Virtua Akuma #1 - Street Fighter Series Beginnings

 When you look at the Street Fighter series, you see that it has had a long, brilliant career. While it started at a low point, it came back with a game that deserves its own Top 10 list. This series has taken the fighting game genre and flipped it every which way. This, along with Mortal Kombat, are the original juggernauts that have remained relevant throughout the entire video game community. While MK was more for the adult crowd with all of the hyper violence and gore, but Street Fighter was much less vulgar. This was a game series that didn't indulge in the blood, but the colorful cast of characters and superior controls. Street Fighter II was still a gigantic hit in both the arcade and home video game consoles. 

Street Fighter 

This game is the one that aged the poorest in the entire series. Not only were the controls far inferior to its successors, but the limitations of only Ryu or Ken to play was seen as a drawback. For its time, though, it was still a success because it was one of the first fighting games ever marketed. The simplistic gameplay was said to be the quarter munching between two players needing to prove their worth by beating their faces in. This was a novelty, but no one can deny that it was a very crude start to the genre. The graphics, the sluggish movement speed and the controls were all left wanting. 

Street Fighter II

This is a game that requires its own article if we were wanting to go into real detail with every iteration. This was the sequel to a mediocre title that outdid it in every conceivable way. Even with a rather slim roster in the first game, it was still a huge upgrade from the first title. Along with the return of Ryu and Ken, there was E. Honda, Blanka, Zangief, Dhalsim and an entire slew of diverse and interesting characters. Each of these fighters are different in both control and style of playing. With Chun-li becoming one of the fan favorites as did Guile. 

At first, only the PC crowd got Vega, Balrog and M. Bison. Funny story with these characters, each of them had to trade names because of the implementation of Mike Tyson that they wanted to take back. So, Vega was now M. Bison, the main villain of the series and M. Bison was now Balrog, while Balrog was named Vega. The only reason I figured this out was in their Japanese version of Capcom vs SNK. I thought it was a mistake or a glitch at first. Oh and let's not forget Sagat. All of these became available to all consoles upon the first update, Champion Edition.

In subsequent versions of the game, though, there came those characters and more. Turbo, which was my version, had the same roster as Champion Edition but offered a sped up rule set that allowed some serious gameplay speed boosts. 

The New Challenger brought in staples of the series, T. Hawk, Cammy, Fei Long along with characters you'll see in several subsequent sequels and crossovers. Deejay's kick technique also offered a very different styles of fighting with a faster control all around. With such a high quality game with a loyal fanbase, Street Fighter II was a tough act to follow, and Capcom may have tripped up just a bit on this milestone. 

Street Fighter III

This was a game of catchup from the start. Instead of having great amounts of characters returning for an Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 character roster, the third title had a couple of returning, while putting in a whole gang of brand new characters to the group. This game aged like fine wine, even if the initial sales were lackluster, it still grew a strong fanbase and more and more people see it for its superior control and fighting styles that were under appreciated in their time. 

This game didn't have as many upgrades as the second title, but its roster did see a jump in number, adding new staples to the series. Second Impact and Third Strike had beautiful graphics in 2D while maintaining that hard standard in controls. Elena and Dudley were noteable for being so different in style, but both were highly played in the competitive community. Everyone had their main and this game became an underground success thanks to its very unyielding integrity in gameplay. Sadly, Street Fighter III was released when home game consoles were growing in power, and now Dreamcast could easily play the title, hitting the arcade scene hard in sales. 

Street Fighter IV

This was a peak in the series. Through upgrades of character roster and graphics, this title brought about the dream roster that anyone could have asked for. This was the Mortal Kombat Armageddon level roster the fans were looking for and it brought the series into the 3D era, though it was rather late as it arrived on the PS3 and XBox 360. It brought Street Fighter on top of the arcades, as declining as they were at the time, and it is actually my favorite game in the series. Considering its origins, it's rather unbelievable that it brought about the red man, Hakan, who pours oil on himself in order to slip and slide toward he opponent to change the physics and catch the enemy fighter off guard. 

Akuma was brought to the front of the game, where he started out as a secret character in the final iteration of Super Street Fighter II. Also brought to the roster was Ryu and Ken's teacher, Gouken and Chun-li's sensei, Gen. Out of all of these amazing fighters and even a super natural main boss of the game, Seth, it was Juri who came out the victor. The real crazy part of this is Juri being my main character to play. Her kick technique is even superior to that of Deejay, mostly because of her super technique. 

The roster was now vast, and now characters from other Capcom properties came into the mix, namely Final Fight with Mike Haggar, Poison and Hugo. Street Fighter IV was fantastic in every iteration and it brought an entire army of possibilities. Of course, Street Fighter V brought about the same quality and quant---yeah no it didn't.

The release date for Street Fighter V came and the launch game came with a scrawny amount of characters, with the microtransactions fully active as characters were meant to be paid DLC. Along with the in-game adverts coming about, this drew an extreme amount of controversy. Not only were loyal fans paying full price for the presales, but we now need to spend more money to even come close to a character roster like IV's. 

