joffocakes

1. That the entire series takes place in the same universe as The Great British Bake Off and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives:

As unrelated as the stories of a man imprisoned for murder, a televised baking competition and the post-apocalyptic tale of a mutant road warrior may seem on the surface; Steven Avery, Mary Berry and Guy Fieri are all canon within the story of Making a Murderer.

Though the links aren't made explicit in any of these three shows it is clear that the sun shown in Making a Murderer’s Wisconsin sky is the very same sun occasionally spotted glinting in the drizzle outside the Bake Off enclosure and blasting a long-dead earth to crumbling salts in Guy’s cautionary tale.

With this knowledge we can ascertain that Making a Murderer actually serves as a prequel to the BBC’s iconic baking competition and that Avery’s existence is somehow related to Fieri’s grisly appetite for roasted flesh. Originally it had been suspected that Fieri was conjured from the nether-realm as a physical manifestation of Paul Hollywood’s mid-life crisis and his desire for ever larger, ever more complex “bakes”. Recent investigation suggests that there may be a more direct link with Steven Avery: the first confirmed sighting of the the Triple D star’s ostentatious ride actually pre-dates anyone having ever heard of Paul Hollywood and ties in more closely with the date of Avery’s incarceration. This has led some analysts to suspect that Avery is in fact Fieri, flitting through rifts in our dimension on an eternal quest to satisfy his appetite.

2. How to do a fireball in Street Fighter

It is important that people know this. On your arcade stick or d-pad (or whatever else you may stubbornly insist on using) you need to press down, down-forwards, forwards and then press punch. It’s important to maintain a smooth motion and to wait until you reach a clean forward direction before pressing punch. Forwards always means the direction your opponent is in relative to your character. It is definitely worth practicing this often until you are able to do fireballs consistently from either side of your opponent. If you fail, review your inputs to identify your mistakes any adjust. No individual in the entirely of the Netflix series was asked to demonstrate this skill which definitely calls into question the techniques used by the Manitowoc Police Department.

3. Why the people of Manitowoc County were constantly on the ground.

One recurring theme throughout the series’ ten episodes is characters who are continually drawn to a low horizontal plane; be it through their feet crushing grass beneath them or within a vehicle hugging down on a dirt road. The reason for this, revealed to our investigators via leaked court documents, is Gravity, an odourless force which drags all living things (and some objects) toward a howling void below the earth. This dangerous phenomenon is the reason that Isaac Newton demanded that every apple on earth be stored below head height. Occasionally characters do appear to be significantly higher than ground level. Using frame-by-frame analysis of the show’s footage we were able to establish that this behaviour was almost always supported either structurally, often by solid floors of buildings elevating their person by entire storeys at a time or emotionally, via helicopters. Bizarrely unmentioned throughout the show’s running time, gravity affects almost every object in the show. In turn, this calls the expected behaviours of every single piece of evidence into question.

4. Whether or not fibre broadband is available in your area

If you’re like me (and, if you are me, you most certainly are) then you’ll find that 50% of your evening is spent checking if fibre broadband has become available in your area and the other 50% tutting quietly to yourself. While Making a Murderer remained gripping throughout it’s entire ten-hour run it did not address this topic in any way, leaving me in a state of perpetual tut.

5. Whether he did the murder or not

Despite holding us captive for ten entire hours the show irresponsibly failed to address two key issues:

Was Steven Avery was guilty of murder?

How he could possibly transform into Guy Fieri while locked away in Waupun Correctional Institution?

Many viewers were turned off by the art-house documentary’s vague, open ending. It is hoped that the rumoured American remake of the series will tie things up with a clear conclusion.

Within minutes of their Netflix binges coming to an abrupt halt scores of humans (and even more inhumans) flooded social media voice their opinions. Individuals linked directly to the controversial case were harassed directly by eager viewers who hoped that precisely targeted and aggressive ignorance would coax one of the case’s characters into revealing behind-the-scenes knowledge of the show’s absent denouement. It is a tribute to the cast that these details have remained locked-tight. Even America’s top hatred-bellower Nancy Grace (eldest daughter of Rita Repulsa) expressed her frustration at the show’s lack of finality by attempting to write the ending herself live on air.

I thought of a wonderful new feature for my infrequently updated (and even less frequently visited) tumblr: Interviewing other people who love Street Fighter about why they love Street Fighter. Then playing them at Street Fighter and uploading the video of Street Fighter so people can watch us play Street Fighter. STREET FIGHTER!

