ChipDamage.com is proud to present Fight for the Future 2: Revived, a fund-raising fighting games tournament for a local charity, the Children’s Hospital.

Well, the first Fight for the Future II got canned, simply because of time and scheduling. So here’s the revival of it. This will be a fund-raising tournament, with most of the entry fees going towards a local charity yet to be decided on. The first one was a pretty good success since we raised 200 dollars from just 5 tournaments. This year, we’re hoping to raise a bit more with support from other players from around the nation/world.

Fight for the Future 2 Details:

Games:
Super Smash Bros. Melee: 2:00pm
Capcom vs. SNK2: 2:00pm
Super Street Fighter Turbo (HD-Remix if it’s out): 4:00pm
Street Fighter 3 - 3rd Strike: 6:00pm
Sould Calibur IV: 7:00pm

Location: Armes Building Science Lounge

Date: Saturday, November 22nd, 2008

Entry to the venue is free. Entry per game is $5.00. If you pay for 3 tournaments ($15.00), you may enter a 4th free of charge.

The prize structure will be different as we will be doing a raffle and will have only 3 prizes for the 5 tournaments. It will go as follows:
Everyone who enters will get a predetermined amount of tickets for entering. The more games entered the more tickets they’ll receive. The more matches you win will earn you more tickets. You may then distribute your tickets amongst the prizes that will be available. This way, everyone will get a chance to win when we draw out the prizes. Prizes will most likely be something along the lines of gift cards from EB (Electronics Boutique), Futureshop, or something along those lines. If you do not wish to wait until the drawing occurs, be sure to leave your contact info and we’ll try to find a way to get the prize to you.

Drinks will be sold and proceeds will go to the charity as well.

To voice yourself, you can find the forum topic for this event here:
http://chipdamage.com/forums/index.php?topic=46.0

Article updated as of: October 31, 2008

I originally had something else planned to write.  However, I realized that this is something I should probably state before the tournament.

This Saturday, our charity tournament, Fight for the Future will be happening.  This tournament is an important one.  Not just because the proceeds will go to charity.  This event will see the end of quite a few things for our tournament events.

Dreamcasts

Some of the staff have expressed desire to phase out DCs by the end of this tournament.  This of course, doesn’t stop any of you from bringing them to play casuals.  I expect Matt to continue issuing money matches in MVC2 and Shane showing us why he prefers Second Impact over 3rd Strike.  But this would mean the end of their use in official tournaments.

Original Super Turbo

It looks as though HD Remix will not be out for this tournament.  However, there’s a preeeetty good chance it’ll be out by the next event where we run a Super Turbo tournament.  For those worried that the remixed mode will become broken and unplayable, remember that HDR will also be including the original unchanged game with nothing more than the new graphics and music.  The game uses the same code as the Dreamcast version so it would otherwise be the same game we’re playing right now.  This is of course a hypothetical situation as we will be using the remixed mode by default.

3rd Strike as the main event

3rd Strike will always have a special place in our hearts (well, most of us).  However, Street Fighter 4 is going to soon become THE game to play.  Although we’ll continue to host 3S tournaments so long as the support for them is there, SF4 is going to end up taking the priority.  It’s also going to likely take 3S’s comfortable 6:00 pm timeslot.  We’ve consistently held 3S tournaments at that time due to it’s prime time status and to give players a consistent time to be used to.  Come SF4’s launch, expect it to take that spot.

One of the games being held

For this tournament, we will be hosting five games.  The most we’ve held in a single day tournament ever.  It’s already going to be a massive workload and it’ll be completely impossible to run all these tournaments in the future.  Something is going to get cut for the next multi-game event.  It’s important that you show your support for the game of your choice this event.

Smash Bros Melee is the last game you can expect to disappear.  It has a unique style, unique platform, unique players, unique everything.  With the exception of TST ‘08, it continues to have the most entries in any of our tournaments.  We’ve already shown that we will not compromise this game because of Brawl.  Even if Brawl ends up seeing support, we try our best to continue running this game so long as the support is there.