By the time Champion Edition came out for the fifth title, I was completely checked out of the series. Later, and I mean much later, I did end up buying the game in its full form and it was refreshing to see such a gigantic roster as 40 characters, along with a full story mode. This did a lot to improve the game over all, and it became a very high quality title. The problem was that this hurt Capcom's credibility with many fans. 

We'll be getting into the next slew of Street Fighter titles, as there are several other series such as EX and its many sequels. Then, let's not even think about the crossovers that need to get covered.     

Top 160+ Favorite Games of all time! (Pt 4)

We have entered the top 100 games, and there are quite a few to go through. Keep in mind, this is an apporximate listing, and if the game is on this list, no matter what number it is, it's awesome. This is a subjective list and there are far too many great games out there to think of all of them, but I gave it my best try. Many of these games are only in a certain number because that's the number I thought of it at. Hopefully, this will remind all of you of a game you have played before or introduce you to games that you may enjoy for yourself. Some of the games on this very long list are not available to play outside of CD-ROM drive, but there's a chance you can find them if you look hard enough. Yohoho.

#99 Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth II

There were a lot of Real Time Strategies coming out at one point in the mid-2000's and this is one of them! Battle for Middle Earth is not one of those wide-spread successful games you know from back then, but it is one of those movie tie-in games that no one paid much attention to. For a movie tie-in game, this really wasn't bad. Like Warcraft, you build your city and your army in order to fight the enemy forces. The mechanics aren't quite as straight forward. One of the great things about this game is that every time you get a new combat unit, they come out in droves and make it look like you build your army within just a few progress bars. The magic mechanic puts the advantage in your favor, but that won't stop Gollum from showing up and the enemy going after the ring immediately. If they get the ring, you'd better hope you built a big enough army. 

#98 Sonic R

That's right, look what made it to my top 100! This should be surprising to no one. I have already proclaimed my love for this game in both its Sega Saturn and Gamecube ports. The running controls take a lot of getting used to and winning races can turn into a nightmare if you fall off of the road or ramps or get caught because of the janky physiques. It does not matter. This game is still fun to unlock all of the characters as you go, especially the legendary Metal Tails. The music is the greatest and the graphics are comfortably 32 bit. This is an old-time favorite racing game that isn't for everyone, but it could be for you.

#97 Warcraft III

The game successfully succeeded Warcraft II and for good reason. The third iteration came out with awesome 3D graphics, new mechanics, new races and great new minions to populate the map with. Warcraft 3 is old school RTS fun and pertains a lot to the Strategy part of the game concept, where Warcraft II focused more on both massing units and strategy. Getting your heroes to their highest level and upgrading all of your units is paramount and killing the opponent may hinder on the idea getting done in a very quick fashion. Orcs fighting against Humans has never been so much fun, and this game is a must-see for Reat Time Strategy fans.

#96 Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

It is interesting how the Zelda franchise kept trying different genres in the gaming industry. A roleplaying open world game was not the expected turn at the time, but now people can't seem to get enough of this amazing world. Hyrule hasn't looked this awesome since Ocarina of Time and the mechanics of danger in the wild can be some of the most fun on the Switch system. Surviving the wilderness and going up against the most random creatures imaginable has to be some of the most fun we've ever had with Link. This game worked its way up very quickly through the legends of the Nintendo greats and it is obvious why. The graphics, the scope, the dynamic game design and just the game itself can be viewed as a very recent classic.

#95 Final Fantasy

It's hard to believe this came from such an early point in video games. Final Fantasy feels like a game that is much too large for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It's one of the originals of its time and has an intricate story as well as an amazing pace where, the more you progress through the world, the stronger you become. It's grindy, obviously, as it was the style at the time, but it's still a lot of fun to get stronger, and start taking down bigger and badder opponents. I know that sounds like a normal thing for a video game, but this is one of the front runners along with Dragon Warrior.

#94 Virtua Cop 2

Rail shooters are an artform, and Virtua Cop got that style down with no trouble at all. Many see this as a better version of the first game, and there are many reasons why. It's not especially hard, but it does get more and more exciting with different little beats like chasing someone down in a car and taking down criminals as they are robbing a a jewelry store. It's not much different from the first game in the ways of graphics, not that it needed to. This game is more challenging, and the levels are longer, perfect if you just want more of a good thing like Virtua Cop. 

#93 Gauntlet Legends

This game is a tried and true way to bring a group together in order to fight off masses of orcs and demons. You've got your specialties in your warriors, wizards and archers and all of them are fairly well optimized for the sake of balance. You and your companions enter different dimensions and perform tasks like getting out of those worlds and killing entire armies in the process. There are items that are there to help you, while also items that are there to weaken and kill you. All through the game, you level your character up as you traverse more and more malicious creatures and spellcasters. You can just have a fun time or compete with one another with how many creatures you kill over all. It's just a lot of fun cooperating with other players to grind through monsters and treasure. 

