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Evolution 2010 Season Wrap Up - Part 2

2010-11-26T19:12:00.000-08:00

Part 2 - Putting On a Show

A key moment occurred for me at this past year's Evolution Fighting Game Tournament during the screening of "Bang the Machine," the documentary about the Street Fighter scene circa 2000 that was produced by Peter Kang and directed by Tamara Katepoo. It was the first time it was shown at an Evo post Street Fighter IV's release and, in the film, there is a scene where Alex Valle and a bunch of his friends are watching footage from a Japanese tournament. And they all marvel that the tournaments in Japan are these big events held in city halls and such.

I've seen Bang the Machine, now, maybe 7 or 8 times and that moment never resonated as ironically as it did this past year. Here is Alex Valle commenting on how big these tournaments in Japan are, and we're watching it at Evolution 2010 where, that weekend, we had just whittled down well over 1000 entrants to the top 8 players in one weekend, making it the single biggest non-qualifier tournament ever run in the history of Fighting Games... probably even in the history of video games period.

And the next day, after Bang the Machine, thousands of people populated a room and tens of thousands of people had their browsers pointed at the live stream of Evolution 2010 and they all watched every move made by the top 8 qualifiers, cheering every victory from GamerBee of Taiwan, rooting for the People's Champ Mike Ross, going nuts over Korea's Infiltration locking people down in Akuma's "vortex," watching intently as America's top hope, Ricky Ortiz, took out opponents one by one, and, of course, rooting for Japan's very own Daigo Umehara as he took the crown. And it was then that I really started to think about how mesmerizing Fighting Games actually are to watch.

And that's when it hit me: Fighting Games could be the greatest eSport for this very reason.

Now don't get me wrong, here. FPS's (First-Person Shooter like Quake, Modern Warfare, and Counter Strike) and RTS's (Real-Time Strategy games like StarCraft, StarCraft II, and League of Legends) have been dominating the eSports scene for years. So it's rather ostentatious of me to call Fighting Games the greatest eSport when other genres have already obtained huge popularity and Fighting Games are currently playing catch up. So no, I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you Fighting Games are the greatest eSport around. It's simply not true.

Not yet.

What I AM going to sit here and tell you, however, is that Fighting Games may take that spot very soon. It doesn't seem long before Fighting Games become the most popular eSport in competitive video games.

There are always two sides of competitive sports, in both athletic ones like football and virtual ones like Street Fighter. There are those who play and, in order for a scene to prosper, there must always be the players who play. That's what I talked about last time: how to grow the scene by taking advantage of the recent influx of players and make sure we continue to craft new players for the scene.

But then there's the other half of competitive sports: the viewers. The spectators. The fans. And this aspect is just as important, if not more, to the continued growth of a competitive sport. You could have the greatest sport in the world, but if no one watches, it will never go anywhere. Yes, if you are an expert of your game, it is always fun to watch high level play no matter what because you are aware of things that are going on. But for a competitive game to prosper from a mainstream standpoint, it must be enjoyable for the casual viewer. And it's this area that Fighting Games truly shine. They are, by far, the best game to watch for spectators. And the reason for this comes from three main factors: Viewer Information, Tangible Action, and Balanced Pacing.

Viewer Information

The nice thing about competitive sports on TV is that the viewer has MORE information than the actual players themselves at almost every point. It's hard to realize, when you're watching a full view of the basketball court, how hard it is for a player like Steve Nash to slip one of those no-look lead passes through defenders to his intended target. In football, as a defender, when you try to block the receiver from getting himself open for a pass, it's hard to keep track of where you are in relation to the receiver to make sure he doesn't double-back on you to sprint down the field for a long pass. In both cases, the viewer at home watching on TV has a bird's eye view of everything so they are aware of so much more than the players themselves, who can only see what's in front of them. And even in non athletic sports, like poker, the actual players have no idea what cards their competitors have, but thanks to the hole cams during poker broadcasts, viewers not only know what each hand is but the percentages of how often each hand wins.

FPS's and RTS's suffer from a very distinct lack of viewer knowledge. These games suffer from a problem where each player involved has their own screen and, thus, their own viewpoint that intentionally hides information from that player. What this causes is what I like to call "viewer blind periods" because these games usually are broadcast by displaying only one player's view at a time. So what ends up happening is that the viewers experience the same lack of knowledge that the player they happen to be watching at the time has.

Now, lots of things have been done to try and fix this problem. There are split screen views for FPS's that allow for multiple views being shown at once. There are also overhead map views which show where all players are as icons. There are even "spectator" modes where a cameraman can control a camera view around the entire playfield. That same concept exists for RTS's where a cameraman can view any area of the map without any "fog of war" (the term used to describe the blacked out areas you have not visited yet in RTS's).

However, all of these come with problems by default. Split Screen views are nice, but a viewer can't process all the action at once, especially if you show three or more views at the same time. It's simply information overload. Overscreen "summary" maps are good for knowing where all players are in relation to each other, but you have no clue what they are actually doing nor what they are seeing. The free moving spectator view is probably the best option for FPS's, provided some advancements are made (such as highlighting where every player is at all times so it's easier for the cameraman to find people). But for the most part, FPS's are broadcast watching one view at a time and that simply won't suffice. I was watching one FPS tournament on YouTube involving a team 5-on-5 battle and, while the view happened to be of one particular player's screen, I think 2 or 3 players were killed in a sudden crossfire... but it all occurred off screen! So there could have been the most epic kill ever, but we just happened to miss it. This feeling of "missing out" on something is really bad for viewers.

For RTS's, the free camera works very well but it still requires the commentator controlling the camera to know when to go back and forth and which player to focus on. He/she can still miss some vital action due to no fault of their own. Obviously, the skill of the commentator makes a huge difference in this department, and most of the top commentators are pro at what they do so, from a viewer standpoint, RTS's usually do not have as bad of a problem when it comes to viewer blind periods, especially since the action in RTS's is a lot easier to follow. But every once in a while, there can easily be three or four critical action points going on in the map at one given moment, especially in games like League of Legends where the gameplay just naturally leans towards three areas of conflict at once (due to the three paths players almost always follow), and you can only really watch one of them at a time. No matter how skilled a commentator is at controlling the camera, they can still only focus on one area of action at once, and jumping back and forth between areas too often can make for a dizzying experience for viewers.

The beauty of Fighting Games is that everything you need to know is confined exactly to one screen. In fact, there is almost nothing the players themselves know that the audience doesn't know in terms of information. Everyone can see who is winning in life. Everyone knows how much time there is left on the round's clock. Everyone knows how much Super Meter you have or if you have one, two, or no Barrier Bursts left or which Super Art you've chosen or which Assist Type was selected. And, most importantly, both characters that are being used by the players are always on the screen at all times and they are always doing exactly what the players are controlling them to do. There will never be a moment where you miss anything. It allows viewers to focus on the match in its entirety at all times, so there is never a feeling as if you're missing something. And that is key to the enjoyment factor of a casual viewer.

Tangible Action

Let's face it: what people like to see are slam dunks, hard tackles, home runs, and amazing goals that slip through the fingers of the goalie. In other words, people want to see action. Even though there are purists who think dunks are meaningless and leagues that try to cut down on the hard hits, it's still what the people want. It's these things that I like to call "tangible action." People enjoy these things because something is not only happening, but happening in an extremely standout and exciting fashion.

That is not to say there is no appreciation for the subtle skills needed to play a game. Those who know the games well enough don't marvel at the actual alley-oop dunk, but marvel at how the player lost his defender off a fake screen and back cut. They enjoy the sacking of the quarterback as much as they enjoy the way the player slipped through the defensive line into the pocket to catch the QB. And landing the wicked combo against the opponent is awesome, but the top players know that it was in the previous round that the player figured out his opponent's tendency that allowed him to set up the combo opportunity in the first place.

But it takes a long time to get there as a viewer. And once you are there, you've definitely graduated from being a casual viewer to a hardcore viewer. But in the meantime, you need the "big plays" and the SportsCenter highlights to get the casual people interested and excited. Fighting Games provide plenty of "SportsCenter highlights." Many, many trailers for Fighting Game events and their respective DVD collections of matches, including ones I have personally made for Evo DVDs, take advantage of this.

These highlights are the "Tangible Action" for virtual competitive sports. They are very important for spectators and Fighting Games are full of these. FPS's actually contain a lot of these as well, so that is one of the biggest selling points for FPS's. However, RTS's definitely fall short in this area. The problem with RTS's is that a large majority of the action is what I like to call "Implied Action" in that you can't really highlight specific moments. I watched a match of StarCraft on YouTube and the audience got really excited over something that was implied: one player had managed to generate particularly powerful units so quickly that when the audience saw them deployed, there was a collective gasp and build up of excitement. However, the actual battle, which was won decisively by this player, was not the event that got everyone excited.

What this results in is a distinct lack of "moments" that can be focused on. I can't ever imagine an RTS game ever producing something even remotely close to the "Daigo Parry" moment that is so famous now in gaming circles. You don't even have to know the general details of what is happening in the Daigo Parry video, but you can tell something spectacular is happening. I've had many non-gaming people tell me they've seen the video and were amazed by it, even though they didn't really know what was going on. It's this Tangible Action that allows Fighting Games to appeal to a wider audience. I've also heard many stories of people watching the Evo stream and their significant others and non-gaming friends were able to be hooked by the matches as well. These types of moments are key to producing something that can become more enjoyed by the mainstream.

Balanced Pacing

In the previous section, I spoke about a StarCraft match that I watched where one player won a decisive confrontation at one key moment. And although the audience was excited and I'm sure the match was a good match, that decisive battle was probably a good 5% of the entire video I watched. In actuality, the video was about 80% watching players build their resources, units, and bases. The next 10% of the match was the audience getting hyped about seeing the units about to collide. The next 5% was the actual face-off, and the last 5% was the defeated opponent giving up and conceding victory.

I know this is not particularly indicative of what a StarCraft match can go like at high levels, but the pacing is always an issue with me. Matches start very slow, and the viewer, if not already familiar with the game, needs to be very patient before anything really happens. So much of RTS's is the initial build-up, and the two players very rarely interact with each other for a good portion of the game. If you don't play RTS's at all, this initial phase of the match can be very tedious and boring.

(Scroll to 2:45 for match start)

And then add to that the fact that, after that one confrontation was won by the one player, his opponent almost immediately conceded the match! There was essentially no reason to continue fighting, and so the victory was pretty anti-climactic from a viewer standpoint. In fact, with many of these types of games, be it StarCraft or League of Legends, the victor is usually determined much earlier than the actual end of the match, so much of the final moments of a match are meaningless. Comebacks, therefore, are virtually non-existent, and comebacks are huge for spectators. Without huge potential for comebacks, there's little reason for players to remain invested in the match during late stages.

FPS's also suffer from rare comebacks. Because it's very hard to maintain momentum in an FPS, the player who gets a sizeable lead in kills usually wins thanks to the whole nature of spawning after being killed (being brought back to life in a random location or at a spawn point on the map). Once you kill an opponent, you have to start searching for them again and who finds the other first is usually a crapshoot. And in free-for-alls involving more than 2 players, it's very easy to just be caught off guard and killed by someone you didn't see. Momentum is the key factor in comebacks, and it's just too hard to keep up momentum in an FPS.

Another small problem that FPS's seem to suffer from is that the majority of the matches are spent looking for each other -- that is, the actual confrontation between two-players is almost always quick and brief with a kill resulting in a matter of seconds. Then, it's back to searching for the other player again. This means that viewers spend a lot of their time waiting for things to happen. Granted, the benefit of this is the tension: FPS's excel in the department of mounting tension and the release of said tension in these quick shoot outs (thus, successfully having those "moments" I mentioned in the previous section).

One of my absolute favorite things about Fighting Games is that, right when the round begins, there is potential action. And that potential never dies until the round is actually over. Yes, there are moments of turtling and long periods of players feeling each other out, both remaining at opposite sides of the playing field. I'm not saying that Fighting Games have constant action, but there is nothing inherently built into the game that causes lulls. Lulls are a result of the player's choices and decisions, but not an inherent part of the game.

In FPS's, you automatically have lulls when one player dies. In RTS's, you cannot choose to rush down and attack the opponent instantly (you can, but usually that will result in you losing). So these points of "non-action" cannot be prevented. Whereas, in many Fighting Games, you can have rounds where one player literally rushes down and defeats the opponent without ever letting up from start to finish. There are no forced mechanics that inherently generate lulls during a match.

And the best thing about Fighting Games is that they are never over. Ridiculous comebacks are practically synonymous with Fighting Games. Everyone's favorite and most memorable matches usually stem from this. This is a direct result of momentum, and Fighting Games live off of momentum. That's why you can never feel like you've won a round in a Fighting Game until you've actually won and, thus, must always remain on your toes. This allows the viewers to always maintain that hope of a comeback regardless of how bleak it may seem, which gives these spectators a vested interest in the match up until the very last moment. So there's rarely a point where it feels like you're viewing "filler" footage.

So what's the deal then? If I'm so insistent that Fighting Games are so great to watch, why are they less popular than FPS's and RTS's? Why are there more gaming leagues for those other genres than Fighting Games? Well, there are two main reasons. The first important reason is that there are more players for the other genres. And thus, naturally, that means they have a bigger audience to be spectators. If you had 100 people and 80 of them love playing football and 40 of them love playing hockey, naturally you have a better chance of having more people who love to watch the football event over the hockey event.

The second reason is that the concept of eSports is only JUST making its way to something accepted by the general public. Even a simple 5 years ago, I think people would scoff at the concept of video games being a huge competitive gaming market. But thanks to the improvement of technology and the awareness of game companies to provide things such as the controllable cameras or alternate views for spectators, we've seen huge strides in the production value of eSports and, thusly, the viewership. With this improvement in production value, it allows for eSports to obtain a level of professionalism and credibility that wasn't possible before. And the games themselves just look so much better. I don't think casual people would sit around a stadium watching Mario Kart on the SNES. But with how good games like Call of Duty and StarCraft and such look these days, it's easy to see why people can find themselves watching it.

So eSports are definitely still new. And as long as it continues to grow, more and more people will be drawn to it. And that is when, I believe, Fighting Games will take over as the most popular eSport. As more and more people become curious to see what the rage is all about and as more and more people start to watch games at events like Evo or WCG, I truly believe that Fighting Games will stand out immediately. They are a joy to watch.

And each year, as I see the crowds at Evo get larger and larger (and the streams for Fighting Games get bigger and bigger -- recent tournaments such as Seasons Beatings V, Southern California Regionals, and the Canada Cup all reached over 10,000 viewers at their highest viewer points), I can't help but think that Fighting Games will become the most popular eSport of them all.

Evolution 2010 Season Wrap Up

2010-09-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

For a period of time, I would write up a summary of Evolution each and every year right after Evolution finished. However, I skipped writing anything after last year's Evolution (2009). This year, after the epicness that was Evolution 2010, I really wanted to write an article. I had a lot to say about the Fighting Game Community, but it took me some time to formulate my thoughts into words. So though I'm about two-and-a-half months late, I think it's finally time for me to write my first blog post in over two years. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

The Evolution 2010 Season Wrap-up

Part 1 - The Fighting Game Boom

Except this year, I'm doing things differently. Normally, what I did in the past wrap ups, as mentioned earlier, was discuss each community individually and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each individual community from what I observed. This year, however, I think it would be a mistake to do such a thing. And the reason for this is because, this year above all other years, we need to focus not on the individual communities, but the Fighting Game Community as a whole. And that's because this year, the Fighting Game Community may have taken its first steps into becoming something much bigger.

Let's just cut to the chase, first and foremost. Street Fighter IV has changed everything. What this game and Super Street Fighter IV have done to the Fighting Game Community cannot be denied. One main reason that it's not proper to focus on the communities of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, Melty Blood, Tekken, and Super Street Fighter II: HD Remix is because, quite simply put, these communities are overshadowed by the sheer size and power of the Street Fighter IV community. And while this may make some of these other communities upset to hear me say this, especially because some members of these communities look down on Street Fighter IV, I think communities need to look at the positives that Street Fighter IV has been bringing the Fighting Game Community as a whole.

Whenever I talk about the Fighting Game Community to friends and where it needs to go and how it needs to grow, the topic of poker always comes up. Of any mainstream gaming communities that exist today, the Poker Community is the one that I feel as though the Fighting Game Community needs to follow and emulate as much as possible. There are many facets that can provide similarities between the communities, but the reason I bring this up today is because I feel as though the way Chris Moneymaker's win in 2003 initiated the Poker Boom, Evolution 2010 may have been the closest thing we've yet seen to achieving a similar boom. And it's all a direct result of Street Fighter IV's immense popularity.

You see, Chris Moneymaker was an unknown player. He was what we would refer to, in the Fighting Game Community, as a "newb." But he got entry into the World Series of Poker by winning a satellite tournament and proceeded to not only win the Main Event as the World Series of Poker, but to do so by taking down veteran professional player Sam Farha heads-up at the final table. After Chris won, everyone believed they could also win. And thus: the Poker Boom. Though a similar situation where a "newb" has taken down a pro hasn't happened in the Fighting Game Community, the huge increase of players at events like Evolution from one year to the next upon Street Fighter IV's release was very similar to the increase of players at the World Series of Poker the following year after Moneymaker won.

Now, I dunno about most of you people, but before the Poker Boom, poker was one thing to me: people sitting in a smoke-filled room asking for more cards and trying to bluff each other. Whenever you saw poker on TV shows or in movies, it was always the same format: each player is dealt 5 card hands and they are allowed a maximum of 3 cards for redraw. Texas Hold-Em was a version of the game I had never heard of even though it had been the Main Event at the World Series of Poker since forever.

After the Poker Boom, Texas Hold-Em was the main form of poker played. Even TV and movies began to reflect that. Casino Royale -- the recent James Bond film -- for example, had a plot that revolved around Texas Hold-Em. Without the Poker Boom, they probably would have played the same 5 card style of poker that we had seen in TV shows and movies for forever. Hell, they might have even just played Baccarat, the game that was originally played in the book.

Since Moneymaker's win in 2003, Texas Hold-Em has exploded. Everyone plays that version in home games, and when you hear "poker," Texas Hold-Em is now the first game you think of. Even your average joe pictures Texas Hold-Em as what poker is now. But here's the question: are there other versions of poker? Are there even more skilled versions of poker out there, that rely less on luck and require more knowlege and skill?

