Protocol Snow

Watching the massive, 1000+ person Street Fighter 4 tournament at EVO2009 dominated my past weekend. The online streaming was shaky but a worthy effort for a first attempt at broadcasting the tournament live. Aside from the heart-pounding, world-class level of competition, I was most impressed by the running commentary that accompanied the action, particular from Capcom’s Seth Killian.

Seth is a natural. Not only can he concisely describe what the players are doing at the moment with snappy play-by-play, he also provides insightful commentary on the larger scale strategies and mind games. Hopefully he will be in the announcer’s booth for many more tournaments to come.

Some of the highlight matches from the SF4 tournament:
Sabre vs. Alex Valle — an incredible display that brought one of the biggest roars of the weekend.
Ed Ma vs. Evil Rahsaan — extremely tense match late in the semi-final rounds with everything at stake.
Justin Wong vs. Daigo — 2 legends meet in the Grand Finals for pride and country. It’s difficult to miss the symbolism displayed on screen: Justin Wong playing as American boxer Balrog in his red-white-and-blue costume, Daigo as the Japanese warrior Ryu. The match was a nail-biter that delivered on every level, a stunning ending to the weekend of competition.

Even though I likely can’t attend the event in person for at least the next few years because of scheduling conflicts, this was my first taste of EVO and I crave more. Hopefully I’ll be amidst the roaring crowd one day. EVO, wait for me…

Fantastic photo by Kelly Bracha. Please click on the thumbnail for full resolution.

UPDATE: Of course, right after I made this post, a good chunk of my match recordings (and especially the 3 matches I highlighted above) were deleted from Youtube due to copyright claims. Faaantastic. You can still watch the recorded online stream at Ustream.

Evolution 2009, the premiere fighting game tournament in the U.S., kicked off yesterday in Las Vegas, and I’ve been eagerly following the Street Fighter 4 event via online streaming. Over 1,000 people are participating in SF4, which makes it the largest live fighting game tournament in U.S. history. I am a very amateur SF4 player so half of the time I’m in disbelief watching these guys play. Their skill and watertight execution are so slick. Even more impressive is the adaptation. The pros might be caught off guard for a round by unorthodox play, but they’ll quickly learn the habits of their opponent, settle into the flow of the match,  and powerfully turn it around in their favor.

Other than a few mishaps, the live stream has been great with running commentary and picture-in-picture so that we can see the players’ faces and reactions. Even if you only have a passing interest in fighting games, I’d recommend checking out the live stream on Sunday night. SF4 finals will be hot!

While on the topic, I want to share some SF4 goodies I’ve acquired over the past couple weeks. Triumvir, a SoCal-based clothing label, partnered with Capcom a while back to create the official SF4 T-shirts. They were produced in very limited quantities and sold out quick, but an even more limited second run was produced in May. I managed to place my order for the second run and got a nice stack of T-shirts.

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I leave all my consoles at home so whenever I go back to Los Angeles for Christmas break, there’s typically the “big game” of the year that I can’t wait to play. For 2007, it was Halo 3 and Mass Effect. 2006: Gears of War. And so on. For 2008, I was expecting it to be Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, and Gears of War 2. However, lately I have become so weary of investing time into single player campaigns (and gaming in general) that I ended up playing none of these. Instead, Geometry Wars 2 and Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix were my games of choice this holiday when I did sit in front of the TV, both supremely excellent titles on Xbox Live Arcade.

But I’m here to talk about my first experiences with the PS3. When the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundles were first announced almost a year ago, I was excited about the PS3 finally having an appealing bundle/deal. However, I wound up talking myself out of buying the system. It wasn’t until Amazon restocked the limited edition Gunmetal MGS4 system for $200 off the original price that I was convinced and bought the PS3 in November.

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Wow. With the buyout of 1up.com and many Ziff Davis properties by Hearst, scores of Ziff employees have been suddenly laid off. A very harsh reminder of what a volatile and shaky industry videogame journalism is. I wish the best to all their staff. I’ve personally met only a couple of their writers years back when I was writing for GamerFeed/GameDaily, but I’ve long enjoyed the articles and podcasts by the group. They have a talented ensemble over there. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the staff banded together and created a GiantBomb.com-like resurrection.

Coincidentally, I was giving a classmate a ride home literally this afternoon when he asked me completely out of the blue whether I still worked for “that videogame company”. I could only wistfully reply, “Nah, that was in a former life.” Writing about videogames was never a serious career I had considered for a second and I did it only for my own entertainment, but nonetheless I still spent many hours dedicated to the company and got to enjoy many very cool experiences as a reward. It had provided many unforgettable memories. I’m sure the 1up.com staff are now feeling the same way looking back.

Special New Year’s Eve delivery from the mailman! I’m a huge fan of the DJ Max Portable series on PSP, made by a Korean company called Pentavision. It’s a rhythm game series similar to Beatmania and has great soundtracks and slick presentation. I own the Limited Edition prints of DJ Max Portable 1 and 2, both limited to 1,000 copies each. With the newest installment in the series (titled Black Square), Pentavision outdid themselves again and produced a stellar Quattra Limited Edition. This set is again limited to a scarce 1k run. Being the fanatic that I am, I made sure to reserve one the moment Play-Asia started accepting pre-orders.

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My brother printed this awesome Star Wars: Force Unleashed poster for me recently. I might frame it at some point, but it has some awkward dimensions so I’ll have to order a custom made frame that would probably be more trouble than it’s worth. In the meantime, I taped it onto the wall.

If you’re wondering about the eyesore behind my chair, no, I didn’t make a giant hole in the wall. Not yet anyway. The covering is there as a preventive measure for chair damage since I like to lean back and don’t want to pay damage fees when I move out of this apartment.

I’m not much of a decorative person so all the walls in my apartment are pretty much plain white, but in the past couple months I’ve put up posters of Casino Royale (James Bond), Hitman, The Dark Knight, and Lost in Translation to make it a bit more interesting. I also have these Penny Arcade comic prints still sitting in my closet that I have yet to find frames for.

A big happy birthday to the Sega Dreamcast, which launched on September 9th, 1999 and is 9 years old today. It is to this day still my favorite console, and I’m still buying Dreamcast games every now and then to add to my collection. Cheers to the good times, and I can’t wait till Christmas break when I can go home and play Napple Tale. I actually don’t know anything about this game except that the soundtrack is phenomenal. Good enough for me.

Image from a NeoGAF thread.

Retronauts, one of the 1up.com podcasts, did an episode last week dedicated to the Dreamcast. You’ll have to skip about 40 minutes into the show before the discussion starts, but Tycho from Penny-Arcade and the Player One Podcast crew were featured guests.