#92 Die Hard Trilogy

It's good to get more out of a game, and this one has a lot to offer. While the elements can be seen as somewhat shallow, it's still just plain fun all around. A rail shooter, driving game, and a run and gun all rolled into a single package. Die Hard has been rather fortunate with its video games, for the most part, and this is definitely a game in its favor. All of it is slathered with 90's graphics and beautiful Sega Saturn polygons. Blood and bullets were had by all.

 #91 Blood

A game of its time and a brilliant first person shooter that brought a lot to the genre. If you love horror and you love big guns and dark magic, this is the game that you should have been playing yesterday. Blood is beautiful in its detail, bringing about a very gothic fantasy setting. You fight priests, gargoyles, zombies and spiders all over dark terror stricken maps. Armed wth sawed-off shotgun, rolls of TNT and tommy guns, you mow down dark forces all around you. This game is difficult, but it is also addictive.

#90 South Park Fractured but Whole

South Park can be seen as a culture among middle schoolers when it first came out, at least for our group. It's awesome to see a game that brings you into the world of South Park as if you're a part of a very, very long episode with some screwed up happenstance. Seriously, this game is weird, and brings you through time and mutants to fight the evil forces that come toward you. Seriously, at some point, you fight the Woodland Critters! That's right, it's a beautiful chaotic mess. It's a lot of fun to beat the hell out of Cartman, especially. This game is great if you love roleplaying and strategy gaming. Oh, and South Park, obviously.

 #89 Turok

The FPS genre is a very large spanning group of titles from so many gaming mediums and the N64 has a strange amount of great titles! Turok is a pure experience of destruction and laser blasts against savages and dinosaurs. The graphics are a 3D crude batch of 90's nostalgia and it is also the precursor to some decent sequels as well. The real fun, though, is from the cheat codes you can use in order to turn your enemies into big heads, go god mode, and infinite ammo on a full arsenal. It's a beautiful experience that any FPS fan should partake in. 

 #88 Three Dirty Dwarves

This is a very unique experience in games. It's a beautiful mish mash of different weapons and different ways to bash someone's skull in. Using the different weapons like the bowling balls or the baseballs you hit with a bat were one of the big elements that drew me to this title. I played it on a sample disc for the Sega Saturn and it was very quickly consumed once I got the full game. The mechanics are a lot of fun, the graphics are both 2D and 3D while maintaining its own strange handdrawn style. Beautiful game.

#87 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time

Arcades used to flood the city streets back in the day. Before you knew it, TMNT struck home with the first Konami game, well, this is where many people say they peaked. The turtles are back, now on a wild journey across time in order to get back to the Technodrome and defeat Krang. There are a few new mechanics, more notably the ability to throw a foot soldier at the screen, sometimes that's to attack the boss, who is targeting you from the screen. The graphics are arcade 2D bliss, even upgrading the look from the first arcade title. If you haven't played Turtles in Time, you haven't gotten the real beat'em up experience.

#86 Virtua Fighter 3tb

This title was confusing in the lineup of other Virtua Fighter games, when I first got the game, I had no idea why it was called 3tb. It turned out that it was the official third installment, it simply decided to slap "Team Battle" on the title and introduce a strange new mechanic with an update. It now had a 3x3 version, and while that is a pretty fun concept, it also made the game extremely long. It still had the awesomeness of Virtua Fighter 2, but bringing in the team battle must have not paid off because it was no longer a main game mechanic in any of the proceeding sequels in the series.

#85 Bioshock

This game easily worked its way into my favorites. The first time I played this game was at a friend's house. Knowing I wouldn't be able to play it if I didn't beat it, I played it for four hours straight and loved it so much that I stayed the night again and beat the game. Rapture was a horror masterpiece of a setting, and the story was so engrossing that I wanted to learn more. The twists near the end and the rising difficulty of the enemies and mazes made this game awesome beyond measure and it is still played to this day on the PS3. This is one game that will never leave my collection.

#84 Spider-man 2

It's hard to say where game franchises peak sometimes, but it's not at all hard to see with Spider-man. He has had overwhelmingly huge libraries of games dedicated to him and the early ones for the NES were... not very good. It just didn't feel like Spider-man. Well, Spider-man 2 leapt into view and they put in an amazing webswinging mechanic, along with a rough but very fun combat system. The controls, the graphics for the time, and the game itself has become one of the real favorites of the entire Spidey library. The PS4 version may have taken its crown since its creation, but this game was never a slouch in its own right. 

#83 Minecraft

Real creativity and freedom to express that creativity has been seldom seen in video games, but Minecraft seemed to allow it in a three dimensional way that captured the hearts of millions. In this game, I can create castles and villages, as well as turning a mountain into flat land. The ability to survive against zombies and creepers with your own resourcefulness is its own reward. The game has subsequently become much more difficult, especially at the beginning, as they seem to have tripled the amount of night creatures you run into every time it gets dark. You now need to be much faster, and that comes down to where you can hide and then thrive as a result. Minecraft really speaks to your creative nature and a lot of people love it for that.