I’m going to call it Two Hit Convo until someone points out a much better pun. Let’s go!

My first interviewee needs no introduction since his name is already in the title: It’s yer Nathan Brown from Edge!

You're the deputy editor of Edge magazine: How many times have you been questioned about Edge's 6 out of 10 review for Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike?

Honestly? Never. I have a whole speech prepared and everything, but it's never come up. Reviewing fighting games is hard - there's no online knowledge base and no functioning online component, so you have to work everything out all by yourself. I wouldn't blame anyone for not realising how great the parry mechanic would later turn out to be when working under those sorts of conditions. Anyway, 6 is the best score.

Has a love of Street Fighter served you well at Edge or do people just tell you to shut up about Street Fighter?

Yes and yes. It was a tremendous help early on because you need to specialise if you're going to stand out. The first game I reviewed for Edge was a fighting game; I think the next couple were, too. Once I'd proven myself I started getting offered other stuff, and now I'm the one who chooses who reviews what. I don't think I'd be sat here today without Street Fighter.

What is your first memory of playing a Street Fighter game?

The smoke-filled basement of an arcade in my home town of Bath in, I think, 1992. I picked Zangief because I'd read that the spinning piledriver was the most powerful move in the game. I couldn't do it, obviously, and lost horribly to a Ryu.

Were you immediately obsessed with the genre, or did that all kick off with a later game?

Immediately, yeah. I spent more money on videogame magazines than I did videogames, and they were all going crazy for it. I kept the issue of Mean Machines that gave the SNES port 98 per cent in my desk drawer at school. Must have read it a dozen times before that arcade visit. I was obsessed with Street Fighter II before I'd even played it.

What do you look for when choosing a character to use in fighting games?

This is where I show myself up terribly: shotokan. I've played Ken since SFII. That fireball/DP/tatsu moveset defines fighting games for me to the point that anything else feels counterintuitive, at least at first. Without a projectile and an anti-air I am lost.

Have you ever won a game of Street Fighter in a genuine arcade against a stranger?

Yes! We used to have Thursday afternoons off at school and a bunch of us would spend it at Quasar, a laser tag place in town that had a well-stocked arcade at the front. I spent pretty much a year's worth of Thursday afternoons playing SFII Turbo, and won my share. That Quasar is, weirdly, right across the road from the Edge office - it's a block of flats these days - and the basement arcade where I popped my SFII cherry is on the next corner.

The answer to the previous question is absolutely irrelevant since you have genuinely won an official, Capcom sponsored, International tournament, right?

I have! I emerged victorious from the Editor Elimination Exhibition at E3 2014. I have a trophy and everything.

Video courtesy of @qazimod.

How did you cope with the nerves of playing in front of Combofiend and Mike Ross, and all those stream viewers, without shuddering the joystick loose from its lodging?

I wasn't nervous at all, to be honest. I was worried about embarrassing myself, so went in thinking that as long as I could get past the first round I'd be happy enough. I finished the first round with an FADC combo, heard Mike Ross getting hype (the commentary was piped out onto the show floor) and settled right in. I think I actually played better because of the pressure; I know I'd have lost the final if it had been a ranked match, but because people were watching I was able to rein in the stupider side of my game. It was a tremendous amount of fun.

Edge recently praised Guilty Gear Xrd for choosing "not to compromise in its mechanics", offering a wealth of tutorials to teach the game's depths.  Do you think future fighting games adopting this approach might risk alienating more casual players by forsaking immediacy?

I don't think immediacy and complexity are mutually exclusive. The reason Street Fighter is the most successful fighting game of them all is that it's actually very easy to understand, quite easy to play, and terrifically difficult to get good at. It caters for all skill levels in that sense; the problem, historically, has been the lack of help it gives you to move up through those skill levels. I think Arc's approach with stuff like Xrd and Blazblue - terrifically complex games with great tutorials - is the way to go. I think because of Street Fighter's arcade origins, Capcom has never thought to bother with tutorials before. Street Fighter X Tekken showed they'd been paying attention, but didn't really understand what to do. They'll get better.

Which characters would you like to see return in Street Fighter V?

Ken. Sorry! It's a short list. There are a good few I'd like to see the back of, mind you.

Does anything we've seen in the early gameplay footage of Street Fighter V so far worry you?

