First Post Ever!!!!!

First off, we’ll go over my background because I’m by far not an expert. I’ve been gaming since the late ‘80’s and although the majority of my gaming is on the PC I used to live at the arcades playing fighting games when I was young. I was always a casual fighting game player and never really game a thought to becoming competitive until I picked up Soul Calibur 2 for the Xbox. We started out casually playing in the lab I worked and I did very well until all of the guys I played with started to get a feel for the game. That’s when things started to get competitive because I can’t stand to lose. After breaking a number of game controllers I started to do some research – watching videos of championship matches and analyzing the game system. Things began to improve and once more I was untouchable in the little gaming group that I played with. That was to soon change once more when my gaming group expanded to include some players that really knew what they were doing. It was at this point that my game really started to improve because they could explain those points about the game system that I couldn’t understand on my own, not to mention the benefit of playing new people with new tactics. It was two years ago that I decided I was going to get competitive at a higher level and I entered myself in the SCII tournament at PAX (Penny Arcade Expo). Considering this was my first tournament ever I was very happy to place in the top 32 out of 256 players. Unfortunately I didn’t do so well the next year at PAX where I got knocked out by a very safe Taki player. This was the classic case of fighting a person with a completely different play style then I have ever seen before. Oh well, live and learn.

I switched to Virtua Fighter 4 EVO in anticipation of the upcoming release of Virtua Fighter 5 on the X-box 360. Finally a 360 game that I actually wanted to play! I was also fortunate to work with a couple of gamers that have been playing fighting games for years. This is what these guys live for and once again I have become seriously outclassed. I have to admit I have learned tons and become better than I ever could have without these guys support. Now it’s just a matter of time while I find more and more gamers to play and practice the stuff I’m learning online.

My current weak points:

• My C Dashing needs a lot of work. I have a very difficult time C Dashing by itself and even a harder time doing a series of CD’s like you see in the vids. My C Dashs seem to be slower and intermittent. I believe this is caused my not entering the commands accurately or possibly my inputs are too slow, fast or erratic. To overcome this problem I have been doing couple of things whenever I can. First is head to the Dojo and practice, practice, practice until I wear myself out and my game falls to pieces. The second thing I do is grab the controller when I sit down to watch a movie or TV and I just practice the inputs.
  
• I still have problems recognizing unsafe moves on the characters I play against. I can fight really well against the characters that I fight with because I can recognize the unsafe move that can be punished. I have a real hard time against opponents that play the characters that I don’t know. Only way to overcome this is to play a lot of games and learn all the characters to at least an intermediate level.
  
• My evade game is very weak ATM but it is coming along. I found that the reason I couldn’t get a handle on evading was I would do it way too soon, especially when re-acting to an opponent’s counter attacks.
  
• Using ETEG was just a function of practicing in the Dojo and in real matches. I'll keep on practicing until it becomes muscle memory.
  
• The other key point to using ETEG is recognizing Advantage and Disadvantage, knowing when and where to utilize ETEG or Fuzzy Guards – or just TE for that matter – is going to take a long time.
  
• Recognizing Advantage and Disadvantage -- I’ve been reading frame data and watching videos until I’m ready to pass out. My friend’s and I play every Tuesday and Thursday @ work so I get a chance to apply what I’ve learned.
  
• Multiple throw escapes -- I have only pulled off multiple throw escapes successfully a handful of times. This will come with time and for now I’m sticking to a single throw escape.
  
• Knowing key escapes for each character – Again more time is needed to learn all the important throw escapes for all characters. I have a pretty good handle on Shun, Sarah, Kage and Pai.
  

I'll be spending more time in the upcoming weeks playing online and finding more players in my local area. As I continue to improvise I'll do the best I can to add helpful information here.

More to come....

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