#82 Bioshock Infinite

Where Bioshock captured my heart, this game carved and shined the edges of an already amazing concept. It's just different enough and just the same enough to capture the magic of the first game. They spared no expense for the PS3/360 age of consoles. Playing this game was a true experience and that is really saying something for the story, characters and amazing fighting mechanics that fill all of it. It's not perfect, it has its annoyances, but it is far from unworthy of being well into the top 100 on this list. Shooting the big mechanical badguys, being helped by Elizabeth and figuring out more of the mysteries of this strange cloud city is a gaming experience you should have for yourself.

#81 Star Fox 64

High flying action had never been so clear and beautiful as it was on the N64 sequel to the SNES legend. The game brought back the laser fights and ship battles with real voice actors and created new bosses as well as brand new worlds and even a tank! It's still that beautiful punchy gameplay that made you want to get the controls down to the point where you can dodge enemy fire and maneuver through the obstacles floating through space or sticking up from the ground. Star Fox never had a better game release since this title.  

#80 Bully

The idea of open world cities is fun, but now we have an open world school and we're supposed to be doing some missions. Normally, I'd be against bullying, but this game showed you that it was just a joke. This game is so abstract, it's a laugh. The world you live in and the kids you bully, even the faculty staff you get involved with, all of them were crazy long before you arrived. The open feeling you get at the school and the controls with the strange graphics set this game apart from other titles. It's not really a wonder why it lacked much of a gaming franchise, but the first title is still a great addition to the sixth generation of gaming. 

Dead or Alive 2 - Where They Actually Fight

The Dreamcast has a very small library by comparison to others. However, it has had no shortage of great fighting games. Dead or Alive 2, Power Stone, and Soul Calibur were the three fighting games in my original collection. I never got Virtua Fighter 3 until my second collection. Either way, this was one that I played through quite a few times. There are a great number of memorable characters in this fighter, as Ayane and Kasumi stand as their poster fighters, and this was just a beautiful fighter.

Is it perfect? No. Is it better than Soul Calibur? No, but it is still a good contender for the title. The fighting is very fluid, and the controls are actually quite responsive without being sluggish. Mechanics in techniques where you compare one like Leifang who is good at turning her defensive into offensive moves, against Jann Lee who is just brutally powerful and fast. Jann Lee is probably the favorite among all of them, because he strongly resembles and uses Jeet Kune Do just like Bruce Lee himself. He uses the triple strike, one inch punch and his lightning fast kicks.

Then there is Bass, who is modeled after Terry Hulk Hogan, who sadly passed a month before writing this article. He is Tina's father, and is often looking for her and fighting her would-be boyfriends. This becomes clear when he comes up against Zack. He is obviously a wrestler and does ridiculous damage, though he is also rather slow. Using Kasumi or Jann hurt him badly when it comes to dealing the hits way too fast. 

One majorly cool aspect of this game that is also one of its minor weak points, is Tengu. He is the final boss of the Arcade Mode. He has an oni mask and has some pretty cool dialogue. The one point about him that I don't like is that he can be a little repetitive, but he is also an unlockable character, but you need to play the game a lot more than I did to get him. He is harder to fight than the normal fighters, but not overly so. 

This game is just fun, and yes, the girls can be categorized as attractive and may jiggle a little more than physics should allow. This is fine, and managable. What is not so great is what they did with this series after this. The Beach Volley Ball game they came out with was a little insulting to their characters' integrity. Making new characters for such a game is one thing, but taking them from the fighting game and putting them in bikinis. I'm not going to flat out disgrace it or anything, but it is worth noting how the creator of the characters tried to justify these decisions. If you know, you Virtua Know.

Also, Happy 26th Birthday, Sega Dreamcast!

Doomverse #21 - Deathmatch and Destruction

There is one aspect of First Person Shooters that you assume games just can't live without today. Apparently, if you make a shooter, you need to make a multiplayer aspect to it. Sometimes, this works out rather well. Sometimes, the balance is way off and certain parts of the game gives someone the edge a little too much. Deathmatching was basically invented by ID Software when they made Doom able to connect to a network that allowed multiple players to destroy one another with the game's arsenal. Then, after Doom, Quake came on the scene and the tournaments became the real deal. Quake 2 brought it back, but Quake 3 Arena became the pennacle of pure gore and death between players. 

When you have a Deathmatch, Arena fighters are where the whole genre began and there have been some pale comparisons. We here on Planet Virtua try not to bring in the whole FortNite, nor have we played Overwatch all that much. The roots of those games can be found in both Quake and Team Fortress Classics. The idea of internet shooters has become quite the norm as of late, and the idea of blasting each other to death on the game scene just sends nostalgic chills down the spine. There's just something about shooting your older brother's or even your father's face off in beautiful digital gibs that just gets the blood really going. 

