Thank you for playing Nick.

You're a super star.

The absolute boy

I'd love @Dubs to get into IIDX to see what he could do. I know the only (I think) UK arcade Kaiden (hardest course) and I'm sure dubs could hit those levels, going on his fps and fightmans chops.

nick_md wrote:

DJ Max coming to PS4 ~June.

Actually quite pumped for this. 140 odd songs. Looks crisp.

No official controller so basically as per PSP, dabbling with the notion of a hitbox or something, or any kind of custom controller.

Ohhhhh fuck yeh!

Sekushi

Some random woman, looked 30s, came in with her fella, who clearly had no interest at all. He played pool by himself whilst she proceeded to bang out mid-40s popn music tunes (mid-40s is seriously God tier, wtf tatsujin stuff). I didn't want to stare but holy crap, astonished. She had long ginger hair and looked like your normal woman on the street, yet was flailing out top difficulty popn music. Madness.

Still enjoying the Four Quarters in Peckham once every six weeks or so.  I like the fact that they've kept Sega Rally, SSF2 and Point Blank as permanent fixtures while mixing up the rest.  They had Golden Axe in last month, such a strange game in its original form - over in less than 20 minutes and it plays fair.  The Rolling Stones pinball machine has been there too long though, it's awful.  I got the ball got stuck on Mick Jagger's legs the time before last.

davyK wrote:

'towuld be a dream thing to do - to own an arcade. I just don't see how they can make money. Would be a post lottery win folly for me. It would need to co-exist with a related leisure activity that actually makes money. Those Barcade places look good - keeping the dickheads out would be a problem.

The pool table's the worst thing about the Vega arcade, it attracts bare roadman. Last quarterly meeting I went to, few weeks back, two roadman kicked off as they were leaving, police car swooped in, police locked all the doors with us still inside and restrained the offenders whilst waiting for backup. Now, I'm a bloke mid-30s and experienced with 'road', I just finished my credit before wandering over to see what the commotion was; the other 4 or 5 people there at the time were really getting panicked though. The group had split with some going out to get food, leaving these 4 or 5 bemani kids down there along with myself. They were panicked man. Shit was fine though, just some drama. Police van came and carted the mans off after about 10 mins.

Anyway, yeah keeping out the riff-raff is difficult when you have pool tables and are attached to a fruity parlour.

With time on my hands I've been playing a lot more IIDX, man the game just never ends. Feel like I'm in the best form I've ever been in, about, am pretty easily clearing 11s I used to struggle-clear, and comfortably failing 12s I used to not even bother with. Progress. The best part is I can actually read garbage patterns I used to just see as a mash-mess of notes. I can follow them, I can see which buttons need pressing. It's a fantastic thing in rhythm games, when something which was completely alien and incomprehensible suddenly becomes clear, and your fingers just do it, no need to ask.

Inspiration:

One of the few modern IIDX tracks that doesn't make me want to kill myself on hearing:




Scratching is so fucking difficult in IIDX, people see charts like this and think, 'hey that doesn't have many notes, can't be that hard'. Scratching is the hardest thing, like seriously difficult, keeping a scratch rhythm whilst playing notes as well. I can't fucking do it. Only a AA but a full combo EX hard clear, don't know who else has that:




This one Konami themselves tweeted because it was so wtf - a perfect combo (full combo + nothing less than a 'Great') on a bastard hard 12. With random pattern notes.




That's what so good about this game, you look at stepmania or rock band or whatever (I love rock band at a party btw) and the leaderboards have plenty of max scores, full combos. In IIDX the skill ceiling is so damn high that it's impossible; some of these songs have been out for over 10 years and even the best players in the world are far off the max scores. Everyone plays IIDX differently, everyone has their own playstyle. It's not so much a game as a pursuit, a lonely path you take, finding solace in gains that can take years to materialise.

It's 12 years I've been playing now, can't see me stopping any time soon.

I went to play RB4 again recently due to Ghost DLC being released but my Beatles:RB guitar (actually modeled on PM's Rickenbacker bass) is kaput. Sad Gav.

It's Konami, are you sure it isn't a pachinko machine?

Tell ya what if there's one thing decent to come out of being single again it's that I've been pumping T I M E into IIDX when for the last ~4yrs wasn't able to.

You know those moments in rhythm games where suddenly you can just *do* something? Like, there's no real noticeable leap in ability, but all of a sudden things you failed hard on are just a piece of cake, fingers taking over, no thought needed? Yeah whole load of that right now. Typing this mainly for myself but by fuck there were loud 'hell yeah!'s in my living room this evening; had consigned myself years ago to never being able to be a true 12* player on IIDX yet here I am today, just cleared three new 12*s fairly easily that before I couldn't even touch, like it ain't no thang. Granted that means nothing to anyone other than me, but to put it on the @Davyk scale, it's like playing mushi, or gigawing or such, always failing hard on lvl 4 or 5, having a 4 year break, then coming back and suddenly, with no real noticeable effort, gliding right through that shit like it's nothing. You see the patterns, it all makes sense.

Really happy.

It's the game that keeps giving. Near 12 years I've been playing, still getting better. It's a fucking lonely pursuit that's for sure, but the skill ceiling is so damn high in this it means it'll never end. The very best players in the world, by a wiiiiide margin, are still nowhere near top scores on the hardest stuff, and they ain't gonna get there either... it's impossible. It's what makes it great. So many rhythm games have leaderboards full of perfect scores. It's shite. IIDX is impossible to finish. You keep playing until you give up. Or die.

Lovin it lovin it lovin it.

I get you. It's weird the way the brain works. Sometimes something just clicks.

I have a theory that when returning to a game after a break from it you don't expect yourself to be as good because of muscle memory atrophy - so because you don't expect as much from yourself you are calmer. It's very much a state of mind with some types of games. When you stop worrying and relax - you start to get better.

Yeah that's definitely a thing, it's a known occurrence amongst IIDX players: the best thing to do if you've plateaued is to take a break, you often come back stronger.

The strange/annoying thing is that my scoring is waaaaay worse, I'm getting B's on stuff I used to AA fairly easily (so dropping 2 grades). BUT, my clearing is waaaaay better. I'm clearing stuff I just had no ability to clear before, but I'm scoring lower on stuff I could easily clear before.

Whatever. I'm happy with how things are going. It's genuinely such a great game, I can't think of anything other than Street Fighter that I've continued to play for over a decade and still find myself surprising myself with improvements.