Yes, this is real footage of me playing Dissidia. I haven’t played it much since Zidane is only level 1 here (I recorded this for a friend, actually) but you can see just how I fail so far.

I like fighting games more nowadays, but I’m always shy around them. I’m a fairly average gamer in skill as it is, but it’s fighting games especially that I don’t do well in. All the unique button combinations and techniques were always difficult to grasp. After constant beatdowns at the hands of my friends in Street Fighter II I thought I’d never bother with it again… until many years later (around 5 or so years ago) when I borrowed my friend’s copy of Soul Calibur II. I think I held onto it for months until I finally got my own copy of the game and gave it back to him, but still… Although I got quite decent playing, I’m still stuck in the realm of fighting mediocrity.

And here’s might be why, using Dissidia: Final Fantasy as my basis for this.

1.) I always play the easiest/high tier characters
Let me get this out of the way first; I’m not a Cloud nor a Final Fantasy VII fan, but I tend to run him a lot if I go through Dissidia’s arcade mode… why? Because he’s just so darn easy to use. I can start a bravery attack from far out and likely catch my enemy off guard… same goes with his HP attacks. Plus, his unique trait is to be able to smash his enemy like a baseball, all the way to the other side of the stage. You can just mash away if cloud in the early going, with the occasional dodge thrown in; It’s not really that hard.

Cloud is my highest level character so far, maybe because I did his story on my bonus day, but still. He’s easy to use.  Fortunately I’m not alone on this, since multiplayer matches are riddled with Cloud everywhere, even if it’s partly to do with his rabid fanboyism that I oh-so-dislike.

Yet, I’m still not that good with him.

2.) I always play on the easier difficulties
Even moreso in Dissidia is the fact that I already find the slightly higher level fights to be fairly difficult. (Though, because this is more of an RPG Fighter than a normal fighter the situation is kind of different.) I spend most of my time earning PP in normal arcade mode because of the fact that I find it easier. That, or when I’m not grinding I’ll shoot the enemy down a couple of levels and just have some fun beating on them.  I usually don’t take up a great challenge all that often.

3.) I’m a button masher

Yes, it’s true.  When it comes to FPSes, I spray.  When it comes to fighters, I mash.  Whenever it’s time to attack I start mashing the circle button, or the square button, or whatever button I need to mash to get whatever done. I’m not even paying attention as to whether or not I actually have to press the button or not. All I know is… I know which button to press… just not when. (Unless, of course, it’s an EX burst)

4.) I use spam attacks

You know how I like to fight? I pick Ryu and it’s all obvious from there. Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Hadouken! Shoryuken! (Whoops) Pretty much the same thing in Dissidia. Once again with Cloud, I use his aerial attack that initiates a chase all the time. Attack, if miss attack again, hit, chase, attack again, rinse, repeat, etc… It’s quite sad. Same goes with Terra and Blizzara. Attack, attack again, attack again, attack again, etc… I’m starting to think that Terra can be quite cheap in that sense, too

5.) I fail at comboing
And finally, this probably goes without saying that if I mash and spam, I can’t combo. Well… sometimes I can; I once found a basic little air combo while playing Melty Blood: Act Cadenza but that’s about it. I can maybe pull off two attacks in a row, but that’s it. I’m too busy spamming Terra’s Blizzara to care though.

So yeah, that’s the skinny.  I suck at fighters. Dissidia is a different beast of its kind, though, and you can’t compare it directly to other fighters, but the same basic elements apply. It doesn’t matter that you can air-dash around massive environments and sent people a hundred feet in the air with a single buster sword swing.  Still, I have fun with Dissidia, despite my suckage.

I’m getting better at it, anyway.

Nintendo’s press conference was pretty much rattling off game after game after game, a lot of which the core gamer will enjoy.  There’s a full list of what they announced after the jump, but be warned, it’s LONG.

• New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii – Holiday 2009)
• Wii Fit Plus (Wii – Fall 2009)
• Wii Sports Resort with WiiMotionPlus (Wii – July 26th)
• PGA Tour 10 with WiiMotionPlus (Wii)
• Grand Slam Tennis with WiiMotionPlus (Wii)
• Virtua Tennis 2009 with WiiMotionPlus (Wii)
• Red Steel 2 (Wii) – Note that this game is going to be WiiMotionPlus exclusive.
• Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (Wii)
• Some new Kingdom Hearts game that I wasn’t able to catch the name on. (DS)
• Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS – Fall 2009)
• Golden Sun DS (DS – 2010)
• Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion (DS)
• Cop: The Pursuit (DS)
• Style-Savvy (DS)
• Flipnote Studio a.k.a. Moving Memo (DSiWare – Summer 2009)
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again (DSiWare – June 8th)
• WarioWare: Do It Yourself (DSiWare)
• DSi Camera Facebook functionality
• The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS)
• Wii Vitality Sensor (Wii)
• Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
• The Conduit (Wii – June)
• Resident Evil: The Dark Side Chronicles (Wii)
• Dead Space Extraction (Wii)
• Metroid: Other M (Wii)

The ones I’m personally excited about are bolded, but right now all that’s going through my mind right now is, “Holy shit it’s a new Golden Sun!” That’s definitely something I’ve been waiting for for a while.  The concept of four player co-op in New Super Mario Bros. Wii also looks really cool.  Although I didn’t really get into Super Mario Galaxy, I’ll probably give it another shot with Galaxy 2, and I nearly creamed myself when I saw the trailer for Metroid: Other M.

WarioWare:DIY is something I’m looking forward to, mainly because of the fact that the game is based upon your own creations. That should be really cool. Same goes with the new Mario vs. DK that’s going to be coming out on DSiWare this coming Monday.

But Nintendo seriously redeemed themselves after last year’s conference. Definitely a strong showing this year, and hopefully they will keep this up for years to come.

Assuming that they were being complete boneheads though and thinking that I was offline for the next 3 or so days, I never thought about checking back, because if I did I wouldn’t have missed Microsoft’s press conference.  I’ll probably watch the archive of it later tonight, but I swear, THIS BETTER NOT HAPPEN WITH NINTENDO’S CONFERENCE TOMORROW.

Judging from Gamespot’s E3 site and what our friends over at GamingUnion have posted up from Los Angeles so far, here’s what I seem to have missed from my ISP’s misadventures this morning:

• Kojima’s eternal teaser finally ends: Metal Gear Solid Rising announced for the 360
• Halo Reach announced. You really didn’t think they’d let the series drop after 3 did you?
• Left 4 Dead 2 coming on November 17th for the 360 and PC
• Final Fantasy XIII slated for spring 2010
• Forza Motorsport 3 coming in October
• Rock Band: Beatles
• Alan Wake
• Tony Hawk Ride
• Supposedly a montion-sensing camera accessory was also announced.

Looks like Microsoft had a pretty solid showing. Too bad my ISP’s a bitch.  Nintendo and Sony step up to the plate tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll be online to see it.