So now that the semester is finally winding down, my final projects in many of my classes have been completed. So what did I spend yesterday doing?

GAMING MARATHON!!!

I invited my boyfriend over and we had an epic Super-Smash-Bros.-Brawl-fest. So over the hours that I’ve been contributing to this game, I had a few thoughts about my learning development.

Have I improved dramatically? No.

Have I improved at all? Yes.

When I first began playing, I was able to beat classic mode (which I have explained in previous posts) on my better characters (Mr. Game and Watch and Toon Link) on easy mode with 5 lives. With any other characters, not quite.

During this afternoon of playing, I realized that I have progressed to being able to win on hard mode with my favorites. Usually. Occasionally I run out of lives and have to use a continue, which reduces your coins earned in the game.

Failure.

There were, however, many characters I tried exploring. Some that I have added to my favorites are Zelda/Sheik, Pit, and Pikachu. I like using Snake for sheer entertainment value. I still find him horribly difficult to use. With these new favorites, I have been able to beat normal mode. That is a noticeable improvement, but not as much as I was hoping to see. Using Snake, I can maybe beat easy mode, but he is such a fun character to use, I play as him anyway.

I found that generally, I have improved by two difficulty levels on classic mode. If I play in brawl mode, which is either timed or the characters are given a limit of lives, I am fairly evenly matched with a level 7 AI, depending on the characters being used or if I am playing a special brawl. In a special brawl, extra handicaps can be added to the characters. These include shrinking, becoming metal and thus heavier and harder hitting, bunny ears for speed and higher jumps, or permanent sudden death, when the characters begin with 300% damage. When I started this project, I could only defeat a level 4 AI, which is so easy to me now that I cannot imagine being that bad at this game.

Perhaps I have been improving slowly, but as I have explored in my last post, there are multiple ways to learn from gaming. Sometimes I feel as if I have faster reflexes or better concentration, but that may just be me searching for improvement.

Picture Bibliogrpahy:

– (3 March, 2008) “Secrets for Continuing” Smash Bros. DOJO!!

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/gamemode/various/various29.html

(30 November, 2011)

– (2011) “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” Dedica

http://dedica.la/artist/super+smash+bros+brawl

(30 November, 2011)

I feel like I’ve been neglecting my learning project lately. I’ve been spending a lot of time on my other classes, so it’s been hard to find the time to play my game. Today, I spent a couple of hours playing as Meta Knight. I was surprised with his useful skill set in training mode, so I played through classic mode a couple of times using this character. Because I’m still not very good at this game, I played on normal difficulty (but as a notable improvement, I could only win on normal mode with a select few characters before) with 5 lives.

Super-Adorable Meta Knight Bento Box! (I wish I could make this...)

On my first attempt, I ended up running out of lives fighting against Metal Pit. Most of the lives I had lost were from my lack of knowledge as to how to use Meta Knight. A lot of his attacks make him airborne, but afterward, he can’t continue jumping, so I end up falling off the stage. By my second round, I started to get the hang of his attacks, and ended up just winning with a single life remaining. I couldn’t get my airborne dodging timing quite right when I was fighting the final boss, Master Hand. This made the final battle quite close, actually.

Picture Bibliography:

– (July 29, 2009) “bento #59: Meta Knight” Anna the Red

http://www.annathered.com/2009/07/30/bento-59-meta-knight/

(November 7, 2011)

Instead of just playing my video game and writing about the experience, I spent a couple of hours researching interesting tips and techniques about both general battle tips and specific character tips.

One move that I had no idea that I was able to do is the shield grab. While a character is guarding and blocking opponent attacks, he can grab and throw an enemy immediately after guarding. This would have come in handy so much if I had known this earlier! Another thing I hadn’t thought of was that only one character can grab an edge at a time. The edge grab is the final defense of a character that prevents him from falling to his death. If an enemy is sent flying and can barely make it back to the stage, quickly jump off the stage and grab the edge, ruining your opponent’s final hope of being saved.