It's too early for that, really. I'm not blown away by the look of it - I expected a little more of a leap, visually speaking - but there's nothing I’d call worrying, as such. I sure have a lot of questions, though.

What has impressed you most about the reveal so far?

The way they handled the leak. I think a lot of companies would have just pretended it hadn't happened and stuck to the planned schedule, but instead they showed an extended trailer at PSX, then match footage a week later. I think we've all complained about Capcom being rather slow to react, historically, but they thought on their feet there and did the right thing.

Which Mario game introduced the Blue Shell?

Super Mario World! It makes Yoshi fly. Ack. I thought I’d catch you out with that one. Anyway; let’s fight, like gentlemen!

[6] 

Due to my horrible, horrible addiction to Street Fighter I've gone and obsessed over this morning's Taipei exhibition match a fair bit already. I've mostly been looking for things which are new or weren't clear from what we'd been shown previously. There's not much flair from Daigo in regard to either Ryu combos or the new stance antics but Gamerbee does some interesting Chun stuff so it's still a video worth watching If you're obsessed with Street Fighter. Which you should be because Street Fighter is excellent.

Here's the video itself, as uploaded by Event Hubs. If Capcom upload an official one I'll update it.

Here are my thoughts on what we see in the match itself:

Backdash invincibilty looks to be returning since Chun avoids Ryu's shoryuken using hers around 30 seconds in.

Chun Li blocks Ryu's jumping kick (I assumed hard kick, but his leg is at an unusual angle) and sweep at 32 seconds and she takes chip damage from this (which normally would only occur in Street Fighter games when blocking special moves) however this chip damage recovers much like focus-absorbed attacks in the Street Fighter IV series.

At 1:58 Chun does a combo after her jumping hard kick which looks like three crouching jabs to confirm then a crouching light kick cancelled into lightning legs, the second hit of which launches Ryu upward for her to finish by hitting him out of the air with a crouching hard kick. That sequence of lights looks similar to how normal moves work in SFIV's combo system. The lighting legs use no meter either so it's definitely a regular version she's launching with, rather than EX like in SFIV. Dunno how that will impact the Lightning Legs combo loops Chun had before; might just the hard kick version which knocks down or something.

Ryu gets a knockdown with his throw at 2:08 then, as Chun tries to get back up doing something (slowed the video down and still can't tell what) she's counter-hit by Ryu's standing hard kick. The extra advantage from counter-hits looks to be huge compared to Street Fighter 4; Ryu is able to combo a big slow sweep afterward while Chun is still reeling.

Chun Li taunts at 2:20. It's hard to tell if it has any benefits since her EX meter is already full but 3rd Strike had little hidden buffs for most characters after taunts. It's likely Gamerbee was just pointing out his own stupid error in using all Chun's Revenge Meter for a raw Super move which whiffed entirely.

After the taunt Chun Li activates her new stance, using all of her EX meter. As seen in previous gameplay footage this allows her to use boosted versions of her special moves. Gamerbee makes use of this by chucking out a volley of double fireballs; this differs further from Street Fighter IV as she is able to do further fireballs while the previous two are still on screen. It looks like a nightmare to navigate. There was no obvious indication as to how long this boost lasts but the in game clock goes from 50 seconds remaining when the activation starts to 35 seconds remaining at the KO, stance boost still glowing in Chun's wrist bracelets. What's more, in that time she has already earned back over 2/3rds of her EX Meter, so wouldn't be far off activating it again. Seems utterly insane and I'm looking forward to how other characters utilize it.

Ryu Activates his own stance at the very start of round two. Unfortunately he's immediately hit out of it by Chun Li's fireball. A wee shame for him, that. Would have been nice to see more of Ryu's stance changes.

Ryu lands a cross-up jumping medium kick at 2:52, so those are still in. Imagine they weren't? That would be awful. He hits Chun with it during her whiffed crouching hard kick and follows up with a crouching medium kick of his own followed by absolutely nothing. Chun then uses a crouching medium kick to knock Ryu out of the start up of his own, but for some reason it doesn't register as a counter-hit. She then spends 1 bar of EX meter using EX Lightning Legs. Too late to be a real combo but Ryu gets hit anyway, the third hit sending him flying across the stage at a low trajectory.