The answer to both of those questions is "Yes." There are tons of poker versions out there, and many of them do require stronger knowledge and take away some of the luck. There's Omaha High-Low, Stud Eight or Better, Razz, and on and on. Heck, there's even huge differences between tournament play and cash game play. Some formats are more skilled, some are less skilled, but none are as popular as tournament Texas Hold-Em. But here's the question: do you think fans of these other versions are frustrated that Texas Hold-Em is the most popularly played poker format out there?

Maybe. But most of them more than likely have accepted Texas Hold-Em as the main format in the poker world. In the mid 2000's, when ESPN showed the World Series of Poker, they used to televise many different games. They showed the Omaha games, the Stud Eight or Better games, and so on and so forth. But recently, in the past couple of years, ESPN has moved away from showing these games. They only show Texas Hold-Em events now. Why? Because the other formats simply didn't get as many viewers.

So by now I'm sure many fans of the other games like BlazBlue and King of the Fighters and Tekken are either sad or outright angry with me because they think they know where I'm going with this poker analogy. Am I really sitting here, telling you all to declare Street Fighter IV as king all-mighty of the Fighting Game community and to just accept it, like many poker players have just accepted Texas Hold-Em as the top-most played poker format? Am I saying that everyone should drop their games and go learn Street Fighter IV? Well... no. Not at all.

What I'm telling you is this: use the exposure of Fighting Games to the general public through Street Fighter IV to help your own community grow. Look at the influx of potential players and, instead of looking down upon the casual Street Fighter IV fan, nuture them and introduce them, slowly, to your game of choice.

Everyone nowadays goes into poker learning Texas Hold-Em. But it's almost a guarantee that, through the natural course of exposure to Texas Hold-Em, players who become serious about the game eventually move on to learn the other formats. They start learning how to play the other games due to general curiosity and the need for variety.

Is Street Fighter IV a simple game? Yes. But it's approachable and it's easy to learn. People who don't understand poker at all can watch poker on TV, see the percentages written on the screen, and recognize when someone catches a miracle card to win a hand and understand the elation or devastation experienced by the players. What they don't see is the slow-plays and the fake over-betting with a strong hand to feign weakness by appearing to try and buy a pot. People watching Street Fighter IV can tell everything that's going on and see who's winning thanks to the life bars and get excited by Ultra Combos and their pretty animations and recognize big comebacks and narrow victories and understand the elation or devastation experienced by the players. They don't see a lot of the subtle strategies that go on with Footsies and Option Selects and finger dexterity, but they don't need to: the game looks fun to them and they can understand it.

So the same thing starts to happen with Street Fighter IV that happens with poker: people who spectate start to get interested in playing because the game is so fun to watch. And they step into it and learn the subtleties little by little and their appreciation of the game grows. You start to understand why poker cannot be played without chips and why Street Fighter cannot be played without Throws. And then they start to understand the idea of why slow playing the set of kings is so effective and why baiting Wake-Ups becomes a fundamental tactic. And then they slowly but surely become good at a game that is actually friendly enough to allow them to get to a point where they are truly competitive. Yes, they are still going to lose to Patrick Antonius and Phil Ivey and Chris Ferguson and Johnny Chan 99 out of 100 times at the poker table, but they can at least play. And yes, they are still going to lose to Alex Valle and John Choi and Arturo Sanchez and Justin Wong 99 out of 100 times, but at least they can play!

And then what happens? They go to events like the World Series of Poker or Evolution and they start watching. They start seeing other games like Omaha or Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 or Seven Card Stud or Tekken and they become intrigued. And it's really up to those other communities, now, to bring those players in and introduce them to a different game. And who knows? Some of those people coming in as Texas Hold-Em fans may become one of the best Omaha players ever. A few of those Street Fighter IV kids may become pro BlazBlue players. You never know.

And this is bringing me to my main point: the Fighting Game Community needs to act as a whole from this point forward. This is why I do not want to discuss each community individually anymore. The Fighting Game Community is one entity, and it will only become successful and mainstream if it acts like one entity. The separate games of the Fighting Game Community need not ostricize and fight against other games. They need to start learning how to bring in other players and take advantage of the other communities.

Tekken players need to write up articles such as, "If you like using a Rush Down character like Cammy in Super Street Fighter IV, well then you should look at these characters to play in Tekken because they have similar sensibilities." BlazBlue experts need to write how strategies you've learned in Street Fighter IV apply to BlazBlue, such as Option Selects and BnB's and safe Block Strings and such. Heck, why stop at Street Fighter? They should even write articles that say "If you appreciate the Okizeme games of Tekken, here's how BlazBlue implements their Oki game in similar fashion."

The Fighting Game Community can only benefit from the influx of players that Street Fighter IV has brought in, and it's time for people to start realizing this and taking advantage of it. Only by doing so will the Fighting Game Community not only continue to grow, but to thrive and become truly a mainstream form of competitive entertainment.

Next up: Evolution 2010 Season Wrap Up Part 2 - Are Fighting Games the Best eSport?

Evo 2008 Addendum

2008-09-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

In my last post, as user "trobb" pointed out, I didn't address the communities of each game as much as I have in the previous years. So as an addendum to the previous post, I'm just going to talk about each game more from the perspective of the communities, as opposed to just commenting on the game itself.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo - I don't really have much to add from the last post I wrote. The Super Street FIghter II Turbo community is actually on the rise. GGPO and HD Remix have spurred on a rebirth of the game, and I've seen a lot more people interested in playing ST that started off playing other games. In other words, ST doesn't seem to be only for old-timers anymore, which is exciting.

Super Turbo is on its way to prove itself to be THE greatest Fighting Game of all time. The players who loved the game never stopped playing it (as evidenced by the fact that old-schoolers still come back to play it at every Evo despite it being super old) unlike many other games which have even the experts stop playing after a while. And the game is so good that all the new players who pick it up cannot help but enjoy it as well, as evidenced by its recent surge in popularity.

As a result, the Super Turbo community only needs to do one thing: continue spread knowledge. For some reason, Super Turbo seems to be the one game that people love to spread knowledge about. When you need to find information, you have stalwarts like NKI who have a wealth of information on his web page translated from T.Akiba's web page (so it took two monster efforts: T.Akiba for getting all that info and NKI for actually translating it to English!). And on the SRK Forums, people love to give help on Super Turbo and spread knowledge (see sites like Nohoho's Super Turbo blog). Super Turbo is a game of knowledge, so it is one of the easiest to teach and learn. And in the end, I think, its ability to be taught so simply is what makes it so strong because, despite how simple it is to teach, it's still very fun and challenging to play.

Capcom Vs. SNK 2 - As I hinted at in my last post, I do believe this game has no more growth left in it. I do believe, as surprising as this may sound to some people, that this game has a lot of untapped potential left in it. As I mentioned in 2007, Kim a.k.a. "Ohayo1234" pointed me to some videos of a tournament they played in

Japan

where the Japanese players were using really oddball teams that included characters such as Maki and Dhalsim... and winning 1st place at hardcore tournament. And it was because some of these characters actually had some good characteristics that counter the fairly dominant A-Groove characters like Bison and Blanka.

The problem is that there just isn't anyone left to tap into these unexplored areas. These unexplored regions may end up in a dead end (turning out that Maki and Dhalsim and such actually just aren't good enough), but I don't think we'll ever find out. We've ended up with the same top 8 players yet again (it really boils down to a total of about 12 players) and I really don't see anyone else going to make any run at that group. Frankly, there just aren't any hotbeds of CvS2 anymore. Northern California is the only one, thanks to Keystone II and the fact that all of the good players of the game play there a lot, like Ricky Ortiz and Campbell Tran and John Choi.

But otherwise, I just don't think any other location has a strong enough CvS2 community that cares anymore. We have a lot of good players out and about. For example, one player by the name of SmoothCat has always been doing well in CvS2. But last I spoke to him, it seemed he was moving on to other games. It doesn't even feel worth it for the CvS2 fans to continue pushing the game to its limits because there isn't a significant enough of a reward. And there just isn't anyone left to push you to be better. Everyone is playing Third Strike and Super Turbo these days.

Don't get me wrong. The existing community for this game is a good community. I just don't see anyone joining their ranks. No one new seems to be getting sucked into the game, and I just don't see any chance of the game growing anymore. I think CvS2 has reached its peak, and it simply won't go anywhere from here... which is a shame.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike - Street FIghter III: Third Strike, oddly enough, has the exact opposite problem of CvS2. Instead of having no players to tap into the unknown, Third Strike has a ton of players with nothing left to discover. In this case, there is definitely not a shortage of people in the community. New people still get pulled into this game even today. But the funny thing is... well, there's nowhere left for the game itself to go!

The game itself is the limiting factor. Despite having the largest fanbase of players for any of the Fighting Games played at Evo, nothing new is being discovered. The dominant characters in that game are so dominant, that there just isn't anything that can be done about it. In fact, I feel like it has gotten worse. Whereas before, there used to be the trinity of top-tier characters in Ken, Chun Li, and Yun, I don't even feel like Ken is a factor anymore. If you recall from my previous post, I noted that 24 of the 32 possible Top 8 spots from the last 4 years have all been Chun and Yun players. I think there may have been a total of 3 Kens of the 8 players left.

The thing is... it may not matter. The community for Third Strike hasn't gone anywhere. And it's not struggling. The game does not have any lack of interest. So... what's the problem? Well, the problem is that the game has simply grown stale. And not because no one is trying new things, it's because there is absolutely nothing new left in this game to try. I think the game is literally at a point where nothing new can be discovered at all.

So what can the community do to freshen the game up? Probably nothing. But again, why bother when the game is still as hot as ever?

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 - The MvC2 community has me torn. I always say there is no community like the MvC2 community, and I mean it. You cannot get a community with better hype and excitement and rivalries and such. But at the same time, I feel like the MvC2 community is flawed. And part of the reason that I feel it is flawed IS this level of hype and rivalry and passion. Simply put, in the MvC2 community, winning means TOO much. There is so much shit talking going on and so many money matches being played that no one is willing to lose. So people will win at any cost... and one of those costs is not giving away any of your secrets. As a result, there are so few players who can even come close to being the quality of player that Justin Wong is. I do not believe Justin Wong is at a level so far above everyone that no one can reach him. I just don't think the community has the ability to get as good as him because no one is willing to lose.

Remember how I mentioned in the Super Turbo section above that the community is really good at teaching others? The MvC2 community seems to be the opposite. There is very little education of the game going on. There's a wealth of knowledge amongst the experts of the game but, for some reason, they never seem to want to spread the knowledge. I've heard this complaint from members of the community itself. It's just tough to find information about this game. There's no MvC2 equivalent of the T.Akiba information NKI translated or the detailed character information you can find about Guilty Gear at Dustloop. And as a result, I think the MvC2 community has trouble growing. One of the interesting things about a community like the ST community is that experts are willing to teach other players to be good enough to beat them. But in the MvC2 community, giving others the power to defeat you seems to be taboo. So no one ever wants to help others get better (unless they are a part of your crew). So many players get good, but end up reaching a plateau where they can no longer improve. It seems the only way to get to the top echelon of players is to just be in the same area as Justin Wong. There's no coincidence that all the best players (Sanford, Smoothviper, Yipes, Demon Hyo, etc.) live around New York.

So I think until the MvC2 community learns to lower their pride (I didn't say ignore it, I just mean tone it down a bit), I do not think anyone will ever get good enough to beat Justin Wong nor even challenge him unless you live near him and have to get better simply because you are playing him a lot. I think it would benefit the community a lot if all of the experts began helping each other more and working together to bring up the overall quality of play, rather than just trying to make sure your particular crew is better than everyone else.

A couple of side notes: this is my impression. I'm not very involved in the MvC2 community, so my impressions can be completely false and I'd be glad to proven wrong that knowledge isn't shared. Also, keep in mind that I don't mind Justin Wong winning. In fact, I think it's awesome that we have someone so dominant. I mean, look at Roger Federer as a perfect example. During his streak of domination, it was a joy to watch him. He was one of my favorite tennis players and I always rooted for him. But it's really hard to argue that it hasn't become a lot more interesting since Rafael Nadal entered the scene to start spoiling Federer's reign. So while it's awesome to see Justin Wong and how soundly he can pummel his opponents, and no matter how much I root for him, I'd love to see him really have a good challenge, especially if he wins it after gutting it out.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Hmm. I'm still scared to talk about this community. I've criticized the Guilty Gear community in the past, I've just criticized the MvC2 community, and I'm about to criticize the Tekken community a bit. And I'm sure all three communities will not like it, but I somehow feel like if I criticize the Smash community here, it's gonna start some huge, gigantic shit storm of Smash players coming here and totally bashing me over the head. So keep in mind, I'm an equal-opportunity "critiquer" here. I'm not out for anyone in particular. And, yes, I do have an issue with the Smash community.

Last year, I was so complimentary of them. But this year, after all of the controversy revolving around the choice of having Items at Evo, my feelings have been slightly tainted. Keep in mind, I still love their community. Their dedication and passion for the game is admirable. But if I had to point out one flaw in their community, it's this: they have a real serious God Complex.

And this has come from the fact that they have so much control over their game. Too much control, if you will. By being able to tweak and adjust so many aspects of their game, the community has grown to become perfectionists, ones that are unwilling to accept anything that is less than what they want. Whereas most of the other Fighting Game communities have had to learn to deal with B.S. their whole lives (Hoyokusen / Genei-Jin, Valle CC's, Roll Canceling, Alpha Counters, Easy Mode Ken, Infinite Combos, Custom Combos, Unblockables, and on and on and on), the Smash Community hasn't. They have been lucky enough to be able to tweak their game so much that they can get it to a point where they deem it perfect. And anything different is unacceptable.

Case in point: when presented with something they disagree with heavily that they can't change, they actually still go and try to change it. Some members of the community have gone so far as to create an altered version of Smash Bros. Brawl that removed Tripping. Now, the majority of the community doesn't agree with this new version of the game, but regardless: it was done! It's fairly unprecedented in the Fighting Game community for people to go and make your own altered version of the game to fix flaws you perceive as a problem. Again, most of the Smash community doesn't agree with this, but it's a good indication of how much control they desire and how far they will go to achieve it.

And please, don't read this as telling the community they are being ridiculous for not wanting Items at Evo. I'm not arguing for or against Items here. I'm not saying they erred on their part not wanting Items. In fact, I largely agree with them that playing without items makes for a better game. And, if Smash returns next year, I'm betting there will be no items (I, for one, will push for it). The part that got to me was that they insisted that we were wrong and they were right, even to the point where they wanted an apology from Evo Staff (they had very particular reasons for wanting one, but it's still a weird thing to ask for on something that really comes down to opinion). To me, no one was right or wrong.

I still love their community because of how passionate and dedicated they are to their game. In fact, I think debating with them has given me a new level of respect for them (last year, it felt like they were this really nice, friendly casual community that had a fascinating history. This year, it feels more like there is a large amount of weight behind this community, with leaders and educaters and experts and everything). But I do hope that they can reach a more tolerant level. There are so many factors you cannot control (one being, for example, Sakurai himself and what he wants out of the game... SAKURAI!!!!!!!!!). I'm not saying they should learn to play with Items on, but if someone chooses to do so, there shouldn't be as intense of a backlash. Frankly, it was shocking for me to see the level of hatred directed towards Evo just because of that. Disappointment? That I can understand. But the level of pure, deep hatred that we received was quite something.

Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection - My letter to the Tekken community: "Where were you?!? Why didn't you show up? I know Tekken 6 is coming out but... it's not even out yet! Is Dark Resurrection so bad that it warranted being completely ignored? Was there no motivation to come out and play at Evo at all? Can someone please explain to me why the Tekken community bailed? I'm actually really disappointed by that, especially since I talked them up so much last year about how dedicated they were to their game and such. Is there something I just don't know? -- James"

Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core - Bravo. I think you guys already know how I feel after the last post, so I won't bother saying much more here. But let's just say all the shit I gave you guys last year has been taken back. I've eaten my words and am happy to see myself proved wrong. Bravo.

Evo 2008 Season Wrap Up

2008-09-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again!

"After another year of Evo has come and gone, I'd like to officially end the Evo Season with one final 'State of the Games' post. I've had a good month to stew on Evo and read the general community reactions and let everything sink in. Thus, I would like to sum up my feelings in one last post."

(Same disclaimer as last year: Though I am on the staff, please DO NOT use this article as evidence of any theories you have on what may happen at Evo 2009. My opinion is only one person strong, and over the course of the next few months, so many new games will come out, circumstances may change, and moods can alter so that what I say now may not even reflect how I feel half a year from now. So don't go quoting me as a source of proof that next year will feature such-and-such game or not.)

* * * * *

I love basketball. It's by far my favorite sport to watch. And it was extremely exciting to watch the U.S. Olympics basketball team take back the Gold Medal this past Summer Olympics. The team, this year, called themselves the "Redeem Team" as a play-on-words of the original Dream Team back in 1992. It's almost not fair to call them that, however, because they were a Dream Team of their own. They certainly did not blow away their opponents as badly as the original Dream Team did back in 1992, but the competition was pathetic back then compared to now. You just didn't have teams like Spain and Argentina to actually pose a threat. So, actually, I'd rather call this year's team the Dream Team Part 2.

So the question comes into play: which team was actually better? They ran a poll on ESPN asking people which team was better. They compared all the positions (Center, Forwards, and Guards) and asked which you would prefer. And as I scanned the choices, it was impossible to vote against names like Michael Jordan, names like Magic Johnson, names like Larry Bird. And after I submitted my choices, it was very apparent that everyone else agreed with me. The original Dream Team was better in just about every position.

But I'd like to think about that for a second. Yes, the players on the original Dream Team are amazing. Probably the greatest pool of talent ever assembled in sports history. But the one thing you tend to forget is (and I mean no disrespect to any of the original Dream Team members at that time)... well, they were OLD in 1992... some of them even past their prime. Larry Bird barely played because he could barely play at 36. Johnson had already retired from the NBA after contracting HIV. David Robinson and Scottie Pippen were the youngest players at 27. Otherwise, everyone else was 29 or older, which is late in your career in the world of sports.

