Victor, I'd be down for that. Lemme know when, and I'll letcha know what's going on with me.
Tony, I'll 5 dollar MM you at Melee for funzies. : D
I'd be down for that. Terms? Maybe I can do a $5 mm in barwl after, for funzies. Assuming you dun **** me hard in Melee. =(
lol Hell no Tony I can't 3 stock you everytime in brawl....
I'm just making the point that you didn't know what you were getting yourself into.
Also, Dekar...Shut the **** up...You play Diddy...You don't need a secondary. You try going from Snake to Snake as Tink. It's frustrating and boring.
I don't honestly care too much if you guys aren't sure I'm the best Tink in state, but I know I am, which is really what matter
So, are you bailing on the MM with your conditions? And no, I won't do the same for brawl. Even pro v scrub, three stocking isn't guaranteed, as in melee.
I'll do it, but if you're gonna be a ***** about your MM, imma be the same with mine. I won't do it until you confirm your character. Mine is going to be ZSS in Brawl. Who's your Melee char?
If I suck that bad, you should at least be able to 3 stock me, right? Shame you aren't skilled enough to 3 stock me every time. Believe it or not, your opponent has to be SIGNIFICANTLY worse than you in Melee to do a 4 stock every time. Oh, but I guess that, technically, it's easier, since you actually have to be GOOD to be good at Melee. With Brawl, you can spam **** and kill good players.
Oh, and let's make it better. If you win ONE round of Melee, you can take $100 off of me. The reverse goes for Brawl. And I want to see the money beforehand, because you're just the kind of white kid that would show up to an expensive MM running your mouth, and then say you don't have the money after you lose.
So, who's tough now? Either man up or shut up.
Or would the little kid rather quit and go for something he's used to, like a $5 MM in his ****ty game that he's not even doing hot in? I'm just sayin', a guy who doesn't even play anymore took the last two tournaments.
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Oh, hey guize, look! It's some random poster's NDK review!
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Alright, here's my review of this year's NDK:
Panels:
There were very few panels this year, and even less quality ones. It's almost as if NDK decided that they would let pretty much anyone do anything, but decided to cap the limit of people doing panels to 10 or so. While there were some good ones (or so the grapevine has told me), the panels in general seem to be filled with fantastic misconceptions of Japan and how the magical island really works.
4/10
Dealer's/Art Room:
I stopped spending money at the Dealer's room after 2 years of nothing but overpriced pocky and Naruto headbands/doujin/yaoi/yaoi headband doujin. That and a tight budget made a trip to the dealer's room pretty much useless, imho. It may have been fantastic, but considering my friend brought $200 and walked out with a $3 wristband, I'm leaning towards the dealer's room going to hell, much like the panels.
The Art room is like browsing DA. There are about 40 terrible fanarts, and 2-3 decent ones. There may be some original work, but it's pretty rare, and normally priced higher than it would ever be worth. I'm also still sour about having my art stolen the one year I put it on display, so I don't really go there anymore.
N/A
Staff:
Some members were decent human beings. The VGR and some of the security were so overwhelmingly abusive to con-goers that I can't really give this a good score. At one point, a security member came up to a friend of mine and told her she needed to get her "weapon" piece bonded. Fair enough. It's mostly paper, but we understand how it's kinda a thing with NDK to piece bond all weapons, functional or not, so we didn't really complain. Then he goes ahead and tells her that if he ever sees her using it to threaten people, even jokingly, that she'll get a strike/kicked out/etc. Okay, that's fine. He then says he'll do it personally without hesitation, and that made me feel more than a little threatened. I can't imagine she was too happy, either.
For my complaints about the VGR staff, see below
We know the staff runs NDK, we don't need them threatening us to remind us of their "power". But I guess when you're 30, living with mom, and just got fired from McD's, it's hard to be civil.