Quake's more recent update has brought the true deathmatching scene back to life in a big way. Not only does it allow you to go on new servers, but it also allows you to play local multiplayer where you can play against friends and family. Deathmatch arenas are supposed to give you a wide array of strong weapons. Each weapon has its own edge. Rocket battles work very well in most cases, but just remember to stay away from your target. 

Unreal and Unreal Tournament are also some amazing ways to Deathmatch, especially if you don't want to go through the trouble of going online. Playing against bots is not quite as adrenaline rushing as playing against other players, but it's still a lot of fun and it's almost required if your internet is questionable or goes offline at any point. If you have friends to play in these games, do not hesitate to give it a try. 

Quake 3 Arena is the only one that may not work very well. Getting on another of those desginated servers can be sketchy. It's pretty much built for bots, but the multiplayer is very much worth giving a try. The other Quakes are bad ass, but Quake 3 is just a more pure form of Deathmatching. 

If you were going for Team Deathmatching, Team Fortress is the way to go. TF2 is the more popular option, but Team Fortress Classic is just that, a classic. It is the birth of the hero shooter and allows you to take on several roles all at once in order to defend your own base or constantly attack your enemy's base. This is a better form of Capture the Flag overall, but Unreal Tournament is no slouch in that area as well. 

While Call of Duty Black Ops 1 and 2 are great in the form of military multiplayer shooters, that's not really what we're here to talk about. This is a Doomverse, after all. It's just good to keep your options open as much as you can, especially if you can't afford the 80 space bucks to fork out for Black Ops 19 or Call of Duty The Next Dimension or whatever I can call them to sound older. Whatever your game is to destroy your friends and leave them as a greasy smear on the arena floor. Virtua Blood Pile!

Remake for Panzer Dragoon II Zwei Announced

And the crowd goes mild. There is a very good reason why I have never really reviewed the Panzer Dragoon remake officially, and that's mostly because I forgot it existed. Seriously, this remake left such a huge non-impact on me that I never really even put finger to keyboard and stamped out any real thoughts on it. There really weren't many other than it was bland, ridiculously easy and flat out pressure washed the graphics to what looked like high definition, textureless polygons. The scenery was nice, but the Dragoon looked so generic. 

Panzer Dragoon, as a series, has left a huge impact because of its gameplay, its graphics, controls, enemies and vast, beautiful 32-bit terrains. It literally pushed the boundaries of what the Sega Saturn was capable of, and it's still celebrated to this day. Well, of course it is. Why else would they bother with remakes? The fact that they are making remakes for the Saturn is great, obviously, but I'm really hoping the Panzer Dragoon II remake doesn't go the same route as the first. The graphics should never be so smooth and flavorless. The grainy graphics were part of its real charm. 

The Quake remakes understood this. While it isn't a perfect job, they kept the core graphics the same, while making them look sharper. They never lost their dull edge, though. It still had the mud colors because of the graphics limitations it was presented. Going full 3D forced them to make the graphics more gothic and macabre. Much like Quake, Panzer Dragoon was rough around the edges in graphics, especially when it came to their horrific and amazing looking bosses. 

The next point is that, while maybe adding a difficulty meter is preferable, you should never make such a notoriously difficult game sooooooo blatantly easy. Panzer Dragoon itself is a very short game. The point is that you need to finish it in one sitting, but not at twenty minute sitting. It's made that difficult so that people can get more bang for their buck and require they try harder to beat a challenging game. Sanding off the edges of difficulty into rounded point plastic scissors barely able to cut a single construction paper is just taking away from the experience and often leaves one feeling like they could have spent their money elsewhere. 

Not everything about the remake was terrible, but it certainly didn't leave an impression and it's kind of a point of pride to say that Zwei has always been my favorite entry. The setting, the bad guys, the difficulty but also the adventure just gave the game life for me. Translating that into Steam and PS5 would be awesome, but hopefully they won't tinker with an already great game too much. It's great for a reason, and if you polish it to be too shiny you may ruin the paint! Do not make it bland and please give us a few more angles to look from, then this could be an amazing remake. We're keeping our Virtua Fingers Crossed. 

Virtuamehameha #5 - GT was a Charming Mistake

Dragon Ball Z ended on a very divisive note. Depending on who you asked, Buu was the biggest pile of slop or it was the most action packed blaze of awesomeness. It's widely known that the Buu Saga was the arc that Toriyama did not want to make. He was perfectly fine with ending the entire series after the Cell Games. He was obviously ready to move onto other projects and make other stories. The studio was not so ready to let go of such a popular series. With how it became more and more marketable across the globe, they were ready to carry this series to however far. 

And however far is where they took it. Even when Toriyama bowed out after the Buu Saga, they inacted Plan B: Dragon Ball GT. Once Toriyama left Dragon Ball, the animation studio Toei took the entire series into a direction that no one could have imagined... seriously, there was so little imagination at work that Dragon Ball GT is a chore to get through from start to finish. 