Instead of writing about how to use characters, I found some information about the weaknesses of various ones and how to defeat them. The slower powerhouses like Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Ganondorf can be defeated quite easily with speedy characters and well-timed dodges. Unfortunately, the reverse holds true as well. The quick characters tend to have very little weight to them, so not a whole lot of strength is required to send them flying. A few smashes are often all that is needed to finish them off. Characters like Zero Suit Samus, Kirby, Jigglypuff, and Pickachu need to wary of this.

The vast majority of the learning I’ve been doing has been by doing. I have spent some time reading about the characters and techniques, but I figured I would learn the most easily by practicing. This actually reminds me very much of my cooking class I had taken last year. In that class, everyone was to read a recipe, then immediately learn to make it while following along with the instructions. For my character practice last month, I read a short biography before testing each one out. This was so I would have a small idea what to expect from each character. Both experiences with learning were more about physically learning to do something, but with some written information to prepare beforehand.

Considering that playing video games is such a sedentary activity, I have been quite surprised that the learning reminds me of learning more physical activities. This week, I also spent some time playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl with a friend and watching how his playing differs from mine. This made me think about when I was in volleyball in high school. I would watch someone perform a serve or spike, and I would try to imitate their motions. I had to do the same thing for my learning project. It was a strange connection, or at least I thought so.

Gaming Stick

equals

Cooking Stick

which equals

Not A Stick

???

Picture Bibliography:

– (7 December, 2006) “File:WiiRemoteImage.jpg” Wikipedia

(October 18, 2011)

– (12 October, 2010) “Filming Locations” Film Trailer Project With Advertising

http://mediaproject2advertising.wordpress.com/category/all-old-work/page/5/

(October 18, 2011)

– (8 October, 2011) “Mustang’s Blog” Portage Central Volleyball

http://portagecentralvolleyball.org/

(October 18, 2011)

A good portion of my time this week was spent trying to play around with the settings of my blog. I figured out how to add pictures, categorize my posts, add picture bibliography, and various other bits of blogging goodness.

I managed to play my game for a couple of hours. I tried out using a character that I strongly dislike using in classic mode. Classic mode is a series of battles, one after the other. Sometimes these battles are with teammates, sometimes one on one, and sometimes one versus 10 or more weak versions of a certain character. By comparison to these weaker counterparts, your character often comes off like a combination of Superman, the Terminator, and Jesus. A smash is often an instant kill. There are bonus rounds every so often, a mini-game involving smashing targets within a time limit for extra points.

Because the point of this project is to learn and improve, I chose to use Princess Peach, a character I find to be moderately useless. I played classic mode on a medium difficulty setting, with three lives.

I managed to get through the first six levels quite easily, losing only one life in the process. Then came Giant Kirby. If this fight was being narrated by a sports announcer, I have a feeling it would go something like this:

Om nom nom...

“ANOTHER excellent smash attack on Kirby’s part! Peach is going, going… GONE! With only a single life left, she is fighting with all she has! Is that a parsnip she’s throwing at Kirby? Apparently Kirby is immune to all assaults by vegetables! Who would’ve thought?! Kirby has taken the offensive, striking a smash ball and making Peach and her parsnips into a delicious stew! Goodbye, Princess!”

Picture Bibliography: “Kirby” The official super smash bros brawl Kirby topic!

http://ssbbb.myfastforum.org/archive/the-official-super-smash-bros-brawl-kirby-topic__o_t__t_47.html

(October 2, 2011)

I started today with a rough patch. My game disc was sticky with a dried brown liquid that I assumed was Coca-Cola. So I spent a good few minutes cleaning my disc before it was readable by my Wii. What a nice way to start!

Itsa Me!

I figured a good place to start out was to test each character in training mode. I am using my brother’s memory card, and he has already unlocked all of the characters in this game. I spent 5 or so minutes testing out each one. Here are my thoughts on the characters and the likelihood that I will be using them frequently. I chose “Final Destination” as my stage for training, because it is the most basic stage.

