RipTen Videogame Blog » Fighting

Tecmo’s Dead or Alive 5 Kicks High, Crumbles Beautifully (Hands-On)

Michael Futter — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:00:59 +0000

Ninja Gaiden wasn’t the only thing that Tecmo Koei was showing off this week. As you may know, gamers are poised to get their hands on Dead or Alive 5 for the first time with pre-orders of Ryu Hayabusa’s third adventure, or in the Ninja Gaiden 3′s Collectors’ Edition.

The DoA 5 Alpha features two stages and four different fighters, and for fans of the series, it’s going to serve as confirmation that the fifth time is the charm. In the latest iteration, fighters move faster and battles aren’t over until one fighter is down. There are no foregone conclusions, with luck turning on a dime. A well-timed counter or whiffed punch could mean the difference between a comeback from near-death and an embarrassing defeat.

I’ve always had a hard time getting into the Dead or Alive series. It always moved to slow for me, weighted too heavily toward the technical. My experience with this iteration, though, was a pleasant surprise. I had the opportunity to use Hayabusa and Ayane, both sporting graceful animations and brutally powerful strikes. Each fighter continues to have his/her own fighting style and learning not only your own strengths, but that of your opponent, is key.

I was extremely impressed by the visual fidelity, especially when it came to Dead or Alive’s “third combatant,” the stages. Wall hits and dynamic stages return bringing the same level of strategy and jockeying that past entries featured. A single well-placed wall hit can turn the tide, blasting an opponent over your head, slamming them face-first into the ground. Instead of the fighters moving in front of a moving background, though, the stages bleed all the way to the front of the arena. You won’t be fighting in front of a crumbling building, you’re on top of it, contributing to it’s utter destruction. The world explodes around the action, creating gorgeous scenes as the two human fighters engage in their deadly dance, hurtling toward the ground only to dust themselves off and continue.

When I had finished playing five or six fights and put the controller down, only one question lingered, “How long do I need to wait for my next match?”

Why you should care about Dead or Alive 5:
- Stunning visuals with the most dynamic stages in series history
- Your favorite characters return with moves both new and old
- Quick matches that can turn on a dime require you to play like you’re at the end of your lifebar

RipTen Review: SoulCalibur V (Xbox 360)

Todd Schlickbernd — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:00:35 +0000

Seventeen years after the events of SoulCalibur IV, the spiritual weapons that are Soul Edge and SoulCalibur arbitrarily decided they would start causing all sorts of nuisances because Namco’s not done making these games yet. Why have 17 years passed? Well, how else would SoulCalibur V feature many new characters, some of which are related to characters from the previous games? Magic? Yeah, but instead, 17 years DO pass, so let’s see if those years in-game meant anything in real life.

Yes and no. SoulCalibur V has everything fans of SoulCalibur have come to expect from the franchise and in spades, but one big change has occurred in the transition from IV to V: the story mode. Well, that, and no more Star Wars characters. There are some other new inclusions along with features removed, but we’ll get to those later; like maybe 800 words from now.

A huge piece of fighting games, for whatever reason, is to tell really bad narratives. I jest, I jest! Many a single player fighting game experience, for instance SoulCalibur IV, lets players choose whom they would like to play as through the story. The character is introduced in one fashion or another, with text being a very common and supremely lazy method, and that’s it. The player then goes through a series of events, fighting at different locales that bear some relevance to that character (as far as you know). There, they fight some people spouting very specific intro and victory lines, along with some people they don’t seem to care about and who are likely just in a bad mood. It’s easy to tell, because usually, if they know the other character they’ll say something like “You… killed my father! You’ll PAY for that!”, and if they don’t, they’ll say “Out of my way!” or “Do we really have to fight?” or “My what big eyes you have!”. Not really much of a narrative. Well, SoulCalibur V is taking a different route, with a set-in-stone storyline featuring Sophitia’s children Pyrrha and Patroklos and that’s it. To my knowledge, there are no alternate endings and no different characters to choose from; nothing of that sort.

Thanks to having a dedicated storyline, my initial cynicism and apathy (a brutal combination) towards the characters in this game slowly evaporated. There was drama, there was tension. I genuinely wanted to know what each character’s next move was. The tale of this SoulCalibur begins with young Patroklos, son of the Holy Warrior Sophitia, on a quest to find his kidnapped sister. She was abducted by the “malfested,” demons and staunch followers of Soul Edge, and Patroklos is determined to rescue her. That’s all good stuff!

However, while the little picture of Patroklos and Pyrrha’s adventures is interesting and even made me care for a bit (not too much since the story wasn’t nearly long enough), SoulCalibur V ultimately fails to capitalize on the setting it creates. There are several new characters in the game, and many of them are related to classic characters in some way. For instance, Yoshimitsu is Yoshimitsu the 2nd, but he’s nowhere to be found in the story. Several characters hailing from Asia, such as Leixia (daughter of Xianghua) get very little exposition, and even less background. Not sure why the whole game is setup on the idea of having progressed 17 years when many of its ties to SoulCalibur IV are hardly touched, but it’s disappointing. Indeed, Namco might as well have just gone with silly random fights and a big text document introduction, though the in-game cutscenes were appreciated.

