When you power on most any video game from the 8 bit era on up to now, you are usually introduced to visuals of who developed the game, published the game, heck sometimes it’ll open up with a dedication to someone or something. The moment you power X2 on, you’re literally thrusted into the action, with one of the six selectable mutants in your control. You going in cold, both in the story as well as the setting of the arctic backdrop you were dropped into.

Thankfully each mutant is not restricted to how many times they can use their powers at any given time.

Depending on the mutant you’re forced with on that first stage, you’ll notice a couple of things right off the bat — the first being the more detailed visuals as a whole. Even with the mostly white backdrops, you can tell there’s a bit more care with the character models, as well as the scenery at hand. The next thing you’ll notice is something that hindered your progress in the first title has now been fixed — your mutant powers. No longer are Xavier’s students limited to how much they can use their powers and how long you are required to wait for them to replenish. Being able to unleash an optic blast at will, without having to stand around for 45 seconds in order to refill enough utant power bar to shoot another blast, is a breath of fresh air, one that should have been implimented a game earlier.

Controlling each mutant feels a bit more diverse this time around. While most characters have some sort of double jump, Cyclops does not, yet has a better ability to command the direction of his jump. Nightcrawler has a double jump, with a funky speed boost at the end of the second jump. The agile characters feel about the way they should, although out of the six playable mutants, only Cyclops and Gambit should be the ones with a slightly lessened agaility. Each of the mutants have a modest length to their melee attacks, so there’s less worry about needing to get up close and personal with your foes.

The difficulty is a bit on the lenient side, at least early on. Some of the bosses however, even the boss of the first true stage, can throw you for a loss if you don’t exercise extreme patience and proper timing. While there are health regeneration issues yet again, there are at least a few more restoration pieces you’ll stumble across. If worse comes to worse, Wolverine can regenerate to a certain point, within a reasonable amount of time, and is one of the best characters in the game.

Even with the generic snow stage you're dumped into when powering the game on, Clone Wars looks much more fleshed out than the previous title.

Unfortunately, the audio fits the typical mess that most Sega Genesis titles seem to fall under. While the horse has been beaten past death on the audio capabilities of the Sega Genesis, or lack thereof, but it’s disheartening to see a game with otherwise moderate to across the board success, being hindered by an audio performance that’s as appealing as listening to an Atari 7800 game? As enjoyable as many Sega Genesis titles manage to be, only a small handful manage to produce an audio production that suits the action on screen, and sadly X2 isn’t one of those.

Even with the audio hang ups, X-Men 2: Clone Wars builds off of what was acceptable in the first game and refines it, offering an across the board more enjoyable experience. While you won’t go deaf from the poor audio quality, it does hurt the overall package, reducing what could have been one of the best games on the system, into a strong title that’s hampered by an unfortunate and profound set back.

Rating: 7.0

Fight 1
Mirko Cro Cop vs Anthony Perosh
(Heavyweight Division)

Round 1
Perosh attempts a take down after some light exchanging and Crocop links a guillotine and resets the fight standing. Perosh lands a nice leg kick Crocop lands a hook which drops Perosh and Crocop allows perosh to stand up. Perosh continues to attempt the single leg and clinches up against the cage with Crocop. Crocop attempts to rush strike and Perosh attempts to jump into guard and Crocop resets the fight standing up two separate times. Peroshs’ nose is already bloodied up as he attempts another take down and fails miserably. Light exchanging towards the last 30 seconds of round 1 and Perosh attempts another take-down and fails… End of round 1

Round 2
Both fighters are exchanging lightly and Perosh attempts yet another terrible take-down as Crocop chops away and resets the fight standing. Crocop mixing up Perosh with striking combinations and then landing a CRAZY body kick. Perosh attempts yet another terrible take-down. With Ccrocop taking the top of Perosh’s back he chops away at his head and resets the fight standing up. Perosh’s failed take-down had Crocop on top mount landing a DEVASTATING elbow strike which opened up the forehead region above the right eyebrow. Crocop gets aggressive and lands CRAZY ground and pound punches which end round 2

Mirko Cro Cop wins via doctor Stoppage

Fight 2
Keith Jardine VS Ryan Bader
(Light heavyweight Division)

Round 1
Both fighters exchange lightly and space each other out. Bader clinches with Jardine against the cage and separate with light punches. Both fighters exchange lightly with some punches and kicks. Jardine throws a hook and Bader lands a 1 armed take-down. Jardine Posts butterfly guard and Bader inching to Jardines half-guard smothering and working the punches and elbows to the head of Jardine. Both fighters are reset standing up. Both fighters end the round with light exchanges.
End of rd 1

