Hong Kong, arcades, etc.

Hey all, my project assignment ended on Thursday and the past three days have been something of a mini-holiday for me. If not for the god damn weather, it would've been a great weekend. On Friday we had a typhoon signal 8, which pretty much means nobody's supposed to go out.

Anyway, I did get some good VFing on Saturday. Dickson came by and we played for a while on the Dreamcast. I also got the chance to go to Cyber City last night. Surprisingly, there were about 4 or 5 VF players there, and when we played there were usually a few non-VF casual observers. Cool, don't remember the last time that happened.

I played alright, had a few winning streaks, but the biggest surprise was the success I had with my Akira/Lion/Kage team (a surprise because my Akira and Lion traditionally sucks). Anyway, last night and last week's Friday session gave me a pretty good picture of the scene here in Hong Kong.

It's very active, with at least 10 players playing on a regular basis. I spoke with Dickson and he said there were three players that were clearly "up there" -- a Taka/Jeffry/Wolf player, a Lion player, and most dominating of all, an Akira/Kage player. I played a couple of Lions but none were good, so I assume I haven't met that guy. I did play this one guy who had an Akira/Kage/Akira player, and he was pretty good but not super, so I'm not sure if he was the guy Dickson was talking about. I did, however, definitely meet the Taka/Jeffry/Wolf player last Friday, but alas, only played him once as I had to get back to the office. Had I known he was considered a top player in HK, I would have definitely stayed longer.

Where is Jo Shun? I have not met him in the two times I went to Mongkok, although I hope I can make it again this coming Friday. The consensus seems to be that he's one of the better players here on the scene, but not quite up to the level of the big three.

One notable thing about the VF3 HK scene--there are a TON of Akira players. Tons. Almost everybody plays Akira, which is surprising compared to the relative dearth in the U.S.

Anyway, one of the things that I realized about the arcade was how much more precise it was in terms of hit-areas. What I mean is, variable terrain and character positioning is a lot more sensitive in the arcade than Dreamcast. You know how sometimes you do a pounce and the pounce misses because of terrain or because you hit the space inbetween the character's legs? That happens a LOT more in the arcade. My theory is that the character models on the DC are generically larger, allowing hits to register on the DC where they don't on the arcade.

My Kage has definitely been spoiled by the DC, as I am not at all confident as to what TFT combos work easily or not on the arcade. Does Knee -> P -> P -> P,P -> slide work? I was very tentative on the combos and stuck to basic P,P,b P,K, P,K -> slide, P -> flipkick, etc.

Hmm, OK, what else. Oh yeah, girls here are hot.

I'm definitely going to go to Tokyo post-VF4 release there. Anyone else besides me and Brian? (Dickson is going to be there this weekend too, the lucky bastard).

Oh yeah, there was one other thing. I was watching TV last night and guess what came on...VIRTUA FIGHTER THE ANIMATION!!! God, what piece of crap that was, by all standards of anime. Akira is of course the hero, Pai his girlfriend. Like in other similar types of anime, everyone else is just space filler. The fighting scenes were subpar, Dural looked like an idiot, almost every anime cliche was in there, the story was laughable, and overall it just wasn't a pleasant experience. I forced myself to go through it though, just because it was Virtua Fighter.

*sigh* The sacrifices I make for this game....<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by ice-9 on 07/08/01 04:07 AM (server time).</FONT></P>

 

for level terrain, do TFT, Kn, F+P, PK, slide. 100 points with good knee (which i rarely saw at vg, btw), not too difficult on most characters. but don't bother with it jacky and up on level terrain, though.