Beyond the realm of the story, one very large piece of the game is missing: a proper introduction to the fighting engine. There wasn’t much of this in SoulCalibur IV either, but in V, a series of pop-up screens show up the first time you see something you’ve never seen before, such as combat, or the online section of the menu, etc. There are a lot of things about the game that are incredibly easy to miss, like how the critical gauge works, or how “Brave Edge” works or what it does, or the fact that parry is now gone and has been replaced with a modified guard impact. It’s a minor nuisance as these are things the player learns after a while anyways, but it’d be nice to be properly introduced to the game.

Other single player features include arcade mode, quick matches and this new bit called Legendary Souls mode where you face off against incredibly difficult CPU players. As far as I know, it’s just you losing to a certain character with a polearm until your head explodes, but surely there are other characters beyond him. So my advice is, if you like Kilik, play the Legendary Souls mode to see all of his combos acted out upon your face, butt, and other humorous bodily pain-receptive locations. Beyond that, I’m not sure why you’d submit yourself to such pain, but perhaps major enthusiasts and competent SoulCalibur players will want to test their mettle in this mode. In modes designed for sane people, the AI is pretty consistent and intelligent, however, like just about every AI for fighting games ever, it can be vulnerable to the old “infinite sweep” technique.

All that’s well and good, but how does it PLAY? How does it FEEL? It FEELS like SoulCalibur. For all the talk of being more accessible to new players, it’s certainly not varied much from its predecessors. There’s now a Critical Gauge, which behaves much like the super bar in any Street Fighter game, and each character has their own Critical Edge which does lots of damage and has a nifty animation with lots of sparkles and blade clanging sounds. This mechanic does absolutely nothing to help new players. Although, now they can mash something out and hope it lands, but it certainly doesn’t make the finer mechanics any easier to understand. At its core, SoulCalibur has not changed, and people who hated the gameplay in IV will hate it, and those who loved it will love it. If I have to nitpick, and I do, I’d say the game’s a bit faster and “in your face” now, but even that is only marginally so, though it is a welcome improvement.

SoulCalibur V is largely a game of zoning and poking, managing your character’s speed and reach versus your opponent’s and reacting to their strategy appropriately. There’s much to love here for core fighting game enthusiasts. Mixups are an incredibly large part of the metagame, pressuring slower characters, kiting characters with long reach, and landing powerful combos on those evasive characters. Something that never ceases to piss the hell out of me that SoulCalibur has always had though is ring-outs, which despite being a perfectly valid part of the strategy, will be a very large irritation for new players and even for experienced players during fights against advanced AI.

One piece of gameplay that’s been removed is the whole weapon/ability/perk system-majigger introduced in IV. Thank bananas that’s gone! What a useless piece of gameplay. If that’s what Namco meant by making the game more accessible they’re wrong, it’s just less convoluted, but fine, we can give them a tally mark in the win column if they really insist (and they do).

Speaking of Namco winning, the increditacularly awesomepressive character creation makes a triumphant return in SoulCalibur V and it’s got tons more of the aforementioned bells and whistles, literally. Amongst a veritable bevy of customization clothing is now equipment, allowing players to affix realistic things like bows or scrolls, or slightly silly things like horns and apples, to their character to add to the customization. Surely this will result in many different perverted characters, and I’m just fine with that, and so is Namco. The fact that people have the option to do more or less whatever they want is awesome. If it’s not a perverted character you want, then go ahead and make some sort of anime chick, or a flamboyant homosexual, or an angsty teenager, or even your mother (hopefully, the two aren’t the same).

To go along with the much-appreciated color changing, is the option to imprint clothing with a variety of patterns. This would be great if the options weren’t mostly atrocious. The voice pitch and tone modifiers are also very cool, though sometimes both male and female voices can get a bit T-Painish, which is unfortunate if that’s not the desired effect. There are also stickers, which can be placed, altered and moved on most any part of created characters, adding for even more variety. The customization is freaking winsauce, and should (and can) be poured over just about every facet of your experience with this game. It’s also probably fattening.

The final, and arguably most impressive, set of features in SoulCalibur V is nestled in the online section of the menu. This is where Namco’s fighting game development experience really shines, demonstrating their expertise relative to other fighting game developers. Players can choose from the typical Ranked and Player match styles, the difference being leaderboard recognition and average level of try-hardiness, as well as a nifty thing called the Global Colosseo, named thus likely to make Ezio feel at home in this strange world.