Whereas SSBM is the least likely, Capcom vs SNK 2 appears the most likely to lose it’s spot.  It’s a major shame in my view, considering we literally just got a bunch of dedicated players who highly support this game.  However, it unfortunately doesn’t draw the same numbers that 3rd Strike does.  The fact that it takes so much longer (both in match lengths and converter inconveniences) doesn’t help matters.  Even if it does survive, the possibility of DCs being phased out means that this game might be expected to be transfered over to PS2s/PS3s anyway.  There’s still the realm of possibility that more will pick up this game and 3rd Strike will completely die down by SF4’s launch but that’s unknown at this point.

Super Turbo is going to be replaced by HD Remix.  Therefore it’s essentially going to be a “new” game anyway and on a newer platform.  It also has the advantage of taking much less time to run than any of the other games we hold.

3rd Strike will continue to see support from the staff so long as it continues to see support from the players.  It still has the advantage of nearly everyone in the scene being able to play it in some fashion.  Like someone on SRK stated, many old school players hate 3S because it plays so differently from other Street Fighters.  However, that’s precisely why it’s going to last for a long time.  On the other hand, some of the SoCal players have stated that ever since SF4 has been released, 3S doesn’t feel relevant anymore.  Does this concern us?  Only if you want it to.  Just be aware that we’ll continue to host tournaments for this game in some fashion if you still want to play it.  Still, it will no longer take priority.

Soul Calibur 4 is also in the danger zone.  We all know that I personally like 3D fighters (including this one) and I do want to hold at least something to fill the 3D void (Tekken players just aren’t coming to our tournaments) like the way we continue to support Smash players.  Still, the game doesn’t seem yet as though it may be a big draw.  TST’s tournament was free entry and BaseLan 16 didn’t draw (although there are many reasons for that).  FFTF will be another big test for this game.

If you want your game to continue seeing tournaments after FFTF ‘08, be sure to come this Saturday and show support for it.  If you don’t think it’ll survive, be sure to come for it may be your last chance to show your stuff in your game of choice.  As always, anything can happen.  For all we know, we could see a resurgance in Tekken, Guilty Gear or even…….King of Fighters.  We will support where the competition is.

For screwing a lot of people over with your “new” by-law! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then let me give you the summary.

The new trading in games by-law in Manitoba (and only in Manitoba for the moment) is that you pretty much can’t get anything free anymore by just trading in games. That means no free systems with 6 games, no 2 games 1 free game, NONE of that exists anymore in good ol’ Manitoba.

So what DO we get?

Well the government pretty much said, “We don’t want people getting games and/or systems tax free, that’s not good for us”. So here is their answer to that (Well at EBGames at least):

- You can only trade in software FOR software, doesn’t matter which platform it’s for, that’s all. You cannot exceed the value of the game you’re purchasing. If you do, you have to pay at least 1 dollar from your own pocket and then any credit left over MUST be used towards something else, even if you only have 4 dollars left. There is no Edge card anymore.

So lets do an example, of this, I’ll use what I did yesterday. You go in with a handful of games, you look at the game you want. You go up and say “I wanna trade these games for this game”. They’ll be like “Ok, let’s value your games”. So the amount of games I traded in were 117 dollars. Now I wanted Resistance 2 for the PS3, so I ask him for it. He says I should get another game. Which is reasonable, I have 117 dollars afterall. This is basically his push for the whole use your credit all in one shot (So that means if you wanna buy ONE game, take in about 10 games, since I had 21 to trade in). So I bought Fallout 3 as well. Total of both games came up to about 130 dollars. This is pretty good considering now I only have to pay 13 dollars for 2 brand new spanking PS3 games.

Now let’s go back a bit and let’s change my total to 116 dollars to allow my credit to go over my total. If this happened, I have to now pay 1 dollar, at least, to pay for the games and then I get 1 dollar left over in credit. And I have to USE that 1 dollar or take my losses.

This is pretty much the same for hardware, only hardware can be traded in for hardware. I didn’t have any hardware to trade in, but I’ve got a feeling it’s a big hassle for that too.

It isn’t exactly what I call a good deal anymore, for the customer OR the retailer. Blockbuster won’t even offer their trade in 4 get a free game deal anymore. I asked and they said they got rid of trading all together at the Kenaston location. What does this mean for Future Shop when it starts trading in games as well? Who knows. All I know is, we all got screwed over.

So, I got Resistance 2 and Fallout 3 yesterday for a nice amount of 13 dollars. Not bad if you ask me, brand new games and they’re about 6.50 a piece.