Chun lands her Super at 3:08. It looks like it might be as fast as it was in both 3rd Strike and Street Fighter IV; it catches Ryu's recovery from a fireball Chun Li blocked. If it's also Fireball invincible then the flow of that matchup would definitely change the moment she has the threat of that Super available. She follows up the Super's final launching kick by jumping up to Ryu and slashing him with an EX legs move to send him back to earth. This ender, strangely, does almost exactly the same amount of damage as the Super move itself. Damage is one of the areas which will surely see tweaks as the game develops, though.

At 3:19 we see our first Throw Tech. It looks much the same as it has been in previous games and leaves both players at neutral. There's a nice big flashy effect to accompany it.

Ryu activates his stance at 3:25; electricity crackling around his fists. His jumping hard kick attempt misses so he goes into a string of blocked attacks as he lands, crouching medium punch then crouching medium kick followed by his stance-powered fireball which breaks through Chun's block. He doesn't capitalise on this advantage at all though he does seem to recover more quickly than Chun Li does. Perhaps that fireball could be cancelled straight into his Super for guaranteed damage? The other significant difference between Ryu and Chun's powered-up states is that Ryu seems to lose his the moment he uses that fireball whereas Chun Li was able to fire off an absurd amount.

There's another instance of a chip win failing at 3:40 when Chun blocks Ryu's Super fireball but it's hard to be sure that it would have done enough damage anyway.

They're not actually all Street Fighter but one of them definitely is. 

5. Guilty Gear Xrd (PS4)

Okay, so it didn't make release in Europe for 2014. It didn't even manage to be officially announced for Europe yet. Hopefully we don't have to experience a 9+ month wait like we did with Arc System Works' Persona 4 Arena. Unlike Persona 4 Arena, though, Guilty Gear Xrd is not region locked, so you can import a copy right now if you're interested.

And you are interested, because look at it. LOOK AT IT! It looks utterly wonderful; very probably the best example of using 3D graphics to recreate the style of a traditional 2D game to date.

It's that little bit more accessible than previous entries in the series too thanks in part to the wonderful tutorials available which demostrate use of the game's different techniques in real fight scenarios and also thanks to the Roman Cancel system now slowing down time, giving those of us with less-than-superhuman reactions and execution a reasonable chance of extending our combos or cancelling a misjudged attack.

I mostly played in these tutorial modes, and in practice for hours, before delving into the impressive world of GG Xrd's 64 player lobbies. I've lost a lot. I've started rounds where my opponent launched an offence so relentless and damaging it was like being blasted across the floor and up the wall by a powerful hose. But slowly I've made progress. Not enough progress to start winning but rather enough progress to recognise why I lost. And it's at that point where fighting games become all the more satisfying and at that point where I felt comfortable in adopting Guilty Gear Xrd as my new obsession.

4. Towerfall: Ascension (PC/PS4)

I can't remember hearing about Towerfall: Ascension before I bought it on Steam. I had people coming over for a multiplayer evening. We typically end up playing Micro Machines all night, alternating between Ferry Fiasco and Turbo Turns for eternity. A quick glace around Steam's local multiplayer offerings and I bought Towerfall on a whim. And it was wonderful. Wonderful enough to distract us from Micro Machines, even.

Towerfall is a beautiful vision of Spelunky re-imagined as a single screen archery deathmatch with the added brilliance of the game's wonderful dodge mechanic; squeeze down on the controller's trigger and you can dart off in one of eight directions to evade attack or, brilliantly, zip straight through approaching arrows to snatch them out of the air. Suddenly your role as defensive prey is over and your opponent, their three arrows spent, has given you the tools to turn the hunt on them. So many great moments are created from such a simple twist and it serves as a great reminder of why we loved multiplayer games so, so much back in the days when we could more easily gather together with friends. And kill each other.

Admittedly there is far less here for the solo player since there is no online multiplayer option. There's a solo (or 2-player co-op) Quest mode, where you face off against waves of enemies in a classic arcade style; the occasional boss adding a little variety. A Trials mode plays out similarly to Smash Bros' Break the Targets; ragdolls hang from chains around the stages and you earn medals based on how quickly you destroy them. It serves as both a time challenge and a puzzle, since figuring out the optimum route to complete some stages in the target time can involve a fair amount of lateral thinking.

