Update: The quiz has been solved. The correct answer was: No Mai, no buy. The winner is Anarkira from Norway. He will receive the free copy of KOFXII. Congrats!

Unbelievable but true: For the first time you can really win something on Goh Notes.  If you’re interested in 2D fighters, in particular in The King of Fighters series, listen up.

As I’ve finished the review of The King of Fighters XII for a German game magazine (yes, the game just got out here), I thought why not giving away SNK Playmore’s newest 2D-fighter for free.

It’s one of those promotional copies that game testers receive way before the game gets officially released in retail stores. This copy cannot be resold. As you can see in the pictures, a big bold “promo copy” claim adorns the game disc and game box. Apart from that, it’s of couse a fully working Xbox 360 version of The King of Fighters XII. PAL version, though. So non-European players beware.

Important: You have to pay the shipping charges. Costs may vary depending on where you live. In any case, I’ll be shipping the game from Germany. (PayPal may be the most straightforward and safest way for this kind of transaction.)

Simply answer the question below. The first one posting the correct answer in the comments wins. Don’t forget to leave your email address as well, otherwise I can’t contact you.

Question: What is the popular saying that goes around the internet because of Mai Shiranui being absent from the newest installment in the KOF series?

Put your Goh knowledge to the ultimate test!

A fellow Goh player askes for your advice. Post your answer in the comments below. Be as precise as possible.

This Aoi player is terrific! Not only that she manages to escape my ground throws far too often. Even if I go for a down-punch when she’s been floored, her timing is often good enough to reverse that too. Having slammed her on the ground with my favorite throw now (), any amount of damage dealt to her would be enough to knock her out. But I’m not sure what to do. What would my best option be here to finish her off?

The solution to this quiz can be found on page 2.

Put your Goh knowledge to the ultimate test!

No multiple choice. No further hints – just plain hardcore. But Goh-specific hardcore!

Read carefully and solve the following situation to your advantage. Post your answer in the comments below, but don’t be vague.

What a lousy start you had in this tournament final! You barely managed to make up for it in the last two rounds. It’s 2:2 now – the last round decides the whole tournament. You don’t feel so confident anymore, eventhough you prepared so well beforehand practicing the timing of even the hardest combos in and out in Dojo Mode. You are up against a really strong player, though, who is able to read most of your actions (although, funnily, he always tech-rolls to the very same side). His superb Yomi mastery has put your health bar to an alarming minimum again. He feels quite relaxed – which is no wonder as his health bar shows barely any sign of depletion. (In fact, he still has 149 of 200 life points.) Time is, again, running out making you dead aware that your next action may very well be your last. Fortunately, you just managed to successfully hit him with . But which moves to use now?

The solution to this quiz can be found on page 2.

Put your Goh knowledge to the ultimate test!

No multiple choice. No further hints – just plain hardcore. And Goh specific.

Read carefully and solve the following situation to your advantage. Post your answer in the comments. But don’t be vague!

It’s been an exhaustive match. Both your opponent and you have pretty drained health bars. The next successful hit will decide between victory or defeat. After you made up your mind and went for Goh’s fairly safe standard kick, your opponent was, unfortunately, lucky enough to get that move blocked. Due to previous fights with him you know that he will either go for a throw that you know the throw escape of, a punch combo, or a staggering, half-circular mid-elbow that would lead to a huge follow-up for him. As you’re running out of time – did those 45 seconds really go by that quickly? –, you want to finish the match here and now. But what to do to turn the tables putting this match to an end?

The solution to this quiz can be found on page 2.

Do you wonder why the fun zone for VF is so different each time you play? One day you’re having an aweful lot of fun, learned new things, won quite a nice bunch of matches and lived up to your level. Whereas an other day you simply can’t make sense of the game. You’d rather like to smash VF onto your table and rage-post on VFDC what had become of the VF series. Hold on! Let me tell you that VF is a great game – but not a very relaxing one. Take a few minutes to read through the five important things to do before a match in order to really get the most out of Virtua Fighter.

1. Have you slept well?

You probably know that but may not be consciously aware of it: VF is quite a hefty workout for your mind as well as for your body! You’ll be sweating and your brain will be burning from all the complex calculation and guessing work it has to perform hyper-quickly during a match – often so for hours and hours. Make sure you rested well beforehand. The more energy and enthusiasm you bring into VF the more you get out of it.