Mario: As I expected, Mario tends to be pretty easy to use and is well rounded. His attacks are average in strength and speed, he has a normal jumping ability, a few long range attacks, but nothing exceptional. When he whips out his projectile reflecting cape, I think he is temporarily trying to become a matador. I would probably not use him often.

Luigi: Luigi’s set of skills is very similar to Mario’s, except he has more speed, better reach and better aerial attacks. Again, he is not a character that would be my first choice.

Peach: This princess has pretty weak attacks in general. Her floating ability makes her better in aerial combat, but I find her difficult to use effectively. Somehow, I don’t think radishes count as projectiles in real life. And her using toad as a human shield, that is pretty cold for royalty to be doing to her servants.

Bowser: This one is a powerhouse. He can do ridiculous amounts of damage with each attack. He is, however, extremely slow. Compare his level of slowness to swimming in molasses. That and, due to his large size, he is easy to hit with any type of projectile. But the extreme amounts of damage he deals out makes him a pretty decent character.

Donkey Kong: This monkey plays very much like a slightly faster, weaker Bowser. He is also very large, has a good reach, and deals a fair bit of damage. He is a bit too weak to make up for how slow he is. His ability to play bongos should have no use in a fighting game.

Diddy Kong: This little monkey is very much faster than his other monkey friend. I personally find his controls very confusing, and his special jump to be next to useless. I think I need to practice more with this character before I like him. Also, like Peach, food is not weaponry. A gun that shoots peanuts is not particularly useful against an enemy shooting missiles.

Yoshi: I found Yoshi to be a terrible character. I find him quite slow to attack but fast running, and his attacks are too weak to make up for it. I hate that Yoshi doesn’t have a triple jump because, as a beginner, I rely very heavily on that to keep myself from falling off the stage’s edge. His digestive system is amazing. A human requires about 8 hours to digest a meal, but he swallows opponents and lays them in eggs in under a second. I would rarely use him.

Wario: Wario’s gameplay is hilarious. I love his stop motion type of movement and how comical his special attacks are. But as for playability, he’s quite slow and has terrible reach. Farting and summoning motorcycles are among the attacks in his arsenal. I would play him just to laugh at his attacks.

Link: I may have a slightly biased opinion about Link. In the little time I have played this game, I played often as Toon Link. And I find Link to be inferior in speed and skill. He is decent all around, but a little too slow for my liking. He has a great variety of attacks, but I would choose Toon Link over regular Link anytime.

Zelda/Sheik: This was a fun character to try out, because Zelda can transform from one character to another with basically opposite features! Princess Zelda is a moderate speed powerhouse which I was not expecting at all! Sheik is her alter ego that is ridiculously fast but weak. Both are very fun to play as, and both have great variety. I will probably be using her a fair bit.

Ganondorf: So. Very. Slow. He seems almost useless because of this problem. He is immensely powerful, but he is far too slow to be useful in any situation. If Bowser is swimming in molasses, Ganondorf is swimming in molasses with no limbs.

Toon Link: One of my favorites! He is basically just a faster, floaty, generally better version of Link. I very much enjoy using him.

Samus/Zero Suit Samus: Regular Samus seems like the kind of character that would be awesome once I get used to her attacks. She is quite slow, but I think that is to be expected because she is covered in a thick shield of metal armor. Her roll is obscenely slow, and her power is moderate. Zero Suit Samus is quite different. She is far faster, but a bit weaker. I think I would prefer to use Zero Suit Samus, but it’s not quite that simple. To use her, you start out playing as Samus and you have to activate a Smash Ball to transform into Zero Suit Samus. It isn’t a very good idea to rely on that, so I don’t know how often I would choose Samus…

Pit: Pit reminds me of Link. He has a fairly similar move set, but one thing that really sets him apart is that he can fly. Not float, he can FLY. And I mean he can fly under entire stages. He moves quite fast, with moderate strength. I think I will be spending a fair bit of time improving with this character.

