or Tools menus. When overlaying your mouse pointer over a link, the target URL appears in the Status Bar. Since website addresses are almost always in English, this can sometimes be helpful in deciphering where the link leads.

For example, most websites' video sections contain either the words movie, media, or video somewhere in the URL. Other common notations include words such as profile to suggest some sort of bio information regarding the author, and words such as BBS to designate some sort of discussion forum.

Examining Source Code

The final step to searching a foreign language website before either giving up or attempting to click on every link in the spirit of trial and error is to examine the source code. This can either be done by right-clicking the page and selecting the View Source option, or doing the same thing through the View menu at the top.

Source code is useful because it contains website addresses for all links on the current webpage. It's the easiest way to search for common media file extensions such as .avi, .mpg, .wmv, .zip, and .lzh using a simple text editor search function. Once such a file is found in the source code, it's easy to look at the corresponding area on the webpage for the actual link. The Status Bar will help in finding the actual file once the general area is deduced through the source code.

Downloading and Sharing Video

Once a video is found through any of these methods, the considerate and respectful approach is to download the file to your computer before viewing. Streaming video files often requires more bandwidth and server operations than simply downloading the file. Rewatching or rewinding streamed videos puts additional strain on server bandwidth since the same file is essentially being downloaded multiple times by a single user.

The best way to share such media files with friends is to either provide them with the homepage URL of the author or the specific URL of the media page on which the video files are located. It's extremely inconsiderate to directly link to large files, because doing so leeches from the author's bandwidth without giving people the opportunity to look at the entire website. When announcing such videos on public forums, the best approach is to link to the author's homepage and give explicit directions for navigating the site to get to the page containing the new media. It requires a little bit more work on the part of both the announcer and the viewer, but it's far more respectful of the author's contribution. As an added bonus, it provides viewers with a solid idea of the video's origin, as well as contact information to let the authors know that their work is appreciated.

Every time I see those photos of the apartment complex where SHGL used to be, I cry inside. Those are some of the most depressing photos I have ever seen.

Not to draw any more attention to this old mess, but i posted that LoKD article on a couple of Legacy of Kain forums:

LoKD Advanced Tactics - Nosgothic Realm
LoKD Advanced Tactics (now with pictures and videos!) - Eidos Forums

Kinda surprising how little feedback this article garnered. Even now, with the series discontinued and relegated to nostalgia status, the people who stayed behind still don't care much. Guess that's what happens when a franchise establishes itself as story-centric.

Eh, i always liked the way those Kain clips turned out; don't care what the LoK people (don't) say. The Raziel ones were okay, which kinda made me sad because he's my favorite of the two by far.

Anyway ignore this post. Just wanted to have those links written down somewhere.

Man sweet. I want to move all the a-groove guides over, the are just kind of useful for quick refrence when I want to fuck with characters in training mode. Also the 10k damage combo thread. Which btw I have a more damaging combo for yuri now, but its hella hard and even less practical then some of the other ones in there.