That multiplayer though. It's perfect. And it's incredibly customisable. You can have arrows permanently ricochet around walls until they connect with a target, you can cause players to die immediately if they fail to catch an arrow when they dodge and you can even change the digital 8-way aiming and dodging to make use of full analogue directions. So many games of late have reminded us how great local multiplayer games can be (Speedrunners, Hidden In Plain Sight and Mount Your Friends being three available on Steam I'd highly recommend alongside Towerfall) and Towerfall's immediacy, precision, customisation and slo-mo replay hilarity make it one of my absolute favourite games of the year as well as my favourite game available on PS4 so far.

3. Super Smash Bros (Wii U)

I'm a big Nintendo fan, I love fighting games and I love local multiplayer games where four or more people can join in. There's absolutely no way I wasn't going to enjoy the latest instalment in the Smash Bros series. I've loved all of the games. Smash Bros Melee might well have been the first game I played for more than 200 hours, almost all of those with four players and a big CRT TV.

We didn't even look at the single player modes the night my copy arrived for Wii U. Five of us, using the Wii U gamepad and four gamecube controllers, obsessively reliving the glory days of multiplayer Melee but with wonderfully clear HD graphics, new stages, soundtracks, items and characters; new chaos dancing around the same satisfying game we all love.

Some might bemoan the lack of an Adventure/Subspace Emissary mode but I found both of those to be a massive chore. The focus here is definitely on the main Smash-ing, now with up to eight players. And the online works too, relative to the incredible shambles of Brawl, at least. I've had fun, competitive 1v1 For Glory matches and the girl I like who lives in my house often joins me online to Smash around some friends in the For Fun mode.

There's more than double the number of trophies to collect than Melee had, each with a playful description, as well as hundreds of music tracks and remixes. The gameplay has the same immediate simplicity it has always shown and the same surprising depth it has always hidden. It can be an hilarious riot to play with all items enabled, including the powerful Smash Ball which can turn things around for less experienced players, allowing them to snag cheeky wins from even the smuggest of pricks (me). And that chaotic mix of skill, randomness, strategy and nonsense is a big part of what makes Smash Bros such a wonderful game to play with friends. One of the very best.

2. Ultra Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360)

ULTRA STREET FIGHTER IV!

1. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)

This was already a very strong contender for my game of the year the month it came out; unbelievably beautiful visuals with attention to detail I'll gawp at in replays for ten minutes, then again in slow-motion replays and again in reverse slow-motion replays. I just cannot fathom how they managed to make the game look so, so good.

The handling of Mario Kart games has been consistently solid since Double Dash; the only game in the series that ever disappointed me was the sluggish Mario Kart 64 with its muddy visuals and over-long tracks, so I wasn't at all concerned that Mario Kart 8 might turn out to be a bad game. I was not prepared for just how utterly amazing it turned out to be.

The fresh gimmick of anti-gravity sections did initially seem to be thrown in to give the game something fresh of its own beyond the graphical upgrade (and to heartbreakingly hurt our chances of a true F-Zero sequel) but the unique twist of collisions gaining both karts a speed boost made it an addition of greater worth than Mario Kart 7's returning underwater sections.

The single player content is just as bare-bones as it has always been; work your way through some Grand Prix cups and try not to curse through your teeth as you're blue-shelled on the finishing straight but they've finally added functional leaderboards to the time trail mode and the online communities work wonderfully. I was already in love. Then the DLC arrived in November; Eight new tracks with some of my favourite retro tracks returning.The Mario Kart 8 incarnation of Yoshi Circuit might well be my favourite Mario Kart track of all time; racing online with a handful of friends, grinding around that opening hairpin in unison, hopping hard out of the drift in rhythm together before whipping around the next few curves in tight formation, an arm's length apart. It's a beautiful experience. The DLC also offered the admittedly shallow opportunity for me to race around F-Zero's Mute City, in F-Zero's Blue Falcon with my Mii dressed as F-Zero's Captain Falcon. What more could I possibly want?*

And then there's the promise of more DLC to come, featuring Animal Crossing content and lord knows what else. Even if that weren't on the horizon I'd still be popping on there just for the sheer joy of it all. Mario Kart 8 is everything I love about games, except more beautiful than any other game I've ever loved.

I have played very few games which aren't Street Fighter since 2009, basically. I intend to consciously rectify that in 2015; playing some of the great games I've bought and ignored. Maybe I'll only manage that for the first quarter of 2015, though, since the PS4 release of Ultra Street Fighter IV is due in spring. Also I might play the Xbox 360 version this weekend.