Ice Climbers: I almost feel like I’m cheating using the Ice Climbers. I have two characters at once. Not like Zelda or Samus where I can transform, but literally I am fighting using two characters at once. Note the “s” in “Ice Climbers”. They’re a bit on the slow side, but the fact that there are two of them dealing damage makes up for it easily. Every time I used a smash attack, it was like two smash attacks! Why have I never tried using them before?

R.O.B.: This robot makes me think of Wall-E. Unsurpisingly, he is of average speed but is pretty powerful. I’m sure the jet engines have helped him out a bit in that department. He can fly about as far as Pit, which I was definitely not expecting. His hovering is slightly harder to control, but the height attainable is just amazing. I will be using him often.

Kirby: Kirby is always fun to use. He is of normal speed and strength, has an ability to jump multiple times, and has some interesting attacks. He can suck opponents into his mouth, then he changes into a pink puffy version of that character. Or he just stays as himself, but in cosplay. He can then use one of that character’s attacks. I don’t really like his aerial attacks, I find them too slow to be useful. I would use Kirby more for entertainment value than for actual usefulness.

Meta Knight: Kirby has been outdone. Meta Knight has about the same speed and strength, but Meta Knight’s attack speed is just ridiculous. No other character will have a chance to block or dodge his attacks. He can float just like Kirby can, but he is just too fast for Kirby to match up. Meta Knight is a solid character.

King Dedede: I had a really hard time with this character. His attacks are very slow, and not extremely powerful. I really can’t think of anything positive to say about him, besides the fact he can summon minions that will walk off the stage to their deaths, or he can suck them up like Kirby does. But he doesn’t have the same cosplay action, so that attack isn’t even entertaining anymore. I was disappointed.

Olimar: I’m not entirely sure how to use Olimar. He plucks the Pikmin, then he chucks the Pikmin. It is, however, very satisfying to watch an opponent being smothered by a horde of little squishy aliens. If he is about to fall to his death, the Pikmin save him by making a tether in a “Barrel-of-Monkeys” kind of way. I think I’ll need a lot of practice with him to use him effectively.

Fox: Fox is FAST. He runs fast, attacks fast, and has a very impressive range of attacks. I am very surprised I haven’t noticed how powerful he is earlier. Giving animals guns was obviously a good idea. I will definitely be investing some time in using him.

Falco: He is essentially the same as Fox. Falco is a bit slower and has a better jump, but so far I really see next to no difference in their attacks. Maybe birds with guns are equal to foxes with guns…

Wolf: He is similar to Fox, but he has a few visible differences. He is slower and stronger, with a similar set of attacks. His aerial attacks are more unpredictable, and his projectiles are slower. I would probably prefer using Fox.

Captain Falcon: Despite looking like he just popped a year’s worth of steroids, Captain Falcon is not that great a character. Running, he is very fast. His attacks are less so, and extremely obvious and easy to dodge. His aerial attacks are slow and weak too. I don’t think I would use him.

Pikachu: This little electrified mouse is very fun to use. He is fast in general, with moderate strength, decent jumping ability, and some pretty good aerial attacks. He doesn’t have any ridiculously outstanding abilities, but Pikachu is a pretty solid fighter.

Pokemon Trainer: Now, this one can switch between three pokemon. Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard. Each has a different set of strengths. Squirtle is pretty fast and has does decent damage. Ivysaur is meant for long range attacks, and Charizard is just a heavyweight with a lot of power. The Pokemon Trainer has a lot of variety, but it takes a lot of time to change pokemon. I don’t think I will be using him often.

Lucario: This pokemon seems very difficult to use. His attacks are slow, but very powerful if timed right. I will try to figure out how to use him, but I’m not sure how much time I would devote to this character.

Jigglypuff: Like Kirby, she can do the multiple jumps and float. She is a little on the slow side, and her attacks are mostly pretty weak. She has one amazing move that is extremely hard to pull off: Rest. If she is directly on top of an enemy, it sends him flying and is a near instant kill. Not bad for a pink fluff ball. She is harder to use, so I won’t be using her often.