Guests:
I didn't get to see any, and was surprised to hear that the chick that did Nu's voice work was there, and playing BB. This makes me incredibly happy, so grats on doing that bit right. I didn't really hear about anyone else special, and we chose to go to Wendy's instead of listen to the group that was booked to play Friday (I think it was Friday, anyway).
6/10
Anime Viewing Rooms:
Standard fare, not my thing, so I'm not gonna rate, as it would be incredibly biased.
N/A
Video Game Room:
Okay, honestly, I wrote this whole review just so that I could talk about this. In all honesty, the Video Game Room has been something of a running joke for the past 7 years. It may have actually always been a joke, but I've only been going for 7 years, so I dunno.
Where do I start?
How about the good stuff, first?
- Good variety of games. Super Gem Fighter, JJBA, Marvel, Brawl, BB, and the old arcade units outside of the room were all fantastic.
- Didn't smell too terrible!
- Rules and schedule were posted for quick access and viewing
Now for the bad stuff
- Despite a good selection of games, most of the controllers were in pretty bad condition.
The X-Arcade comes to mind in particular. Unresponsive buttons, happ sticks (or knockoffs) with waaaaaaay too much tension, and being awkwardly crowded right next to someone that hasn't bathed in a week=/=good time. The gamecube controllers were wonky (as always). Funny enough, the Sega Saturn pads were passable. Props to whoever actually takes care of their belongings.
- BAAAAAAAD controllers/controller options for tournament.
I didn't even come on Sunday after hearing that we would be required to play BlazBlue on the notoriously bad xbox pads.
- Staff members treating attendants like contemptious garbage.
Seriously, what was with the staff? They shut people down at every possible chance, they're rude, and they don't even know their own schedule. If I didn't know better, I'd think that the only phrase was "Go look on the wall". Maybe they were all just hideously disfigured robots posing as humans (except Buddy, he's real). Either way, I don't know of a single person that wasn't treated like utter garbage by the staff. NDK really should stop hiring people that have no idea what's going on, especially when they're incredibly rude and abrupt to anyone they encounter.
- Supply<<<<<<Demand
Okay, so imagine you have a game that a LOT of people like. We're talking 80+ people are willing to enter a tournament in the VGR for it, regardless of how poorly run said tourney may be. Now, imagine you're having friendly play for it. Compared to a game that has exactly 3 people interested in it, how many set-ups would you bring?
Personally, I would ditch this whole "one TV per game during casual play" approach. It's stupid. Dedicate 2 stations to unknown/unpopular/nostalgic games, and put the games that everyone likes on multiple TVs. A great example of this is Brawl, where there were 20 people lined up at any given moment, and only one set-up. Anyone who's ever played Brawl knows that if it's anything short of 2 minute timed matches, any given match can take from 4-8 minutes. Even then, 2 minute timed FFA matches are a slap in the face to anyone who waits for 15+ minutes. Worse still is the fact that average playtime between rounds was 30 minutes.
Don't even get me started on how you had to wait 30 minutes for one match of Blazblue. That's just ridiculous.
GET MORE SET-UPS FOR THE GAMES PEOPLE LIKE! PLEASE!
- Locking the seats together.
Maybe this was due to people stealing chairs while the VGR staff did absolutely nothing.
- The tournaments
These are perhaps the longest running joke on this side of the country. Best of 1? Okay. Single Elim? That's fine. I understand that it's a large event, and the people who volunteer/are paid to work in the VGR don't actually do anything that has to deal with competitive gaming.
But these random arbitrary rules are really stupid.
A couple years back, there was a GNT tournament. I spent a month practicing with a friend so that we could win the tournament. I had my combos, frame traps, and team assist stuff down pretty pat, and was really stoked to see what would happen.
Sure enough, something did. The staff decided that a tournament should follow the story of Naruto. Suddenly, I went from playing Jiraiya (my main) to having to play Rock Lee, a character I'd never touched, because the only Genin either of us knew how to play was Neji.