This piece of awesome is a giant lobby where people can find matches for training or look for people they’ve met online before (like their rivals). They can join random matches, or search for their own by scrolling over each person’s Player License and decide whether or not they think they’ll have any fun with that person. The game also allows people to chat, which… is probably a really bad idea, but it’ll be awesome until the trolling sets in. To top it off, there are tournaments people can join which presumably last a week. Winning likely comes with nifty things like in-game prizes or people caring about you a little more than they did at the beginning of the week.

In comparison to other fighting games, namely Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (because it pissed me off), the online and lobby features are freaking amazing. You can search for lobbies by some obvious criteria (region, lag, rank, etc.), and once inside, you can chat via voice or text. If you join while a match is going, you can observe the information of the players around you, make them your rivals, report them for being douchenozzles, or ignore them and be enigmatic and ominous. Once a game starts, it is viewable in full screen, but if you’re still enjoying your chatting or looking at player’s licenses, you can view the game in a smaller windowed mode.

Oh, and the graphics are awesome. I’m really not a stickler for graphics as long as the game doesn’t look like an unwashed donkey’s behind, but you probably do, and yeah they look great and they don’t get in the way of the gameplay. The music is also very high quality, though ultimately, the only song I ever want to listen to while battling is Ezio’s character theme. So yeah. Neo-anime 3D presentation wins.

SoulCalibur V is a quality fighting game. As someone who enjoys the genre, I did indeed enjoy this entry, despite the amount of game-fighting I had to do as a traditionally 2D fighting game enthusiast. It takes some getting used to for newbies and unfamiliars alike, but ultimately, the mechanics are solid for a 3D fighter, and the variety of play styles featured in the characters is rather robust. For people who enjoyed SoulCalibur IV but are on the fence about upgrading, rest assured, all the new characters are decidedly different from their older (and in some cases dead-er) contemporaries, boasting new combos to learn and skills to practice. Old characters returning to the franchise are largely similar if not congruent to their previous iterations, so if you loved Mitsurugi and don’t want him to change, no problem, because he didn’t. It’s unfortunate that the story failed to capitalize on its premise, but it’s not the worst thing ever and certainly can be called a story rather than a collection of people fighting each other for no reason. If you like fighting games, character customization, and awesome weapons and stabbing things with said weapons and don’t mind a short story and a bit of a steep learning curve, definitely add SoulCalibur V to your gaming library.

Here’s The Rundown:

- Combat mechanics are solid
- Character play style is varied
- Customization is very robust and gives players many freedoms
- Online options are thoroughly thought through and implemented
- Swords

- Story’s too short and too minimally focused
- Steep learning curve
- No tutorial

8 and 8.5 represent a game that is a good experience overall. While there may be some issues that prevent it from being fantastic, these scores are for games that you feel would easily be worth a purchase. Read more about our scoring system in detail here.

SoulCalibur V was developed Project Soul and published by Namco Bandai Games and a Xbox 360 copy of this game was provided for the purposes of this review. The story mode was played to completion on normal in 3 hours and 8 hours were spent playing additional single player and multiplayer content.

Soul Calibur V DLC Schedule Revealed, Tons of Customization Items and Music

Todd Schlickbernd — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:30:36 +0000

Soul Calibur V, latest in the long line of Namco’s weaponized fighting game, will be releasing just around the corner on January 31. One might think it’s easy street after that, but there’s another corner the following Friday upon which the first DLC will be released. In the coming weeks, as listed below, two more DLC packs will be released, each priced at 160 Microsoft Points, and each containing nine customization items and music from other Soul Calibur games since the dawn of time.

Lovers of the Soul Calibur franchise should rejoice at this, and haters of DLC should be equally glad that they won’t miss out on any new characters introduced as DLC like a game in recent history involving two major franchises fighting each other in three-person teams. This is a good deal, and players won’t have to wait long for it either.

DLC 1: February 3

Nine exotic-themed customisation items, including bikinis wings and face paints.
Original music from Soul Blade and Soul Calibur. Tracks will also be available to purchase individually at €0.99/80 Microsoft Points.

DLC 2: February 14

Nine fearsome customisation items, including breast plate, kimono and animal heads.
Original music from Soul Calibur 2 and Soul Calibur 3. Tracks will also be available to purchase individually at €0.99/80 Microsoft Points.

DLC 3: February 28

Nine exclusive customisation items including mask, face paint, camouflage and skull.
Original music from Soul Calibur 4 and Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny. Tracks will also be available for purchase individually at €0.99/80 Microsoft Points.

If you missed it, here’s the full cinematic intro in all its glory.

Street Fighter x Tekken Gets Mega Man, Pac-Man as Sony Exclusives – Trailer

Todd Schlickbernd — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:00:36 +0000

Fighting games with console exclusive characters are slowly becoming a thing. Soul Calibur IV did the whole Star Wars things with Darth Vader on PS3 and Yoda on Xbox 360 (presumably due to their natural color schemes) and Mortal Kombat had Kratos exclusively on PS3.