Anyway, here are the first five of the top ten games I actually managed to play this year. None of them are Street Fighter.

10. The Last of Us Remastered (PS4)

I don't own a PS3 so I missed this first time around. It was one of the Playstation exclusives I was most keen to play (alongside Shadow of the Colossus HD, Journey and Yakuza 4) so I'm glad Microsoft made the decision to switch to PS4 this gen an easy one.

It's a simple, satisfying game of survival through stealth, cautious gunplay and exhausting, desperate melee combat set in North America after one of those horrible zombie outbreaks they're always having over there. There's still corrupt military types, underground resistance groups and people begging you for quick deaths but the usual clichés are easy to forgive when Joel and Ellie's stories are so well told.

The Left Behind DLC is included and this side story complements the original game very well, giving background and depth to lines of dialogue from the original game which might have appeared throwaway initially. The gameplay also has a subtly different flavour due to Ellie's weaker physical strength and permanent knife, which stops it feeling like just more of the same.

Had it not been for unskippable story segments souring subsequent playthroughs on higher difficulties (and maybe if I'd spent more time with what seemed like a decent multiplayer mode) I may well have rated the game more highly. 

9. Hotline Miami (PS4)

This is a game from 2012 but I didn't play it until the PS4 release this year so I'm including it. I hope that's ok. Is it? 

It looks and plays like a childhood nightmare version of The Chaos Engine captured on magnetised VHS tape. It's very fast and very brutal; grim, crunching violence and constant, throbbing pressure to keep moving while an intense soundtrack competes for your attention. I died hilariously often just getting to grips with the initially awkward controls and the fast, unforgiving reactions of my enemies but once I'd played for longer and gotten used to things I still died hilariously often.

I've always found difficult games more compulsive when restarts after death are near instantaneous. Hotline Miami's restarts are so fast that that your last yelp at an unexpected death will still be echoing through the room when you've already blasted open a door, grabbed a baseball bat, murdered a dog and been killed again by machine-gun fire through shattering nightclub glass. The game constantly produces a twitchy blend of pre-planned strategy and forced, split-second decision-making which is perfect for high-score chasing. I really ought to go back to it to find out what the hell the story was even about.

8. Nidhogg (PC)

No point letting the intensity stop with Hotline Miami; Nidhogg's garish colours and messy backgrounds seem at odds with how wonderfully fluid the gameplay is. It's perfect, simple 2D 1v1 combat. You both have a sword and you can hold it at one of three heights, each with it's own benefit. Lower swords reach further, higher swords stop opponents jumping in. You can lunge, jump, divekick, roll, sweep and cartwheel. The goal of the game isn't to simply kill your opponent, but to outwit and outmanoeuvre them and reach the goal beyond. Each time you kill them they'll respawn just ahead of you and you'll have the same battle of wits until your opponent is foiled on the penultimate screen and you rush ahead to claim your reward: death by Nidhogg.

Nidhogg's uncomplicated combat is its biggest success for me. It strips the fighting game genre back to a purer form than even Divekick managed. It is now, alongside a few other games released this year (and the evergreen Micro Machines Turbo Tournament), almost guaranteed to make an appearance during local multiplayer sessions.

7. Sportsfriends (PS4)

This is another game that guarantees a laugh riot. It definitely plays best with four players as three of the four games included are either 1v1 or 2v2 (though one player can challenge themselves to control two Hokra... characters? Squares? against a genuine two man team if they want to show off).

Bara Bari Ball is like Smash Bros with a ball. You can choose one of three characters and you can attack your opponent directly (even charging for more powerful attacks, like Smash) however the real goal is to get the ball beyond your opponent and sink it in the water on their side for a point. The slow, dramatic sink of the ball once it touches the water combined with the heroic, last-second saves thanks to air-jumps make is consistently entertaining.

Super Pole Riders reminds me of Mount Your Friends in a way, and not just because of the huge, floppy rods. There's an awkward, gormless slapstick to the animation as players contort the controllers analogue sticks to twist their pole into the ground and launch themselves into a ball hanging from a wire in the hope of sliding it into the opposing team's target. 

Hokra is another 2v2 ball game, even though the ball is a square. It's a top-down view with each team having an area of the field in their colour they're tasked with keeping the ball within. This coloured area will darken block by block as you retain possession and you can rightfully laugh in your opponents face once it has completely darkened because that means you have one. And they have not.

