Geese is fun, and has the classic impact that is missing from many cotw finishers. No complaints about him. Well, I wish I could change his skin colour like edit 4, but it’s no deal breaker. What’s more interesting is using him in EOST.

I’ve been playing a lot more of EOST and there’s a definite incentive due to the story mode for Geese and the inclusion of Shadow Wolf, who is hilarious. He’s like a mugen dream character, and no doubt there will be calls to control him, of which I can definitely agree to refuse, but at the same time we can always ban him in tournaments.

And here’s the point. At this stage, the people playing the game are only the players. Why not make them happy? We’ve had plenty of busted characters and tournament organisers made rules to adjust for fairer play, or just let it rock which can be hilarious for the spectators. Nobody, apart from me, cried about seeing Blanka and Sagat in every CVS2 team.

I like EOST, it’s the one player content that SNK needs to deliver in this day and age (so anyone who says there’s no content had listened to the wrong people) but the mode needs to make clearer that there are unlockables to gain by playing it.

Now, including the drive impact and parry from SF6 gives me mixed feelings. The identity of COTW is a bit muddled by all this collaboration, as I try to imagine SF6 players coming in and not being able to play as they do in SF6 and then suddenly the mode is available to them, after grinding in COTW mode, so will they switch back? And then the mode is only available in EOST, with no versus option, so what’s the point of this? Yes it reminds me of the CVS2 grooves but let’s face it, people picked the most powerful mode, not their favourite, the most skilled picking K mode to instill absolute terror in their opponents. As the game is played today, there is a mix of three modes, out of the six representing the two companies, in use. In COTW there are only two modes, and if SF6 mode is deemed superior, it simply will devalue the system and the game and the brand. It’s worrying. But I guess that was part of the price to pay for the collab, again, a reminder that none of the players had to pay for any of it, unlike in SF6.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to kof16 and hoping we get a more fleshed out EOST mode with a fully explorable city in 3d. Asking too much, yes yes, where’s the ROI? Well we’re still playing the game aren’t we? EOST is a productive way to practice your character before you go into the wilds online, it just might, in that meantime, reduce online activity a bit, but hey we’re still adding to the steam activity numbers.

And finally, people have been laughing at 2xko dropping out of the top ten games on playstation. I would just like to point out, people pointing at charts either don’t understand what they’re looking at or are just trying to trigger a response. For example, would anyone say SF6 is a dead game? Very doubtful. Yet, it is nowhere in the top 200 Steam charts. Nowhere. Yet it had sold 6 million copies. I doubt it’s anywhere in the playstation charts either. Counter strike 2 being position 2 in the steam charts, after being released in 2012, begs a closer inspection… but usually a game’s sales will put it in the chart for a week or more and then disappear. That certainly does not mean it’s dead. But people love dooming. We will see this over and over. At some point, we will learn to place less weight on the gravitas that haters want us to believe it has.