This time around Street Fighter x Tekken is getting a rather healthy cache of Sony exclusives including Mega Man… Okay now that that’s sunk in, his character is based on the US version Mega Man 1 box art. Which means he’s really goofy looking, and frankly rather out of shape. His Namco counterpart will be Pac-Man… Alright, cool, but not just Pac-Man in all his spherical glory, but Pac-Man atop Mokujin, the wooden block character from previous Tekken games. These two inclusions, while awesome shout outs to Capcom and Namco fans, are also a little zany. Hopefully they’ll be worthwhile characters to play, but at least they won’t be alone in the exclusives realm, joining Cole from Infamous and Kuro/Toro (strange Sony cat things) as PS3 and PS Vita exclusives. What a world we live in.

Check out the announcement trailer below.

Source: Capcom-Unity

Watch Ezio Swing Swords In This Soul Calibur V Trailer

Aaron Alexander — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 10:27:31 +0000

Yes internet, you called it. Ezio is officially in the Soul Calibur V roster. It makes more sense than a tiny green goblin with a laser sword, so it’s actually a cool addition all things considered. Watch the trailer below;

I guess using stealth is out of the question? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

New Street Fighter X Tekken Character, It’s Steve Fox

Aaron Alexander — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:23:54 +0000

Do you like cryptic trailers? If so click back on your browser, this one’s fairly obvious. It’s a teaser trailer for the next character being added to Street Fighter X Tekken’s line-up. Guess what? It’s Steve Fox. It’s a good addition, as Balrog Vs Steve matches would just make sense. Watch below;

Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, and keep reading RipTen for the latest information regarding Street Fighter X Tekken.

Dingleberry, Crackspackler and Sphincterface Among Hundreds of Words Banned from Mortal Kombat

Bryce Wilson — Sun, 01 May 2011 13:37:40 +0000

A data file enthusiast has torn apart the configuration file for the latest Mortal Kombat game and found a bunch of ridiculous words banned from use in MK9 text communications.

So whilst it’s okay to use Scorpion’s fataility to cut someones airborne skull in half, it’s frowned upon and forbidden to use terms like:

skin flute, bunk monkey, balls in your mouth, fudge packer, cocksmoker, sphincterface, deez nuts, cum dumpster, monkey humper, mother fucker, mud people, muff diver, dune coon, penis breath, pussyjuice, rug muncher, rectal redneck, tar baby, tit fucker, aaaand Bin Laden.

Oh, you also can’t use the word “murder” which I can’t help but feel is slightly ironic considering the voice-over guy yells “FINISH HIM!” at the end of every fight.

Source: [GamesRadar]

Registration Opens for SS 2K11 – Australia’s Largest Fighting Tournament

Bryce Wilson — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:44:41 +0000

The biggest fighting tournament Australia has ever seen is getting closer and closer, and pre-registration for the event has started, allowing players to both save some cash and save their spots.

In just under two months, some of both Australia and the worlds best players will collide in what is set to be a massive tournament.

I was lucky enough to attend the event last year, and the great community and atmosphere made it something I’d recommend for every gamer to check out, whether you’re into Street Fighter or any fighting games for that matter.

Click here to be taken to the Official Shadowloo Showdown 2k11 registration page.

Mortal Kombat Now Holds 10 Guinness World Records – Excellent!

Murray Hibble — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 05:01:35 +0000

I have very fond memories of the Mortal Kombat series. The first game, played on the SNES, was a step-up from any fighter I’d played before, but it was Mortal Kombat II that became a revelation for the fighting genre. Most afternoons at my place we had 6 guys huddled around a 30 centimeter TV and SNES waiting for the ‘FINISH HIM’ so we could show off our knowledge of Fatalities, Babalities, Friendships and Stage-Specific finishers.

Releasing on the 19th of April in North America, the 9th iteration of the franchise will be let free from it’s Cage in Hell. My concern is that younger gamers may not appreciate MK’s pedigree and just how influential this series has been.

However, the latest Guinness World Records 2011 Gamer’s Edition contains no less than 10 world records held by this bloody series. They are as follows:

Longest-serving videogame voice actor: The longest-serving videogame voice actor is Ed Boon (USA), the creator of Mortal Kombat (Netherrealm Studios, 1991), who has voiced the character Scorpion in every iteration of the game since its debut.

Earliest game to trigger the set-up of a software ratings board: Established in 1994, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is an industry organization set up in response to the public reaction to Mortal Kombat. In an effort to avoid compulsory censorship, the ESRB set about applying ratings to games similar to those applied to movies. The move came as a consequence of pressure from the US Congress.

Largest promotional campaign for a fighting video game: According to CNN, in 1995 Mortal Kombat staged the largest ever promotional campaign for a videogame and its related products. Leaving aside initial pre-release promotion, the Mortal Kombat movie opened on 2,000 screens in the USA on August 18 of that year, followed by a direct-to-video digital animation special on August 29 , a live-action Mortal Kombat tour launched from Radio City Music Hall in New York on September 14, an interactive CD-ROM on October 1 and finally the release of Mortal Kombat 3 the video game on October 15.