Round 2
Both fighters find distance and exchange lightly and Bader attempts a take-down and clinches up with Jardine against the cage. They reset standing up exchanging light punches. Bader attempts another take-down and Jardine solidifying his take-down defense against the cage and then resetting the fight. They continue exchanging punches lightly Keith Jardine looking fresh as Bader fatiguing. Bader kicking & falling Jardine throwing a wild punch and falling and both fighters clinching against the cage. Bader then taking down Jardine thus ending round 2

Round 3
Both fighters exchanging and clinching against the cage then resetting. Both fights continue to exchange and Bader easily taking Jardine down and resetting. Bader throwing a right hook which stuns Jardine then launching a Flying knee to the chest and then landing a SOLID Left hook making Jardine fold like a flip book.

Bader wins by knockout!

Fight 3
(Welterweight Division)
Chris Lytle vs Brian Foster

Round 1
both fighters exchange lightly and foster lands a wild double leg take-down. Both fighters reset and stand up. Lytle gets rocked and gets forced into a side bump.. Lytle rolls into a knee bar cranks the ankle and pops the knee of Brian foster.

Chris Lytle wins Via submission (knee bar)

Fight 4 (Lightweight Division)
George Sotiropoulos vs Joe Stevenson

Round 1
Both fighters space out and exchange lightly. Sotiropoulos clinches and takes down Stevenson and passes Stevenson guard’s and moves to his half guard. Both fighters working the control game. Both fighters scrambling and Sotiropoulos standing up throwing punches to the body of Stevenson. Stevenson secured an anaconda choke but lost it. Sotiropoulos Goes to full mount and continues scrambling to the back of Stevenson. Sotiropoulos secures a arm triangle into an arm bar into the end of round 1.

Round 2
Both fighters exchange lightly. Stevenson takes down Sotiropoulos and gets caught in an omaplatta and secures a crucifix and goes to side control and secures the back and stuffing the take down. Stevenson gets to a stand up mount against the cage and Stevenson re-secures the mount. Stevenson stacks up for an ankle lock and Sotiropoulos scrambles and secures an anaconda choke ending the second round

Round 3
both fighters exchange heavily and space each other out. Sotiropoulos catches a kick from Stevenson and takes Stevenson down. Stevenson presses Sotiropoulos against the cage and trips Sotiropoulos but letting Sotiropoulos secure the mount and restarting the fight standing up. Both fighters exchange lightly. Stevenson attempts a take-down to Sotiropoulos pressing him against the cage and Sotiropoulos stuffing the take-down and Stevenson taking Soutiropoulos down and securing his half guard. They reset and Stevenson takes down Sotiropoulos again and presses him against the cage. end of round 3.

George Sotiropoulos Wins Via Unanimous Decision

Fight 5 (Middleweight division)
Wanderlei Silva VS Michael Bisping

Round 1
both fighters come out lightly , checking the distance and lightly striking. Bisping takes down Silva once on the ground and once off the cage. Silva throws wild strikes pushing Bisping back. Bisping takes down Silva again and throws multiple strikes and both fighters reset standing up. Both fighters continue exchanging lightly. Both fighters end the 1st round swinging for the fences.

Round 2
Both fighters exchange lightly and space check between each other. Silva catches the leg of Bisping and trips Bisping and falls into Bispings open guard. Both fighters reset standing up. Both fighters exchanging punches back and forth. Bisping shoot for a take-down and successfully takes Silva down. Silva escaped with ease and both fighters reset the fight standing up. Bisping takes Silva down with Silva securing a guillotine ending round 2.

Round 3
Both fighters begin re-checking and re-spacing their strikes. Numerous striking back and forth. Bisping landed a groin kick but both fighters continue their reign of strikes after the break. Bisping fails another take-down attempt. Silva gets poked in the eye and both fighters reset. Silva catches another kick and sweeps Bisping. Silva rushes Bisping and gets dropped and the round ends to save the life is Bisping.

Winner By Unanimous Decision – Wanderlei Silva!!!!

Fight 6
Minotauro Noguiera Vs Cain Velasquez
(Heavyweight Division)

Round 1
both fighters come out striking and lightly checking the distance. Velasquez lands a awesome striking combination and Noguiera eats the damage. Both fighters constantly exchanging punches. CAIN VELASQUEZ LANDS A LOOPING RIGHT -> LEFT HAND DROPPING NOGUIERA AND PASSES NOGUIERAS GUARD AND UNLOADS NUMEROUS PUNCHES WINNING THE FIGHT VIA KNOCKOUT!!!!

