I had a chance to play Brawl last weekend with a few friends. I was amazed to see how well Snake implements his 'explosive' move set, as well as his CQC.
A few things I noticed:
- to play Snake you really need to pay attention to what is going on during battle, not just between you and your opponent, but the flow of the battle itself. An interesting approach is planting mines along the edges of the stage, but it's important not to limit yourself to edge guards. (your opponents will catch on pretty quickly)
- Snake's C4 is simply perfect. It's easy to set, or, if you enjoy the rush of close quarter combat, it only takes a few steps of trial and error to learn the perfect way to plant C4 on your enemy without them noticing. Be warned, after planting C4 on your opponent it will begin to act as a gooey bomb (i.e. if you were to cross paths with that character again, the C4 will stick to you, the same goes for anyone else who walks passed the tagged character)
- A cool side note, if you plant C4 on a downed opponent, it will be molded in the shape of a butterfly (MGS3)
- Snake is a powerhouse, no question, I don't think I ever lost a stock while below 160%-200%, his recovery cypher is slow to activate, but once you're airborne you can spend quite a long time in the air. The problem with hovering above your opponent is the fact that Snake is a big target while hanging from the cypher and can be kept from touching the ground if you've got someone watching your descent and smashing you back up into the sky.
- A great way to counter this is dropping C4 while airborne and detonating it as it falls beside your enemy. (watch it carefully). The first few times I tried this I simply blew myself up, but you get the feel for it pretty quickly.
- Snake's down air (series of stomps) is surprisingly not very effective against enemies below you, although the last stomp is pretty powerful. I'm still trying to figure out an effective use for this move. Don't get me wrong, it can be implemented into a quick jump combo, but you're probably better off using his forward ax kick spike, or the standard aerial neutral A (which is a great way to send pursuing enemies quickly to the other side of the screen if you manage to make contact with each kick)
- Grenades are a great way to screw with people, you can throw 2 at a time and more often than not people will misjudge the blast radius and fall within the kill zone. They're great to use when you notice two people fighting a few yards from you, just chuck a couple between them. If you're lucky one might even accidentally pick the grenade up while they're simply trying to attack (which goes without saying is pretty funny to see their reaction as they're blown into the air.) 1 vs. 1 is a bit more tricky, as you'll more than likely find yourself playing hot potato with your opponent.
- The Mortar launcher is a bit hard at first to get a handle on. The best use I had for it was the last event match where you fight off the entire roster with one life. Simply charging it and letting mortars rain down from above really works well. When fighting against another player, however, it's a bit tricky to add it into the rest of your attacks. The mortars themselves don't go straight up and then straight down, depending on the terrain and level you're fighting on you can send one up and have it land infront or behind you, get a feel for the stage and you'll begin to figure out how to send mortars up and then engaging hand-to-hand combat against your enemy as the mortar descends down on top of him. (The mortars do no damage to Snake)
- The Nikita is effective, but hardly conventional. Occasionally Ness would headbutt my Nikita, or C. Falcon would knee it into a different direction and the **** thing would'nt even blow up as they made contact. I find it easier to cancel the missile above my target's head and let it drop. If you time it right, this is a great way disorientate your opponent. Chuck a couple grenade's, one high, one low, then send a Nikita over top and let it fall, they'll have a hell of a time dodging all 3, and it gives Snake time to plan his next attack.
- In the beginning I was extremely concerned with how Snake's hand-to-hand combat would rank up to the other brawlers, but Im very happy to see how it turned out. The standard punch, punch, kick we're familiar with is strong with a decent amount of knock-back, but what I found myself using more often than not was his Side A combo, the knee to double fisted hammer punch. This move is strong, really strong, and it's surprisingly fast if you time the attack right. A quick dodge of your opponents attack gives you all the time you need to put the hurt on. Snake's hand-to-hand is just what I was hoping for, quick, simple and to the point, anyone trying to get in close to prevent a grenade or Nikita strike from afar will be completely blown away by how strong Snake really is upclose.
Well I sort of rambled on a bit but if you haven't played the game yet and were looking for some first hand feedback of how Snake feels (not just his move sets) then I hope I helped you out somewhat. He's definitely going to be my main. If you have any questions about the game, not necessarily pertaining to Snake, let me know.