Most numbered entries in a fighting game series: The largest fighting game series is Mortal Kombat. It has gone through more iterations than any other fighting game series. The ninth installment is due in 2011. Although Street Fighter has been running far longer than Mortal Kombat, and has more variations available to buy, it has only reached the fourth change to its core gameplay. Street Fighter IV arrived in 2008.

Earliest one-on-one fighting game to use digitized sprites: The 1992 launch of Mortal Kombat offered something that no other beat-’em-up had. In addition to ultra-violence and killing moves, it presented a brand new level of realism through the use of digitized sprites. Rather than using hand-drawn animation characters, the sprites used were based on graphics created using digitized footage of real actors.

Earliest video game poster to be censored: On April 22, 2003, Britain’s Advertising Standard’s Authority (ASA) took the then unprecedented step of condemning the poster campaign promoting Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. They claimed that the poster -which showed a “hoodie” wiping his bloodstained hand on a businessman above the words “It’s in us all” – was “irresponsible” and “condoned violence”. The poster was unsurprisingly withdrawn.

Earliest successful console fighting game: Although a very popular arcade game, when Mortal Kombat was released for the home market it took an incredible $1 billion-a-year in the first two full years of release. Needless to say, the game very quickly established itself as the number one choice among fighting gamers the world over.

Earliest 3D fighting game to offer online play: Although online play is now a standard feature in all new fighting games, the first online playable 3D fighter was Mortal Kombat: Deception, released in 2004. The game offered one-on-one fighting between two players over the Internet, in addition to two, more sedate mini games – Puzzle Kombat and Chess Kombat.

Highest grossing film based on a beat ‘em up video game: Mortal Kombat (USA, 1996) still holds the record for the highest grossing movie based on a beat ‘em up video game, having taken an impressive $122 million.

Most successful video game spin-off soundtrack album: Released on August 15, 1995, the Mortal Kombat soundtrack album, which accompanied the $100 million movie, went platinum within ten days of release. The album included contributions from artists as diverse as Orbital, Napalm Death and Traci Lords.

Excellent indeed.

Living in Australia where MK has been banned, I won’t be joining you all on release day; so I encourage everyone to upload as much goddamned content as they can to Youtube for me to revel in.

Two New Street Fighter X Tekken Videos Are Better Than One

Aaron Alexander — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 01:36:57 +0000

Captivate 2011 has come and gone, but not without some fresh Street Fighter X Tekken goodness. Capcom treated us to not only a brand new cinematic, but also some new gameplay footage which includes previously unannounced characters. Check it out below;

Cinematic:

Gameplay:

It seems Capcom are truly doing a fantastic job capturing the essence of both Street Fighter and Tekken, so put aside any worries Tekken players – projectiles won’t be the end of the world. Discuss the two trailers below, and let me know your thoughts on Street Fighter X Tekken via Twitter -@iamaaronalex

Watch This Insane Chun-Li Spammer Hit A 999 Strike MvC3 Combo

Bryce Wilson — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 09:49:08 +0000

Want to see something that would seriously piss me off? Check this out:

Whilst the combo itself isn’t that impressive, it’s still pretty insane to see someone hit 999 on the combo counter, although I’m not that proud of the player for doing it through spamming a blatant in-game exploit.

What do you think, cool or not? Let us know in the comments below or via Twitter – @DrjftGaming.

Source: [Dualshock Nexus]

Marvel Massacre: MvC3 Tournament to be Held in Melbourne

Bryce Wilson — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:27:54 +0000

Marvel v Capcom 3 is fresh off the cab rank and the first Melbourne based tournament is approaching rapidly… In two days actually!

The awesome guys over at Shadowloo and Couch Warriors have organised a fully fledged competitive tournament at the John Curtin Hotel in Carlton, Melbourne. Both THQ and Madman Entertainment will be supplying prizes for the winners including shirts, DVD’s, Blu-Ray’s and comic books.

If you’re interested in attending amongst some of Melbourne’s finest fighting game players, the details are below;

When: Sunday, Februrary 27th – 1:00PM Station
Where: 29 Lygon Street, Carlton Victoria 3053
Entry Fee: $5 Per Person, covers venue fee and tournament
Tournament Format: Best of 3 games,
Prizes: Shirts, Comics, DVD’s, Blu-Ray’s and possibly more.
Rules: Damage set to Medium, 99 second timer.

I’ll be attending the event, so if you’re there, say hello!

Image Source: [BossLogic]

Shadowloo Showdown 2k11 Teaser Trailer Released

Bryce Wilson — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:53:29 +0000

After a memorable and extremely successful Shadowloo Showdown 2k10, the awesome team over at the Shadowloo are preparing for round two and aiming to make the successor one of the biggest fighting events of the year and not just in Australia.