Johann Sebastian Joust: I've not played this one because it involves genuine physical contact and we can barely look each other in the eye. I hear it's good.

6. Bayonetta 2 (WII U)

Now. I have absolutely not played enough of this to rank it so highly. And the opening cutscenes were, while entertainingly mental, far too long for me. But man, once the game lets you play it's just as satisfying as the original was. This might be because it definitely felt easier to activate Witch Time by dodging enemy slashes but in no time I was playing around with enemies who were initially battering me, nimbly dancing away from their attacks and launching them around into their pals with mad footguns.

No doubt I'll ramble lovingly about it all later once I make it through the full game on a higher difficulty and rant about it angrily after that when I fail yet again to earn a full run of Pure Platinum Awards. Cannae wait.

VIDEOGAMES!

Street Fighter V is a thing that's happening and we're all jolly pleased about that. The PS4 release of Ultra Street Fighter IV being announced a day after SFV leaked dampened enthusiasm a little but I'm still very excited to see yet another version of my favourite fighting game, seven years after its debut.

I've played for an astonishing number of hours already (3500+ hours, though I still play like a two-hundred hour-old) but I'm optimistic Capcom will further refine the game, giving us a definitive version for PS4.

Naively optimistic, probably, since they'll almost certainly do nothing more than up the resolution and bundle the DLC. A man can hope, though, so here are mine:

Online Rematch Option

Being able to rematch an opponent quickly in a two-man lobby greatly increases the time spent actually Street Fightin'. At current in USFIV you're brought back to the lobby, asked to press A to confirm you're ready, then you go through character, ultra and stage select before enduring the versus-screen loading yet again. In that time I could have already suffered another Perfect at the hands of a relentless El Fuerte.

USFIV's own local versus menu offers Rematch, Character Select or Quit options post match, the choice stepping back furthest taking priority. This seems like a design choice made for an online mode rather than a local one where the two players can easily communicate. An online rematch feature was present in Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 so it's a shame it hasn't yet been added to Street Fighter too (four).

"Away" Status for Online Lobbies

Again, I'd much rather spend time playing Street Fighter than waiting around in menus. Larger lobbies often see people popping off for a few moments to make a cup of tea or prepare a hollandaise sauce. When their match comes around the other players have to wait 10 or so seconds for their turn to time out. Being able to set your status to Away would save time for everyone else in the lobby and communicate that you're gone, which is great, because you're terrible at talking to people and waiting is boring.

Another thing this would improve greatly is online tournaments; often online tournament organisers would host the lobby for the competitors but this cannot be done as a spectator so they're treated as a third player whose turn we have to watch time out after ever single match. This makes for some pretty tedious viewing on Twitch no matter how charismatic the commentary. Ideally "Away" players would be skipped and the game would recognise that only two players are active in the lobby, giving them the post-match choice of Rematch/Character Select too. That would be delightful.

Dedicated Omega Mode for Endless Lobbies

Omega Mode is still new and exciting so it's great fun jumping in with friends, picking from a broad selection of the game's cast and trying to find out what you can do with the added nonsense. Occasionally, though, you'll find yourself without friends to join you so you'll optimistically create an Edition Select menu of your own only to find yourself fighting a gauntlet of Ultra Ryu players with no joy in their hearts.

One other embarrassing reason I'd like this is the fact that, due to muscle memory, I'll often double tap A on my character, skipping the Edition Select entirely. I wouldn't suffer that faux pas if it were default!

A Proper Tutorial

This one is more optimistic than the others. To me, Street Fighter IV is one of the most accessible fighting games despite the lack of information it gives to players. You can still play a decent match with friends relying on fireball motions you remember from the Street Fighter 2 Turbo days or jumping in with hard kicks and sweeps for good damage. Understanding how the game works beyond that is basically left up to the player. This is a huge barrier and surely must frustrate new players enough to put them off the game, or even the genre, for good.

Skullgirls and recent Arc System Works games like Guilty Gear Xrd have proper, in-depth tutorials which not only run through how to perform the games' different moves but also put you into appropriate situations to test your understanding. Street Fighter IV doesn't even explain what its special move motions mean, never mind how to cancel into them from other moves or the difference between linked and chained attacks. Having a tutorial even half as good as that of Guilty Gear Xrd could make a huge difference in the number of players who stick around beyond those initial online defeats.