They seriously thought that turning Goku into a child and sending him off onto a clone story of Dragon Ball was a fantastic idea. You know what? It WAS a fantastic idea, because you could literally do anything with that premise. The problem was that the execution was comparable to a 14 year old's fanfiction and that is not an exaggeration. With such an awesome premise, this could have been a slam dunk. What it turned out to be, was a slog! 

These writers pulled out every single cliche and every single random thing they could possibly put on the screen. The Black Star Dragon Ball Saga was a fever dream in the worst way. Every single bad guy that comes out of nowhere is soon cast aside for a bigger, badder guy that looks completely different and/or possesses the most random power ever thought up in crayon. There is so much filler and so many instances where Pan is absolutely annoying and almost every moment she is on the screen, life is made that much worse. The Black Star Dragon Ball's plotline has such a directionless, confusing mess and it just introduces new characters that do next to nothing before dropping out of the story forever! It tries the large creature badguy with the weird whisker monster who they thought caused earthquakes. It turned out he could just sense the quakes with no control over them. He's trouble for maybe five minutes and then another second, they're off to another planet. 

It is understood why they made this decision. As stated before, the Black Star Dragon Ball Saga wanted to emulate the original Dragon Ball series. They wanted to bring the series back to its roots and see how it went, but they did not have the heart and the pacing that Akira Toriyama did. His stories had better set up with better defined characters, even if they were only on screen every once in a while. Boss Rabbit and the giant monsters that appeared in the original series did not out stay their welcome, but they were still comedic and their defeat wasn't really taken so seriously. The difference here is that they are also not annoying and make you roll your eyes at how they dance or get creepy with Pan while she was turned into a doll. Seriously, that was just a moment this series did not need. 

Trunks and Goku are fun, and sometimes Pan can be slightly charming at times. Sometimes they have decent scenes with a bit of comedic banter between them. Most of the time? They go through contrived, boring plotlines with derivative villains. Dr. Miyu is a copy of Dr. Gero from the Android series, then he joins forces with Dr. Gero in order to create the Hellfire #17 Android who fuses with the real #17 to create Super #17. 

These cookie-cutter story bits with Goku, Pan and Trunks offers us nothing but random battles that can barely be considered for the top 100 in the series. Sometimes, the battles do some very interesting things, especially when Goku turns Super Saiyan 4. Some love SSJ4, some will live and die by this form remaining canon. I am not one of those fans, I absolutely despise this form's look. It looks nothing like any of the other super saiyan transformations and I prefer the Super Saiyan God and even Super Saiyan Blue over the fourth super saiyan. Still, it was one of the better things to come out of this series and causes an interesting comparison between all of the other saiyan forms. 

Super #17 and even the Baby Saga bring some interesting battles to the series. The problem with these battles is the story around them is paper thin. These huge villains or scientists who create huge villains just come out of nowhere and boom, we're in a new battle. It's interesting to see how Gohan, Goten and Vegeta would fare against one another in some high powered fights. Not all of the battles are good, or even slightly decent, though. There's still random battles with either weak opponents or stupid robot creations with broken powers and the fights come and go in the blink of an eye. By contrast, some of these boss battles last for entire episodes, like Baby. Sometimes, you just get tired of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers plot. After a while, the battles grew very stale. 

With the #17 saga, there is an interesting stint where old villains come back to life and Goku goes into the afterlife to fight both Cell and Freeza. The problem is that Goku has grown ridiculously powerful and is able to kill them without trouble. They're in Hell, though, and they can't die anymore than they already are. These battles, along with Vegeta vs Nappa, are underwhelming. They are only interesting on the surface, but really don't delve into them in any interesting way. Super 17 is just another case of the big badguy is strong, we can't defeat him and so the final battle needs to take forever. 

The character designs were also terrible, both in new and old characters. Yes, Vegeta's mustache was a mistake. Goten turned out to be a little generic as more of an alternate Gohan design. Pan has a good design. They even gave her some interesting wardrobe choices with the bandana and khakis. Gohan wears a bland business suit that looks like he is more like a college professor. The character design of the Golden Oozaru was an interesting contrast, though it's not really clear how looking at the Earth and "blutz" waves makes them transform, there's really not much else to call endearing with these characters. 

Once we reach the Evil Eternal Dragons, this series just falls off the deepend. Yes, there are some cool battles but no, that doesn't save this arc as a whole. The series doesn't seem to know what it wants to do in terms of theme and tone. Some of the Dark Eternal Dragons were just flat out horrific to watch. Their battles were not fun to watch and honestly the earlier ones were blatant wastes of time. The ice and fire dragons were decent battles and honestly rank as some of the better episodes in GT as a whole. 

Once the story reaches Ii Shenlong or Omega Shenlong, it gets a bit more entertaining to see when he becomes fully powered and able to beat Goku and Vegeta. Now, the real problem with this fight is that Gogeta is not on screen for nearly long enough. It doesn't even register on the top Dragon Ball storylines, but for GT, it's top of the tier. The battle, much like the other boss battles, takes entirely too long. Then, just to push the time limit even further, Goku had to put together a galactic Spirit Bomb. 

