This was (in)famously, in my mind anyway, sent with the subject line “HOT AND SEXY BABES, CLICK HERE” due to my woeful, woeful memory for changing subject lines and attaching things. It’s only the second most embarrassing RPS related story I have though: close behind when I accidentally linked me singing badly into a microphone labelled as “hot lesbian porn” in a comment on a news post. Fuck Mediafire. Still, probably raised an eyebrow.
In addition: proud as fuck of this headline.
A Knockout Mixup: Yomi
The wham-bash-krak-kapow, balls to the wall world of fighting games is one that I find myself dearly in love with. The fast paced, head to head nature is unique and that’s not all: the extravagant visuals, frame perfect comebacks, one of a kind combos and even the very premise of the games themselves – all are here and here alone. Sadly, with my lethargic fingers and PC preference it is unlikely I could compete professionally. Thanks to Sirlin Games and their free to play, browser based fighter-simulation card game Yomi, all is not lost.
The game is available here, or here if you prefer the physical over the digital. I’d recommend a quick glance at the rules before jumping in. In essence it is a simultaneous turns, two player card game that relies on a rock-paper-scissors system to determine the winner of a particular turn. While this may seem to add a degree of randomness, predicting what your opponent will do becomes much easier as you play. Losses come more often due to rash action, as opposed to betting on the wrong side of the coin.
It’s terrific, challenging fun. All the competitive nature and brain taxing strategy of a solid three rounds of Street Fighter without the reliance on manual dexterity, memorised move lists or a console. Knowing what both you and your opponent’s decks is capable of presents a huge advantage as each action reveals some information about the hand it was played from. Nothing is more exhilarating than correctly predicting an adversary’s thought pattern time after time; particularly after taking your own savage beating. In one game I came back from an 87 point health deficit to win with nothing but smart choices and deduction.
Of the colourful, varied ten-man roster my favourite so far is Jaina, Phoenix Archer. She’s an all-out attacker with some neat tricks that can really give her the edge: powering up by discarding cards that can then recur to the hand for damage to the opponent proved game winning. Others have more blatant effects; one character able to combo her cards together in any order, meaning allowing a single blow to land can be deadly. Many varied playstyles are accounted for with everything from almost-literal turtles to dice rolling, blackjack playing pandas.
Replay value is, naturally, through the roof. With forty-five radically different matchups to explore and the random nature of a deck of cards, this could keep you busy for dozens of hours. When one character gets boring, moving onto another can be like finding an entire different game. While the community is small, it works diligently to provide resources for new and experienced players on every facet of the game. With match-making working flawlessly and in-built IRC channels, it should never be hard to find an opponent.
0 Comments.