Meanwhile, the new team had almost equal talent. Except that the players were young! Jason Kidd was the lone exception, being the only player older than 30 at 35. But the next oldest player was Kobe Bryant at 30. And there were five players younger than 25! And when you look at the names of those five players -- Lebron James, Deron Williams, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Bosh -- those are all almost guaranteed future Hall of Famers!

So can we really say that the original Dream Team was better? You have a bunch of guys who were pretty much all 29 and older vs. a bunch of young, athletic and super talented guys who were pretty much all 29 and under! So when you think about it, it's probably actually pretty accurate to believe that, maybe, the Redeem Team is a better team at the time of its existence. In fact, I'm willing to bet that if the 2008 Redeem Team played against the 1992 Dream Team, the Redeem Team would win because of their youth and athleticism and their talent.

And yet, even believing so, if I answered that ESPN Poll again, I'd still pick the Dream Team over the Redeem Team.

In every position.

Because frankly, it doesn't matter how old those players were. You simply CANNOT vote against Larry Bird, even at 36 with a bad back. You cannot vote against a Magic Johnson, even though he was already retired and 32. You cannot vote against Jordan, who was better at 29 than he was at 24. You cannot vote against Karl Malone, who was still ticking long after being 29 in the Dream Team. These names simply mean too much. If you love basketball like I do, you would pick the Dream Team in that poll even if they gathered those same eight players in 2000. I would still pick Larry Bird at 44 years old over anyone on the Redeem Team. You just can't disrespect these names.

Magic. Jordan. Bird. Malone. Stockton. Ewing. Barkley. Drexler.

* * * * *

Super Turbo. Capcom Vs. SNK 2. Third Strike. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.

Those are some more names that elicit the same feelings from me. The reason I brought up the Dream Team vs. the Redeem Team is because I feel about these games the same way I feel about the players on the Dream Team. And I bring this up because that seemed to be what the theme of Evolution 2008 was: the old vs. the new. While we played these four old games at one side of the room where Evo was held, at the other side of the room loomed all of the younger games ready to supplant the veterans. Street Fighter IV and Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom were being played on the cabinets in the back. STHD Remix was on an XBox 360 kiosk. BlazBlue was being played on a special setup off of a PC laptop.

It's true that the games played at Evo 2008 feel old now. All four of those games have grown fairly stale. CvS2 never has any new players in the top 8. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is usually fairly anti-climactic because it just didn't feel like Justin Wong would lose, despite being knocked into the Loser's Bracket. Street Fighter III: Third Strike is just Chun and Yun and Chun and Chun and Yun and Chun. And Super Street Fighter II Turbo is just as old as CPU, the player who won the Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament!!! Just think about that for a minute. Even Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection felt old, since most Tekken players didn't even make the trek to Evo because they were too busy with Tekken 6. It's really easy to write these games off. In fact, my initial plan was to write about how old these games are and how nice it will be to move on to newer games, hopefully, for Evo 2009.

But I can't. I just can't. In the exact same way that I could never speak ill of a 36 year old Larry Bird, how can I speak ill of a 14 year old Super Turbo? As much as I dislike the smattering of Chuns and Yuns in Third Strike, can I discredit the game that gave competitive video gaming, including all genres like FPS's and RTS's, its greatest moment ever? As much as I gripe about CvS2's top 8 being the same players every year, can I deny that somehow those same top players always make CvS2 look extremely exciting? As anti-climactic as it felt when Justin Wong won MvC2 soundly in the final match-up, can I ever pretend that there is a game with more hype and more drama than MvC2? Even though the games are stale, they've all given us so much over the years that cannot be forgotten.

But that still doesn't change the fact that the general word is that the games at Evo are old and it is time for a changing of the guard. While there is still a chance that one or two of those four games may return for Evo next year, it's pretty much a consensus amongst the Fighting Game community that a bunch of new games will be good for Evo next year. Many people considered this to be CvS2's final run. Most people have already figured that STHD Remix will replace Super Turbo. And you know a ton of people were playing Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom trying to evaluate if it could possibly be the next MvC2. And quite naturally, wouldn't Street Fighter FOUR replace Street Fighter THREE? So some new pedigree is definitely welcome.

* * * * *

In the past couple of years, I spoke about each and every game individually to give an idea of how I felt about the games. I'm not sure if I can do the same this year. There just isn't as much to say about each individual game this year because there IS this feeling of change. But I will still give it a shot, but I will be fair: I'm not only going to talk about the 6 games played at Evo, I will also include thoughts on the 4 new games on display. And since I have so many games to talk about, I'm gonna keep it short for each game.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo - I think America is at an all-time high for hype on this game in the past 10 years, despite it being 14 years old. Two things have helped turn Super Turbo into the "hot shit" this past year: the awesome online play of GGPO and the advent of STHD Remix. These two things have spawned a resurrection of Super Turbo interest. And now we can add a third thing to the list: John Choi's victory. It makes us feel like America, after already having Alex Wolfe and Jason Nelson win Anniversary Edition, has reached a point where we can legitimately challenge the Japanese. It's interesting to me that the OLDEST game is the one with the biggest upswing in interest. It's a sign that this really is truly one of if not THE greatest Fighting Games of all time. And though it most likely will be replaced by HD Remix next year, at least it still lives on in some form.

Capcom Vs. SNK 2 - Last year, I said there weren't enough up and comers in CvS2. And this year was no different. Let me update my count from last year. Since 2004, the top 8 American finalists in CvS2 have been Ricky Ortiz (4 times), Justin Wong (4 times), Peter "Combofiend" Rosas (4 times), Campbell "Buktooth" Tran (4 times), John Choi (3 times), Kim-Hahn "Ohayo1234" Hoang (2 times), and Gene "Hail and Kill" Wong (2 times) with Eddie Lee also reaching the finals in 2004. On the Japanese side, we have had Kindevu (4 times), Bas (3 times), Tokido (2 times), RF (2 times), and a four others who have each made one Top 8 (Daigo, Mago, Nuki, and Dan). That means out of 40 possible spots, all but 5 of them have been players that have made it to the Top 8 more than once, and Dan has only come to one Evo, Nuki doesn't play CvS2 anymore, and Mago and hasn't been to Evo since 2005. In other words, nothing has changed. CvS2 needs some new pedigree, and I honestly don't think it'll ever happen. I will never claim that the Finals aren't exciting (this year in particular was exciting thanks, again, in part to John Choi's amazing finish in 1st place). They always are, but I just don't think there is any room left for this game to grow in America.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike - This year, in the Top 8, we had Chun, Chun, Chun, Chun, Chun, and Yun. In 2007, we had Chun, Chun, Chun, and Chun. In 2006, we had Yun, Yun, Yun, Yun, Chun, Chun, and Chun. In 2005, we had Chun, Chun, Chun, Chun, Chun, Yun, and Yun. I don't think there's anything left to say about this game.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 - Of the four "old" games I've been talking about MvC2 suffered the most by the lower turn out. Many of the East Coast's greatest players did NOT make it out to Evo. There was no Yipes, there was no Santhrax, and there was no Demon Hyo. And thus, the number of people able to make an interesting Finals were down to but a few, namely SmoothViper and Chunksta. Otherwise, there was few who could provide an adequate challenge to Justin regaining the MvC2 crown. But it goes beyond just the Finals: even during the course of Evo, the presence of MvC2 felt a bit smaller than usual. I know it is more difficult for the East Coasters to make it out to Vegas for Evo than it is for the West Coasters, so all I will allow myself to say is that I really hope that more MvC2 players will take a real consideration to make it out to Evo next year if MvC2 remains. There is no community like the MvC2 community, period.

Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection - Again, not much to say about this game. The turnout was around 75 or so players, which was extremely low. But Tekken 6 is where the focus of the community lies now. So this was almost a throwaway year for Tekken. I can't imagine Tekken 6 not being at Evo 2009 next year, and hopefully the majority of the Tekken community will come to Evo along with it.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - *Phew.* Man, do I really wanna talk about this game? Controversy, controversy, controversy. Evo 2008 chose to run the game with items, and as a result, the Smash Community turned away in droves. The results have been questioned by the entire community, including their champion, CPU, himself. Even after Evo was done, the drama continued online. And as a result, a lot of friction has been created between the Smash community and the Evo community. It's been argued from members of both sides, though, that Smash doesn't need Evo and Evo doesn't need Smash. But to me, that's just a lot of bravado. Because frankly, despite what a few people want to believe, Smash Bros. Brawl IS a Fighting Game. And a darn good one. And though Smash and Evo may not NEED each other, it would be beneficial for both sides to continue forward with a amicable relationship and I truly believe both sides desire that, despite the claims to the contrary. Last year and this year could not have been more polar opposite on how the Smash community felt about Evo. Hopefully, next year, we can go back to the first year's mood if Smash comes back.

Street Fighter HD Remix / Super Turbo HD Remix / Whatever It's Gonna Be Officially Called - It'll be wonderful to bring a 14 year old game into the modern generation of consoles. Whether we play Remix Mode or not, just the fact that we can get the game on modern consoles with HD graphics and present it to a completely new audience is very exciting. With ST on an upswing in popularity already, STHD will be a real boon to the Fighting Game community. And having a hopefully more balanced game in Remix Mode will also be very welcome, injecting some new life into the game. The only shame that using Remix Mode will bring is the fact that we will then have an upper hand against the Japanese players, which is rough after such a breakout year for the U.S. at Evo 2008. If the Japanese players can also obtain HD Remix and embrace it, then it will be a better situation. But I'd hate to win ST at Evo and then skew everything so that we have the upper hand, unable to defend and prove our growth in the game on equal playing grounds.

BlazBlue - I didn't see much of the game, so I can't really say much about it. I will say that it looks beautiful, and that the things that I did see were great. The game looks like it bleeds creativity, and there are a lot of really interesting ideas in the game (not only with character specific stuff, but with things like adding full-fledged okizeme games into a 2-D fighter). So I can't wait to see more of this game and to learn more about it. And the Guilty Gear community looked extremely excited about the game.

Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom - This game looks awfully impressive so far. There is definitely a lot of tweaking needed to be done for the game, but it's early in development, so you can forgive a few things like Alex's super broken combo (which I heard is already removed from the newer versions of the game). I think this game has a lot of promise and everyone playing it seemed to be greatly excited by it. Will it be an MvC2 potential replacement? Hard to say... they are both similar but still very different. Plus, the question of whether or no the game will even be released in America is still unanswered. So if you want it here, make sure Capcom here's your pleas.

Street Fighter IV - Street Fighter IV is the perfect Fighting Game. No, actually, it sucks. No, actually, it doesn't really matter at all. It doesn't matter what I say about the game, because what this game has done is shocking, to say the least. There is a level of hype for this game that I haven't seen in the Fighting Game community in a long time. We had four setups of this game at Evo, and they were being played NON-STOP. Lines were piling up to play it. And even strangers who wandered by and peeked into the hall saw the banners we had, and were sucked in and excited by it. The internet has expressed so much anticipation for this game. And I think that Capcom has done a fantastic thing. They've managed to transition the game into 3-D with a VERY interesting and unique art style while preserving core Street Fighter gameplay. Hopefully, the Fighting Game community will experience a huge boost thanks to this game, and I gotta imagine that its inclusion into the Evo 2009 lineup is all but guaranteed. (As an aside, in case anyone really DOES wonder what I think about the game, I think though it has a very basic feel to it, it has huge potential. And I am curious to see what high level play will look like once everyone grows more accustomed to it.)

And before I stop, I need to add one more paragraph here:

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core - Talk about your turnarounds. After the disaster (my words) involving the Guilty Gear community and the Finals at Evo last year, this year showed mw that this community is not only still alive and kicking, but more dedicated to their game than I thought. I challenged them last year to prove themselves, and after Guilty Gear was revealed to not be in the Evo 2008 lineup, I challenged them to make it out to Evo anyhow and show me how dedicated their community was. So did they do it? They did and how! They ran two tournaments that weekend (a singles and a team tournament) and both had high numbers (the singles tourney had more players than one or two of the official Evo games). Both were run well and both had a lot of hype. And they did not interfere with the main Evo tournaments at all (outside of Hellmonkey stealing a TV without asking me... ~_^). So I have to give this community their props. I like what I saw. I can't guarantee anything for next year, especially because so many new games are coming out, but I can speak for myself when I say I took notice. And that makes me happy because, as I admitted last year, I am a huge fan of Guilty Gear.

* * * * *

So maybe it is time to say adieu to a bunch of older games, but I will definitely never forget how great those games have been to Evo in the past few years. They can be considered the Dream Team, much like the 1992 U.S. Basketball Olympic Team. But after a year that people have been claiming that the Fighting Game genre has been growing stale, maybe it's time for us to get our own Redeem Team as well. No, scratch that. There is no redemption here. What we need is the Dream Team Part 2.

Here's to looking forward, already, to Evo 2009!

- James

Evo 2008: For the Love of the Game

2008-08-29T00:23:00.000-07:00

It's been a year since I've written anything on my blog. And to be truthful, this was not an accident. Evolution 2007's recap was my last article written for a reason: that event took the life out of me. I over-exerted myself in 2007, so much to the point where I was super stressed out and ended up super burned out. I'm talking really burned out. And yes, so burned out that I needed a year to recover. So I took an unannounced hiatus from my blog (and from making a DVD trailer and such) to give myself a good year to relax and recover and take care of other, more important personal businesses. Such as being the best man at my brother's wedding and actually taking, for the first time in my life, a real vacation where I traveled and did nothing but eat, sleep, and relax. So it was a very good year for me. Very relaxing.

In fact, so relaxing that Evo 2008 pretty much snuck up on me. At some point in time earlier this year, it suddenly dawned on me: Evo 2008 was only 3 weeks away!

The last two years, Evo West and Evo East were good ways to prepare for Evo Finals 2008. But this year, there were no qualifiers, so I ended up relaxing so much that I had forgotten to really get myself mentally prepared for Evo. So when Evo weekend rolled around, I didn't know what to expect at all. I knew everything that was gonna happen there, but unlike last year, where I had given myself so many expectations and so many goals, this Evo was like a blank slate for me. So while that could be scary, not knowing what to expect, it can also be an exciting thing! Sometimes the best experiences occur when you leave yourself room to be surprised. So now that the weekend has come and gone, how did I feel about it?

It was wonderful.

Two years ago, my post about Evo2006 was all about Evo growing up. It was the first year it felt like the scene was truly maturing, but that's not a good enough goal. In order to continue to succeed, you must not be content with growin up... you must continue to grow and mature. And even though there was every reason to falter and regress this year -- no major sponsor this year, only one new game and lots of really old games -- the scene proved it could survive and thrive and grow stronger without those things. It proved that Evo's biggest strength is still the thing that made earlier tournaments like B3 and B5 so successful: the communities that play Fighting Games.

Yes, the turnout was slightly lower than previous years with very low numbers for games like Tekken. Yes, there was a huge clash between Evo and the Smash community regarding the rules used for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Yes, the Tropicana was not even close to being as nice as Green Valley or Red Rock (we'll know better next year when we try to make it back onto the strip). But it didn't matter. Because one of the main lasting memories of this year's Evo, for me, was that, at several points during Friday and Saturday as I walked the Evo grounds doing my usual FOB thing of taking pictures, I noticed that the place was packed. From the actual tournament stations down to the Bing Your Own Console area down to the Street Fighter IV machines down to the BlazBlue setup, there was nary room enough to walk without trampling over over people.

And everyone was having fun.

I saw people using their badges as "tokens" on the SFIV machines to mark whose turn was next (and every machine had tons of badges on them). I saw Dark Geese doing his usual thing of making sure SNK was represented, and watched a match he ran between Tokido and Sabin for the KOF Ultimate Match Championships. I saw Hellmonkey, one of the most vocal people angry at Evo over the choice to drop Guilty Gear from the main lineup, doing his best to run a great and hyped up and organized Guilty Gear tournament... one on each day. I saw a gigantic horde of people gathered and screaming around a T.V. to watch J.R. and Ryan Hart compete in a Third Strike moneymatch. I talked to one kid (actually, he wasn't a kid, he just looked like one... he told me he was actually in his twenties, but I swear he looked 15!) who said he came specifically to play Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, and he looked like he soaked up every minute he could of that game. I saw the crowd give support to special surprise guest T.Double a.k.a Turbo during his very first live stage performances ever. I saw Kugler with a notebook feverishly writing down every bit of juicy information he could about BlazBlue to share with the community who weren't there. It probably sounds weird to say that seeing these types of things bring me a lot of joy, but it's true. And it was just as great as it had been in the past few years with no drop off at all.

And that's when it hit me: the thing that makes Evo so great is that the people who are there are there for Evo. Regardless whether or not the prize money is 5 grand or 700 dollars, the players are there to enjoy Evo. There are other competitive gaming organizations out there that may appear to have as big of numbers as Evo does, but I guarantee you that the people at those events do not have even remotely the same amount of dedication and love that the Fighting Game community has.

We can use the Smash drama as a perfect example. The Smash community was livid at the Evo staff for choosing to go with items. But why were they so mad? It's because they love their game, they love the gaming community, they love gaming events, and they had high hopes, after last year's successful Melee tournament, that Evo would become the main Smash tournament of the year... the Wimbledon of Brawl, so to speak. So it's natural for them to be so frustrated that we chose to go a direction they do not approve of. Am I angry at the core Smash community for being angry with us? For trying to brush Evo off as a "joke" tournament after our decision to play with items? No, not at all. I know where they are coming from, and it's coming from the love of the game.

Same goes for the Guilty Gear community. After long threads full of mostly flames and angry bitching from both sides, the Guilty Gear community showed up in full force and, despite Accent Core not being a main game in the lineup, and they showed Evo that their community is no less deserving than any other community. Last year, I said the Guilty Gear community wasn't strong enough. This year, they showed me they were.

So the main thing that stood out to me about this year's Evo was that the people there wanted to be there. They were there for Evo, because they love the games and nothing more. They don't need things like prize money as motivation to go. No, they were there because they love the games they love, and they were there to have fun.

(This is not to say that people who didn't show up don't love the game just as much. I know a lot of people who did not show up because of other more important things to attend or because it just wasn't financially feesible... I'm sure if they could have made it, they would have.)

