Alpha Testing.

I’ve been forgoing the evil, evil ways of Kaillera ( yes, I’m kidding, I’ve never actually used it ) in favor of getting some pretty good games in on GGPO, which, under decent circumstances, lets you play Street Fighter Alpha 2 under virtually latency-free conditions. The downside is that the emulation backtracking can be severe if one of the opponents has a shoddy internet connection, but this is nitpicking; the experience has done a good deal to get people back into one of the more balanced games in the SF series.

Japanese player Nuki won Japan’s Alpha 2 nationals with his Chun, and of course, by Japan ranking circa 1996, she was the second best character in the game ( Charlie, my main, being second ).

July of that same year would see the US Alpha 2 national tournament B3 ( which youtube user turnbacktime has in its 12-part entirety, if you’re interested ) with something to the effect of sixty players if memory serves me correctly. USA tiering styles being very different, Ken to us is the best character in the game.

Nowadays, its generally agreed that they’re both in the first tier. Charlie’s moved to mid though ( which makes my tears flow with burning sadness ;_; )

In other news:

User sutebako has the latest vids of the Kinnikuman Muscle Grand Prix 2 location test ( I think its in Akiba but I can’t be sure; also didn’t know that game ran on Atomiswave ).

Also AlbaMeira’s new King of Fighters Maximum Impact Regulation A video posts reminded me that there’s an insanely thorough Japanese KOF MI2 ( or KOF 2006 depending on where you live ) Wiki located here. Its mostly in Unicode but with the right Firefox plugins you should be able to see it. If anyone’s interested in translating please comment. >_>

Last but not least, since CPS3 is now supported on MAME++ (albeit with minor glitches intact), I must remind people once more ( thanks to RedBeard from DustLoop forums for reposting this ) of the awesomeness that is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. If there IS one game you might find me playing on Kaillera at all, it’d be this game:

See you next time.

Mixed Bag with Video Updates

Got some new stuff added the site which might interest some Capcom vs. SNK 2 old heads; Gunters A-Groove tutorials have all been added to the video post. Some of my absolute favorites made it to the front page but here is a sample of what do expect.

Capcom vs. SNK 2 (Gouki A-Groove Combo Exhibition) by GunterJpn
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6991397732930844448

I’ve been playing a lot of Real Bout Garou Densetsu 2 lately and I wanted to point out that the release of Battle Archives 1 in North America will all but guarantee Fatal Fury Battle Archives 2 is just around the corner. You might see me on Kaillera playing from time to time; please feel free to comment if you are interested in a match some time.

One last quick note, check out Nicotine1220’s channel to see some impressive King of Fighters 2002 matches.

Figured I’d take a look at some of the cool stuff around NewChallenger

A video recently was featured over at InsertCredit and I wanted to thank TheSpatula for reminding me to feature this instant classic that features all of the Asuka 120% games.

Asuka 120% Burning Fest. – COMBOMiX by soposope

Be sure to check out sopesope’s Advanced Variable Geo 2 combo video if you happen to like doujin fighters at all.

I figured I’d take the time to highlight some of the most important contributors here on NewChallenger by showing off some of the footage they’ve put together. First up, thanks to Khris for some damn good footage for Bugi (AKA Kensei Sacred Fist) and Cho Aniki Bakuretsu Ranto Hen.

Samurai Shodown Warriors Rage by Khris

I’d also like to thank Hitmaker and Scruff for the help with the layout updates; you guys are too kind. I’m gonna cut this post a little short; but I don’t like to crowd my posts with too many YouTube embeds.
Congrats on Evo Josh!

Kettou Beast Wars

Got a review in the works, here are some images from the game I’m reviewing as a bit of a teaser.