This first official teaser trailer shows the games that will be playable at the event, but more importantly it just gets me pumped to attend another awesome fighting event! Make sure to pencil in the 25th and 26th of June for a jam packed weekend of high caliber play and entertainment.

Check out the video below that BossLogic created.

MvC3 Tournament Fight Sticks Not Coming to the UK

Bryce Wilson — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:29:35 +0000

An apparent licensing issue is preventing the recently announced Marvel vs Capcom 3 TE Fightsticks from entering the United Kingdom.

With a design based off the incredibly high quality Street Fighter IV Tournament Edition sticks, the new MvC3 sticks were bound to be of a high standard however only players within the US will be able to experience them come launch. Due to licensing issues and various other problems the new products wont be available to UK customers until a later and as of now undisclosed date.

If you’re still in the market for one of these your best bet would be to order it online – however expect your wallet to take a financial beating as no doubt these products will fetch a premium price in their limited run.

Galactus Will Eat Your World In His Marvel vs. Capcom Reveal Trailer

Aaron Alexander — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:37:55 +0000

With the constant barrage of character announcements and trailers, it was only a matter of time before we got a good look at the final boss of Marvel vs Capcom 3.

The role is filled by Galactus. Ya know – that guy who eats worlds and stuff.

Below is the reveal trailer, which features his first phase (having some silver clones fight you) and his 2nd phase, Galactus himself fighting you with somewhat bullshit 185 hit combos. I’m sure we’ll all be posting on forums in anger about him soon enough. Cheap ass final bosses ftl:

Need more Marvel vs. Capcom 3 before release? Check out our hands on preview of the final build!!

Yakuza 4 Demo Drops on February 15th for PS Plus Users, 22nd for Everyone

Matthew Sims — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:30:49 +0000

The Yakuza 4 demo is hitting the PlayStation Marketplace on February 15th. The demo will feature all four playable characters to allow players a glimpse of the all the different fighting styles present in the game.

The seems awfully generous of Sega doesn’t it? Well don’t count your lucky stars just yet. The demo is exclusive to PlayStation Plus users for a week. What’s that you say? You didn’t buy PlayStation Plus? Well you’ll have to wait an extra week. That’s not really that bad, right?

Yakuza 4 lets players experience what its like to become part of the underbelly of Japan and become somebody in a world of nobodies. Be sure to check out the demo February 15th to prepare your skills for the full game hitting stores March 15th.

You can see the full press release below:

SAN FRANCISCO (February 2, 2011) – SEGA of America today announced that the playable demo for Yakuza 4 will be available exclusively to PlayStation® Plus users on February 15, 2011 and then to all PlayStation® Network users on February 22,2011.

The Yakuza 4 demo will allow players to try out all four playable characters with each of their distinct fighting styles. This is just a taste of what to expect from Yakuza 4, the game that lets you experience what it is like to be a part of the Japanese underworld. If you want to explore the more exciting parts of Tokyo and give yourself one last chance of becoming somebody in a world of nobodies, Yakuza 4 is the game you’re waiting for.

Yakuza 4 will hit North American retail shelves on the PlayStation®3 compute entertainment system on March 15, 2011.

For more information about Yakuza 4, please visit http://www.sega.com/games/yakuza-4/. For assets, please visit www.sega-press.com.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 Intro Video is All Sorts of Awesome

Matthew Sims — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:36:10 +0000

Are you excited for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3? We here at RipTen are eagerly awaiting this next title in the historic fighting franchise. The almost four minute intro looks completely legitimate and features a slew of characters from the game’s deep roster. Also since it is leaked, be aware that the audio quality is far from spectacular.

Check out the leaked intro video below and get ready for worlds to collide February 15th!

[Source: toptiergaming]

Capcom Plans to Punish Rage-Quitters in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3

Matthew Sims — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:00:30 +0000

Anyone who has played a fighting game online has encountered this player of questionable moral standing. He (or she) employs a cheap tactic or has fallen into general suckage, and just as you are about to land the killing blow you are disconnected. The player hasn’t left because of a connection problem, but because the player, in the digital equivalent of throwing a tantrum, decided to quit the game; not only wasting your time, but robbing you of sweet, sweet victory. Luckily for fans of “final justice” Capcom has promised to fix the problem.

The plan is simple, yet brilliant. Capcom has reportedly concocted a Matchmaking system that tracks character traits, such as skill level, experience, and connection quality. This system also monitors a player’s tendency to “rage-quit” during a game. The system will then match the player with other players who have that same fatal character flaw.

In a sense this is meant to confine the worst offenders in a perpetual hellfire of never being able to complete a match. Of course, the only way to get out of digital hell is to finish and win or lose gracefully, not once, but continually. Capcom is including a rolling system of ranking so that these reformed offenders will also have a chance at making the leaderboards.

I know I speak for all fighting game fans when I say, I sincerely hope this works.

PAX 10: Ripten Gets Bloody With Mortal Kombat

Danielle Cantrell — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:10:39 +0000

Kitana is very good with her fans.