I am probably extremely biased when I say this, but I truly believe, thanks in large part to this year's Evo, that no video game community can rival the love and passion of the Fighting Game community. Sure the RTS communities and the FPS communities and the MMO communities and such are out there and they are strong and have equally as dedicated fans, but the Fighting Game community has every reason to drop off the map, especially because there have been so few major Fighting Games released recently. But despite all of that, the Fighting Game community still holds strong, and that's the feeling I got from Evo this year. It's truly a magical thing to have so many people gather at one event like Evo just because of how much they love the games they play and how much they love the community. And so, I have only one thing to say to the Fighting Game community:

Thank you. ^_^

- James

P.S. Up next, my annual "State of the Fighting Games" article.

P.P.S. Nothing can symbolize how much fight there is in the Fighting Game community than the story of what one person had to go through. I have to make a mention of this in this blog post, because to me, it's not only a moving story in the Fighting Game community, but it's a moving story for any community.

By now, everyone in the Fighting Game world has heard about John Choi's success from Evo this past year. Even though Choi has been a respected top player for years and years, it may come as a surprise that Choi has never, ever made 1st place in an Evo tournament since we changed to the "Evolution" moniker. So to win two games this year was huge. To win two games typically dominated by Japanese players by defeating Japanese players in the final matches was extremely huge.

But what makes it especially incredible is the obstacles Choi overcame to make it to Evo to compete at all. I won't tell his story. He does a better job of telling it himself. I urge everyone to read it. It is truly inspiring stuff. You are the best, John!

Evolution 2007 Season Wrap Up

2007-10-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

This is going to sound awfully familiar for those of you who have followed my blog since last year:

"After another year of Evo has come and gone, I'd like to officially end the Evo Season with one final 'State of the Games' post. I've had a good month to stew on Evo and read the general community reactions and let everything sink in. Thus, I would like to sum up my feelings in one last post."

That's what I wrote in September of last year, and I'm going to do the exact same thing this year. I've definitely had a good chance to solidify my impressions of Evo 2007 and how the games that took place at Evo are doing. So I want to cut right to the chase, but this year I want to have one main topic to focus on: community.

(Same disclaimer as last year: Though I am on the staff, please DO NOT use this article as evidence of any theories you have on what may happen at Evo 2008. My opinion is only one person strong, and over the course of the next few months, so many new games will come out, circumstances may change, and moods can alter so that what I say now may not even reflect how I feel half a year from now. So don't go quoting me as a source of proof that next year will feature such-and-such game or not.)

It's becoming very obvious to me now, after having attended year after year of Evo, that there is really only one driving force for a game. It determines the game's quality of play, its popularity, its respectability, its level of hype... just about every aspect you can think of. And that one driving force is its community.

Granted, this could easily be a chicken or the egg type of question: does a strong community make a strong game or does a strong game make a strong community?

I firmly believe a strong community generates a strong game. And what, exactly, do I mean by a "strong" game? I am referring to how a game is received by the Fighting Game community as a whole, not how well the game is designed and such. Games like Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 are hideously unbalanced and there are lots of really bad game design flaws that do not make it a paragon of how to make Fighting Games. So how come it's so popular at Evo? Why does it generate the most buzz and hype of all the games featured at Evo by far? It's because of its community, which is (not surprisingly) the strongest community of all games at Evo. Even though some may find the drama and hype these players get involved in ludicrous, you cannot deny its affects. All the grudge matches, for example, set up by the players can seem overdone, but no one can argue the amount of hype, energy, and life it breathes into a game that is 7 years old. People get excited by this game, even those who don't play it. And it's because the community takes itself seriously, so it knows how to generate interest while still being a fun community.

(As a side note: The community has gone too far on some occasions, testing the limits on trash talking and such, and the community definitely needs to be careful to maintain its level of fun and brotherhood. I like it, for example, when I see Erik "SmoothViper" Arroyo give opponents he has just defeated a friendly embrace. I don't like it when I see him emphatically taunt his defeated opponents. He doesn't mean harm by it, but it can easily be misinterpreted.)

So I don't think there's any question: the players make a strong game. You don't have to even know what's going on in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 to enjoy watching the Finals at Evolution. The enthusiasm of the players just shines by virtue of the camaraderie, the rivalries, and the energy I've already mentioned. And what makes establishing this excitement so importnat is that once that it opens the door for crazy moments like Justin Wong's comeback against Yipes in the Winners Finals at this past year's Evo. That moment was too incredible to behold, and the audience loved it. Events like that just generate more enthusiasm for the game. It's like a fire that fuels itself.

And because interest in this game just isn't waning at all, the current players just keep getting stronger. And new players continue to rise in the ranks, which creates even more excitement for the game. I lamented last year in my previous Evo wrap-up post that it seemed a foregone conclusion that Justin Wong would win Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 year after year. But at this past Evo, Mike "IFCYipes" Mendoza defeated Justin twice to win Evolution 2007. And players like Sanford Kelly, SmoothViper, and Brandon "Demon Hyo" DeShields aren't far behind, meaning that the boring foregone conclusions of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 are a thing of the past.

So how does a community that is trying to find life become what Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 has become? When you are a community for a game like Virtua Fighter 5, a game where calling the community cult-sized would be overly generous, how do you grow to become as strong as the Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 community? There's no easy answer to this question mostly because, as is stands right now, the community is so small here in America.

But there is potential. Last year, Dead or Alive 4's community didn't seem like they cared if Dead or Alive 4 succeeded. But the players who enjoy Virtua Fighter 5 do seem like they want to do their part to make the game succeed, and have acted accordingly. The fans of the game came and supported their own game for the Finals on Sunday, even though it was just a small crowd and extremely early in the day. And after the finals were over, Gerald Abraham, a friend of mine from long ago who loves Virtua Fighter, asked me what he and the community could do to ensure Virtua Fighter returned to Evo the next year. It's very refreshing and encouraging to see the players trying to take an active role in ensuring the game survives.

So how did I answer Gerald's question? I told him that it's simply a matter of building the community. Encourage more players to take up the game. Create momentum for the game by throwing local tourneys and making them serious, professional events. Maybe create even larger national gatherings. Get people used to traveling for the game. That last point is particularly important because of the potential popularity generated from the game's release on the XBox 360 with online play. Perhaps, unlike Dead or Alive 4, Virtua Fighter 5 can develop a strong enough online community that is willing to travel and attend the various events, including Evo. It's by generating their own noise that they will give Evo every reason to bring them back.

And the beauty of it all is that they aren't limited to just one year. Even if they can't create a strong enough community by Evolution 2008, that doesn't mean they are done for good. They can just continue building up an American Virtua Fighter community and if it gains enough momentum, it can return to the line-up even after a year or two's hiatus. I'm sure many people doubt that it could truly happen, but you cannot find a better example of this happening than Street Fighter III: Third Strike. Third Strike has had, for the past few years, the most number of contestants out of all the games at Evo. But does anyone even remember when Third Strike was removed from Evo because of how unpopular it was?

How could this be? How can a game originally dropped due to unpopularity eventually become the most popular game at Evo? I don't know how many people remember the "Third Strike for Evo!" avatars that peppered the Shoryuken.com forums during the year it was dropped. The players pushed for the game and tried to rally as many people as they could to their cause. And then one very important thing happened for that community: America found out just how bad we were at the game.

They found out in two ways, and I largely credit these two things for being the catalyst to Third Strike's revival in America. The first was the 5 on 5 U.S. vs. Japan special event that occurred at Evolution 2002. The degree by which the Japanese team slaughtered the American players was almost obscene. We witnessed true Genei-Jin combos live for the first time there. We saw crazy unblockable setups from Urien that we didn't even know existed. We saw Twelve (Twelve! Who is the worst character in the game!!) turtle everyone to death. It was jaw dropping.

The second thing that helped revive Third Strike was a 5 on 5 video that crept its way onto the internet that same year. This one, however, was Japan vs. Japan. But the enthusiasm and excitement displayed by the Japanese players (the crowd noise was audible in the video) was incredibly infectious. The video stood out mostly due to the super high level of play on display. It was the first glimpse of what Makoto could really do (she had crazy near 100% combo comebacks on a poor Chun Li and a poor Akuma) and also stood out as, in my opinion, the birth of the crowd chants to Yun's Genei-Jin combos (that "Ay! Ay! Ay! Ay! Ay! Ayyyyyyyyyy!" chant that people always do during Genei-Jin combos these days). That video made Third Strike look incredibly fun.

(Note: special thanks goes to YouTube user "Sf3lp" for having this video hosted.)

And as a result, players began studying the Japanese strategies. They found out there was so much more to the game than they thought. And then the players did exactly what they needed to do: they built their own community. They threw their own tournaments, they developed their own top level players, and they made sure it was a game that was continually discussed and talked about. And because of that, Evo added it back into its lineup. And were it not for the community getting the game back into the lineup, we would have never had the greatest moment in Evo history: the Daigo Parry. That created a whole new group of fans and players and generated even more interest in the game... so much interest that Capcom obliged the Third Strike community by releasing the first arcade accurate home version of the game in Anniversary Collection. Again, a fire that fuels itself. And now, the rest is history: it's the most popular game at Evo.

(As a side note: It's almost too popular, to be honest. It's at a state that Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 used to be at. Third Strike has so many players that the quality of play is a bit watered down. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 at one point became kind of boring to watch, and until Duc's comeback in 2005, the game was on the verge of being dropped from Evo because we weren't seeing anything new and hype for the game reached an all time low. But since then, Marvel has shed some of the excess players who weren't actually dedicated to the game. So while the community is still large, it's also now more focused -- leaner, so to speak -- so the level of play actually is still improving, even at the highest levels. Third Strike needs this. The community needs to improve its overall skill level because it still feels like we have little chance of taking the crown from the Japanese players. This needs to change. I hate saying that the game needs less players, but it almost seems that the community needs to trim its fat and become leaner just like Marvel. Either that, or the entire community needs to get better. If that happens, players will be forced to play better overall (no more easy matches). And the chances of us defeating the Japanese players will finally increase.)

Just look at Super Turbo. It's the only game that the Japanese also play as dedicatedly as America that we've actually defeated them at Evo (Jason Cole defeated Nuki in 2002, and Alex Wolfe and Jason Nelson took 1st and 2nd away from Tokido in Anniversary Edition last year). And that's because, in this day and age, in order to play Super Turbo you have to be good. In just about every game at Evo, you can hope you fall into an easy bracket or an easy pool to improve your chances to make it far. Not in Super Turbo. In Super Turbo, there are no easy brackets! And that's because just about everyone who plays the game is an expert. You're almost guaranteed to have an Alex Wolfe or a David Sirlin or a John Choi or a Seth Killian or a DSP or a Jason Cole or an Afrolegends or a Chris Li or an NKI or an Alex Valle or a Graham Wolfe or someone else that's insanely good at the game in your pool or bracket. And because there are no easy paths in this game, the only way to win is to become better. And thus, the overall quality of play has increased drastically.

Were it not for dirty Tokido tactics (playing what the Japanese refer to as "Hyou Bal" -- click here and look for the profile on Japanese player "ARG." Special thanks to Nohoho for having these profiles of the Japanese players on his blog), the Americans would have come away this year with a decided victory over the Japanese. The Japanese players brought over two of their most dedicated Super Turbo players who happen to be two of the best (if not the best) Dhalsim players in Japan: Gian (Evo 2005 Super Turbo winner) and KKY. And neither of them made the top 8. This is all because Super Turbo has such a dedicated community, and so many of the experts even to this day still try and improve. It's a small community, sure. But I believe that is why they continue to improve. The rest of the community has tp train harder to even stand a chance against the experts. So now, the experts have to improve more to fend off the strengthening community. Which then makes the community train harder to improve even more. Once again, a fire that fuels itself.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when the new Street Turbo HD edition drops onto XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3 next year. Anniversary Edition and Capcom Classics Collection has already increased Super Turbo's popularity amongst Fighting Game aficionados. This new version with updated graphics and online play and new rebalanced mode (if it turns out to be good) could very well throw a whole new set of players into the mix. I'm curious to see how the influx of new players will affect the community. I will say that the new players will definitely benefit from the wealth of knowledge from the experts (for some reason, it seems the Super Turbo experts are the most willing to share strategies amongst new players). By having so many expert players willing to disseminate knowledge, the casual fans can quickly become hardcore fans.

But what if there are no casual fans willing to take that next step to becoming a hardcore fan? If this happens, the community becomes stagnant and doesn’t grow. If we have the same players finishing high in the tournaments year after year after year, that's actually not a very healthy sign for the game. While it’s great to see consistency being shown by the top players of a game, you do wish to see that new faces are trying.

This is the weird predicament that Capcom Vs. SNK 2 is currently in. The top players in America have gotten good. Really good. I mean, really good. But the problem is that no one else is going along for the ride. If we look back at the American players who have finished top 8 in the past four Evos (2004-2007), we see only six names: Ricky Ortiz (thrice), Justin Wong (thrice), Kim-Hahn “Ohayo1234” Hoang (twice), Peter “Combofiend” Rosas (thrice), Campbell “Buktooth” Tran (thrice), and John Choi (twice). And outside of those six, only two other players have also cracked the top 8 from the U.S.: Eddie Lee in 2004 and Gene "Hail and Kill" Wong in 2006. That's the entire U.S. representation of Capcom Vs. SNK 2 for the past four years at Evo.

It’s great that these players can remain so consistent in the game, but isn’t there anyone up-and-coming? The biggest hopes seem to be the aforementioned Gene “Hail and Kill” Wong and Evo 2007 East winner Nestor Corchado. But from the rest of the community, we just aren't seeing anything new in the game anymore. We need more up-and-coming players to really add variety to the game. Right now, everyone who watches Capcom Vs. SNK 2 probably believe that in order to learn the game, you need to learn A-Groove Bison, Vega, Blanka, or Sakura. But in a conversation I had with Kim, he pointed out that players in Japan have started using teams to counter those characters... teams that use Grooves and characters that most people would not expect! For example, at a pre-SBO tournament in an arcade called Mikado in Japan this past summer, in a tournament attended by a few of top U.S. players, the grand finals were between K-Groove Ryu/Kyo/Sagat and C-Groove Dhalsim/Maki/Rolento! And the C-Groove team won without even needing Rolento in the final match!! U.S. play needs to reach this point as well, but it just doesn’t seem like there are enough players out there to push the envelope in this game.

Don’t get me wrong: the Finals for Capcom Vs. SNK 2 this year were at the same skill level I raved about last year. But somehow I get the feeling that we’ll be seeing those exact same six U.S. players again next year. And as much as I am a huge fan of all six of them, it’s more fun to know that other players made them really work for their top 8 finish. Right now, I just don’t believe it. It just feels like these six guys are far better than 99% of the field. There needs to be more players -- new players -- ready to take the crown, not just a couple of standouts like Gene and Nestor. With that, Capcom Vs. SNK 2 will grow and we'll start seeing more variety in the Finals, which can only benefit the game and its community.

Okay, going into theory mode here: so let's say the community does step it up. Will that then automatically start this whole "fire that fuels itself" phenomenon that I keep talking about? Sadly, the answer is no. Once more players step up, one more thing needs to happen: the community needs to start taking itself seriously and make sure they are represented well.

And right now, no community needs to heed this more than the Guilty Gear community. After a couple of severe missteps at this past Evo, the Guilty Gear community will need to do some work to show that they are indeed worthy of the same respect afforded to many of the other Fighting Game communities. This is a challenge that they should be issuing to themselves, and it has nothing to do with what Evo thinks. Because, as I've mentioned with the Third Strike example, Evo will listen if you make some noise first.

The Guilty Gear community has a reputation of being, for lack of a better word, lazy. They do little for self-promotion. Most of the other communities have their celebrities and widely respected players. Their most staunch supporters fight very hard to make sure the game is respected and its popularity is increased, such as in the aforementioned tendency of Super Turbo players to give new players lots of high level strategies. But for some reason, the Guilty Gear community just doesn't seem like they care enough, so the game is never taken seriously. And this is a huge problem.

And it's not a matter of trying to get others to take them seriously. It's a matter of its own players not taking themselves seriously. This is a huge shame because Guilty Gear is such a good game, with great character variety, the need for a ton of technical skill, room for a huge amount of mind games, and really stylish visuals as well. And it's a shame even more so because the American players seem to be improving quite a bit in the past few years. This community deserves a ton of respect and this game should be far more popular than it is, so it can't afford to make any more missteps.

So what are these missteps? One misstep that occurred at Evo this past year still boggles my mind. At the end of the semis for Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, three of the four teams had already qualified for the Finals on Sunday and only two teams remained, needing to fight for the last Finals spot. And the two teams, which knew each other and were on good terms with each other, decided to take a break and leave the ballroom to go and rest and discuss... something, I dunno what, before playing their match. Maybe it's because I'm one of the tournament organizers, but this move is just inexcusable.

Okay, they did ask the person running the brackets if they could take the break and that person said yes, so they are entitled to their break. That much is not their fault. But the mere fact that the question was even asked is still crazy to me. I'm not sure how to express my dismay other than it just feels so unprofessional to me. Evo is run on a tight schedule and we are trying to do our best to make the event as professional and reputable as possible. No professional sport would ever let you delay the 4th quarter of a game because the players wanted a break or wanted to discuss things. Both teams were almost disqualified when we couldn't find them to play their final match after they were gone for over 10 minutes. We had to call the two teams on their cell phones numerous times before we finally got them back into the hall to play the last semis match. Even if I were in that position and wanted a break, I would make sure I'd be back in 5 minutes or remain close to the game area to be back at a moment's notice.

And yet, the other misstep was even bigger, and many people have already heard about this. For the Finals, there were 11 players total that filled up the final 4 teams (three players on each team and one team only had two players). When the first match was scheduled to start, only 4 players out of those 11 were physically there ready to play their match. 7 people were missing! Eventually they all showed up, but only after many, many, many phone calls and after delaying the start of the finals by over 30 minutes. The last player didn't even show up until just before the final match up, lucky that his team even made it that far.

Many use, as an excuse, the early start time of the finals (11:00 a.m.) as to why this happened. But one game took place even earlier (Virtua Fighter 5 was at 9:30 a.m.) and when I opened to doors at 9:30 to call in the top 8 players for Virtua Fighter 5, all 8 players were there and ready to go. So the early start time simply isn't a good enough of an excuse. Any Guilty Gear player even trying to make excuses for those who didn't show up is wasting his or her breath. The community should be apologizing for the players who didn't show up because, again, it just ends up being more evidence that the community doesn't take itself seriously enough.

