A New Stage In My Xbox 360's Life

UPDATE: I've included links to the as of yet to be released games to places where I think the videos on display are a good indicator of the game'ss quality.

Back in 2007 to 2008, I was partially ashamed of having mostly shooter games. I had Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, The Orange Box, Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty: World at War.

Shooters are fun and all, but they quite honestly leave a bad taste in my mouth. Skill in my opinion in these kinds of games are kind of arbitrary. In Halo, competitive games meant know the spawn points for all the best weapons on the map. The range of motions for skills like aiming, shooting, throwing nades, and just moving was a big task. And worst of all, shooters don't have the best reputation for having a community of pleasant folks to play with. It seems like every shooter has it's fair share of rascist, homophobe, asshole gamers who think everyone wants to hear them sing, blast their music, or otherwise don't know how to turn off their mic when their personal life comes bursting through the door.

I believe fighters on the other hand, are simply the purist form of competition. Know your character and his moves. Know your enemy and what moves he might use. Space yourselves and kick the shit out of each others' avatars. And fight games have old roots in the old arcade scene. Dedicated roots with history and skill. And now my 360 is going to be home of some wild figthers. 2D fighters (Let's not talk about Soul Calibur 4 and stuff).

Goddamn! Let go of my life!

Street Fighter IV, as you know, is my current obsession. Simple on the surface, deep on the inside. It's an established franchise that's a new entry, but veterans liken it to a second coming of Street Fighter 2, to give you an example of it's familiarity.

Return of the King

But that's not all! King of Fighters XII is coming this year! SNK's classic fighting game who has always been at odds with Capcom's succcess with Street Fighter. It's had it's own following, with it's own deep gameplay with a flurry of characters and features and I've always thought of it as much more high class then Street Fighter (while Street Fighter embraced simpler double quarter circle motions, KOF had much bolder, complicated motions like half circle forward + quarter circle back from that position) and as if that weren't enough, XII is going to be crazy with nearly everything hand drawn and animated. Seriously, every frame was lovingly drawn and animated into perfect sequence.

It's got an awesome sense of style. Google it yourself man!

And finally is one that's perhaps most hardcore. A spiritual successor to Guilty Gear, the crazy hardcore game that practically brought 2D fighting games back into the limelight of the 21st century. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, takes the crazy homage to the crazy character designs of GG, envisions an entirely new cast of insane characters, brings back the rocking music we all pegged GG for, and polished up everything to a mirror sheen that would produce fires in drybush. That's BlazBlue to me. Everything's in: showstopping finishers, awesome supers, airdashing, air blocking, cancels, and maybe a kitchen sink to smack them with.

Ok, not really, but still...