So I popped in Resistance 2 first and man, I can say that I haven’t played an FPS on a console for a LONG time. Controls are gonna be hard to get used to, the game so far is pretty good, ample amounts of weapons, unfortunately the enemies are small sometimes and I find myself shooting aimlessly in the air trying to hit them. Also, it’s really annoying to have cloaked enemies in the game that can kill you in one hit start to shut off cloak when they’re 2 feet from you. I can’t tell you HOW MANY BLOODY TIMES I died to it. Online multiplayer is pretty cool. The co-op missions are little objectives that you do with other ppl (up to 8 players) and you get to choose between a heavy weapons guy, soldier, or medic. Each time you hit something with your weapon, you gain XP, which then unlocks new abilities or weapons. Pretty neat. The 30 vs. 30 is really good too, provided you don’t get trapped in a server with a bunch of 10 year olds.

Fallout 3 is interesting as well, I’ve never played the first two Fallouts, but I remember hearing about this RPG that you utilizes guns and stuff. So getting this was kind of a way of closure from the past. Anyways, the game is made by Bethseda, the same guys who did Morrowind and Oblivion, and it seems to follow the same type of engine, which can and cannot be annoying, since FPS mode is really bland and third person mode kind of stinks too. Other than that, the moral choices you make and such make the game a lot like a futuristic, non-kiddy version of Fable/Fable 2. I’ve just started the game restarted the game, just to change a few things I did in the first time through thing. I’ll have to see where I go from here, I want to be a charismatic, gun totting, scientist!

Other than that, I think that’s all I have to state today in this week’s news. The gaming gatherings are happening this weekend I believe. I will be missing at least one of them to hang out with a friend whom I haven’t seen in a while. 2 weeks until Fight for the Future 2, let’s gets some practice in before hand guys! Anyways, until next week, GGPO!

James “Korea” Kim

My second column is, interestingly enough, inspired by a quick scroll through the forums. One of the first things that popped up in my mind was that the “Player Rankings” forum is…

Completely blank.

Part of this is because our tournaments have been somewhat few and far between in the past year or so. Dating back to November 2007, we’ve had 3 Third Strike tournaments, with one soon to come at FFTF II (and we hope to see all of you there), and even less tournaments for the other games. With some highly-anticipated releases in the near future (Street Fighter 4 and Super Turbo: HD Remix), I expect it to be somewhat of a breath of fresh air; everybody gets to start from scratch with SF4 and I look forward to seeing how the game evolves, and hopefully ST:HD will provide the right balance between the new players (who feel like they missed the boat on Super Turbo) and the old school guys (who get an opportunity to try to find some new tricks in the revised version of the game). I can’t say for certain what will be happening in the future re: tournaments and ranking battles (ranbats for you hipsters who like shortening things), but rest assured that we are looking forward to having new games available for competition.

Which leads to the second part of the puzzle; if there’s a competitive game, and we’ve got regular tournaments with good numbers for said game…how do we rank/seed the players? Ideally, we get a system that answers two questions: first, we should be able to assess who has had the best “season” (where the season is comprised of a series of tournaments that occur within, say, a calendar year). Second, if we’ve got X number of players who enter a tournament, we should have a good idea where it is appropriate to seed those players so that people get a fair shake, taking into account momentum/current level of play.

The two are distinct questions: for example, if Player A dominates the first five SF4 tournaments with a nice gimmick, but gets peaced out of the next five pretty easily once people figure out his trickery, one measure should say “Player A has had a good season” and the other measure should say “People have caught up to Player A; if we have a tournament coming up, Player A should be a middle-to-low seed”. Or if Player B has been leapfrogging other players recently after a modest beginning, we could say “Player B should probably be seeded fairly high at TST, but doesn’t have as many points this year as some of the other guys he/she has passed”.

Ranking is more of a measure of past performance, whereas seeding is trying to measure present ability and predict performance for the immediate future. As such, seeding is much more of a gray area; and it’s not entirely perfect. It’s not really designed to properly account for counter-matchups (a situation where a mid-level player just seems to have a top player’s number) or the fact that what is “supposed to happen” doesn’t always happen (take it from somebody who won some money on the Giants this past Super Bowl). But it helps as an objective guideline to try to save those really good tournament matches for the end of the tournament rather than having them occur at the beginning.