To make matters worse, many hardcore Guilty Gear players didn't even show up to watch the Finals, even though they started 30 minutes late! And that, to me, is the biggest sin. Why? Because this year, American Guilty Gear players had their best showing. Four Japanese teams played in the tournament, and only two made it to the Finals. And then FlashMetroid's team (with pretty much 100% of the work being done by only two the team members: Alex G. and FlashMetroid himself) powered their way through the Finals, defeating one of the final two Japanese teams on Sunday to make history by being the first time the U.S. has scored 2nd place in a Guilty Gear tournament at Evo.

The. Place. Should. Have. Been. Rocking.

Guilty Gear is one of those games where it is just assumed that the Japanese have a distinct advantage over the American players, making it a foregone conclusion that a Japanese team would win Evo. In fact, most probably predicted the four Japanese teams would finish 1st through 4th. And there was no evidence that the American players were reaching a point where they could give the Japanese players a good challenge. But when FlashMetroid's team defeated BAS's team (filled with three very deadly Japanese players: BAS, Mint, and Kami-chan), a huge step forward was taken for American Guilty Gear players. Thus, the Guilty Gear community should have been there to not only witness it, but to cheer Flash's team on. The room should have been electric!! But instead, it was really subdued.

So what does this all add up to? Well, frankly, the Guilty Gear community has made lots of claims that Evo doesn't like them; that we don't take them seriously. It simply isn't true. Many people on the Evo staff like Guilty Gear a lot, and still play it or have played it before pretty enthusiastically. It's my second favorite Fighting Game right now, right after Super Turbo. No, the Guilty Gear community needs to take a look in the mirror and realize that they don't give anyone enough reason to take them seriously yet. I don't want to hear any more excuses from this community: no one is out to get you. There are a ton of players for this game, it's a great game... the formula is all there already. Now it's time for them to make sure their game gets represented properly.

So if your game is scheduled for 11:00 in the morning, you show up at 11:00 in the morning. I know I know... how can you expect people to show up for an 11:00 a.m. game in Vegas, right? And be loud? And be raucous? Well, guess what? The Tekken community did it at Evo 2006. And they were loud. And they were raucous. And the tournament was really exciting. And that's because their community is dedicated to their game.

What makes it all the more impressive is that I don't think there is any crossover between Tekken players and the 2-D games. There are a few players that may play both Tekken and one or more of the Street Fighter games, but for the most part I believe they are pretty isolated from each other. So when Tekken players come to Evo, they are coming for Tekken and Tekken alone. And year after year, this community does a remarkable job of representing themselves at Evo. They don't complain, they don't gripe. They, instead, just make their presence felt. There was, at one point, a huge ruckus going on in the Bring Your Own Console area, and I naturally assumed it was the Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 crowd being their usual loud self. But when I went back there to check it out, it was actually the Tekken crowd! And during Finals, it's even louder. These guys get really, really hyped up for their game, whether it's at 11:00 in the morning as the second game on Sunday or later at night as the second-to-last game on Sunday (as they were this past year).

It was also very helpful that Namco released Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection on the PlayStation 3. Last year felt a little bit like a disappointment for the Tekken crowd because Dark Resurrection was out in the arcades, a version most players feel is a big improvement over Tekken 5. So when they were forced to play the regular Tekken 5 instead of Dark Resurrection, I'm sure it was a bitter pill to swallow. But things definitely were back in full swing at Evo this year, now that the players got to play on the latest and greatest version of the product. We'll have to see what Namco's timing is in regards of releasing Tekken 6 into the arcades and the consoles. Hopefully, a repeat of Evo 2006 doesn't occur.

I personally don't have a lot of interaction with the Tekken community, so it might be unfair of me to comment on it much. But from what I can tell, they definitely make the most of their moments. In a tournament where 3-D games don't get as much emphasis as the 2-D games, it would be easy for the Tekken players to be bitter and feel that they aren't wanted. But no matter what, they show up and play and prove year after year that they are the premiere 3-D crowd. Again, in 2006 when they were relegated to 11:00 in the morning, it would have been really easy for them to cry foul, especially since in 2005 they were the 2nd to last game featured on Finals Sunday. Instead, they showed up at 11:00, their crowd got really into it, a lot of excitement built up for the game, the players milked their time slot for everything they could, and they were rewarded with being returned to 2nd to last game to be played on Finals Sunday. In turn, the audience was treated to some great drama and a lot of passionate players.

And Tekken definitely doesn't have to be bitter anymore. Although for a while they may have felt like the "outsiders" of Evo, that status has definitely been handed over to another game. Now, the most isolated community is the Super Smash Bros. Melee community. They have definitely taken the crown for the community that has every right to be bitter. Their game is never taken seriously by a large amount of Fighting Game players. Their game is always seen as "kiddie." Though they were a part of MLG, they were always relegated as a sideshow. Halo was the main event of MLG, and Smash was just a group of little kids, shunned by the Halo players and thrown into the back corner to play their tournament where they wouldn't disturb Halo. These players never seem to get any respect.

And yet, they are the furthest things from being bitter. I kept saying that the Guilty Gear community needs to learn to be professional and to take themselves seriously. Well, the Smash Bros. community is where they should look for an example. Just as with the Guilty Gear community, The Smash community has a game that some people frown upon. Both communities have players that have a bad stereotype associated with them (Guilty Gear players are often accused as being weird, anime-loving otakus and Smash players are always accused of being 6 year old Pokemon-loving kids or something). As a brand new community added to the Evolution line-up, the Smash Bros. players had every reason to come is very skeptical and behave very poorly.

But instead, they decided to prove why they deserve respect and why they deserve to remain at future Evolution tournaments. The players came out in droves, becoming instantly one of the largest tournaments at Evo in terms of number of contestants. The players showed up for the pools on time and were extremely cooperative with whoever was running the brackets. There wasn't even a big stink made over the decision to turn the pools and semis to best-of-1 game. The players were not happy with the decision, but they played through it. And no one seems to believe the results were "tainted" by that rule change. And on the Finals of Smash Bros., the community was there in full force, cheering their game on. It didn't seem like they were worried if non-Smash players were enjoying it because they were enjoying it too much themselves to care. But because their crowd added a lot of energy to the game, it ended up making it that much more fun for those unfamiliar with Smash to enjoy it as well.

And that's why I like this community so much. They know who they are and they know where they stand. And they are better off for it. There were two main things that surprised me about this community. First of all, they are all very competitive and skilled, but were extremely good natured and friendly to each other. There was a lot of respect among players. Someone joked to me how footage of Smash players involved more handshakes and hugs than any other game.

The other thing that really surprised me about Smash was how deep its history is. From talking to the top 8 players that qualified for the Finals, I was very pleased to discover just how much the community has gone through and grown. It was almost as if Evo had just walked into a movie that was already in progress. There were stories of Ken's early domination and subsequent early retirement... only to return to tournaments for this past Evo. There were stories of East Coast dominance being threatened by an emerging group of top-level West Coast Smash players. There were stories of wanting really badly to prove that certain perceived mid-tier characters could dominate. And there was a lot of stories regarding their history with MLG (both good and bad).

They already have their celebrities. And with them, they could have their upsets and grudges and hugely anticipated matches. They are already a fully established community and, frankly, even if Evo never picked them up or drops them next year, I can't imagine they would lose any momentum. And I took strong notice of that. This community has already built itself up and is already self-sustaining. It's a model Fighting Game community.

The Smash community should be used as a blue print for many of the other budding communities. Whether you are King of the Fighters fans, Melty Blood fans, Arcana Heart fans... hell, even Street Fighter Alpha 3 fans, the key to getting your game into the lime light is building up your community. Everyone likes to say that being included in Evo is what breathes life into games. While I do admit it helps a lot, I still believe that a game thrives solely on its community. It has very little to do with the inclusion into Evo. In fact, inclusion into Evo is usually the result of a strong community or a potential for a strong community.

So this is lesson for today: if you want to see your favorite game thrive, do your part. A game is nothing without its community of players. Just start that fire, and if you continue to support your community, the fire will continue to fuel itself.

- James

P.S. I may have sounded like I came down pretty hard on the Guilty Gear community. I think I'm particularly harsh on them because I love Guilty Gear so much, and I hate seeing it hurt itself. So in its defense, I have to say that Guilty Gear has a couple of things going against it that definitely hurt its cause. Communities like the ones for Tekken and Smash Bros. stand out as isolated communities because their games are so unique compared to the rest of the games at Evo. Guilty Gear seems to be stuck in the shadow of the other 2-D games. Thus, the Guilty Gear community does have to do more work to make their game stand out because it falls under so many comparisons.

Another problem is that ArcSys keeps releasing new versions of the game without giving the U.S. enough time to let the game settle here. Until just a month ago, the only way to grab copies of the game to practice on was to import the game, which made it doubly hard for the players to even practice at all, let alone develop high level play.

And the last thing going against Guilty Gear is its intimidation factor. The game is so complex compared to other Fighting Games (What's a Burst? What's the difference between Gold and Blue Bursts? What's a Roman Cancel? What's the difference between normal and False Roman Cancels? What is up with that character that carries around that giant key? Why does that other character sometimes have a dog and sometimes have ghosts helping him? What is going on?!? ARGH!!!!). It's so complex that many players who don't already play the game are just reluctant to pick it up. And they have trouble watching the Finals because they just don't understand what is going on. I have casual friends who I can get to play just about any Fighting Game, just not Guilty Gear.

Someone needs to be an ambassador to the game and help bring in more players. They need to help those who don't know Guilty Gear learn how the game works. I would love to see the game thrive. It's one of the deepest Fighting Games out there right now. It deserves to thrive.

Evo 2007: Continue to Improve

2007-08-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

Time flies.

It's shocking to me that another Evolution has come and gone already. It's surreal, in a way. I still don't believe it's actually done since, during the four weeks before Evo Finals (Powered by Yaris, at the Green Valley Ranch in Henderson, Nevada), all I kept thinking to myself was "I can't wait until this Evo year is done!" With the amount of work the staff has to put into making sure an entire year of Evo runs successfully (on top of the fact that we all have actual careers), it can become downright overbearing. I think I went to bed on average of about 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. for all of the four weeks leading up to Evo working on things, and I know other members of the staff had to deal with similar sleep deprivation. For me, personally, this year was probably the most stressful time I've ever had working the event. If I had a scale of 1 to 100 to indicate how many things I wanted to get done by/at Evo (100 being everything was finished), I think I only managed a 75 or so. But the beautiful thing about it all is this: if you don't try, you don't know. And if you don't know, you can never learn. And if you never learn, you cannot improve. And if you don't improve, you can never fully accomplish your goal. And frankly, that's what Evo is all about, right? Improving until the point where you can come out victorious.

Now that Evo has come and gone, there has been a lot of reaction, response, and reflection already bandied about. There have been many complaints and even more speculation and theorizing. Frankly, I believe that anything said within the first week or two immediately after Evo should be stricken from the record. Staff members are tired and players are grumpy or frustrated. I'm not being negative or saying the event was bad, I'm just saying that it's human nature. The bad things resonate in your brain the strongest, but fizzle out quickly. The good things, however, are what last the longest in your mind. Months from now, we'll still be discussing Justin's otherworldly, inhuman Cyclops solo comeback against Yipes in the Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 Finals. I would like to think that most of the negativity will be gone by then. And frankly, I thought this year's Evo was one of the best ones we've had, where we pulled off a lot of cool things we hadn't done before.

But at the same time, I would love to address a major complaint about this past year's Evo: Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Capcom Vs. SNK 2, and Super Smash Bros. Melee were changed to best-of-1 game, double-elimination (as opposed to best-of-3 games, double-elimination). This has caused quite an uproar from various people (even from those who didn't attend the event) and many people have been left a little angry and flustered. While I can understand that sentiment, I would like to address this from my perspective, if I may.

Lemme start off by being really blunt: for those of you adamantly complaining, get over it. Okay. Now, let me go at it from a far more diplomatic stand point.

Before Evo Vegas, I don't think I could have said that without being hypocritical. I've learned a lot from Evo this year. Not being able to accomplish everything I set out to accomplish (only managing to get 4 sets of interviews ready for Sunday out of the 8 games, for example) really made me disappointed in myself and my own abilities. And it did cause me a great deal of stress and disappointment in myself. But to come away with only negativity from this past weekend is just childish. In retrospect, it turns out that I am more disappointed that it bothered me so much that I came up short with my goals. I wish I had handled it better. There were a lot of things that couldn't have been helped, a lot of unknowns, and a lot of unexpected roadblocks that cropped up. I have to accept those and just come away with a more positive attitude.

And this is essentially what I am saying to the players who are angry and still frustrated by the 1-game ruling. There were a lot of things that couldn't have been helped, a lot of unknowns, and a lot of unexpected roadblocks that cropped up. No one is ever happy with the results of any tournament unless the results match exactly what the person had in mind from beforehand. And in the majority of the time, it will go differently than how you expected it. However, when you have an excuse to pin it on (and people definitely like to use excuses), people get angry. If you believe that Hsien Chang should have finished in the top 8 of Third Strike, then the reason he did not make it there was because of the 1-game rule. If we had kept it best-of-3, people would just have considered it an upset and moved on. But then, the tournament would have ran super late, and NOW the reason that Alex Wolfe did not qualify in Super Turbo was because it started late at night (as a domino effect from Third Strike running late) and he was tired. And why couldn't staff had made sure Super Turbo ran on time? Then the staff is disorganized and everyone is still angry. But as it stands, no one is complaining about Alex Wolfe (people just shrug it off as an upset), but everyone is crying about Hsien. It's a lose-lose situation.

Some people claim the results aren't accurate because of the 1-game ruling. Or they claim "it wouldn't have happened that way" if all games were 2 out of 3. Does this mean that years of Super Battle Opera results are all invalid because they've been running their tournaments as 1-game, single elimination ever since their conception? Does that mean our top players are only good if they get a second chance? Does that mean it is unfair if a player loses because they had one bad game? Tell that to the NCAA Basketball teams in March Madness. Tell that to the NFL Teams trying to win the Superbowl. Tell that to the poker pros at the World Series of Poker. My point is that this happens everywhere, and just because it happens at Evo from time to time it doesn't invalidate the results. Ken won Smash Bros. He was the favorite. BAS won Capcom Vs. SNK 2. He did last year as well. Nuki won Third Strike. He's done it before. Of course everyone wants to see their favorite player in the top 8 (and as a side note, I think it is extremely awesome that people HAVE favorite players), but when they don't make it, sometimes you just have to accept it as it is, no excuses.

The only way we can benefit from this year's experience is to come up with ways for next year to keep this from happening. People have thrown up a lot of suggestions to help fix time problems already, and I really do like a lot of them. Instant disqualifications, no waiting for people who borrowed your joystick, no more emergency registrations, reducing the number of games at Evo, etc. I'm also throwing out some more radical ideas, such as making it single game for all games, but making every game 5 rounds (if you can't wing 3 out of 5 rounds, then you probably are NOT the better player). Or keeping it 2 out of 3 and making it single elimination (though this sucks if you happen to run into Alex Valle or John Choi or Justin Wong). Or trying some even crazier ideas like making CvS2 played in an alternate mode, such as being forced to play 1-on-1 mode (so that winning by a pixel matters again and creates more excitement) or 3-on-3 mode (to remove the flawed Ratio system).

There are many things to consider, and we have lots of time to think about it. But as I said earlier, the first two weeks after Evo or so should not be a time where many suggestions and ideas should be discussed seriously. It's good to get the ideas out there now, but we'll have to wait a bit before we can seriously start discussing them officially.

In an attempt to make it a yearly tradition, I'm going to close out this year's Evo Season with the same thing I did last year: "The Current State of the Fighting Games - Year 2007 Edition." Stay tuned for the next post. And thanks for reading.

- James

Anatomy of the "Evolution 2006 DVD Trailer"

2007-05-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

So... it's been a while. Some of you may be wondering where I've been in the past month. And I figure I owe it to all who kept checking my blog the past month to say what I've been up to. Or better yet, I'll show you.

Evolution season has started again. For any of those who don't know what Evolution is, it's the yearly international Fighting Games Championships that is run by the staff of Shoryuken.com. There, we play competitive fighting games for huge prizes and bragging rights... games such as Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, and Tekken 5: Dark Ressurection. As running these tournaments takes a lot of time and effort, a lot of my time in the upcoming few months will be spent working on stuff for upcoming Evo events. But oddly enough, the past month hasn't been keeping me busy working on this year's Evo. No, in actuality, it was spent doing work for last year's Evo.

Now I don't want to make this blog post sound like an advertisement. I'm not trying to sell any DVD's or anything, but what I have been working on this past month has been the Evolution DVD for Evo 2006 -- last year's Evo. I've done some work on the DVD itself, creating some menus, but the part that I've been working hardest on recently is the DVD's trailer. I really would love to put the trailer up for all of you to view, but I want to emphasize that I'm not doing so to advertise the DVD to any of you. Rather, I put a lot of work into these video editing projects and I take great pride in them, trying my best to make these as entertaining as possible. Since I've worked so hard on the trailer at the expense of updating my blog, I'd like to make it up by showing the trailer here to my blog readers so you can see the fruits of my labor and get a view into one of my favorite side hobbies: video editing (if anyone is interested, I'll be glad to write up a post about my past video editing projects). And rather than talking about the DVD set this video is advertising, I'm going to discuss the philosophy I had when making the trailer in an effort to give you an interesting take on the trailer itself.

Whenever I create a trailer, I usually set for myself specific goals to maintain and rules to follow. Many of the rules I came up with for myself, this year, were a direct result of the philosophies I had when making the previous year's trailer. So in order to really understand what I was going for, I'm also putting last year's trailer here as well for you to view. So sit down, grab a drink, and I hope you enjoy these videos. There's 15 minutes of video to watch here. Afterwards, I'll talk about this new trailer a bit.