2. Clear your mind!

Do you actually have more important stuff to do today? Did you just mean to boot up VF for a quick relaxing match? You’ll hardly get there! VF is pure stress. Trying to play it in a relaxed, lazy and slow way will make your character lazy and slow and – well – relaxed too. You won’t win much. Even worse: you’ll lose against opponents that you would have beaten under normal conditions. Losses make no one happy, especially not if you can’t change your way in a match because you came here just for a few minutes of relaxation. Do your more important stuff first!

3. Warm up!

That doesn’t mean going into Dojo Mode to practice a few moves or ETEG before a match. By God, beware! That would only greatly drain your mental as well as your physical energy beforehand. Probably you would even turn into an automaton ETEGing EVERYTIME you’re disadvantaged because you happened to rage-train it for thirty minutes straight! You already know all the moves and have practice in ETEG. No need to overdo it! What I mean by warming up is – even if it may sound hilarious to you now – to make sure that your room temperature is warm and comfortable enough. No one plays well with cold hands or feet. The colder your room the stiffer your hand movements and the worse your command inputs.

4. Evaluate your opponent!

That’s a tough task I know. But most likely you have met quite an arsenal of different fighting styles. You may not know every frame data for the other characters in VF but your own. But you can tell how the different characters in VF work: some are more throw-happy than others; while others do swing more strikes than throws at you. You can recognize strike and combo patterns and simply have a damn good feeling when to fuzzy and throw and what-not.

Every bit of information that you can squeeze out of your opponent is one further step to victory, his character choice and costume included. Do you know his win/loss ratio? This may point at his expertise or scrubbiness. Does he like to chat while fighting? Maybe a sign that he doesn’t take a fight quite too seriously mistaking VF for a chat plattform. Do you probably even know who you are up against? What was his fighting scheme last time? Scheme A and B but never C? Then you probably already know the counters? Perfect! Find your way into the mind of who you are up against. After all, VF is also a psychological fighting game.

There are players who are obsessed with moves using them over and over; who are most aggressive; or rather passive. Don’t only note details about his particular fighting style but also fit those into the overall puzzle, the big picture. What does it actually mean that he down-punches and throws everytime; or high-punches and throws? Yes! It means you can make up a counter and re-code your nitaku options. Be adaptive!

5. Don’t play online!

I know you’ll create an online match in just a second anyway. OK, no sweat. But remember: don’t take playing online seriously. Ever. Don’t think only because you can beat that one great VF player online that you could do so offline as well! Vice versa: don’t get mad at the game or yourself because you didn’t win that one match against a scrubby player. Or don’t blame the game because, actually, you would have hit because you had an advantage of one frame! And so on, and so forth … Online incorporates a heavy load of lag and lag-disguising techniques deeply written into the netcode of VF.

There are things that may only work out online whereas if you were to face that particular technique offline you’d simply laugh at it. You may think: “But hey, it does play pretty fluently online when I’m up against my friend!” In fact you’re moving like stonehedge on feet though! Just do the test: simply put the stick forward for walking. Aweful delay! Or repeatedly tap the guard button to check lag just when the match has started. Aweful? Yes – even with great connection.

But nonetheless, playing online can and will widen your horizon. You get to know people and learn new things that may vary heavily from what you’ve known or seen before. In any case, it’s worth it. But don’t take it too seriously …

Well, sort of. Who doesn’t remember one of the most renowned Virtua Fighter players ever? Back in the times of Virtua Fighter 3, phenomenons like Akira Kid or Ige Lau were breathtaking VF talents.

The video I’m representing to you marks the zenith of Virtua Fighter 3. The International Maximum Battle Championship features the best VF players from all over the world. Most of you will first and foremost remember Akira Kid and Ige Lau, the two fierce finalists.

For the first time Korean player Shin Eui Wook, in the VF2-VF3 area known as Akira Kid, then later as ShinZ, presents Korean Stepping to the wide public – to the awe of all.

Have fun watching the beautiful movements and execution skills of the best players the VF world had to offer.