Having set the table for our rankings (and having put most of the people reading this to sleep), it seems like a good place to leave this column for now. I think I’ll probably pick up this subject again a little closer to the start of ranking battles, and once we’ve ported over some of the old tournament results. In the interim, expect some reader e-mails to be answered in the near future :P.

That’s all it take to practice for a game. Whether it’s to get that perfect score, or that supreme combo. Unless you’re Tim “Mr. Street Fighter” Ho, he usually is able to expand a 2 hour session to an all nighter. It’s usually a topic of discussion for many gamers, you know that one question “How do you get good at <insert name of game here>?” As we all know most people who ask this tend to be those who reply, after you explain it, with “Wow, you should get out more” or “Wow, you’re a complete dork/geek/nerd.”

It’s interesting to see how different people will talk about how they practice and stuff. It’s usually different between people, since it’s much like learning in school. Some people just take longer than others, for example, what took me 2-3 years to do with Dudley took someone else maybe like 3 months. But then you’ve gotta see some of the things that affect that.

- How much time did they put into the game?
- Were you using stick or pad? ( I simply ask this because some things ARE easier to execute on pad and vice versa)
- Who were you playing against? (This can change a lot of things, if you constantly play a top player, you can learn things much faster than playing against a bunch of scrubs, simply put, you pick up bad habits when playing scrubs and it’s harder for you to get out of the bad habits)

If you guys read Duong’s (nYo) Winnipeg Mixup, you’ll see that all three interviews he’ll ask how you practice and such or how they got good. I think the majority said one of the 3 things above. So if you wanna get good at a game, fighter or not, practice does make perfect. Just don’t play so much to an all nighter type of thing. A couple of hours a day is pretty much all you need.

Okay, so onto the usual gaming news with other consoles. I recently downloaded the Mirror’s Edge demo off the PSN (Yes, I finally got my PS3 back), after watching Tyler play it on the 360. I can say it is probably one of the coolest FPS style games out there. It will probably make me sick as hell because of the motions. The soundtrack is also very cool, especially it’s theme song. Still haven’t done much in terms of the PS3, no new games, been playing a bit more DMC4. Doing okay in it, sometimes the game gets so repetitive I just wanna throw the disc into a fire.

Resistance 2 and GoW2, I don’t know about you, but both look really good, and that’s coming from a fighter only type of guy. I’m actually impressed at the movements and just the great detail they went into making the game. I honestly don’t know how the controls are for the PS3, but I’m assuming that GoW2’s 360 port is easy to handle since the controller is so FPS based. Resistance 2, even though I didn’t really get to try the beta, I looked it up on Youtube, looks pretty damn good on a HD 1080p TV/Monitor.

No weekend gatherings this week as the normal group will be at BaseLAN this weekend (well Duong and Tyler will). If you are interested in playing games such as Soul Calibur IV and FPS games on the 360, please drop by and support them. Otherwise we will see you next week, or at Fight for the Future 2.

James “Korea” Kim

Here’s a change of pace from the street fighter players. I’ve taken the time and interviewed a Smash Brothers player. In my opinion he’s one of the best if not currently the best player in the city. He’s one of my favourite players to watch and he’s a cool guy to talk to. On a side note I’ve noticed DMCI has produced some great players. GO Maroons J To those of you outside the city he’s got some words for you guys as well(Nothing mean just some words).

Name: Russel Racca
Alias: Lickuid
Age 18

nYo:
What games do you play?

Lickuid:
I play Smash Brothers Melee, halo 3, and I enjoy playing rpgs

nYo:
So you compete in ssbm and halo then?

Lickuid:
I play SSBM competitively and i play halo for fun. Not really serious with halo.

nYo:
How did you get into Smash?

Lickuid:
I got into SSBM back in 04 when I saw world record times on break the targets on youtube

nYo:
Nice. How did that inspire you to start playing competitively?

Lickuid:
It didn’t actually , but the advanced terms I had been reading about on forums. I was wondering what they were but never really looked into them until I saw a pro match on youtube. I decided to learn the advanced techniques and started using them in my game play

nYo:
How did you learn to do the techniques?

Lickuid:
I learned most by watching an advanced how to play on youtube. Some I read explanations of the forums

nYo:
Develop anything techniques on your own?