Evolution 2006 DVD Trailer (New Trailer):

Evolution 2005 DVD Trailer (Previous Year's Trailer):

(Note: you can check this link here if you want to download a much higher quality copy of the trailer to your desktop: high quality / low quality)

(Oh and special thanks to Preppy for mirroring these videos for us!!)

The trailer for 2005's DVD has two very distinct traits: it was very much an advertisement, asking people to "own a piece of fighting game history" and such, with lots of text in it. Also, the video was purely direct game footage, with no footage of players or the events itself. This was not a choice I made on my own: we had no footage of players and the event to use for the trailer (I did have footage I personally shot, but my access to that footage was rendered non-existant due to circumstances outside my control). And a third trait you might notice is that the trailer is very organized, very neat, and very methodical.

I did not want to make a repeat of the previous trailer. In fact, the new trailer I made can almost be considered a rebellion against the previous trailer. So the mindset I gave myself when making the new trailer was to try and advertise the DVD with as little text as possible and, instead, just trying to show the event with the energy and excitement that it actually has. Instead of being methodical, I tried making it as energetic as possible. There are no distinct chapters or sections this time around. Just a steady stream of clips to digest. And the most important philosophy I had this time was that I wanted to put the emphasis on the players themselves, not the games. If there is anything that drives the event, it's the players.

Fortunately, this year, I had access to some footage of the event and the various players participating in it. It was very limited footage, but some footage was available to me nonetheless. So instead of showing tons and tons of direct-feed captures of the games, I tried to give a good balance between game footage and live footage from the event. And because this year we were able to get crowd reactions recorded into the audio of the game footage (as well as the dialogue of the announcers), even the direct-feed game footage felt more "player-centric" and organic.

And with the previous year's trailer, I highlighted various players from every game. While I would love to highlight all 8 players from the Finals in every game, that would mean having a 30 minute-long trailer. So instead, this year, I decided to highlight only one player per game... but I wanted to really highlight them, thus the pomp and circumstances when they show up in the trailer. Thanks to the abundance of photos I managed to take at the three Evo Events of last year, I had access to at least one decent picture of every player highlighted. That way, I could show the player himself alongside the footage of that person playing the game. I think this is very important, as I really believe that an effort needs to be made to tie people's faces with their names and nicknames. Again, this scene survives only on the strength of its players, so I really wanted to put more focus on them.

And after setting all those rules for myself, the result is what you just watched. The one area people may question is my lack of names listed for those being interviewed in the trailer itself. If I'm trying so hard to focus on the players, why didn't I put the names of the people on screen when they are being interviewed? It's kind of a weird logic, but I did it because I wanted the viewers to listen to the words being spoken without being distracted by reading names (many people will probably only watch this trailer once ever, so I really want them to hear what the players said). And it is also a part of my rebelling against the previous trailer that I really wanted to put as little text in this trailer as possible. The DVD itself has those very interviews, and their names are listed there. But for the trailer, I chose not to write their names down.

But since I consider this blog post a "director's commentary" track of sorts, I'll list the names of the people being interviewed here, in order of appearance: Zach "Preppy" Robinson, Jason Nelson, Daniel "Ruin" Realyvasquez, and Justin Wong.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed the trailer. If you are indeed interested in the DVD itself, you'll know where to find details on how to obtain it. And if you like the music in the video, please support the original band (Red Hot Chili Peppers) who recorded it and buy the song from the stores or from iTunes, please (it's available on iTunes, I checked). Stealing songs that you hear in videos like these only gives the artists more reason to start preventing video editors like us from using their music.

Thanks for reading.

- James

Quest for a Wii

2007-04-05T21:13:00.000-07:00

By now it's obvious to anyone that has actually looked at my list of "Games I'm Currently Playing" in the side bar that I've managed to obtain a Wii after all this time. And while finally being able to play quite a few games, make many Miis, use the Virtual Console, try their internet browser, etc. has given me a wealth of things I'd love to say about the Wii, I figured I'd take a break from analytical posts to simply tell a story. Not just any story, but the story of my trials and tribulations of how I finally managed to obtain the Wii.

(I was gonna mention something here about how, specifically for this post, I was gonna forgo putting any more pictures after the first one throughout the post to aid its "story feel." But then I'd probably appear to be copying Omar once again, who made a similar declaration in his latest post. That man always beats me to every punch. I've appeared to copy him long ago already. Even before I actually started my blog, I knew that I would have a recurring "Games I'm Currently Playing" posts. And long before I was able to put up my first one, Omar put up his first "Games I'm Playing Right Now" post. Then later on, I posted a link to a great article and discovered that he had posted a link to it just one day before me. And now this! He gets me every time!)

I'm sure everyone is well aware of how difficult it's been to get one of these suckers. I still have numerous friends who are clamoring to get one with the only available options being horrific price gouges. In fact, ever since it became the hot item for Christmas, it's been downright impossible to get one without dedicating your life to it. Even now, three full months after Christmas, it's still impossible to find.

I tried, myself, a few times to get one before Christmas. On the day of launch, I believed Nintendo's claims that there'd be plenty of consoles available. So I casually headed out on launch day and found that there were none left. A week later, I woke up at 7:00 or 8:00 and stood in line at my local Toys R Us and managed to be about 50th in line when they only had 42 available. I tried again another morning, waking up at a ridiculous time of about 5:30 in the morning (ridiculous for me, okay?), journeyed to a Target far out of town and getting there at around 6:00 in the morning, and finding out to my dismay that I was 40th or so in line! I stood in the freezing cold until 7:30 to find out that they only had 15 Wiis for the line of over a hundred people. Again, I had failed. And I gave up, deciding to wait until after Christmas when, hopefully, demand would die down.

And so, when the next word broke out for the day that the Wiis would again be stockpiled at various Targets and Toys R Us's and such, I decided to really put my full effort into the quest to obtain it. The Friday before the Wiis were to go on sale the following Sunday morning, I called over 15 stores to make sure they were getting Wiis. And only one store was willing to confirm they were getting them: the same Target I drove to on my previous attempt. They told me that, yes, they were getting some Wiis -- maybe around 50 of them. I wrestled with the idea to wait in line overnight, but figured I wouldn't bother. Was I really that desperate? No, not really. So, instead, I decided to wake up at around 4:00 in the morning and go. Which meant going to bed at 9:30 or 10:00 at night.

Now keep in mind that I normally go to bed at 4:00 a.m. on weekends. So jumping into bed at 10:00 p.m. was not gonna work for me. But I tried. And although I managed to get some sleep, I just woke up at 2:00 a.m. It was so unnatural for me to have gone to bed at 10:00 that my sleep cycle was that screwed up at that point. And as I sat in bed trying to fall back asleep, I figured... what the hell? I decided to wake up and go to Target now. I took my time getting ready, left my house at around 2:45, and began my early morning drive to Target. At this time of the morning, I expected the freeways to be empty and that I could get to the Target in 30 minutes, easy.

But my problems were only beginning.

I drove and about 10 minutes into the drive, traffic comes to a dead halt -- literally a dead halt. I was going 0 miles an hour and all I could see ahead was a bunch of flashing sirens. It was at this moment I began to panic. Someone really didn't want me to get a Wii! At 3:00 in the morning, here I am stuck on the freeway, not moving... my mind could only picture the line already forming at Target. Maybe there were 5 people waiting overnight. Maybe 10. Maybe even 20. Maybe another 30 people have already joined the line while I sat there, motionless for already 10 minutes. I was about to go into a ballistic rage until... finally, signs that the traffic was starting to moving. Things cleared up, I blew a sigh of relief, and I put the pedal to the metal and drove to the Target.

I arrived at about 3:30 in the morning, pulled into the parking lot and... and... no one is there. What on earth? I was expecting at least a few campers but... there wasn't a sign of anyone in sight. Did I make a mistake? I began to feel a little silly, being the guy who got up at a ridiculous time to wait in line way too early. Was I the example of a total Nintendo fanboy, sitting in line at Target by himself waiting for the Wii at 3:30 in the morning? And so I sat in my car where it was far warmer (this was January after all), wondering if I had gone a little too far with my paranoia. And I sat in my car. And sat. And sat. And finally, at around 4:00 or so, I saw another car drive into the parking lot, so I figured I'd make my move. I got out of my car, grabbed my portable picnic chair, planted my freezing ass at the main entrance to Target, and waited. I tried to play a little Nintendo DS, but what ended up happening was that my hands would freeze 'cause it was incredibly cold outside, so I chose to keep them in my pockets instead of on the DS.

The driver of the newly arrived car finally came out and sat on the bench next to me. She was a fairly young blonde lady, apparently bundled up nice and tight in many layers of clothing like I was. We began to talk and both of us were surprised at the fact that we were 1st and 2nd in line. She, like me, had assumed there would be a nice line already as she had tried to get the Wii a few times before.

It turns out she had gotten a Wii already for her son. But a friend of theirs wanted one so badly for their daughter that she and her husband gave theirs to their friend and got a PS3 instead. They figured the PS3 would be harder to get and they could get a Wii at any time. And she was pretty bitter about how it turned out that the opposite was true. And now, here she is, waiting in line at 4:00 in the morning in the freezing cold, trying to get a Wii while her lazy husband (her words, not mine) stayed at home and slept.

At one point, a police car drove by and wondered why the heck we were sitting there at 4:00 in the morning. When we tried to explain it was for the Nintendo Wii, the officer just looked at us like we were crazy. He mentioned that she was lucky that she didn't have to sit there alone and drove off, probably thinking we were insane.

Finally, after a little while, more people began to arrive. The lady 2nd in line even said she was a bit angry knowing that she probably could have slept an extra hour and still had been 2nd in line (tell me about it). But sure enough, more people arrived: an older gentleman showed up to be third in line, trying to buy the system for his son. Another guy showed up and landed fourth in line to try and buy one for himself. Another older gentleman showed up to be fifth in line, trying to buy one his daughter. And a girl and her boyfriend arrived to be sixth in line. I saw her and said, "Hi." She laughed and said "Hi" back. We recognized each other from the last time we stood in line at this very Target for the Wii. And more and more people arrived.

As we talked, it was funny to learn so much stuff about each other. 4th guy in line apparently had just come straight from his, I think, 30th birthday party. He said he purposely didn't drink too much just so he could stand in line for the Wii. 5th guy in line turned out to be some conspiracy theorist, telling us about a college classmate who told him about some super secret government stuff and gave him a video tape of evidence. He then told how the classmate, one day, just suddenly disappeared and the video tape was stolen from his car on the same day. 6th in line, the lady I recognized before, waited in line the first time to try and get her boyfriend the Wii for Christmas. Now, she was here with her boyfriend, and they were giving it their best shot together. Both of us commented how we wised up this time, making sure we were really properly bundled up for the cold. And the lady 2nd in line? Turned out she wasn't as bundled as I thought she was: she was 9 months pregnant!! And yet, there she was... standing in line at 4:00 in the morning to get a Wii for her son and her yet to be born daughter (who was to be named Isabella). It was pretty crazy to the rest of us, and we told her that when the store opened up, we would honor her place in line and try our best not to trample over her if there was any ensuing rush.

But all of us agreed on one thing: we were happy to be so early in line. We all felt tired, cold, and what-not, but being able to be stress-free knowing that we were finally gonna get the Wii warmed us up enough and gave us enough energy. It would all be worth it in the end. We just waited until the magic 7:30 time when the managers would come out and finally give us vouchers with our numbers. So we all continued to chat and joke around while the sun began to fill the sky with light. The line had built up to a healthy 30 or so people when, oddly at 6:30, the manager of the Target came out. A little early, no? And then the magic words:

"We have some bad news."

The six of us at the front of the line glanced at each other with disbelief. "We only have 10 Wiis... we only have 10 Wiis," is what I whispered to myself, hoping that, like a puppet, I could make the manager say what I wanted him to say. I mean, hell, I was first in line so I guess "We only have 1 Wii" would have been good enough! But I would prefer not being singled out like that. I mean, even if they had only one Wii, could I really feel good about myself taking it away from a 9-month pregnant lady or a guy on his 30th birthday? But it wouldn't make a difference in the end as the concern was moot:

"We didn't get our shipment," said the manager.

Woa woa woa woa, now. Okay... so lemme get this straight: the one and only store that actually confirmed to me that they were getting Wiis in... didn't get any Wiis. After hearing that news, that was really the last straw for me. I was convinced, now, that I wasn't meant to get a Wii anytime soon.

The crowd wasn't nearly as ready to accept defeat as I was. They were irate. The manager tried to calm the crowd down and told us the reason they came out so early to tell us was because they had the exact number of Wiis that each Target in Southern California were getting. Most of them were only getting about 25. One store was getting 50. But was this information even useful to us? I mean, some of us waited in line since 4:00 in the morning... how were we gonna make it to any of these other Targets in time? One very angry customer yelled at the manager:

"Can't we get a rain check or something for when you finally get them at least? We waited a long time!" "I'm sorry, sir, but we can't do that," said the manager. "Excuse me!" replied the customer. "But I'm a lady, so that should be ma'am!!" she said as she stormed off, leaving the manager a bit embarrassed and issuing an apology that fell on deaf ears. The angry lady wasn't the only one who stormed off, though. 3rd in line grabbed his lawn chair was off like a shot even before the manager finished reading off the amount of Wiis at the other Targets. 2nd in line, the 9-month pregnant lady, said to us all, "Guess I'll try the other Target down here..." and took off really quickly. As the rest of the crowd slowly dispersed, I slowly dragged my feet to my car. But 4th guy in line, the birthday boy, ran up to me.

"How do you get to the Simi Valley Target?" he asked. That store was the one with 50 Wiis. "I'm not sure," I said in a defeated voice. Birthday boy looked desperate. The look on his face wasn't pretty, and I said to him, "Okay, follow me." I figured it was his birthday, so if I go out of my way to help him, it can't really be a bad thing, right? I could at least feel useful, so today wouldn't be a total wash. I took him to my car and I happen to have GPS in my car. I punched in the Simi Valley Target and showed him the directions. "Thanks, man!" said the guy. "So you going?!?" he immediately asked. "Well, I dunno," I replied. "You really think we can make it in time?" "There were about 30-some people here at 6:30," he said. "If the other store has 50, maybe we can get there in time!" I looked at him and figured, well, okay. I mean, if I've already gone this far, why not? "All right," I said. "Let's go!"

So I got in my car and started on my way to the other Target. And I was going fast. I never like to readily admit breaking the law on the freeway, but I was going pretty darn fast. And when I got to the freeway exit, I felt horrible. I gave birthday boy the wrong freeway exit! Was he gonna be able to find it?

Turns out yes: he actually followed me, fast-driving and all! We got to the Target and I noticed the line was fairly long but maybe not impossibly long. So I parked immediately and talked to birthday boy. "Man, I'm glad you followed me..." I said, feeling horrible about having given incorrect directions. "It's all right," he said. "By the way, I'm John," he said with a hand extended. "James," I said as I shook his hand. "Oh, and just between you and me," he said. "I totally would have run over the pregnant lady when the store opened up," he joked.

We got to the line and, lo and behold, 6th in line from the other Target was already there. "There are about 45 people in the line!" she shouted to me as John and I approached. So we jumped in line as quickly as possible. Mayhap there is still a tiny chance of scoring a Wii? At this point, I am about 47th in line. Because it was his birthday, I let John go ahead of me at 46th. And soon after, 5th in line (Mr. Conspiracy Theory) from the previous Target showed up and joins at 48th in line.

The guy in front of us, between John and formerly 6th in line, introduced himself as Araz (apologies to him if I have spelled his name incorrectly). The three of us conversed the entire time in line, wondering if we would finally actually get the Wii. John spent some time in line talking to friends on his cell phone. "You'll never guess where I am right now," he said into his phone. "I'm here, standing in line with my buddy James, trying to get a Wii in Simi Valley!" he said. And he kept referring to me as "Buddy James" for the rest of the day, and I kept calling him "Buddy John." Eventually, John said to a friend on the phone that he and I had just met for the first time earlier in the morning, and Araz surprisingly said, "You guys just met today?" He thought we were long time friends!

At this point, things started to get a bit dire, however. People were cutting into the line! It seemsed as if some people were holding places for their friends or something, and Mr. Conspiracy Theory got really angry. He began to yell at everyone who was walking into the line. "HEY!" he shouted as he left his place in line to berate random strangers. John, Araz, and I all looked at each other rather worryingly. When Mr. Conspiracy Theorist got back into line, he made some comment about how he would make sure no one else cut in line and then proceeded to pull a switch blade out of his pocket and showed it to us!! Now, John, Araz, and I were really worried as we gave each other concerned glances.

Mr. Conspiracy Theorist did what he could, though, without resorting to violence, thank goodness. He got blank paper and a pen from someone and began to try and hand out his own vouchers. No one at the front cared because, well, they obviously were getting their Wiis. So he tried giving those of us towards the back his homemade numbers. Really, though, it seemed pretty pointless. And as more and more people cut into the line, I just knew that I was gonna be left out. Again, my belief that somebody out there just doesn't want me to get a Wii kept creeping into my head. The Target employee who came out to address the queue said that it was only one Wii per household and that you had to be over 18 to get one, but then immediately admitted they weren't gonna enforce any of those rules. And there were rumblings of people earlier in line planning to buy more than one Wii (like a mother and her son) to see if they could sell it on eBay or something. I couldn't believe I went from being comfortably first in line to this!

We all waited as 7:30 rolled around. And waited more until 7:40. "Just give us the vouchers already!" we all shouted. If we weren't gonna get a Wii, we wanted to know now. And finally, at 7:45, the manager came back out and started to hand out the vouchers. "We only have 50," she said. "If you are not buying one, please step out of the line now!" A few people stepped out, including 6th in line (her boyfriend stayed). It was only a few people who left, but maybe... just maybe that was enough.

And sure enough, as the manager approached, Araz was #41, John was #42, and I was #43. A sigh of relief came over us all (and a bunch of groans came from the 30 or so people too far back in line). We would be getting our Wiis! After all that, it somehow felt like justice that we would actually pull it off. Then, from out of nowhere, Araz looked at John and said, "Um... can we switch tickets?" John was puzzled and said, "Sure!" and swapped so that he moved up to 41 and Araz moved back to 42. I looked at Araz and said to him, "You're a Hitchhiker's Guide fan, aren't you?" He smiled and said he was. I just chuckled in response.