A few things I noticed:
- to play Snake you really need to pay attention to what is going on during battle, not just between you and your opponent, but the flow of the battle itself. An interesting approach is planting mines along the edges of the stage, but it's important not to limit yourself to edge guards. (your opponents will catch on pretty quickly)
- Snake's C4 is simply perfect. It's easy to set, or, if you enjoy the rush of close quarter combat, it only takes a few steps of trial and error to learn the perfect way to plant C4 on your enemy without them noticing. Be warned, after planting C4 on your opponent it will begin to act as a gooey bomb (i.e. if you were to cross paths with that character again, the C4 will stick to you, the same goes for anyone else who walks passed the tagged character)
- A cool side note, if you plant C4 on a downed opponent, it will be molded in the shape of a butterfly (MGS3)
- Snake is a powerhouse, no question, I don't think I ever lost a stock while below 160%-200%, his recovery cypher is slow to activate, but once you're airborne you can spend quite a long time in the air. The problem with hovering above your opponent is the fact that Snake is a big target while hanging from the cypher and can be kept from touching the ground if you've got someone watching your descent and smashing you back up into the sky.
- A great way to counter this is dropping C4 while airborne and detonating it as it falls beside your enemy. (watch it carefully). The first few times I tried this I simply blew myself up, but you get the feel for it pretty quickly.
- Snake's down air (series of stomps) is surprisingly not very effective against enemies below you, although the last stomp is pretty powerful. I'm still trying to figure out an effective use for this move. Don't get me wrong, it can be implemented into a quick jump combo, but you're probably better off using his forward ax kick spike, or the standard aerial neutral A (which is a great way to send pursuing enemies quickly to the other side of the screen if you manage to make contact with each kick)
- Grenades are a great way to screw with people, you can throw 2 at a time and more often than not people will misjudge the blast radius and fall within the kill zone. They're great to use when you notice two people fighting a few yards from you, just chuck a couple between them. If you're lucky one might even accidentally pick the grenade up while they're simply trying to attack (which goes without saying is pretty funny to see their reaction as they're blown into the air.) 1 vs. 1 is a bit more tricky, as you'll more than likely find yourself playing hot potato with your opponent.
- The Mortar launcher is a bit hard at first to get a handle on. The best use I had for it was the last event match where you fight off the entire roster with one life. Simply charging it and letting mortars rain down from above really works well. When fighting against another player, however, it's a bit tricky to add it into the rest of your attacks. The mortars themselves don't go straight up and then straight down, depending on the terrain and level you're fighting on you can send one up and have it land infront or behind you, get a feel for the stage and you'll begin to figure out how to send mortars up and then engaging hand-to-hand combat against your enemy as the mortar descends down on top of him. (The mortars do no damage to Snake)
- The Nikita is effective, but hardly conventional. Occasionally Ness would headbutt my Nikita, or C. Falcon would knee it into a different direction and the **** thing would'nt even blow up as they made contact. I find it easier to cancel the missile above my target's head and let it drop. If you time it right, this is a great way disorientate your opponent. Chuck a couple grenade's, one high, one low, then send a Nikita over top and let it fall, they'll have a hell of a time dodging all 3, and it gives Snake time to plan his next attack.
- In the beginning I was extremely concerned with how Snake's hand-to-hand combat would rank up to the other brawlers, but Im very happy to see how it turned out. The standard punch, punch, kick we're familiar with is strong with a decent amount of knock-back, but what I found myself using more often than not was his Side A combo, the knee to double fisted hammer punch. This move is strong, really strong, and it's surprisingly fast if you time the attack right. A quick dodge of your opponents attack gives you all the time you need to put the hurt on. Snake's hand-to-hand is just what I was hoping for, quick, simple and to the point, anyone trying to get in close to prevent a grenade or Nikita strike from afar will be completely blown away by how strong Snake really is upclose.
Well I sort of rambled on a bit but if you haven't played the game yet and were looking for some first hand feedback of how Snake feels (not just his move sets) then I hope I helped you out somewhat. He's definitely going to be my main. If you have any questions about the game, not necessarily pertaining to Snake, let me know.
