That’s So Random: Getting Back on the Grind

Hype just stepped it up to another level.

Man, this summer is shaping to be an extremely hype and exciting year. Ultra Street Fighter IV finally dropped, E3 2014 set the tone for the new generation of consoles, and the crew is grinding to kick things to another gear. Yup, it’s just an awesome time to be a gamer and my wallet is about to get a whole lot smaller.

So, yeah – Ultra SFIV is here! It’s funny to see me rejoicing over the existence of this updated installment since I started to lose my passion and desire to actively compete since the Vanilla days. Many of you know that Chun hasn’t gained the best attributes compared to previous iterations when she was at her strongest (Third Strike, we’re looking at you), but I reluctantly endured through her limitations. Now, thanks to Combofiend, Chun has gained some much-needed buffs to give her a fighting chance against the rest of the cast. That health buff is a blessing, as well as the triumphant return of DF+LK (a move that I STILL haven’t been actively using in casual matches – need to work on that.)

Truth be told, Chun’s tweaks isn’t the only thing that got me hype, Ultra has been refined to the point that vortex-happy and reckless-minded players now have to work a bit harder to earn their wins. This topic has sparked a lot of controversy, especially for those who have become so accustomed to the absence of FADC giving them the advantage to execute an attack, and have an opportunity to reset their offensive momentum.  Now, being an old-school player, I need to point out that I never agreed with this mechanic. This generation sadly has become spoiled by the fact modern-day fighters don’t properly teach players to be accountable for their actions. . .until now. “Combofiend Edition” doesn’t complete wipe the slate clean, but the pacing and adjustments definitely resonate more with the style I’ve come to cherish and love, with a few exceptions.

Delayed wakeup was introduced as a means to help minimize the 50/50 vortex blueprint, and as you can imagine, there’s a great amount of debates that this has drastically hurt characters (i.e. Viper/El Fuerte) who maintained a sharp competitive advantage. Red Focus is a new defensive tool that was also introduced to counter multi-hit attacks. Broken? Well, the verdict is still out on this tool, and I haven’t been spending a great amount of time as a lab monster, but we’ll see how many players will exploit this when EVO 2014 rolls around.

 

Speaking of tournaments, next week will mark my first time making the trek out to Orlando. Yup – I am talking about CEO of course. Any excuse to travel gets me hype, especially when I can fly – driving tends to give me road rage (but we’ll save that for another time.) A lot of well-known media guys will be on hand to help showcase another higly anticipated competitive expo masterfully developed by the one-and-only, Alex Jebailey. He’s also the new community face for Iron Galaxy, and has been doing a great job showcasing their flagship title, Divekick. Now if you’ve been actively following us on Facebook, then you know we’ll naturally be representing with an exceptional gallery of sweet photos.

Which brings me to the next big addition to the PTB feature in order to really let our portfolio shine. Over the next several months, you’ll be seeing PTB in a lot more casual, non-FGC settings. Concerts, gaming events, weddings. You name it – we’ll be in there.

Although we’ve come to value Facebook as a solid marketing tool to reach new audiences, the compression values don’t speak well for our photo quality.  As a result, we plan on officially showcasing our photos, in full high-definition quality without any compression nonsense.

Our new official media portfolio is live at: http://www.ptbpro.org!

Look for some of our video content showcased there as well – and this is only the beginning – but we’ll fill you more later. These columns aren’t designed to be too extensive, so stay tuned for the next weekly column which will resume the week after CEO.

Until next time.

Unfortunately Facebook isn’t the best domain to showcase our digital content. Photos are compressed so badly, you lose so much rich detail – and as a result, many photographers ultimately look elsewhere to present their material. Well, that’s the

 

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