So we were all finally let into the Target and we joked how we should all leave at the same time, to allow for safety in numbers in case anyone out there was gonna try and jump us. We even took turns holding each others' places in line so that we could use the restroom. And finally, the moment of truth: I got to the front of the line to pick up my Wii.

The employee brought the box over to me and, horror upon horrors, the corner was completely smashed!! You know, after all I went through, I refused to be shafted with a damaged box, being the collector that I am. "Can I... change that for a different one?" I asked. The employee looked at me, walked away, and came back with an undamaged box. "I completely understand," he said with a smile. "After all I've been through today," I said to him, "I figured I could press my luck just a little!"

So I paid for the Wii and left the Target. Araz got his and tried to keep his voucher ticket but wasn't allowed to. Conspiracy Theorist was getting his as well. I saw 6th in line and said, "Enjoy your Nintendo Wii!" She smiled and she and her boyfriend left with their new prize. Buddy John was outside waiting for me. We walked to our cars and congratulated each other. We shook hands one more time, and then we were off. If it weren't for John, I wouldn't have ever gotten the Wii. And heck, if it weren't for me, he wouldn't have gotten his either.

When I finally completed the long drive home (this Target was twice as far out as the original Target I went to), I got into my front door and my brother glanced at me and asked, "Did you get it?" I held the Wii over my head, Zelda style, and my brother said, "All right! So was it pretty simple this time?"

I rolled my eyes, groaned, and immediately turned and went into my room and said, "I'll tell you all about it after I get some sleep!" My brother laughed with an "Oh no!" and that was the last thing I heard before plopping myself onto my bed and falling asleep. The Wii would have to wait. But as long as the Wii was the thing that had to do the waiting and not me, I knew I could sleep soundly.

Rhythm Games - Part 7: Learnability

2007-03-20T00:55:00.000-07:00

(Previous entries in this series of posts)
Part 1: The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
Part 2: Establishing My Rhythm
Part 3: The Interface of GH2 and EBA
Part 4: Approachability and Learning Curve
Part 5: Song Selection
Part 6: Presentation

One of my best friends (whom I've known since high school) and I spent a good amount of time and effort getting good at Dance Dance Revolution. .. and got good at it we did. And one day, we met up with a bunch of old friends that we hadn't seen for many years. We all decided to goof around the same way we always did way back when we used to hang out: by playing video games. We went to a Dave & Busters and, while there, my good friend and I decided to play some DDR.

And while the two of us weren't super experts at the time, we could pass 9-foot difficulty songs (which were much easier then than they are now, though we've both gotten even better since then, him more than me). One of our old friends, who was always very competitive when it came to gaming and always wanted to be the best at every game, watched us play. When we both passed a difficult song, it was obviously unexpected for our friend. But, thanks to his competitive nature, he quickly dismissed it with a simple, "So how long did it take you to memorize the steps?"

In one fell swoop, our friend tried to discredit any skill the game required. "Memorizing the steps" was all that was needed to be good at DDR, apparently. But my good friend and I shrugged it off because we knew memorization won't get you anywhere in a game like DDR, contrary to what our old friend believed (check out the steps to a difficult DDR song to the right and see if you can memorize that). But... you know? To be truthful, he's probably not the only person to have ever made that assumption. In fact, I have to admit that I wondered it myself. A year or two before that above incident, I watched an expert play. After he finished, I had to find out for myself. I asked him, "So... do you memorize the songs?" There was no other way, in my mind, that the player could have passed the song he did (which was, coincidentally, the same song my friend and I passed at Dave & Busters). And the player told me he did not memorize the steps, and I could hardly believe it myself.

But now that I've played the game so much, I've come to learn that there is indeed very little memorization. No, what actually happens is that you learn to read and process the notes very quickly, almost similar to just being able to speed read a book. And then you also pick up on any essential skills needed to react to the notes in time (as an example in DDR's case, one such skill is proper footwork to maintain your balance). And it is an actual skill, an actual talent, that you learn. In other words, the difficult songs in DDR are not something you can ever pick up and immediately do well on without practice and dedication.

And it is this very facet of rhythm games that I believe is what, at their core, makes rhythm games so much fun. I mean, nobody likes to play easy games -- it's often a complaint from critics when a game is too easy. Obviously, it's the challenge of games that appeal to us. And when we beat hard games, it is very rewarding to the player. And learning how to "beat" a rhythm game is more rewarding than most gaming accomplishments. And that's because you don't end up beating something like a boss or a stage. No, you are actually learning something, and learning that intangible element is the only way to "beat" a rhythm game.

You see, whenever you defeat a tough boss in a game, oftentimes it's a tribute to learning the boss's attacks, memorizing their patterns, finding their weaknesses, and executing properly. And when you defeat it, there is no denying that it took great work and effort to defeat it. But, really, did you have to learn anything to defeat it? If you run into a particularly difficult boss, you can probably go to GameFAQs and find a strategy to beat the boss and defeat it on the first or second try afterwards. But with rhythm games, there is no FAQ that will help you pass a song on Hard Mode in Guitar Hero II. They can give you as much advice as they possibly can, but no matter what you read, no matter what anyone tells you, there's no way to get better at the game than to learn it. And because of that, it feels that much more rewarding the very first time, in Guitar Hero II, you make it through a fairly difficult sequence in a 5-key song where your brain processes the notes correctly and you feel your fingers move perfectly.

And the icing on the cake is that the skill you've learned is your greatest weapon in tackling harder songs and new songs. So unlike what my old friend assumed, memorization isn't required in these games. It's one of the only genre of games where you don't need "prior knowledge" to pass a particularly difficult challenge. If you become the greatest Gran Turismo player in the world, someone can still easily create a track that will throw you for a loop the first time you play it. But if you are the best Guitar Hero player in the world, anything that isn't physically impossible to play can probably be passed convincingly the first time you try it.

I want you to think about this carefully and see if you can realize how crazy this really is. There isn't a need for a learning curve anymore. There is no need for memorizing patterns. There is no need to figure out a "trick" or solve any puzzles. There is no need for playing a song over and over again to "learn" it because you don't learn songs, you learn the game. And what makes it even more compelling is that it's still challenging and fun. If it took you 50 tries to beat a boss in Ninja Gaiden Black, it'll probably take you another 25 tries the next time you try and beat him. But with a rhythm game, if you've finally managed to get through a difficult song after 50 tries, you can probably get through it again on the very next try. You simply can't pass hard songs by catching a friendly pattern or a lucky break. When you pass the song, it means you've learned the skills needed to pass it. And this is the true mark of a good rhythm game. No other gaming genre gives a player this type of "learnability."

And, honestly, this is what makes Guitar Hero I & II so much more popular than other rhythm games. That 5th key is magical, lemme tell you. The leap in difficulty from Normal to Hard Mode is so huge, but the leap in the feeling of reward you get once you learn Hard Mode is just as huge. And it's all thanks to that 5th key. By the time you reach the point where your hand on the frets is blazing up and down without missing a beat, it just feels so good when you play it all correctly.

And it's this aspect, I think, where Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents deserve the biggest negative mark. While Ouendan and EBA are undeniably fun, there is almost nothing to "learn" in the game. It's this element that separates them from other rhythm games. While playing the game a lot does improve your skill in the game, it doesn't have that same impact as, say, Guitar Hero II. If we go back to my Gran Turismo analogy from before, Ouendan and EBA suffer the same problems. It's very easy to create a sequence in Ouendan/EBA that can trip up even the most veteran players. So, like Gran Turismo, Ouendan and EBA require a level of memorization to pass new stages, especially in Insane mode where the notes appear only a fraction of a second before you need to tap them. This makes Sliders much more difficult to deal with, as they look just like regular tap circles until the right before you need to hold the stylus down and start dragging. So oftentimes, in Insane mode, I would tap my stylus down and realize a little too late that it was a Slider, and lose some valuable health as a result. Only after playing the stage a few times through and memorizing where the Sliders come from can I get to a point where I can pass the stage effectively.

I believe learnability is a very important factor of rhythm games. But there are definitely many rhythm games out there that are extremely enjoyable despite missing that element. Ouendan is a perfect example of this, as is a hidden gem of a game called Rhythm Tengoku (if you are a fan of importing games, make sure you pick this up for the Gameboy Advance). But as they stand they definitely do not fall into that category of pure rhythm games.

Regardless, it's hard to deny how enjoyable rhythm games are, and it's a genre that definitely should not be overlooked by most gamers, particularly if your excuse is that you are embarrassed to look foolish while playing or that you are afraid there is no chance you can become good at the game. My good friend that I mentioned earlier spent the first day he ever played DDR with severe coordination problems with the game. But it's a testament to how fun and how learnable rhythm games are that my friend was able to become such an expert at DDR. Learn from my friend: don't shortchange yourself when it comes to rhythm games.

And I leave you with an old comic from "For Better or For Worse" by Lynn Johnston (click on the pic below to increase its size), simply because I was very amused when I first saw this comic. It really does convey how much fun rhythm games are for just about anybody.

Rhythm Games - Part 6: Presentation

2007-02-24T16:19:00.000-08:00

(Previous entries in this series of posts)
Part 1: The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
Part 2: Establishing My Rhythm
Part 3: The Interface of GH2 and EBA
Part 4: Approachability and Learning Curve
Part 5: Song Selection

Presentation is everything that isn't gameplay. Obviously, gameplay should be king: regardless of presentation, if a game is good, it's good, right? While this may be true, presentation can add just what is needed to a game to take it from good to classic. And, if presentation is poor, it can actually take a good game and render it unplayable. (As a side note, I could write a whole series of articles on this concept, particularly pertaining to the "Graphics Don't Matter" mantra Nintendo has been bandying about. But we'll save this for another time, maybe.)

Take Guitar Hero, for instance. I already talked about one reason why GuitarFreaks wouldn't have worked in America: song selection. Well, the other reason it wouldn't have succeeded where Guitar Hero did is the presentation. You can't blame GuitarFreaks for what it did presentation-wise... it followed much of the same design and style as its Bemani brethren: Dance Dance Revolution, BeatMania, DrumMania, etc. However, as a standalone game -- particularly a guitar simulation game -- there is nothing about it that makes it particularly appealing to guitar players or wanna-be guitar players. It's rather bland and generic. That's just another way Guitar Hero got it right. From the speakers that go to 11 and "tips" for rockers during the loading screens to the writing on bathroom walls to sign your initials for high scores to the basements and underground rock club venues where you play your music to the notebook sketches in the song selection menu to the exploding drummers at the end of songs, it all properly immerses you into the life and the mindset of a rising rock star. And it's that presentation that helps make it click with players.

And that's all I will say about Guitar Hero, because I need as much space as possible to discuss Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! vs. Elite Beat Agents. Presentation is largely one of the main reasons why I cannot find myself enjoying one game over the other. But whereas Guitar Hero's presentation obviously appeals to its audience more than GuitarFreaks, it's tough to say whether Ouendan or EBA has a presentation that is more appealing to its target audience. Just like song selection, the presentation of either game may have a stronger appeal to any given person.

However, it is very apparent that the presentations are different for a reason. Ouendan was created specifically for a Japanese audience. Nintendo, I'm sure, believed that Ouendan, as it stood, would not have appealed to American audiences because of the differences in ideals and beliefs -- let alone the fact that the concept of male cheerleaders would seem laughable to those in the U.S. Thus, when Nintendo asked iNiS, creators of both games, to make an American version of Ouendan, they must have specifically told iNiS to construct the game explicitly so that it appealed to American audiences. But this is a foreign company making a game that they think fits the American mind set more. But honestly... do they know how to do that? And as it turns out, Elite Beat Agents becomes more of an interesting case study on what Japanese developers actually think of America.

The ideals of the games have changed drastically. Ouendan largely focuses on the underdog rising to the challenge to succeed. Its characters are mostly your everyday fellow, with little or no extraordinary talents or circumstances. Elite Beat Agents, on the other hand, is largely about fame and fortune. Its characters are usually already in a position of success, and their stories are about how they are taken away from it and then make their way back. And the subject matter is very much the corny version of what America is all about: baseball, football, babysitting, movies, man's best friend, and (as mentioned before) fame-and-fortune. I mean, let's compare storylines.

Elite Beat Agents: Ladies-man Leo(nardo Da Vinci) is a famous painter and ladies man who could have any woman he wants. But he runs into Mona (Lisa), whom he truly falls for, but his affection is rejected. He, with the help of the Elite Beat Agents, tries to the best of his ability to win her over and, in the end, succeeds.

Ouendan: A young, portly boy likes a girl, but he can't compare with the studly, athletic kid in school. After screaming for Ouendan, the Ouendan trio show up to spur him to success in a dodge ball match against aforementioned studly kid, impressing the girl (much to the dismay of her friend) and winning her affection.

Elite Beat Agents: Former baseball star Hulk doesn't quite have what he used to, as his career has gone down the toilet. But when a child who is his biggest fan is attacked by a giant rock monster at the amusement park, he recalls all of his old skills to defeat the monster and save the child and regains the confidence to resurrect his career.

Ouendan: Business man discovers that his city is being attacked by a giant... mouse. When the mouse threatens to hurt an innocent lady, the business man rushes to her rescue on his scooter and... grows to gigantic size to properly defeat the mouse in hand-to-hand combat. The girl tries to thank him, but he has already left to finish his journey home. He needs no reward.

Elite Beat Agents: Oil tycoon Colonel has his oil fields dry up on him, and his wife's exorbitant spending has caused him to go bankrupt. When she angrily kicks him out of the house (which is conveniently under her name and, somehow, she still owns) because he can no longer provide her with money, he goes and, thanks to the Elite Beat Agents, amasses himself a second fortune. Having regained his wealth, he gets back his with wife and the two live richly ever after.

Ouendan: Local restaurant owner just can't get any business nor any luck. Finally, when his only customer is a cat that relieves himself in his restaurant, the Ouendan team, already there (and appalled at the menu), decide to help him turn his restaurant from a wasteland to a thriving business, as well as helping turn the cat from defiler into a pet Lucky Cat.

Elite Beat Agents: Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie have nothing on the Carrington Sisters. Blonde, beautiful, and famous, everyone loves the siblings. But when an accident strands them on a deserted island, they must rely on their beauty, sexiness, and bouncing bosoms to seduce the local wildlife to help them survive until help finds them and returns them back to their lifestyle of riches and fame.

Ouendan: Secretary is overworked. Not only that, but she's at the bottom of the office ladder. Which means that the office manager will never notice her and ask her out to the office dance, especially when her three coworkers pile work onto her, making sure she can't make it to the dance and keeping the studly manager to themselves. But their plans backfire, and when she finishes all the work, the manager is so impressed that he asks our Cinderella to the ball.

And so on and so forth. Though there are some examples of people achieving fame in Ouendan and examples of underdogs winning in Elite Beat Agents, the general themes and mood are obviously very different. What I think iNiS failed to realize, however, is that America is barely different than Japan. They should remember that America is where Buster Keaton, Charlie Brown, and Peter Parker come from. We love our underdogs. So I'm not sure why the focus became so materialistic when they shifted to make the American game. We have ninja sons trying to rescue his father's successful business secrets instead of a teacher trying to win his class's respect. We have movie directors trying to make a hit movie instead of a horse trying to catch a thief. And I think it's something that makes the storylines not work for me. I've always connected more with underdog tales, and the stories in EBA feel less genuine because they don't feel as human anymore. It's just a manufactured version of what iNiS thought Americans would like.

Also, a lot of Ouendan's humor gets lost by the transition as well. Every story follows the same arc in both games. In Ouendan, a character gets presented with an overwhelming situation. They became angry, cry out "OUENDAN!!!" and, the majority of the time, Ouendan is already there, ready to help. They inspire the hapless victim with their cheering so that the victim goes into a fiery rage, complete with flames in their eyes and fire in the background. In EBA, a character gets presented with an overwhelming situation, to which they cry "HELP!!!" A man at a giant computer sees them and sends out his agents to rescue them. The agents arrive via all sorts of random transportation methods, and they inspire the hapless victims by getting them to wave their hands in the air (like they just don't care) with their singing.

Ouendan and EBA thrive on their humor. It's one of the things that makes them stand out. Though it is just be a matter of opinion, I just do not find EBA's setups as funny. For example, in the story in Ouendan where the teacher cannot get his class at the all-girls school to listen to him, he cries out for Ouendan. And where are they? They've been at the desks in the classroom of the all-girls school this whole time. When the restaurant owner screams for Ouendan, they are already customers in the restaurant, looking at the menu. It's one of my favorite running gags from the game. On top of that, the people who are in trouble yell for Ouendan. It's like somehow these people in trouble know that if they yell for this mythical cheerleading squad, they will arrive to help them achieve victory. I mean, they literally yell "Ouendan!!" Who would ever cry out such a thing in actual situations like these? The whole thing is so ludicrous and far-fetched that you just can't help but laugh.

Meanwhile, in EBA, you have "big brother" watching, who sends out his agents to aid people who yell out "HELP!", a cry that some people may actually yell out in real life. And then the agents arrive by car or jet pack or boat or whatever works. And, I dunno... I don't find any humor in that. And because everyone big brother helps seems to already be somewhat important, you get the feeling that the plights in Ouendan wouldn't even be good enough for big brother to send his agents out to.

And you know what? I love the fiery rage. It's my absolute favorite presentation factor of Ouendan. The fiery rage gets me every time. The arms waving thing in EBA? It just doesn't work for me. Not when compared to fiery rage. Pardon my netspeak, but fiery rage owns all.

So when all put together, the presentation of EBA just doesn't click together for me. It feels too calculated, too aware of trying to appeal to a certain culture rather than appealing to human nature. In that way, it loses a lot of warmth to me. And so even though EBA has a few improved gameplay elements that is missing from Ouendan, they can't outweigh the mental connection I get with Ouendan. I enjoyed watching the secretary get to the dance with her manager every time, which made me not mind playing the stage over and over again. I did not enjoy (and in fact was actually kind of appalled by) the fact that oil tycoon gets back with his wife instead of kicking her out instead. My drive to keep playing EBA just wasn't there.

The true test has yet to come. Ouendan 2 has been announced for Japan. If it comes out, and I get sucked into it as much as I did with the first one, then I can honestly say that presentation is what killed EBA for me. I still have the sneaking suspicion that EBA was less appealing solely because I burned myself out on Ouendan, but I don't think that's the main cause. I really do believe that there is something about the presentation that just didn't work for me in EBA.