Lickuid:
Not really my own techniques, but I’ve been able to incorporate the falcon moonwalk into my game play, which not very many players do.

nYo:
Who are your main characters?

Lickuid:
My mains are Captain Falcon and Falco.

nYo:
Why do you main them?

Lickuid:
Their combo ability on most of the characters.

nYo:
I’ve seen you use other characters to win before like young link. Did you give up on them?

Lickuid:
Pretty much , the use of higher tiers in tournaments and the meta game make my young link pretty useless. I’ll use Young Link if it’s situational though or if it’s against a scrub

nYo:
What do you think of the current tiers for melee? Does it affect how you select your character?

Lickuid:
I agree with the current tier list. It somewhat affects how I select my character, The only matchup I’m scared of is Falcon vs Sheik.

nYo:
How did you train to get to your current level?

Lickuid:
Playing with my crew mostly. tournies also helped a lot because of the experience with different players. i also improved a lot playing with the central cali players, watching videos and reading matchups also helped

nYo:
How did you do against the central cali guys?

Lickuid:
I was able to keep up with them, our skill level was pretty much the same. I went to a smashfest and we had a little 10 person tournament. i placed 3rd

nYo:
Awesome, did you get to play anyone notable there?

Lickuid:
Nope, they’re probably only known on smashboards , but nothing big. They’ve had experience with the high level players , though

nYo:
Do you think the other top players in the city can compete against other cities?

Lickuid:
Definitely, honestly we are underrated just cause our name isn’t out there. Wilson plays a beastly fox and I think I play a pretty high level Falcon. That’s my personal opinion, Most definitely I think we can take on the other cities for sure. We’ll find out soon when BC top player blunted object comes to town, He placed 4th at the “At Melee’s end” tournament(Big Canadian tournament).

nYo:
Who do you consider the top 4 players in the city? What do you think makes them so good?

Lickuid:
Top 4 would have to be Wilson Tieu, Janos Saluta, William Giang and myself. Ii would place Adam Hayes there but he’s too inconsistent with his play, No offence to him or anything. I think he’s still a very talented player. Wilson is an insane player. He can pretty much play every character and dominate with all the top and high tiers. Janos is a smart player and he’s been one of the few to take Wilson out in tournaments. William plays a good Marth, he’s really good at hitting the tippers.

nYo:
You’ve done very well in the tournaments here. Which ones of your performances stand out

Lickuid:
I would have to say the most recent tourney(TST III). I got knocked to losers pretty early and had to work my way back up to play Wilson in the grand finals. I lost only 1 round in the first set , and taking all then went undefeated in the second set. My Falcon was pretty boss that day. I’ve been patiently waiting to watch those matches and see how well I did. I was in my own zone that day and didn’t realize how bad I beat Wilson.

nYo:
How’d you hear about the competitive scene?

Lickuid:
Jeremy had an account on smashboards and Rex invited him to Baselan. Most of us couldn’t make it but Aris and my brother Nico went.

nYo:
How do you prepare yourself for tournaments?

Lickuid:
Before every tourney I play till like 4 am with whoever is at my house. Normally Janos is the one I practice with. We have like little to no sleep for every tourney

nYo:
I dunno how you two manage to place so well with so little sleep. What is your mindset when you’re playing in a tournament match? Do you play differently from casuals?

Lickuid:
Play to win. Play like a bitch if you have to, Just don’t think about losing, don’t mess up most definitely. During casuals I like to play around, it’s nothing serious but you get a feel from that persons play style and how to prepare yourself for an actual tourney match

nYo:
What are your thoughts on brawl?

Lickuid:
It sucks, It’s wack , there’s like no skill involved to win. Metaknight is the most broken character ever. The gap between casuals and competitive players skill isn’t very large. The only redeeming factor for brawl right now are the hacks that have been made. So far there is no tripping. L cancelling , melee air dodge (wavedash included) have been added, I still have yet to try it out. Either way, melee will still be the better game

nYo:
Would you play brawl with the hacks that are coming out?

Lickuid:
Once it’s polished, possibly.

nYo:
Thats probably gonna be a tough thing for us to pull off. Who would you consider your rival in the scene?

Lickuid:
Wilson for sure

nYo:
With new games coming out next year, anything else you plan to pick up competitively?

