For those that don't know GGPO is a middleware that allows you to play games online for free. Not any game though, only the ones they have implemented/support. But from many months ago hackers started to DDOS the servers for some reason and now the service has been down for so long people are starting to say it's gone for good.

But fear not because a spiritual successor by the name "FIGHTCADE" came from out the aches. The middleware is based on GGPO but with many improvements like: it supports way more games, it has a coherent interface, it has chat, country flags to kno the user's provenance and inviting people to play requires no effort since is all based on invitation and Nat. But because is Nat if your modem or internet service is too secure or strict, playing online will be a pain since you'll most like have to do port forwarding and stuff....

Now the only problem Fightcade has is that because it's new not many people know about it and it peaks at only 400 users during the weekends. And those 400 hundreds are split between Street Fighter III (mostly Americans) and KOF 98 (the rest of the world), so there's not much variety. Yesterday I had to wait for like 2 hours for someone to appear to play a bit of The Last Blade 2, and even though the guy was from Brazil the matches were pretty smooth. In fact, playing Samurai Shodown here is way better than the SNK version on PS3 that lags like hell.

This is a good article that talks more in detail about Fightcade and now that we are close to Evo, don't you feel like playing some fighting games? http://www.usgamer.net/articles/a-fighting-chance-to-live-the-story-of-fightcade

BTW, those screens are mine and they look a bit rough because I played the games without any filter or scanlines, and on top of it I'm stretching the image to 16:9. The first screen is The Last Blade 2, the other 2 are Kizuna Encounter. The latter one is highly recommended for casuals because the game has a 4 button set-up, the combo system has a very forgiving timing, lots of normal cancels too so you can link up some decent combos without much effort.

Yakuza 5 came out in 2012 for Japan, many of us outside Japan were excited too for the new Yakuza game. But then time kept going forward and days turned into weeks then to months then to years and not a word from Sega about the game's localization.

We sent letters, we made petitions, we spammed their facebook and twitter only to be told by Sega that there were no plans because the game was too big, it had too much text to translate, localization was going to be expensive, Dead Souls sold like crap, there was no interest in the franchise, etc. Everything they said was true and because of it many fans, like me, gave up on the dream of Yakuza 5 ever being localized.

The most hardcore fans kept going forward without ever looking back. If Sega wasn't going to listen then they would somehow make them to listen. Fans went to Operation Rainfall for help but Sega rejected their offer of a cheaper localization team.

Just when even the most hardcore fans were losing faith Sony created the "Third Party Production", a division dedicated to discover what the fans want to see on PlayStation systems. Yakuza fans didn't waste any time and started to rally them up with Yakuza 5 petitions. Somehow the fans made Yakuza 5 (Suikoden II too!) the first on the list of Sony's #Buildingthelist campaign, and after years of petitioning for it... Sony delivered to us today (12/6/2014).

Now I just want to give thanks to Sony for listening, thanks to the Yakuza fans that never stopped fighting to keep the dream alive and Sega...

F*CK Y**

I have only played 2 games of this criminally underrated series and their plot and story-telling are something I think more RPG's should be taking note s from.

*English's not my first language, so sorry for mistakes.

Suikoden I ----------plot----------- (PS1)

On the first game you have father vs son. Your father is a knight that made an oath to the kingdom to protect it always no matter what but the king went rotten (there are reasons about why he went rotten too). During a surprise attack to the castle while the father/knight and army were outside fighting on another region, the protagonist (you) end up fleeing and wandering outside the borders. During this Journey the protagonist sees all the atrocities the king has done and he ends up joining in a small band of rebels. Later on, some shit happens, the protagonist becomes the leader and you start building your own army to fight the king and your father.

^ that shit right there is simple, is tragic, it's fucking awesome. Especially the part of you forming an army because well... You do build both, your own castle and army little by little. And the combat system is split into 3 completely different mechanics:

1. traditional turn based with 6 characters.

2. anticipating an opponent's attack on a 1-on-1 fight depending on the mood.

3. a rock/paper/scissor kind of mechanic when fighting an army vs army. I think it was something like: archers beat magic, magic beat on-foot soldiers, etc. etc.

Below: sucky graphics, incredible game.

Suikoden III ---------plot-------- (PS2)

Never played Suikoden II but I hear it's the best one in the series. Now Suikoden III? I loved it. The game starts by telling you that there has been a war between races going for so long people already forgot why they were even fighting for. This game has 3 protagonists and 3 points of view. In one you're a woman that is a knight called Chris, an african/indian inspired kid called Hugo and an old rebel that still looks young despite being like 200 years old called Geddoe. This game has a much more complex plot than the first game so I'm not gonna dwell too much on it because it would take me a lot of more words to explain. But there's a particular incident at the beginning of the game that really blew me away and that it is central to the theme this game's proposing.

A 3rd party enemy no one knew about killed many soldiers from the kingdom and made it look like it were the african/indian race who did it. In retaliation the woman knight went with some soldiers to burn down the village of the african/indian race, but because she had a big heart she gave strict orders to not kill anybody (she was arrogant enough to believe this was possible). But in that village everyone's trained to either be a warrior or a hunter since when they are born, so they fought back without fear to protect it. Because it was a surprise attack the african/indian people did not stood a chance and the knights murdered nearly everyone including children and women even though that wasn't their intention.

At the moment of the attack the protagonist kid (who was the son of the chief of the village) was just returning back home with his best friend after delivering a letter to the kingdom in which they were agreeing to form an alliance for peace (very ironic I know but that's what makes it even more delicious!). At this very moment the friend of the protagonist blind in rage tries to attack the woman knight from the back but she is then warned by a soldier and she slashes the child to kingdom come without any prejudice.

At this point I was broken and crying like a little girl at the marvelous story-telling that this game had. The woman/knight having to deal with her arrogance and hypocrisy, the kid hate's her guts... How are the 3 protagonist gonna collaborate to fix this mess? That's the question that will make you play the game from beginning to end. It's sooo good....

Amazing intro below!