Please, could someone explain to me how limiting a person to one or two character out of 20 or so is a good idea? It sounds like more of a gimmick to punish people who actually try to win.
Oh, and don't even get me started on being FORCED to use gamestop/madcatz controllers that don't work.
I didn't even show up to the BlazBlue tournament on Sunday because I knew we'd be forced to play on Xbox pad. In fact, I just left Saturday night with no intention to come back to the slack-off fest that is Sunday at NDK.
I play Carl. It's really impossible to be good with him on pad. Yeah, I know the guy that won was a Carl player on pad. I'm actually the one who brought him. He had no competition, and he knows it as well as I do. If he were to play against ANY Colorado player while we used our preferred controls and he was stuck on pad, I can guarantee he'd lose. I'd also put money on me perfecting him at least once every couple matches.
Nothing against him, of course. He's GREAT on stick, but on xbox pad, he's pretty terrible.
I'm not going to enter a tournament that forces me to play on a crappy controller, just so that Little r----- Jimmy can feel like he's something special. Casuals are for that, not tournaments. The fact that, even if I were to sign a waiver, I can't use my own controllers in tournament is just ridiculous. I really don't get why NDK can't get out of the 1990's and accept that some people are better at certain games than others, and those people like to play with their own controllers, or at least passable imitations. Get 2 SFIV TE sticks for next year if you're so obsessed with not allowing people to play on their own controllers.
Oh, and the fact that another friend got yelled at for ending matches with excessive supers is really stupid. It wastes 3 more seconds. Get over yourselves, you power-tripping weeaboos.
Better yet, get someone that knows what they're doing.
- No space to walk/stand
This is a huge problem. The VGR is probably one of the busiest rooms in all of NDK. Unfortunately, it's also one of the smaller ones. Having to push past people just to get to the 3rd station in the room is more than just common occurence; it's pretty much required. This+poor ventilation makes the video game room even worse than it already is.
- Too many other problems to mention
The video game room was so bad that I drove back home, grabbed my xbox, came back, and set up a full station for BB casuals in the Game Corner with a friend. Guess what? We were busy the whole time, and everyone that visited commented on how much better managed+maintained our ONE set-up was than the entire VGR. We had 2 pads, and 2 sticks, all functioning. Not only that, when someone else wanted to play, we let them plug in their controller and reconfigure it before each match. And you know what? People were actually ENJOYING themselves. We had at least 15 people or so the entire time up until about 20 minutes before the Rave/Dance/Muggy Swamp Thing.
Of course, now that I've mentioned it, NDK will probably ban it. Can't let our patrons enjoy themselves, neh?
- Using the misnomer of "free" as an excuse for a TERRIBLE Video Game Experience
I dunno about everyone that goes to NDK, but the biggest reason I go is to meet new people in the VGR. I can't say I'll be doing that for much longer. I'll give NDK one more try, but I don't know if I'll even bother paying for a 3 day ticket, though. Friday and Sunday are pretty much filler days, with absolutely nothing of note going on.
Oh! And that cool-down stuff is BS. I've run countless systems for weeks without any "cool-down", and all of my systems (even my NES) run flawlessly. It would be more acceptable if the game room were open for more than 6 hours in a day. The fact that the game room was closed for close to 4 hours for a tournament that wasn't even being held in the same wing of the hotel is evidence enough that the VGR staff really care about their patrons. Oh well, it's not like we're powerless. If they can't do it right, I guess that Wasabi and StarFest will be the only conventions for me to attend. At least they know how to run a game room properly.
1/10
Overall:
This is easily the most disappointing NDK I've ever been to, and the second worst convention I've been to in my entire life. I've noticed a downward trend in the quality of NDK, but maybe it's always been this bad and I'm just finally coming to realize that all NDK does is accept donations from parents who want their kids to have a good time. I dunno. I'll give it one more go, but I seriously doubt that, given their track record, the NDK staff is going to do much about it.
3.5/10