Lickuid:
I’ve actually put some thought into street fighter 4. The game looks promising, and a lot of my friends will be getting the game as well. I could maybe start up a crew and play competitively. We’ll see though. Tekken 6 too, If I ever get a PS3.

nYo:
FYI both games are coming to 360. What are your plans concerning melee over the next year? Planning to travel out?

Lickuid:
Ohh well that’s news to me. I thought it was a ps3 exclusive. I’ll probably go to California again. This coming summer and play with the same guys. If I have enough money I’d go to Alberta where the “top players” are located.

nYo:
Theres a group of us planning on heading to WCC2 in March care to join us and show them what Winnipeg smashers are about.

Lickuid:
What is WCC2 exactly? Is there a smash tourney being hosted there?

nYo:
Its Western Canadian Championships in Edmonton. I’d assume theres a smash tournament if not you can at least play some of the players there.

Lickuid:
Ohh I would go then, we’ll have to see though , march is still a ways away

nYo:
Agreed, lets conclude this with you talking some shit to other cities, just kiddin, anything you’d like to say to the locals and others around the country?

Lickuid:
To the locals - let’s get our name out there and good job keeping the smash scene alive.To other cities - we’re good players, Don’t judge us just because you haven’t seen us. A lot of your top players are overrated in my opinion , but we’ll see when we actually play each other.

You may have came to our site as of recently and noticed something different. Perhaps you sensed that something was a bit off, not quite right. And then it hits you. Of course, it’s the hair, you got a haircut.

Well, I guess you could put it that way. Infact, we have a whole new theme, and I’ve already heard complaints the minute I put it up *cough cough Korea*. So for all those out there who enjoyed the last theme more, I’ll enlighten your curiosity as to why it was changed.

I’m not going to run all the reasons by you, but I’ll give you a brief explanation. The old theme was hard to maintain, buggy, and unsupportive of many browsers. It made it difficult and stressful to manage as we now have others who are posting on the front page. It was becoming messy and unorganized. The other reason was because it wasn’t my own. It was a tweaked theme of another, and if you bothered to read the fine print in the footer of the old theme you would have known that. It bothered me from the beginning to be using a theme that was not mine, but I didn’t have the time to think up a design myself… until now.

Which leads me to this. This theme is still a design I’m thinking up, even as I type this. Things will change over the course of the next couple weeks. It will become better. And as I mentioned to Korea, I will feed this theme to it’s viewers by the shovel until they love it, or choke to death.

So that’s that, the new theme, for all to see. But I will tell you something, and I’m only going to say this once. “It’s a work in progress!” I still consider it to be in a beta phase.

Well, that’s all I’m going to say. No need to explain the theme to you, you’re looking at it right now. Enjoy!

Ok, so new theme for the site, not a big fan of it. But Jayse is the webmaster, can’t do much. I want to start things off with a bit of Fighting Game News, like I usually do. First off, Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is supposedly rumored/confirmed for a November release from this Capcom Unity Blog. If you watch the video, you will laugh considering that they show Grahame Wolfe DESTROYING this Ryu player, the commentator is stupid and is a very big scrub since he called Grahame’s Boxer bringing on the CHEESE moves. What a bloody douchebag.

Another thing that I’d like to point out is the new screenshots of Fei-Long and Dan in SFIV, I personally think that the New Warriors along with Sakura should NOT be in the game, or at least Sakura and Dan. I know it’s a fan based thing and they’re listening, but I mean come on. Dan and Sakura seriously should not be in the game. I mean this is a sequel to SFII and prequel to SFIII. Keep it to the SFII character roster then. This is just my opinion, so it’s not like what I say will mean anything. Console exclusive characters kinda suck now that I think about it.

Fable II is getting rave reviews this week and is probably considered the best RPG for the 360 right now, don’t believe me? Head over to any game news site and you’ll probably find that the game has received a high rank everywhere. Should I get it? No, simply because I stated before that I do not own a 360, but I basically am urging anyone who DOES have one to go out and buy it, just for the simple fact that you can be a pregnant girl holding a gun shooting things. Woo crazy woman with a baby and a gun! JUST WHAT I WANTED IN A GAME!

You guys also been hearing about that Killer Instinct 3 crap going around too? No? Here you go, they were blabbing about it in the new Banjo & Kazooie game. Apparently there has been sheet music and stuff in Viva Pinata that also feature stuff about it. Is this game coming out? I don’t know, I thought the originals were garbage.