Such an awesome night for MMA fans across the world and thanks a bunch for checking out this review!

Post-SBO what else is there to do in Japan?  After we caught SBO day 2 (we didn’t do day 3), we were left with about 4 days before Beast had to come back stateside.  Besides shopping and arcade crawling, we also went to check out the giant Gundam at Odaiba.  That thing is really impressive and it makes you wonder whether or not the Japanese are in true possession of an actual working Gundam.

The closest I will get to my own Gundam is the arcade game which has been going strong for about 2-3 years now.  I make a trip to this arcade every time I go to Japan and it is one of the few locales to have that honor.  How does it play?  It’s one part Armored Core, another part Virtua On, and a tiny bit of Steel Battalion.  The controls are 2 pedals and two levers.  The pedals are used for forward boost and upwards boost and are positioned like the gas and brake pedals in a car, respectively.  The two levers controls movement.  Pushing both levers forward will move you forward, back moves you back, and left and right allow you to side step.  Turning is a bit tricky but once you get used to it you’ll be a pro in no time.  Turning to the right involves moving the right lever back while moving the left lever forward.  To turn to the left, simply make the opposite motions.  There is also preset text chat, and there are is a headset in most of the pods.  The triggers control different weapons, each Gundam has its own unique weapon set.  The lock-on is automatic but it is possible to force the lock to remain on one target.  There are four weapons depending on the Gundam, but I haven’t figured out how to use the other two.

The  factions in the game are simple, either the Earth Federation (boo) or the Zeon (hail Zeon!).  I’m pretty sure you can tell which side I picked.  The side you pick determines your Gundam type.  You start out with a basic MS-05 Zaku if you choose Zeon.

I believe you get an RGM-79-GM if you choose the Earth Federation.  I wouldn’t know because I hate those Feddie bastards.

I do know that the Earth Federation does get RX-78-2′s and they have shields (that are  so cheap).

There are different maps, each with its own layout and strategic points.  Different events are organized for the Gundam arcades.  As of my last play they had organized eastern Japan vs western Japan depending on where the arcade was located.  I was in Tokyo most of this trip so I’ll leave it up to you to figure it out.  They also update the game with new Gundams you can use after you acquire the appropriate number of points.  You can save your points with a “pilot card” that costs 3 bucks.  It’s a pretty cool system that keeps track of your  kills and points.  I initially lost my first pilot card (the one that I had in 08), but here’s my newest one.

Combat is in real time and it operates on a basic mission, defeat the enemy.

What will we do in the days after Gundam?

First Fight of the night was
Febricio Werdum VS Antonio Silva

Throughout the entire 1st round it consisted of Silva pretty much tearing Werdum a new butthold but in rounds 2 and 3 Werdum was able to utilize his knees , rolling transitions on the ground, and his submissions to win the fight via decision 29-28

The second fight of the night
Gegard Mousasi VS Theiry Soukoudjou
Now in the first round Soukoudjou showed his judo off proper…but Mousasi pretty much spanked Soukoudjou in round 1 and in round 2 Soukoudjou wasn’t even in full guard (able to kick Mousasi away to recover) but instead he let Mousasi ground and pound him for the ref to stop the fight. Mousasi won this fight via TKO in the 2nd round

Fight 3
Jason “mayhem” Miller vs Jake shields
Jake shields won this via decision. but with all due honesty… All Miller needed to do was keep this fight standing up and continue to stuff shield’s take downs…Regardless…Mayhem is still an awesome fighter.

Main event
Fedor VS Rogers

In round one rogers landed a quick punch which cut fedor’s nose and fedor continued his relentless attack. at one point Rogers actually held the fence (technically cheating) to keep fedor pinned and throw knee strikes to the thighs of Fedor…Fedor took rogers down…rogers transitioned into Fedors guard and attempted to Ground and pound…Fedor got hit 4 times and transitioned to an arm bar but rogers escaped which endded round 1

Round 2 Consisted of this (Fedor) BY THE POWER OF THOR!!! I HAVE THE POWER!!!!!! “Falcon Punch” Rogers = X_x

Let’s just say rogers got KTFO’ed and i emphasize on this. When rogers woke up he claimed it was “BS” and he wasn’t knocked out..

My honest opinion about rogers after his trash talking about how Fedor is a garbage fighter.. He fought one of the greatest MMA fighters in the world and Fedor was 25 LBS LIGHTER then rogers… Honestly you need to suck up your pride and get back to the blueprints and get your game up.