Expanding on this with extreme optimism, I'd ideally like to see a single player mode with branching paths and differing objectives, similar to Soul Calibur's Missions Mode, where players are tasked with defeating opponents by making use of particular techniques, or taking advantage of an opponent's overuse of theirs. Vary the difficulty of the paths and force at least some learning of every character in the game. Chuck in some cosmetic unlocks and it would definitely be a load more interesting and helpful that the outdated Arcade Mode slog most fighting games insist on retaining by default.

Two Player 3v3 Team Battles

The game added 3v3 Team Battles in the recent upgrade from Arcade Edition to Ultra however it's online only and requires six players to play. I've played a lot of Street Fighter and I've never played it. I'd love to play it. It adopts the rules of the King of Fighters games where two teams of three characters fight each other 1v1, the winning character from each bout staying on to battle the rival team's second fighter but disadvantaged by any health they may have lost before victory. It differs from King of Fighters in that each character is controlled by a different player, which is nice, but I'd really, really like the same mode to be made available in two player modes, both online and off.

I like the 3v3 format because it ensures some variety in character selection and adds extra strategy in the counter-picking certain characters against others. Make the mode more accessible without prior organisation would be great to add a little variety to ma Saikyo antics.

I was eleven years old when the Playstation came out. I am now 31 years old. It's been around for two-thirds of my life.

I was twelve by the time I first played one. I was so thoroughly obsessed with Nintendo and the prospect of the Ultra 64 coming out that I didn't really know or care what the Playstation was until I saw a feature in a multiformat magazine (either Gamesmaster or C&VG I guess). It had a single screenshot of Tekken (it was Law somersaulting over Paul) with a caption of "Better than Street Fighter? Believe it!" or something. I became defensively curious after that.

  In the local community centre where I grew up in Coatbridge they had a program running every Tuesday where kids would pay a small fee, I think it was 20p, to play the consoles they had: eight Mega Drives and a drawer full of games. They were hooked up to old CRT TVs, like the kind they'd wheel into primary school classrooms, atop an L-shape of connected tables flush against the wall. You'd go up to the desk at the end and meekly ask The Man (Stewart) for a particular game and he would write its name and yours on a sheet of paper before picking it out from a drawer of neatly arranged, unboxed cartridges. The games' titles were handwritten in marker pen on coarse white masking tape stuck to the top. The Man would hand the cart to you with a controller then you'd unfurl the wire, play for 30 minutes and hand them back to let someone else on. I mostly remember playing Sonic 2 and, hilariously, garish and rad rollerblade-em-up Skitchin'.

Anyway, one day, inexplicably, they got a Playstation. Just one Playstation but really soon after its launch. And a bigger TV to go with it. Unfortunately by the time I found out The Big Boys were already in there, every Tuesday, hogging the machine. By the time I built up the courage to ask for a go (weeks) they'd progressed from trying to beat each other's times on Ridge Racer to rowdy battles in Tekken. Heavy and Dusty, two brothers, were playing each other back and forth for five minutes beyond the start of my time. They didn't look like they were getting ready to leave. I just stood gawking at the screen. Ten minutes went by, then more, before The Man took pity on my clammy wee face and stepped in. After Heavy resistance they relented and Dusty, who'd just lost, stepped aside to let me play. "Winner stays on wee man" Heavy said. 

  That was the first time I held the pad in my hand. I remember it feeling really comfortable. I'd bought an issue of C&VG since they got the Playstation and spent ages reading Tekken characters' moves from the rough yellow paper of the accompanying cheat book. I chose Law because he looked like Bruce Lee and tried to do his square, square, square, triangle, square combo every time I'd blocked something, peppered with cheeky taps of circle for a big kick. Some other moves I had trouble doing because I was approaching the motions like it was Street Fighter but I managed to take the round all the same.

  Heavy looked like he was going to say something to me after that but his brother was laughing loudly so he accused Dusty of putting him off and got back to the game. I knocked him down in a few times early in the second round, making him impatient and, as he was running in mindlessly, I managed to do Law's charged punch attack and crack him right in the gut for the KO, and the Perfect. It was wonderful. My big moment of glory on this amazing new fighting game I'd never played, on this futuristic new console I couldn't afford and against kids four years older than me. I felt amazing! I was like that kid in The Wizard! That wee nervous kid in The Wizard who scored 50,000 points on Double Dragon and beat the guy with the powerglove at the new game he'd never seen! I was the champion!

  "Fuck aff wee man".