I went to a potluck this week that gathered some of the old school crew from the gaming community of the U of M this past week. It was pretty decent seeing some of the people there and playing some old school games/fighters with them. In all honesty, they aren’t so bad (UMGA that is) they just need some sort of expansion or something. Although I’ve heard through their own mouths that UMGA was transforming into something else. GASP! What could it possibly be?! At the potluck I also met with someone else who is interested in our tournament organizing services. It was one of the guys from the Manitoba Comic-Con. That’s right, chipdamage.com/SSGA might be nerding it up at next year’s Manitoba Comic-Con. ALRIGHT! More with that as soon as I get in contact with the guy.

Fight for the Future II is almost upon us, and that means people better start training for the 22nd of November. All the information is pretty much posted on that site. Please help us advertise by spreading the word and even printing out a few posters to put up around the city. Don’t care where, just do it!

Norman from Saskatchewan is coming in tomorrow, Thursday, October 30. We plan on gaming and probably hanging out with him since he’s in town. It will be a one night deal as he is going home with his “new” car that he bought. Please drop by or come hang out with us. Contact me, James, on my Cell Phone (951-4599) or Duong on his cell (293-6446). I think we will also be meeting on Saturday for some late night gaming, but please contact us for further information.

Well things are almost upon us. Halloween this Friday, then Nov. 1 all the candy goes on sale, and then BAM, Christmas is coming up! I’m dead broke for Christmas, but I’ll manage to do something! Anyways I’m out, GGPO guys.

James “Korea” Kim

As most of you know I’m on staff for Baselan and have been for the past year and a half or so.  For me baselan is always a good time despite what tournaments go on there.  This one upcoming should be no different.  Unfortunatly this will be the first baselan I’ve been a part of where we will not be running a 3s tournament.  Due to it being very close to Fight for the future.  However I will be running brawl along with Soul Calibur 4.  I encourage everyone to come out who has before.  Its always a good time.  Heres the info for the event:

All Your Base Online proudly presents…

BaseLAN 16: Fallout

Where: Earl Grey Community Club. 360 Cockburn North
Map Link: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=earl+grey+community+club+winnipeg&ie=UTF8&ll=49.868474,-97.144332&spn=0.013498,0.029697&z=15&om=1
When: Nov 7, 8 and 9.
Cost:
$30 with Pre-Registration.
$40 at the door. ($5 discount if you bring a non-perishable food item for Winnipeg Harvest.)
***These fees allow entry into all tournaments including PC/Console/Fun Events***

Console Only
$20 Weekend Pass
$15 Day Pass
***No per tourney pricing***    Means you only pay for the pass and can enter all the conosle tournaments for the day.

Tournaments:

PC
Counter-Strike: Source 5v5
Call of Duty 4 5v5
Warcraft 3 1v1
Team Fortress 2
Spore Creature Creation
World of Warcraft: Naked Gnome Race

Console
Soul Caliber 4 1v1
Super Smash Brothers: Brawl 1v1
Halo 3 2v2
Guitar Hero 3

Funtivities
Extreme Spoons
Heavy Metal Musical Chairs
Kiddie Pool Dodgeball
Build a Robot
Temp Tattoo-athon

You MUST bring:
Computer
Monitor
Power Cable
Power Bar
Mouse and Keyboard
Headphones / Headset. ***No Speakers Allowed***
10 Foot Cat5 Network Cable
Sleeping Bag / Pillow if you plan on staying overnight
Deodorant!!!

***No outside food or drink permitted in the event.***

For more information visit:

http://www.allyourbaseonline.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4

And here we are.  The 4th of the staff members making his entry.  I should perhaps state immediately that my rambles will have little to no consistency between them in terms of both content and dates.  I make no apologies for this.

Many ideas for my first ramble ran through my head.  General gaming thoughts?  Seemed irrelevant.  Predictions for the 3rd Strike tournament at FFTF?  Hard to say at this point.  Advice for those unsure whether to purchase an arcade stick?  Maybe but that’s for another time.  Upon then, I once recalled a conversation about nostalgic gaming moments (of all kinds) and I quickly recalled my first moment seeing Street Fighter II.  A moment that I can recall very clearly.  It went something like this:

My parents took me to the local Video Cellar on Main St (it should still be there).  When I walked inside, I saw an arcade machine.  The first thing I’d seen was something along the lines of this big burley man beating on some skinny old looking guy (it was a CPU demonstration of Zangief vs Dhalsim).  Something about the game looked odd.  It had a similar art style to all these beat em ups from back then but it was on a flat ground and there were only two fighters.  I thought little of it and went to look for a movie.

