It's been a while since I last posted, but just wanted to get my thoughts out while I have some time. The past few days have been a great time for me to unwind. I took a couple days off work for the holiday, had some friends over, had a mini-LAN party with Diablo 3 and have been watching the EVO tourney stream in Vegas.
For all of those who didn't know EVO is the biggest fighting game tournament in the world and it's held once a year in the US. It's a 3-day long tournament held in Vegas and some of the most popular fighting games in the world are played there over those 3 days. It absolutely blows my mind how freakishly amazing these players are at their own games. Sometimes even multiple fighting games. As I'm writing this I"m watching one of the final rounds for King of Fighters XIII which I didn't even know really existed. Although as I'm watching the match it really reminds me a lot of Marvel vs Capcom. Just goes to show how clueless some of us (including myself) can be at keeping up with everything the video game industry has to offer. But it also shows what kind of hype can occur when a bunch of people who have a common interest get together to share something they really enjoy together.
It kind of gives me hope that eventually something along the lines of a championship will come to the east coast as well. Right now there's not much in terms of big-name highly-advertised video game championships that occur on the east coast. In fact, in the past few years I can only think of a single one. The IPL Starcraft 2 Championship Final Weekend which happened in Atlantic City about a year ago. The only problem with it is again, it wasn't that highly advertised and there was only a single game being played there. So as an advertiser I can understand why not putting a lot of money into increasing its publicity would be the right decision. I just don't know how much of a return on investment someone would get there. But then again I think that if enough time and energy is put into something it can evolve on it's own over time.
But ok, I think that's another blog post for me to talk about in the future. Going back to EVO and some fighting games, I should probably point out that I'm pretty god awful at them. I've tried for a couple years and have tried multiple games and series such as Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighter, Tekken, Soul Caliber... All of them are fun to play casually for me, but whenever I try to play against other people online or in person I just get slaughtered. Like I don't even come close most of the time. In fact, if the characters in the video game could respond to what I was doing, I would probably get a Ryu fireball to the face or a Scorpion spear to the throat. Which is why it impresses me even more to what these players can do. Below was a match between arguably the #1 fighting game video game player in the world Diago Umehara and the #3 fighting game player, a player known only by his in-game name "Gamerbee".
Do me a favor if you do watch the video. Take note of a couple things. First, the number of people who are there just watching and second the reaction and feeling the crowd gets (and possibly gives you) when something spectacular happens. It really shows off the power of a great game.
(NOTE: The match starts around 1:50 if you want to skip all of the commentary)
Did you watch the video? Jesus fucking christ... I just watched it again after posting it. We should put some of these people in control of some fighting robots and let them go after some terrorists or something. Or even worse... I'll just keep my fingers crossed they don't really come into control of some of these robots and get pissed off at the world. It's going to be like real life rockem-sockem robots with more blood.
Fighting games really have taken on a life of their own as of late. A lot of developers are getting behind them and are even reviving some of the classics which some people thought were long gone except for the few dedicated fans. Probably more so than most other games which are coming out. So yes... there's the Call of Duty "fanboys/girls" if you want to call them that for example. And yes, Activision does a good job at putting out a new version of the game very year. But all they're really doing is remaking the same old formula of a game year after year with a couple new variables and a surprise here and there. Whereas some of the fighting games which have come out lately have completely redrawn the genre and what can be done with a fighter. Just look at Street Fighter X Tekken. It not the greatest fighting game out there right now mind you, but it contains a bunch of features which a lot of fighting games haven't done or haven't done CORRECTLY. Things like the gem system, 2 players on the same team fighting against the other characters at the same time, are things which make the game interesting to watch. Even if you don't understand anything about the game.
If you haven't watched EVO as of yet, and you're reading this sometime on Sunday the 8th... for the love of god turn on the EVO stream. I'll post the link below. Unfortunately we haven't reached the point where we can watch video game players of this caliber as much as I'd like... but here's to hoping it'll happen eventually. I'm off to watch the Ultimate MVC finals as the SSF:AE finals.
Happy Gaming!
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