There are good things about GT, of course, some of them were already listed. The best thing it brought about was the GT Special starring Goku Jr. It's a good, heartfelt tale that actually has that familiar Dragon Ball spirit. Beyond that, the best thing about this entire series was the ending. That might sound like I'm joking but they actually put together a very tear jerking ending where Goku fuses with Shenlong and is whisked away into legend. It wasn't a perfect ending, but it was a good ending for Dragon Ball as a whole, even it weren't attached to this very messy series. 

There are those who will swear by GT and more power to you. If you like this series, that's your little red wagon. On the whole, though, it is just not fun to watch and it didn't know where it was going most of the time. The tons of filler and wasted episodes on terrible subplots was just too much. There are some good battles here and there, but even they out stay their welcome with how overly long some of them are. If you wanted to be a Dragon Ball completionist, you're more than welcome to give it a try. Just be ready for some very boring storylines and annoying characters filling most of the runtime. Dragon Ball and Z were enough, we should have stopped when the sensei said to do so. Thankfully, he's gone on to have his rest. Virtua Sleep. 

Warcraft III - The Beautiful Shades of Blood

While it didn't seem quite as good as Warcraft II, its follow-up has grown to be a gem in the collection throughout its many years. WC3 turned those graphics on top of their heads and brought about a beautiful shade of technology and massive, bloody combat between two main factions. Many have seen the wars of the Alliance and the Horde, but the strategy games are in their purest form. The first three games grow faster and faster pace, and became bigger and bigger in scope. The third entry is a game you can beat over and over again as you get better and better at your strategy. What's better, the expansion didn't destroy it! Well, so long as you keep it offline... Yeah, this is a long story. 

Warcraft 3 became a sensation with the fanbase because it became more and more easily customized, and it helped that the story mode was actually quite a good story to follow. Though, as you got better at the game in the multiplayer back in the day, the story became something of a staple of the franchise. Just wait until I cover the first and only entry of its failed franchise. Here, though, inside the game, was when the story really florished, especially when you feel like you are leading the battle yourself. 

Building a town and sending massive ogres and evil death knights toward the Alliance forces is just part of the experience, but you'll be quick to note that the gameplay becomes massively different between all factions and races in the gameplay. Now, you need to choose between orcs and the undead in order to get them, unlike Warcraft II, where the horde is much more lumped together. Now, though, they also have Night Elves to add to the mix, so it feels like there is much more of a neutral party that ends up joining forces with the humans, but don't have the most stable relationship. 

The method of getting gold is still the same for human and orcs with the gold mines, but now the elves send their wisps to stick to the gold mine, and have a bit of a smaller unit intake. Many prefer the Acolytes of the undead for gold mining the fastest, especially when you get multiple ones sufficiently in place while saving for a few builders. 

When it comes to units of different strategies, there is more or less finding the best timed unit that you can give the most damage the biggest variety. Orcs have the strategy of going shamen and choose a melee unit like wolf riders to buff. Not only does Bloodlust amplify their damage, but shamen also have a strong air defense. Choosing a diverse but dense number of units that serve multiple purposes is key, while also choosing the best hero.

That's right, you now have a champion unit in the form of a different array of heroes. Arthas has a hard amount of damage when he becomes the Death Knight, which also acts as a healer to undead units. Arthas as a Paladin had a holy light ability that healed allied units while doing crushing damage to the undead. If that wasn't interesting enough, the orcs have an awesome samurai hero that does ridiculous amounts of damage through critical hits with his sword, but then there's Thrall. Thrall is mostly looked after for his earthquake ability, that does ridiclous amounts of damage to multiple units and buildings.

The great thing about the game is how many ways you can win, and a lot of people have had a great time testing their abilities against each other. Keep the games local, find someone in a LAN server, because if you go fully online, you have the possibility of getting the unwanted version of the game. Sadly, through Blizzard's utter stupidity, they created a Reforged edition of the game, and I have been able to dodge this update myself. It looks like a terrible version, and I never wanted the update and I don't intend on downloading it. 

The graphics of Warcraft 3 may not be the deepest and most complex, but it was peaked when it got the Frozen Throne expansion. This added new hero classes, new units and an all new story following a more RPG type genre. This is where you play as one to four heroes in a new grinder and mission style roleplaying game, much in the vain of World of Warcraft. Thankfully, though, it also has a strategy element to it, as you also have some support from other factions along the way. It was a bold move and pulled off rather well, as I ended up loving the panda hero and his drunken abilities, which are awesome! 

Warcraft makes a great fantasy MMORPG, but my heart will always truly lie with the strategy games, and Warcraft III is among the games I play to this day. I still remember playing the first Warcraft over at a neighbor's house. Once we got a newer computer, Warcraft was among the first games we got for it. It was back in the CD-ROM days, as it was also one of the best when it came to game evolution. Warcraft II will get a PC review as well, but this was a title that really stood out when you wanted a massive number of awesome fighters piling and stabbing each other! For the defense of Virtua!!! 