I wrote about Mortal Kombat at E3 earlier this year, before it was available to play. At PAX however, there were several opportunities to get a feel for the game. With nine displays, eight on Playstation 3, one on Xbox 360, it was easy to find one to play on. Luckily, we got to play on the big screen and hang with the developers.

Of course, since every character has different traits, I only got a feel for a few of them: Kitana, Mileena, and Scorpion. At this point, Kitana didn’t have an X-Ray move, which was disappointing because she was the most fun to play for me. The combos were much more simple than they have been in other Mortal Kombat games, also. A fatality meant a simple Down+Y or Down+Triangle, depending on which system it was being played on, and most of the combos were only 2-4 buttons. Considering that I’m used to Mortal Kombat: Deception’s complicated combos, this iteration of Mortal Kombat was a welcome change. There’s also tag-team gameplay which is a first for MK.

Check out this video from GTTV where they discuss Tag-Team and show some sweet and bloody action:

So far, the playable characters were Scorpion, Mileena, Sub-Zero, Johnny Cage (looking douchey-er than ever), Kitana, Raiden, Cyrax, Kano, Kung Lao, Reptile, Sektor, Shang Tsung, and Nightwolf.

Scorpion, of course, had his signature “Get over here!” chain pull that he’s so famous for, and it made me giddy just to hear it. All of the characters I saw win had gory fatalities — Sub-Zero froze the lower half of his foe’s body, then tore the head and torso from the frozen part. Mileena literally ate her enemy’s face. Every fatality had a perfect, Mortal Kombat style feel, well deserving of a Mature rating as opposed to that pesky Teen rating the last installment received. Check out a ton of fatalities here.

A couple of our friends got bloody on the big screen before us, check out the footage below:

Ripten’s Dave Oshry also got a chance to interview two of the developers of Mortal Kombat: Hector Sanchez (Producer) and John Edwards (Design lead)

DO: When did you finally get the idea that you could bring back Mortal Kombat in a 2D fashion, how did it get green lit, and how’d the pitch go? How excited was everybody when you realized you were finally bringing MK back the way it always was meant to be?

HS: Well, we started messing around with the 2D fight mechanic during the MK vs DC days, it was closer to the 2D kind of fight mechanic. You could still move in and out of the 3D space, but you actually had to hit a separate button to do it. I think just stepping off of that, I felt that a return to the 2D kind of a game was a big deal. Everyone around the studio was pretty excited and kind of pushed it around to everybody. It’s like a return to form. It’s the MK that everybody wanted to make, you know, not to say that the other games weren’t good, but a lot of the younger kids on the team were into the whole turn-back. It reminds them of the games they played growing up.

DO: A lot of people think that you were inspired by the success and the reboot of the Street Fighter series, but you guys were actually working on this before Street Fighter IV, right?

HS: Yeah, like I said, we fooled around with the 2D mechanic during MKDC and right after MKDC, that was about November 2008. Around that time is when we started working on this version of Mortal Kombat. Street Fighter IV didn’t come out until 2009, right? So, it helped out a little bit, just them coming back and the reception that Street Fighter got when it went to 2D . . . it gave everybody a lot of confidence that this was the right move for us, that there was still space for 2D gaming and people were going to embrace it.

DO: Okay, what’s the most important thing that makes Mortal Kombat as visceral now as it was in the MK3 days . . . is it the fatalities?

JE: I think it’s a mix, like we try to hit both sides of the fanbase, the casual side and also the competitive side. I think it’s always been about hard hits, loud crunching sound effects, and of course the gore. We’d really like to return to that.

DO: What are some of your favorite new things that you’ve put in this iteration of Mortal Kombat?

JE: I think a lot if it’s the 2D stuff, things like projectiles are way more important than they were in the 3D fighting games, it was pretty easy to sidestep those in the past, now the gameplay is more fast-paced, jump based, we’ve added dashes, we’ve added block cancels, dash cancels, more hardcore kind of fighting game aspects underneath the surface of this very fun, casual experience.

DO: What about new additions to the characters? Did you change any of them up a bit? I didn’t think you could make Johnny Cage more of a douche, but it looks like you turned him up a notch.

JE: Yeah, a big tattoo of your name on your chest…

HS: Yeah, I think one of the lines I’ve been saying is “What’s old is new again.” We’re kind of taking it back to those old school characters. If you have a favorite character from MK 1, 2 or 3, there’s a pretty high chance they’re gonna be in this game, but they’re going to be presented in ways that you haven’t seen before. A lot of those kind of old school characters have been re-transformed and re-created, so if you have an idea in your head of what these characters are going to look like, you’re going to be looking forward to the reveals of these characters and just seeing what we’ve done with the technology we have available to us now. The first MK was made with four people, now there’s over a hundred people on the team. There’s a lot more ideas, so it’s more of a collaboration. It’s been pretty cool.