Due to the video’s huge length (more than 20 minutes) I split the video up into three equal parts. Below is the first one. Either watch it until the end, DailyMotion will then automatically play the other parts, or simply click on “Read the rest of this entry” to watch the other parts embedded here on Goh Notes.

And the two other parts:

With Virtua Fighter 5: Revolution SEGA got the fifth installment of the old-established polygon beat-em-up series an overhaul for the Japanese arcade halls. Unfortunately, a console port never appeared so that only in Japan you can enjoy the two new characters – karateka Jean and sumo wrestler Taka – and the many new gameplay changes and moves.

With the release of the new Revision B of VF5:R (new animations and balancing), the close-knit western fan community hoped for a speedy porting to the current-gen consoles. As I’ve already mentioned on GamersGlobal.com, western fans have already begun in October 2008 to excessively file support tickets on SEGA’s Japanese community site to request a console port for VF5:R. But SEGA never quite responded to that.

Only after the fan campaign expanded and flooded the new community channels of SEGA – Twitter, Facebook, and their discussion boards – in the last months, and after SEGA’s facebook wall got literally paved with requests, the community managers felt obliged to ask in the company about a potential console port of VF5:R.

“We asked company wide and unfortunately it has been confirmed there are no current plans for this to happen.”

But no less than Makoto Osaki, development director of AM2, in person may have summoned up the fan movement. In an interview with Kikizo last year Osaki said that he couldn’t give a definite answer whether VF5:R would come to the consoles. “[B]ut if we get a lot of requests from users, then it’s definitely possible. We just don’t know yet.”

Meanwhile, among the western VF fan base hard feelings against the whole company of SEGA and their products begin to show through. Reason enough for SEGA to rethink their strategy and choose the lesser evil?

SuddenDeath and I came up with the idea of making a tutorial video about escaping side throws simply because we never really dug deeper into side throws. Even the VFwiki isn’t a too great help here. Not only is it hard to distinguish which side your opponent is on (left or right). But also, the whole rule provided there confused us through and through on the 2P-side anyway.

So we came up with our own rule:

• When being side-turned to the background, throw-escape with forward .
• When being side-turned to the foreground, throw-escape with backward .
• Note: You can only get one throw-escape successfully registered. You can’t enter both options at the same time.

Thanks go to Sal (aka SuddenDeath) for his assistance in making the video. Only VF music was used throughout the video tutorial. Can you guess which? :D

Twitter has eventually invaded Goh Notes too. But for the better: I can now get the new content onto the blog that wouldn’t make it into a whole new post. It takes time to develop posts, especially if you’re writing about game theory in VF5 or how this and that is going to work out.

My twitter feed, which you can find on the right side of Goh Notes, will concentrate on Virtua Fighter and my personal experiences that I make by playing that game. If those “twittered” thoughts are elaborate enough, they will eventually make it into a post.

I hope you all enjoy the new addition to the blog, which will keep you up-tod-date on a more regular basis than I could do it with my (endlessly long :D) posts. Of course, you can also go directly through my Goh Notes twitter blog and bookmark the feed.

Get it before it’s too late. The US VF5 tournament and gathering SoCal 2009 takes place from May 21st – 24th. Well-known VFDCers and newbies, old hands and younglings, top players and wannabes – they will all attend the huge gathering: a mixed bag of personalities that guarantees great and intense matches and match-ups for all characters in Virtua Fighter 5.

But even if you can’t directly go to the event, you can still re-live the experience. For $40 (orders from outside of the US: $45) you get a DVD with replays from the gathering – coming as high-quality, widescreen avi-files -, and a T-shirt with your name on it. This is an exclusive offer that ends April 30!

Just make your payment through PayPal to Plague, long-time VFDC moderator and initiator of the gathering. Once you’ve logged into PayPal following the secure links (https) down below, provide your shipping address and the name/nick you want on your T-shirt in the dialog box “Add special instructions to the seller.”

• US orders (US $ 40)
• Orders from outside the USA (US $ 45)

Note: If you order from outside the Unites States, an extra amount of US $5 arise due to intercontinental shipping costs, surmounting to a total of US $45 for the DVD and T-Shirt package.

The DVD & T-shirt will be shipped after the tournament has ended.