The Superman Video Game Conundrum

Superman is a double-edged sword, no matter how you look at him. One edge, he is kind, uses his strength to save the innocent civilians and does as little damage to the city as possible when he has very large fights. On the other edge, Superman is overpowered, his storyline has been booted and rebooted to the point where a "true canon" is nearly non-existant, and he is just a very hard character to write for. No matter how you look at it, being the first superhero comic book ever made Superman the equivalent to unmolded clay. He didn't even fly at first, he just jumped long distances. It was a later comic book writer who finally just said that he could fly. Then he got every single power known to man. He is powered by the yellow sun, almost completely indestructible, with super speed, super strength, X-ray vision and laser eyes. Some of his powers were brought from even more obscure places, like being able to hear from across the entire world, materializing brick from his "Brick Vision" on top of having a photographic memory, the ability to slow his pulse to make it look like he was dead while he healed and the list goes on and on and on. 

From a writer's standpoint, Superman was a ticking timebomb. It is nearly impossible to stay loyal to such a wide and expanding source material when not even the original company can't seem to get such a laundry list of powers right. It got to the point where they were pulling any power out of thin air in order to give Superman the edge, then his powers get rebooted and he either gains a new power or loses one of his powers he once had. 

With all of that in mind, try thinking up game mechanics around such a broad spectrum. Think about what would be considered thugs that could bring him down. The NES Superman game made him vulnerable to bullets. Maybe they were kryptonite bullets? There really needed to be some nonsensicle terms in order to get Superman on board without him flying into space and laserbeaming his opponent from orbit. Here was a superhero that can literally take down armies within seconds and you are now tasked to make a game that would be considered challenging with such a character. 

Superman for the Nintendo 64 came up with the very stupid idea of having Superman sent into a virtual world that looked like Metropolis (?) and the air is filled with kryptonite so you can't... do... powers.... Look, no one bought it when they devs said it. The real problem with this whole scenario is that Superman for the 64 is considered the worst game on the system, but there is a game of similar quality for the XBox/PS2, Superman Shadow of Apokolips. 

You fight robots but you can't use any attacks except for the attacks that hurt certain minions. They can't be bothered to come up with any reason to explain why Superman can't scrap this entire army of bots, it just gives you the jankiest controls with which to make the attempt. This game is a meaningless waste of time with the worst game mechanics and 3D cut scenes known to the Playstation 2. It really seems like one of the worst problems with Superman games is his flight. Where Nights Into Dreams and Mario 64 who seemed to get the flying mechanics down to a science years before, Superman games just can't seem to get them right. 

While there haven't been any stand-alone Superman games to reach critical or commercial success, the Justice League games involving him usually turn out pretty decent. Nether Realm Studio's Injustice games actually use him to much more of his potential. They just come up with the plot device of people taking super pills and being able to actually hurt him with their bare fists. Yes, this is the lengths they need to go to to sidestep that little problem of him being able to liquify them with a backhand. 

What needs to be done to create a Superman game that actually works, obviously there needs to be a good story, but there also needs to be an enemy that can hurt him while also being able to keep up with his speed and universally overpowered strength. Pulling off such dangerous opponents would be very tricky to write around without getting too violent. The whole idea is not to nerf Superman's powers to an inconsiderate rate. Using his powers that make sense while also having the power to demolish entire structures with a punch is what every Superman fan has dreamed about. Giving him short distant super speed and ice breath would also be a great bonus in this mechanic.

Bringing on Doomsday as a final opponent, or even Darkseid would be preferable after a long storyline, using them as a climax. Batman v Superman the movie could have worked as a video game if you added in some more main line DC villains. Brainiac has been a little over used as of late, but he could also be executed brilliantly in terms for a Superman adventure game. Without a very deep understanding of video games or a deeper understanding of the comic book super hero character, you're not going to go far with the fans. Mixing and matching storylines for a video game is acceptable, so long as you keep it fun. 

That's the key detail, whether the game is fun or not. If we don't feel like Superman, then the game takes a terrible hit. Perfecting Superman's power level in comparison to the villains is paramount but perfecting his character is equally as important. It's these huge, mounting details that befuddles video game developers to no end. This would require an entire team with a solid gameplan and a considerable budget to accomplish. It's this reason that makes it seem like you just can't get Superman right in a game while Batman has ever growing potential, given his brilliant and strong mortal status. It's Superman's own power that destroys him, ultimately, and the free wielding way comic book writers treated him like a literal god in terms of his infinite number of powers. Come up with a solid formula for him and you might be able to release something that will surprise everyone who said it couldn't happen. Until then, he still has an awesome animated series and a good number of comic book storylines. There's a ton of things that make Superman great already, I guess video games are just too magical a concept.