JE: Yeah, and it’s kind of a throwback, we felt like, a retelling in a way, of the past MK games. The way the storyline works kind of allows us to change up some of the characters, so some of the characters might act and fight a little bit differently than they did in the past, but they still have that core feel that they did.

DO: Any surprises in store?

HS: Uh, yeah, but if I told you they wouldn’t be surprises.

DO: Haha, alright . . . but there are going to be some good ones?

HS: Totally, you know Mortal Kombat’s always had sort of an underground feel about it, but there’s a lot of things to discover in this game. That’s kind of what made MK 1, 2 and 3 as successful as they were. You know, the first time you heard about Reptile, the first time you heard about… I’m not going to say any of the other characters, but the first time you heard about the secret, hidden characters that were in the game, that was a big deal, and you wanted to figure out, “Okay, how do I fight against Reptile at the bottom of the pit in MK1? Okay, you have to wait until the silhouette goes across the screen…” If you look at our pit now, it does have some of the same kind aspects, so all those kind of old-school secrets, we’re trying to transform them into this thing and make it worth it for the players who play this game over and over.

DO: Any plans to include the old games as unlockables or downloadables?

HS: You know, right now we haven’t really been focusing on anything like that, that would be additional to it, we’re just focusing on the content that’s in the game right now.

DO: Do you see 2D as the future of MK? Do you think there’s chances for more 3D iterations? Because they were reasonably successful, you know, another Sub-Zero adventure? What do you think?

JE: Yeah, we’re always looking at new ways to bring Mortal Kombat to the fans, in the past we’ve dabbled with Shaolin Monks, mythologies, things like that. We love all types of games, we have people on the team that have worked on all types of games, we think we can do the kind of, what presents Mortal Kombat in the best light for the fanbase, we’ll do that.

DO: Lately it seems like 2D gaming has had a bit of a resurgence. Are you seeing this as kind of a rebirth of 2D gaming in this late stage of this generation of gaming?

JE: I think so, I think something that’s kind of helped it out is that the competitive aspect has been missing. Like, arcade kind of went away and you missed that 1-on-1 competitive edge. Now, the online experience is getting fairly close to that again, I think it’s really had a positive impact on everything. As far as 2D stuff, you know, again, it’s a simpler kind of way to play a fighting game, I think it helps bring some of the newer fans in since they don’t have to worry about sidesteps and things like that, and it makes the action way faster paced, and I think that’s attracting a new fanbase.

DO: Okay, one more question. What makes Mortal Kombat better than any other fighting game out there?

JE: Wow . . . well, the most important thing would be the fanbase, right, they’re a really active fanbase and really push us to come up with newer and crazier things every time out, and then a lot of the people on the team have been working with Mortal Kombat for their whole careers. We’re passionate about it, and I think it shows.

HS: Yeah, I wouldn’t dismiss the following that we have is what makes it more popular, but I wouldn’t necessarily ever say that we’re better than the other ones. I think every single franchise has their own strengths and weaknesses, and I think that our strengths lie in our dedicated fanbase and in our story of the characters, and we allow a lot more over-the-top, more of a western kind of fighting game. As opposed to a more technical, eastern type.

DO: Well, no one else has fatalities.

JE: Nobody else has fatalities, well, some people have tried…

DO: Yeah, but it’s not the same, it’s not Mortal Kombat, you know, it’s not FINISH HIM!

JE: (Laughs) Yeah, I think another thing that sets us apart is our kind of dark and morbid sense of humor. A lot of people look at MK and, a lot of people get it and a lot of people are like,“Oh, these guys are sick for coming up with this stuff.” But, we’re just trying to have fun with it, it is really gory and over-the-top, and we’re laughing at what we’re doing with half the stuff. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We’re laughing, we’re making video games, we’re trying to make things fun and exciting. That’s what gives Mortal Kombat lasting appeal.

After the interview Hector and Dave went at it for a bit on the big screen. Dave chose Johny Cage and Hector took Kung Lao . . . needless to say, here’s what happened to Dave . . .

This game was definitely one of my favorites at PAX 2010, and now that I’ve had a chance to play it instead of just watching gameplay, the anticipation is definitely building. I look forward to seeing which characters will be playable in Mortal Kombat (C’mon, Ashrah!) and how their stories will develop in this game.

Mortal Kombat should be released in spring of 2011 on PS3 and Xbox 360.

C. Viper Coming to iPhone Version of Street Fighter IV

Sam Naylor — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:26:13 +0000

Capcom have announced today that the popular new character C. Viper will be coming to the iPhone version of Street Fighter IV.

In the past Capcom have added Cammy and Zangief by way of free updates to the iPhone game, so we can assume the process will work the same way this time. It’s good to see constant updates to make games like this better instead of re-releasing it and screwing over the people who bought the game early on. Capcom are really leading the charge as a Japanese developer being willing to respect its customers, and I tip my hat to them.

The trailer is below, and as you can see C. Viper is going to be as irritating as ever.