More Street Fighter IV Impressions [Sony, M$]

I’ve continued to play Street Fighter IV and here are some observations I’ve had about it:

Ken is a very popular choice for Ranked Matches and it drives me nuts. I can’t count how many times I’ve been crossed up, crouch hard kicked into a Hadoken and Shoryuken. Luckily, I’ve gotten much better at blocking the combo and I’ve gotten better and ending the cross up with a simple Cannon Spike with Cammy. It’s mega-frustrating to see player after player just pick Ken over and over and it’s kind of fatiguing. As a counter-measure, I’ve decided to wait out timers if I ever have someone pick Ken on me. From what I hear on Giant Bombcast, it seems that the Player Matches are a little more varied than this lame Ken-fest I’m facing. I guess once I hit ten straight victories I’ll start playing Player Matches.

I found myself winning a bunch of rounds yesterday via timer. Ken and other shoto players tend to hang back and Hadoken over and over as do some charge players. I’ll gladly let them hang back and do nothing waiting for me to approach them, cause I’m not going to. Instead I’ll let the timer wind down and, if I have the damage advantage, take the timer win.

Getting all the medals would be a challenge, but it seems that you can get them in player matches too, so I can just arrange for those later if I need to. Otherwise I might never get that elusive Perfect medal.

My new Mad Catz Street Fighter IV Arcade Fightstick arrived yesterday and I’ve been putting it to good use so far. So far I prefer it to my PS3 controller, not because the D-pad is particularly horrible on it (I’m looking at you Xbox 360), but because the D-pad is right next to the left stick and I sometimes hit it with my thumb when I’m performing moves. I’m still not 100% with the stick and I mess up on executing some moves, but it’s still a solid, significantly better way to play the game. It’s funny, I would never have thought that I would be giving positive reviews toward third party controllers, but these controllers are well worth the investment, especially if you use a 360.