Marth: He is an amazing character in general. Marth is fast, powerful, and has a great set of attacks. The only downfall I have seen is his throwing ability. They are weaker than most. I will be using Marth a lot.

Ike: Ike is a very, VERY strong but slow character. His attacks are predictable for the most part, but many of them are intensely damaging if they connect. He would not be my first choice, but I would use him.

Ness: I personally find Ness extremely difficult to use. I cannot stand his recovery move, it is way too hard to use effectively. He is of average speed and strength, but I don’t like playing as Ness at all.

Lucas: Again, Lucus just seems like another Ness. He maybe have slightly more speed and strength, but I still hate his set of attacks.

Mr. Game and Watch: He was my personal favorite in the time that I’ve played this game. His attacks are very easy to learn, he is very fast, pretty strong, and just awesome in general. He also uses sausages as weapons. Food will never be useful in battle, but it will always be entertaining. I will probably continue to use him a lot because there are very few flaws in his gameplay.

Snake: He has definitely one of the more unique attacks of all the fighters. Most of Snake’s attacks are explosion based. He can plant mines, use homing missiles, or most famously, hide under a box. Really. I think Snake would be a great character because of his tricky tactics and power, but he is slow, especially in the air. I would like to try him out a bit more.

Sonic: This hedgehog is insanely fast. But that is really about all he has going for him. Sonic’s attacks are weak, and not exceptionally fast. His running speed is ridiculous. As soon as I started training mode, I ran clear off the stage because I wasn’t expecting him to run so fast! I think he would be unevenly matched against most characters. Damaging a character would be easy for Sonic, but he doesn’t have any solid finishing blows. I would not use him very often.

That was a long recap. But in summary…

My old favorite characters:

– Mr. Game and Watch

– Toon Link

Characters I want to try out more (because I had no idea they were AWESOME):

– Zelda/Sheik

– Pit

– Ice Climbers

– R.O.B.

– Meta Knight

– Fox

– Pikachu

– Marth

Characters I want to try out more (because they’re difficult to use):

– Samus

– Olimar

– Lucario

– Ike

– Ness

– Lucas

– Snake

The other characters seem very simple to use or completely hopeless. I will be practicing with the others, but I will place more emphasis on the characters listed above.

Picture Bibliography:

– (May 23, 2007). “Mario”. Smash Bros. DOJO!!

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/mario.html

(October 2, 2011).

And so begins my gaming adventure…

Note that the controls using the Wii remote are significantly more confusing that of the Gamecube controller’s. I think to get the best results, I’ll stick with the good old Gamecube controller. Beating up polygons with a two piece controller is just too much for my mind to handle.

For any of my readers who have never played this game, the idea is pretty simple. You pick a character ranging from the classic plumber Mario, to Jigglypuff from Pokemon, to Snake from Metal Gear Solid, and you send your opponents flying. Every character has their own varied arsenal. Each attack landed on an opponent increases their damage percentage. This percentage can go as high as 999%. The higher the percentage, the farther your foe will fly with every hit. There are two typical ways to finish the enemy off: either by knocking him off the stage in such a way that he cannot jump back on, or hitting him so hard, he flies off into the atmosphere.

Like so.

Pretty easy, right? Not really.

Reading the controls makes this game seem deceivingly easy. Move with the joystick, A button performs basic attacks, B button does special attacks that vary greatly by character, Z button is your shield, A + B throws an opponent. But then there are items, smash balls that trigger super powered attacks, interactive stages, and plenty of other high speed fun.

Picture Bibliography:

“Super Smash Bros Brawl – WII/Mario” WikiCheats

http://wikicheats.gametrailers.com/Super_Smash_Bros._Brawl_-_WII/Mario

(October 2, 2011)

For my Blogfolio, I’ll be trying to improve my skill at the Wii video game: Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I am presently starting at a point quite near zero, as I have spent very little time playing this game. Over the next few months, I will be playing consistently with various characters and noting the improvement in my performance.