Next Big Event is UFC 105
Coture VS Vera
Those who are interested in joining me for the event contact me at beast1x5@yahoo.com

KEEP ROCKIN BABY!!!!

Main Event – Fedor VS rogers
Jason “Mayhem” Miller VS Jake Shields
Mousasi vs Soukoudjou
Antonio Silva vs Fabricio Werdum
Jeff Curran vs Dustin Neace

More fights on the undercard BE SURE TO TUNE IN TONIGHT!!!

Chocolate (phire) :  has joined the ranks. With more free time he has been to a few events with New York-Tokyo. The most recent events were the Tekken 6 tournament at the White Rabbit and Emily Cook snowboarding event. There was the second Street Fighter Fight Club that was attended.  What has he been playing? Demon Souls, DJ Hero, the last few days of the Mag Beta, Tekken 6, and some Dragon Age.
Lemon (jwong) was in an issue of  Gamepro along with his rival  Daigo.  He also attended the SFFC, you can read his thoughts on it here. He fought in Seasons Beatings and lost only to Daigo for second place. What has he been playing?  The usual; Street Figher, Tekken, and some Dungeon Fighter Online.
Galarian: Due to all his retro reviews is currently caught in a time warp and is working on a way to get back to the present.
Megumi: is lost somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness, was injured during a game of MAG.
Krismas: Is currently dressed up as Snake and behind you.
Wally: Is still in shock about reciving his first set of press passes for NYAF along with a reviewer’s copy of FairyTale Fights. He will be working with Jessness to cover that game.
Jessness: Avoiding her mob of fans and doing the school thing. Also maintaing high levels of Jessness. Working on the review for FTF.
Allowei: currently time travelling but still making time to write. Is working with Mircosoft to make sure you’re playing good games.
Beast: has been dealing with deleting data on his hard drive.
Expert Penguin: is in hiding due to the fact he made the switch from pad to stick after being so set in his pad player ways.
Everyone else has been off doing err something or the other in filler episodes obviously. That brings us up to date and that is (wait for it) the story thus far.

Just how real is DMX?

She has a nice shot of Chocolate Lemon going on with beast making a weird face in the background

I don’t know what’s going on there, anyway on to the post!

Today is the day, we finally made it out to SBO. Lemon and Marn were playing the 3rd strike team tournament.

Today’s line up was TVC(Tatsunoko vs Capcom), Fate Stay Night: Unlimited Codes and Street Fighter 3:Third strike.

First off I want to say that being at SBO was an experience that I feel all serious gamers should check out regardless of genre they play. We couldn’t really get match videos because of where we were seated.We did manage to get a few clips of everything else and some photos. It’s a very controlled atmosphere, no cells,cams or what have you.

One thing I must say is that FSN is very boring. Its a juggle fest and if you mess up defensively you lose at least one bar. If you guess wrong you’re dead. At one point there were two Riders fighting separate matches but doing the exact same combo. You can make this argument for gaming in general, it’s repetitive, however this game is just sleep inducing.

Hi, I am an asshole who is playing in a tournament for a game I created

The funny thing is that the developer of the game played in the tournament as well and placed top 8. Where did he finish overall? I don’t know we didn’t stay.I’ll tell you why a bit later.

TVC was exciting. We saw some giant robo action an some clutch combos. Marn(a usual at the sf ranbats) got demolished. There was no way around this.That tended to be the them for any Americans playing in SBO.

The 3rd strike tourney was intense with Justin’s team getting beat so fast that we only got to see Justin play an Elana player and lose. That was part of the reason why we left. I like Street Fighter but I am not too keen on 3rd Strike. So we watched a few more matches then we left.

Fatigue was setting in so we made our way back to the hotel, where I promptly passed out.

There’ll be more vids tomorrow and I’m going to start an arcade crawl. Beast will be bringing you a Quest of D tutorial. I think I’ll do the same for gundam. Here’s your drink

Drink of the day

Oh yeah we got to meet Daigo yesterday. Cool dude.I also need sleep

We ended up going to Akiba and did some shopping Beast found some good deals on a vintage console.I didn’t buy anything yet…

I was dead tired from uploading vids last night. So I’ll keep this one brief, apparently the file quality on the videos uploaded was pretty naff. Why didn’t anyone say anything? I’ll fix that tonight.

