Play This Game, You Must

So while I'm getting some hardware together and turning my laptop into my new Simming machine (seeing as my laptop still runs Windows 7, while this desktop has been consumed by a broken copy of Windows 10 which hates TS2 and stops all attempts to run it), I have to play something in the meantime. So I've been playing plenty of Neverwinter Nights multiplayer (the old school Diamond Edition, not Beamdog's Enhanced Edition...which I am planning to buy next January, seeing as all of my favorite servers are converting to the EE next year...).

But Neverwinter Nights costs ten or twenty dollars (USD), so you might not be interested in that.

I've also been dusting off my old 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign over on Illusion Vale and donning the Dungeon Master hat again. But that's dice-slinging Alpha Nerd stuff, so you might not be interested in that neither.

"So Pizzatron! What have you been playing lately, video-game-wise, on the internet, for free?"

Well, how about Capoeira Fighter 3?

It's a really fun Flash game. The graphics are solid, the animation's fluid (with blur effects added for really fast movements), the challenge is adjustable for a broad range of skill levels, the music's engaging (with actual roda music for any capoerista's stage, and about half of the 29 fighters there are capoeristas)...

...and there are plenty of game modes to keep players engaged, including Arcade Mode (aka. Story Mode), Versus battles with up to four players, six Mini-Games and six Survival modes.

Capoeira Fighter 3 is hosted at the Shockwave site.

Matches can be 2-on-2, 1-on-2, 2-on-1 or 1-on-1. If you're playing with two fighters, simply tap Down twice to switch fighters; this gives one fighter a chance to rest on the sidelines while his or her partner fights in his place. With one fighter, you don't have the option to tag out, but your fighter gains more health and damage resistance, plus his/her Stamina drains more slowly and recovers more quickly, compensating for having to fight two people instead of just one.

Scott Stoddard — the game's creator and leading developer — went the extra mile and consulted various martial arts schools and martial artists in order to ensure accurate depictions of their styles. But that measure wasn't as necessary with Capoeira; in addition to his talents as a game coder and developer, Stoddard himself is trained in Capoeira.



Yes, that's his YouTube channel. He's not really checking in on it these days, but it's there. His earlier videos also include videos of Capoeira Fighter 3 as it progressed through development, if anyone cares to look them up.

Okay, so he probably wasn't a Mestre-rank capoeirista at the time of that video's uploading, but hey, I myself never made it above Nanakyu/7th Kyu rank when I trained in Shotokan Karate. But being a mere Purple Belt didn't stop me from studying up on the history of Karate and its various schools, substyles and philosophies to the point where I could tell real Karate from Hollywood bullpucky at a glance, right?

And like I said, about half of the fighters in this game are Capoeira stylists, true to the game's name. The rest are a mix of Karate stylists (or "karatekas" to those of us versed in the martial arts...), Kung Fu stylists, Taekwondo stylists, Muay Thai stylists, Jeet Kun Do stylists, Jiujitsu stylists, boxers, whatever the heck those two aliens practice...all in all, one or two fighters for each of those non-Capoeira styles.

But even with so many capoeiristas in the game, each of them has enough variations in size, strength, stamina, agility, attack forms and defense forms to distinguish Capoeirista A from Capoeirista B. Thus does Capoeira Fighter 3 avoid the "Ken and Ryu" syndrome which plagued Street Fighter II: Same fighter, different looks. Even though they all perform the Ginga and other core traits of Capoeira, different capoeiristas do different things, so stay on your toes.

At any point during a match, just mash the Spacebar to pause the game and bring up the moves lists for both active fighters.

I like the game's Story Mode. It gives you a feel for who's whom, what they're like, why they're fighting and whether they're heroes, villains or something in between. You get a cutscene at the beginning, a cutscene in the middle (when you have to make a crucial choice) and an ending.

At several points throughout Story Mode play, you'll receive a chance to improve on one of your fighter's stats: Offense (which improves the damage that your attacks deal), Stamina (which improves your Stamina recovery), Defense (which reduces what damage you take from opponents' attacks) and Hyper (which improves the rate at which your Hyper gauge fills, so you can execute the dreaded Hyper attacks sooner and more often). Pick whatever suits your playing style best.

Here's one of those "choose your path" junctions that I was just talking about.

If you pick Maionese (the goofy capoeirista in the blue and white), you start off with Furacao (the crazy-looking bald capoeirista in the black and orange) as your tag team partner. Halfway through, you have to make a choice: Either let Furacao wander off to help defend their school from enemies while Maionese continues on alone, or insist that Furacao stick with Maionese (and let the other students fend for themselves).

Each fighter in the game can reach one of two endings; your choice impacts whom you fight from there, what difficulties you'll face and which ending you get.

Fun fact: Because Scott Stoddard has a self-deprecating sense of humor, he created Maionese as an analog of himself in CF3! Maionese is a bit whiny, he's a goofball, he's a huge fan of disc golf (as seen in the ending where he asks Furacao to stay with him) and good Goddess, he's wearing flip-flops! All the other capoeristas in the game have the good sense to fight barefoot (except for Santo and his combat boots, but Santo's a paramilitary guy, so that's to be expected), and for men, flip-flops are almost certainly the worst footwear to wear to a fight! (For women, flip-flops rank right behind high-heeled shoes in the "Wear these and get stomped" category. Kick 'em off!)

And yet, no matter how Maionese kicks, jumps or cartwheels, his flip-flops never come flying off! How does he do it? Is super glue involved? How does one remove dried-on super glue from the soles of one's feet, anyway?

That "tagging out" feature. Maionese was running low on Stamina after a really wicked combo, so I switched to Furacao, who proceeded to kick Perereca right upside her midgetty little head while Maionese took a breather on the sidelines.

The green bar below your health bar is your Stamina. You lose Stamina with every attack you throw and regain it when you're not attacking. The less Stamina you have, the weaker your attacks are. Thus does CF3 punish button-mashers. If you want to win, pace your attacks and make them count!

Hyper attacks can make or break a round with vicious combos and hefty damage, so use them wisely!

When you select your fighter at the beginning of the game, you can pick one of several Hyper Powers to go with each Hyper, such as Shield (drastically reduced damage from enemy attacks while the Hyper is live), Damage (+50% damage to all your attacks), Healing (recover some of your lost health), Ghost (temporary invisibility), Venom (further erodes your opponent's health) and more. During your Hypers, your fighter's afterimages are colored to correspond to which Power you chose: cyan for Healing, blue for Shield, red for Damage, et cetera.

I like the special effects when you land a knock-out blow: Everything goes in slow motion for a second or two, and the background stretches out and goes all streaky.

It's like you just knocked out the space-time continuum along with your opponent!

(That teal-and-yellow blur is Cobra finishing Santo off with one of her special attacks: a flying reverse kick. See? Fast = blurry!)

A winner is you!

(More to come, but I have to go to traffic court in the morning. See you tomorrow!)