A few minutes later, I checked again and saw a demonstration of a green monster fighting an army guy with weird hair.  My reaction was something along the lines of “this game is weird.”  I was intimidated by the 6 button layout and the bizarre characters I had just seen so I didn’t dare try.  Still, something about this game seemed to carry that “Serious Business” vibe to it.  To this day, I will never truly know but my only guess was the button layout and the 1 on 1 fighting.

As my parents are at the checkout, I see a man walk up to the machine (I can clearly remember what he looked like too).  He puts a quarter in and picks this female character.  The game then cuts to the VS screen and I see this Asian/Mexican looking guy with a red headband.  My reaction was something along the lines of “Wow! This character looks so cool!” (I was really into headbands during that time).  The man yells “F**k!” making it clear that this guy is gonna be too tough for him.  I then see Ryu’s game sprite and think “Whoa, this guy’s gonna beat him up good!”  Surely enough he does as the man slams the controls and walks out to a teary eyed Chun Li.

I wasn’t even old enough read at the time so I simply referred to the game as “Gung fu” or “that gung fu game.”  When I figured out how to read the game’s title a few months later, you could’ve imagined my confusion that the game was a sequel.

I wouldn’t actually play the game for a long time.  I was still intimidated by the button layout, the game’s level of violence (violence always meant “for grown ups” to me as a kid) and the legion of guys in their late teens and 20’s playing the game.  It always looked like a game for the big boys and I could do nothing but watch them duke it out with the look of intensity in their eyes.  When my uncle and dad gave me quarters, I would merely stand and see them try to take on everybody else in what looked like the video game equivilant of a fight club and all I could do is walk over to the little kids corner and play the TMNT beat em up.

I remember reading once in a magazine (it might’ve been a Consumer’s catalogue) that the game was going to be released on the Super Nintendo.  I had no idea how this was going to be possible.  Sometime later, I was introduced to one of my dad’s friend’s sons and he happened to have the game.  Now I had to the chance to take this game on without any adults to beat on us.

One of the things that I remember being initially weirded out on was that the jump button was assigned to a direction.  Anyways, we duked it out and I was as terrible as I imagined.  It seemed like everyone had tons of experience.  Even so, none of us had a clue how to do the special moves (the fireball being the one that stood out to us most).  I remember once accidently doing it with Ken and we were amazed.  A few months later, I finally figured out “a way” to do it.  It was so misinformed that I’m almost embarrased to say how I would do it.  Still, chucking those fireballs at the computer made me feel like such a pro and that I could take on the world.  I had discovered the ultra super secret technique that I could defeat my arch-rivals (ie: my friends) with.

I eventually figured out the true way by reading the instructional manual on none other than TMNT Tournament Fighters for Leo’s projectile.  I attempted this with Ryu and now I felt like a dexterity king.  I then find out how to do Ryu’s other two special moves.  Hurricane Kicks were no problem but Dragon Punches looked absurd to me.  I could never understand how someone can attempt those without looking like a fool.  You could’ve imagined how far I chucked the instructions when seeing 360’s and charge specials.

Sadly, I wouldn’t have Dragon Punches locked down until Alpha 2 on my shiny new Playstation.  I wanted to try out those cool looking super fireballs that looked straight out of Dragon Ball.  Every once in a while, they would turn into an accidental Dragon Punch.  It was then that I gained the confindence to do an actual Dragon Punch.  I was also reading a Gamepro magazine at the time which listed things such as 2in1s and Crossups.  2in1s sounded so glitchy and outside of the game engine that when I couldn’t do them no matter how I tried, I felt like the book was lying to me.  I couldn’t even begin to state how confusing Crossups sounded to me.  I can’t remember when and what game but I would eventually get 2in1s by pure accident almost the same way as I learned Dragon Punches.

I have no real way of ending this so I’ll just say that that’s my story and I have to get going.  Later.