I also got beat by a girl, since you are playing random machines I could have been beaten by multiple girls ;(.
My pride hurts. Also I need to train more and be able to separate games I had a very embarrassing moment today trying to play Guilty Gear because of all the Blazblue played.

anyway here’s some vids

oh god this video looks like ass

walking around Akiba

dome city

Drink of the Day

Sadly we won’t be hanging out with Luke Morse ;( why well it’s pretty obvious check the vid

This is straight from his heart and some extremely sound advice. Life is about balance.

Just waiting at the airport and being nervous had me churning and excited for when i had landed in japan….As soon as i was settled in the plane…I just passed out…just to keep my sleeping order in check…and went in and out of sleep because I knew My sleeping pattern would be butchered to all hell when i landed.

(6:14 amJP)
3 Hrs into the flight and im nervous , excited and everything inbetween.. I honestly can say that i cant wait to land.. im watching a few movies and will most likely play some final fantasy 7 while time passes. the good thing is instead of landing at 5 ill be in japan about 4:15pm JP which is great because meeting up with phire sooner will be alot easier. Hopefully we can get more game time in as well. I dont feel tired or fatigued atm… im feening to see what a japanese arcade looks like though. the only thing closest to a japanese arcade was tokyo game action (R.I.P) but experiencing japan will be the greatest thing ever…I hope to see some famous faces and places..hopefully hit up a club or two..SBA alone will be an experience itself…

13:10
So right now its about 1 in the afternoon in japan and im still flying in…this flight was not as grueling as i anticipated..I ended up watching a bunch of movies such as Watchmen , Killshot , and more than blue (awesome korean drama flick i highly reccomend it) Considering that this airline slim dicked me (put me in the middle of the seats) I have no other complaints. I’m a little fatigued but as soon as i land ill be able to shake it off and stretch out EVERYTHING… I’m curious to know how the drinks differ from japan to the US I also really hope we run into Lukemorse and hang out with him.. It’d be flippin awesome if he invited us over to “pop some games in and play some of that” I might also buy a super famicom from him as a souvenier for myself…I gotta go shot glass hunting for everyone LMAO. As soo as i land in Tokyo Narita I have to hit up the keisei skyliner then head into Ueno and make my way to ayome itchome and head to the hotel…My thoughts are all in jumbles at the moment…I dunno whether to be excited , scared , happy , or all of the above so ill try my best to do a combination of all of them within a few hours Ill fill everyone in on whats going on in the land of the rising sun..

16:30
Japan is much more cleaner and beautiful then I imagines.. it will definitely take some getting used to especially with the cute japanese femal clerks everywhere…I love it so far…Note to self..make sure to do currency exchange in japan/location of travel.. US currency tellers are retarded.. oh yeah CC lemon soda is so godlike

18:55
Reality kicked in as soon as i saw the cars driving on the left side of the road…Holy shit…im in japan

19:00
I met up with phire at Ueno and we proceeded to the hotel location…Jeez these subways and streets are clean.. We then headed to Don quiote cause phire wanted munchies and he took me to Vortex… a japanese arcade in roppongi (like 5 blocks from our hotel LOL) For a “Shitty arcade” this place made CF look like gutter trash..no BS..one problem.. NO SF4??? WTF?? meh..no biggie…

August 13th
Shinjuku + Harajuku
Phire and I headed to shinjuku for some sights and locations.. we hit up a small arcade in the area and then played some SF4..can you say FREE WINS??? My ryu put in work…I kinda got bashful and nervous when phire said “YEAH BEAST DO WORK SON LETS GO”… I beat a viper player a few times and gave him a run for his money when he beat me once…after that..he got bodied. We then headed to a pachi slot club sega arcade OMG SOOO PRETTY!!!.. We then headed to mandrake…an anime / manga/ collecors shop in shinjuku…afterwards we walked to Harajuku…I bought myself a new ear stud & a thumb ring…can you say beast is pimpin? YES I AM!!.. We then headed to an arcade in baba right of the 160 line. This arcade is AMAZING…and apparently one of the nicer arcades in japan.. I managed to beat a japanese kazuya player in T6 BR…my confidence and skill level was just going higher and higher…There was a SF4 5v5 tourney which justin , arturo and others entered and they got dicked sideways while they were winning….fucked up? i think so….me and phire headed back to shinjuku after the guys from the US lost and played some arcade games…Im surprised there was a strength test machine with hajime no ippo in it…I played house of D and i have my deck and ID card for it if i decide to go to vortex later.

August 14th
Today is day 1 of Super Battle opera Tougeki…me and phire are gonna check it out and spectate for SFIV and Tekken 6 BR..

Keep tabs on the Blog/Notes everyone…Ill be posting more stuff