And I just really missed the fiery rage.

Next up: Learnability

Rhythm Games - Part 5: Song Selection

2007-02-04T15:44:00.000-08:00

(Previous entries in this series of posts)
Part 1: The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
Part 2: Establishing My Rhythm
Part 3: The Interface of GH2 and EBA
Part 4: Approachability and Learning Curve

So far, we've talked about a ton of factors that may affect the quality of a Rhythm Game. One of the hardest things about Rhythm Games, however, is that regardless of how good your interface is, regardless of how approchable your game is, regardless of how fun your game is, people still may not play your game at all even after being properly exposed to the game. Why, you ask? Well, here is my advice for all those making their own Rhythm Game: never underestimate the power of song selection.

There are so many factors to consider regarding song selection. The first factor is the obvious: if you do not pick songs that are appealing to the players, they will not want to play the game. This is the main reason why I believe Konami's GuitarFreaks would not have succeeded had it been released in America before Red Octane's Guitar Hero. When you play a guitar simulation game, you will want to play some hardcore rock songs with intricate guitar solos or strong guitar-based melodies. In particular, you will want to play songs you already know and love. Everyone of us have air guitared alongside one of our favorite guitar songs even though we don't know how to play the guitar, admit it. Thus, there's no way GuitarFreaks would have succeeded in America: there are very few actual solid guitar songs in it, and the ones that may qualify as an excellent guitar song are songs that you've never really ever heard before (GuitarFreaks utilizes mostly original songs, remixes, and lesser-known music). Had GuitarFreaks been released in America with the same controller and presentation as Guitar Hero, players would not have connected with it due to the fact that the songs would not have appealed to them.

Another factor of song selection is just making sure the songs you choose are fun. I mentioned in the last post that the majority of my friends got hooked on Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix, but very few of them played any versions beyond that. One of the main reasons for this is that the song selection was fun in 3rd Mix. There was a greater variety of musical genres with a broader appeal, which allowed for a wider variety of players to grow attached to different songs. The later DDR games have streamlined their music mostly into trance, rave, techno, and J-Pop. This has definitely alienated many of the non-dedicated DDR players. (As a side note, however, the American releases of DDR seem to be attempting a wider variety of popular music genres.)

The first Guitar Hero succeeded in this area: the songs appealed to a wide variety of music fans. And more importantly, the songs were fun. And this is why the direction Guitar Hero II is taking worries me: I do not believe the songs in Guitar Hero II are as fun as the songs in the first game. In fact, it seems that some songs were chosen specifically to increase difficulty, without taking into account how fun and enjoyable the songs are.

This trend happened with DDR as well. The latest DDR games seemed to choose songs based on their potential to create difficult steps rather than just finding fun songs and applying hard steps to them. That made it much harder for novice players to get into the later DDR games, which is why I believe DDR has more of a cult status these days than it did before. Guitar Hero II still hasn't quite gotten to the level of later DDR games... you have to remember that it took DDR a few iterarions to have this problem really manifest itself. But each successive DDR game showed that trend more and more and now has reached the point where I do not believe DDR is as accessible to newbies anymore. And that's the concern I have for Guitar Hero. If Guitar Hero II is already showing a slight migration to having songs more geared to being difficult rather than fun, I can envision that by the time we reach Guitar Hero V, the game might just end up filled with really obscure guitar songs that will appeal to Guitar Hero enthusiasts only. The ability to attract new players will have all but vanished.

Finally, Guitar Hero's music was great because it was popular hits that we know and love. And I have to say: the cover band they got to do the songs in Guitar Hero was amazing. Their ability to mimic the songs was nearly flawless. But I don't think the cover work was done as well in Guitar Hero II. While most of the songs were covered well, some key ones aren't. I was very much looking forward to playing Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box" and Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name," but those two covers are probably two of the weakest covers in the game. I mean, if you are going to sing a Kurt Cobain or Zack De La Rocha song, you should definitely make damn sure you sound as much like them as possible. In those two particular cases, it didn't even sound like they really tried.

So by now it's probably pretty obvious that I love Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! and do not share the same feelings toward Elite Beat Agents. And since this section is about song selection, I'm sure it's pretty easy to assume that one of the main reasons I like Ouendan more than EBA is that I feel the song selection in Ouendan is better than the song selection in EBA.

Well, this is only partially true. I'll be ready to admit that the soundtrack of Ouendan is by far more appealing to me. Since becoming obsessed with Ouendan, I've managed to collect the soundtrack for the game and have listened to the songs repeatedly, particularly at work. I have them on infinite play and sometimes listen to them all two to three times in one day, as listening to the music actually helps inspire me to do better work (which is really funny, considering what the plot of Ouendan is). The music in EBA just doesn't appeal to me as much. I've just never really been into Ashlee Simpson or Avril Lavinge, for example.

But to say that the song selection of Ouendan is better than the song selection of EBA would be incorrect. The appeal of Ouendan's music for me may be simply what Dreek Daniels refers to as "the love affair with Japan." I admit that I love the music mostly because it is "wacky" to me. It is different than most of the music I normally listen to. The music of EBA has far less appeal to me because much of it is typical American pop music. And it's not that I necessarily hate typical American pop, it's just that it's not new to me, so it doesn't stand out to me as something exceptional. The music in Ouendan, for me, is exceptional.

But that's because I'm from America. What about those from Japan? I've heard that one of my favorite songs from Ouendan, "Koi No Dance Site" by Morning Musume, is largely regarded in the same way by the Japanese that any song by Ashlee Simpson is regarded by Americans. In fact, it has been said that the Japanese reacted to Ouendan's entire song list in much the same way many Americans reacted to EBA's song list... that is to say, not positively.

So as a result, I can't definiteively say one song list is better than the other. So I can't really draw any conclusions as to which game is better because of their song lists. However, the one conclusion I can come to is that song selection can be the single, deciding factor on how a game is received, as I hinted earlier. It is a great indication of how powerful song selection can be when, even though the gameplay between Ouendan and EBA are identical in every way, my enjoyment of the two games are not equal. Song selection is a huge factor for this (there is one more factor, which will be covered in the next post). I simply do not enjoy the music in EBA as much as I enjoyed the music in Ouendan, and it has hampered my continued play of EBA.

(One thing that must be stated, just to be fair to EBA: one outside factor that may have contributed to my less than warm reception to EBA could easily be that I OD'ed on Ouendan. I mean, I was Obsessed with a capital "O." I played that game so obsessively that I got myself an S ranking on every song for Medium, Hard, and Insane difficulty levels. By the time I began playing EBA, I was probably "Ouendan'ed out" and couldn't get into EBA, especially since I had to play the easier difficulties first to even unlock the harder levels.)

So my advice to would-be Rhythm Game makers still remains the same. When you pick your songs, make sure you know your audience, give them music they like, have enough songs that stray from your core audience to attract new players, make sure the songs are fun, and make sure they fit your game's interface. Guitar Hero succeeded in America where GuitarFreaks would have failed thanks to song selection. My reception to EBA turned out to be very muted merely because of song selection. I said it once, I'll say it again: never underestimate the power of the song selection.

Next up: Presentation

(Note: Edited to change the "Next up" post, as I keep shuffling the order around based on my mood. I actually want to discuss presentation before hitting Learnability now.)

Rhythm Games - Part 4: Approachability and Learning Curve

2007-01-19T01:44:00.000-08:00

(Previous entries in this series of posts)
Part 1: The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
Part 2: Establishing My Rhythm
Part 3: The Interface of GH2 and EBA

One of the hardest things about rhythm games is that they are typically intimidating. Most people who see someone play Guitar Hero (who are not typical gamers) seem scared to give the game a shot. Another tough thing to deal with regarding rhythm games is that the difference in difficulty from beginner levels to expert levels is usually staggering. The songs rated 1-star in Dance Dance Revolution, for example, are so far removed from the 10-star Dance Dance Revolution song that it's almost like playing a whole different game. That even further adds to the intimidation factor for casual viewers: when someone good plays in front of someone who has never seen the game before, it looks all the more impossible to learn.

This is one of the biggest obstacles in designing a good rhythm game: how do you make sure your game is approachable? And even if you can get people to play it, can you adjust the learning curve well enough that the average, non-rhythm-games-playing player can pick up the game and become better and better through inherent, casual playing? You don't want to force people to dedicate their whole life to the game in order to learn it. Approachability and learning curve are the two most important aspects of making sure your rhythm game can be a success, aspects that creators unfortunately seem to forget about after time.

Guitar Hero II is approachable, that part is covered. It gets high marks for being intuitive and easily understood. Though it can be intimidating upon first viewing, I can't imagine a soul on the planet that hasn't wished at some point in their life that they knew how to play a guitar. Thus, the draw to actually give Guitar Hero a shot is huge. Though players may not be good at the game at all when they first try it, the concept of what they are supposed to do (hold the appropriate keys down and strum at the right time) is something everyone can pick up almost instantaneously. So, yeah: Guitar Hero II equals intuitive... yes. Check. Now how about learning curve? How are we doing there? Hmmm... Apparently not so good. As it turns out, Guitar Hero II has one of the worst learning curves in rhythm game history, mostly due to two flaws.

The first flaw, shared by its predecessor, is that Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II have two distinct skills to be learned in order to master the hardest songs. The first skill is fingering: learning how to hold chords, learning how to do hammer-ons and pull-offs, and learning how to play guitar solos. The second skill is learning how to play with 3 keys, 4 keys, and finally, with the biggest jump in difficulty, 5 keys. And, sadly, you cannot learn either skill independently of each other.

The problem is that the difficulty levels in Guitar Heros I and II determine the difficulty of both aspects. Hard Mode, in other words, is tough on fingering and on learning how to play with 5 keys. If you want to find a song that you can learn how to effectively use hammer-ons and pull-offs in fast guitar solos without necessarily trying to learn how to play with 5 keys, you won't be able to do so easily. If you want to learn how to adjust to having a 5th key but don't necessarily want to suffer through insane guitar solos or playing a bunch of chords in rapid succession, you won't be able to do that either.

And then there's the second flaw, exclusive to Guitar Hero II alone: they really did not take enough care to make the songs progressive in difficulty. Think back to the first Guitar Hero. On Hard difficulty level, the first two songs you run into are "I Love Rock N' Roll" and "I Wanna Be Sedated." The first song, if I recall correctly, didn't even use the fifth fret. The second song used it only in a key transition, where you shifted your hand down and it stayed there. These were excellent ways to ease you into playing with all 5 keys. In Guitar Hero II, however, the first song on Hard is "Shout at the Devil." But unlike the first game, "Shout at the Devil" turns out to be one of the tougher songs on Hard Mode! In fact, I only had a tougher time passing 2 of the next 19 songs! What happened to easing players into Hard Mode?

The problem is that Guitar Hero II is suffering from "Rhythm Game Sequelitis." They know people loved the first game, they know people got really good at the first game, so they figured that they need to amp up the difficulty so that veteran players will find it worth their time to buy. The problem is that you begin to alienate the novices. No game is a better example of this than Dance Dance Revolution. I've been playing the most recent release, Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova, and songs rated an 8 in difficulty in that game are harder than almost every 9 in the older Dance Dance Revolutiuon games. And quite frankly, as a result, the game just isn't as fun anymore!

Back when I played Dance Dance Revolution obsessively, I managed to get a ton of my friends hooked on the game. And they all got hooked on 3rd Mix. Every time I got new mixes, I tried to get my friends to move onto those, but they continually wanted to stay on 3rd Mix. And I understand why: 3rd Mix is just fun. The hard steps are hard, yes, but in a way that is enjoyable (except for "End of the Century..." grrrrrrr....). Even in DDRMax2 -- not that many iterations ago -- songs like "So Deep" were tough, but in a way that it made sense with the music and in a way that was still very fun. As I play the steps in SuperNova, I realize that most of the steps are just erratic, written specifically for the sole purpose of being hard.

Guitar Hero, as a franchise, is still in its infancy. I do not want to see it fall into the same traps as Dance Dance Revolution. Hopefully, Neversoft (who apparently bought the Guitar Hero name just recently) will avoid this pitfall. I mean, they already have an "Expert" difficulty for veterans. Leave Hard Mode as a way for novices to acclimate themselves to the more advanced aspects of the game.

And, more importantly, take a page from BeatMania IIDX. Beatmania IIDX has two modes: 5 keys and 7 keys. But each mode has their own set of difficulty levels. Do the same thing with Guitar Hero, please. Have an Easy Mode (basic strumming and key reading), Medium Mode (more chords and plenty of simple hammer-ons and pull-offs), and Hard Mode (crazy guitar solos and fast-paced note playing) for 3, 4, and 5 keys. And save the Expert difficulty level only for 5 keys. This allows for players to learn at a more controlled pace, being able to focus their practice on the particular areas they need work on.

Fortunately, Guitar Hero II added two things to really aid in the learning of the game: Training Mode and Cooperative Mode. If you want to learn how to play with 5 frets, but Hard Mode is kicking your ass, do yourself a favor: play only Bass tracks on Hard Mode for a while. Do so in Training Mode or, better yet, find a buddy to play Cooperative Mode with (Cooperative Mode being the best thing about Guitar Hero II).

By the way: none of these problems apply to Elite Beat Agents. The game is about as intuitive as you can get. Only the most uncoordinated people will have a hard time understanding how to play EBA when they first try it out. It's definitely not as approachable as Guitar Hero (at first glance, it doesn't look quite as fun even though it is), and as a result, it has very little chance of becoming a breakout hit like Guitar Hero.

As for the learning curve, this game does a great job of that. Well, again, I believe Elite Beat Agents does a good job of it, if it is similar enough to Ouendan. I've played all the way through Ouendan, but have not gotten far at all in Elite Beat Agents (the gloves will be off in a future post, you can trust me on that one). So in Oeundan, the early songs in each level of difficulty are much simpler than the later songs. And as the difficulty level increases, you never feel a drastic jump in difficulty, making the slow progression from Easy Mode to Insane Mode feel completely natural.

In fact, the only thing that makes Insane Mode harder than Hard Mode is something completely fabricated. It has nothing to do with making the notes harder to tap out. If you observe carefully, each difficulty level has the notes you tap appear later and later. So in Easy Mode, you see the note on screen for a day and a half before you actually need to tap it. Then, suddenly, in Insane Mode, the notes appear a fraction of a second before you need to tap it. It definitely makes the songs a lot harder, but it's still a fabricated difficulty. The parallel in Guitar Hero would be if they decided to scroll the notes down faster and faster with each difficulty level.

But the amount of notes to be played and the more syncopated rhythms that get used do make the harder levels more challenging, but it never subtracts from the fun of the game. I must say that the group that made the game, iNiS, did a fantastic job of making sure the learning curve was perfect. As I progressed through the game, it never felt like the next step was a huge leap over the previous one. And last helped keep me addicted enough to play through Ouendan from start to finish.

Next up: Song Selection

(Note: A few people may be thinking to themselves: how is this a review of Elite Beat Agents when all he does is talk about Ouendan instead? As I hinted at, don't worry, I'll address this topic head-on in a future post. And the fact that I can only talk about Ouendan probably is a good indication of where I stand with Elite Beat Agents currently.)

Intermission: I'm Ready to Go!!

2007-01-17T21:34:00.000-08:00

To hold you over until the next post in the Rhythm Games series, I figured I'd put up this picture that a few of you might find entertaining:

As you can see, I've managed to procure everything imageinable one could ever need to play the Wii... except for the Wii itself! I've got two extra Wiimotes, an extra nunchuck attachment (Nintendo's online store shipped one to me sans packaging!), component cables, rechargable batteries (and backups), an SD memory card, and Zelda: Twilight Princess.

I hope this weekend brings me good fortune in my quest to complete the above picture. Oh, and the next part of the Rhythm Games series should be up in a day or two.

Thanks for your continued checking of my blog!

Rhythm Games - Part 3: The Interface of GH2 and EBA

2007-01-08T01:44:00.000-08:00

(Previous entries in this series of posts)
Part 1: The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
Part 2: Establishing My Rhythm

Guitar Hero II is a hit. Reports say that it is the 3rd best selling game of 2006, something I would have never expected. The first game sold very well as well, but did not garner the same sort of attention that Guitar Hero II has been given by the media. The critical praise the second installment has received is astounding. And anyone who has ever touched a Red Octane guitar marvels at how intuitive the gameplay is and how much fun it is.

But of course, this all brings up the question of why Konami didn't decide to put out GuitarFreaks in America. Were they afraid it wouldn't have succeeded? Did they make a huge mistake in letting Red Octane steal their thunder? I mean, after all, they made up the game first, right? Red Octane basically stole Konami's idea and made their own version of it. The only thing different about the gameplay is two extra buttons and a whammy bar. But otherwise, it is the exact same interface: hold the appropriate fret buttons down and then strum on the "strings" switch with proper timing. Did Red Octane pull a fast one here?

A few people have reacted negatively to the praise heaped upon the original Guitar Hero. Yes, I too originally felt a bit bitter at those who treated Guitar Hero as some sort of revolutionary game. I had known about GuitarFreaks for a long time already and it seemed silly to me that people talked about Guitar Hero as if it was the first of its kind. In a way, I was a bit resistant to Guitar Hero for this reason. But I finally caved in (and just relaxed a bit) and gave it a real shot, particularly when Guitar Hero II was released.

While it is debatable whether or not Red Octane stole the idea of the guitar controller from GuitarFreaks, I vehemently believe, after playing Guitar Hero II extensively, that GuitarFreaks would not have succeeded at all in America if it were released here before Guitar Hero (and this isn't even taking into account that the home console controller made for GuitarFreaks in Japan borders on pathetic... it's more like playing UkeleleFreaks). There are several factors that contribute to my belief and as I proceed through each of the five areas that make a great rhythm game -- Interface, Approachability, Song Selection, Learnability, and Presentation -- I will discuss each of these factors. But first thing's first: the interface.

So what's the interface difference between GuitarFreaks and Guitar Hero? Again, just two more buttons and a whammy bar. Is that enough of a difference to make one game a bust and the other a hugely popular breakout hit? It may seem like a subtle thing, but adding two buttons made the world of a difference. One button wouldn't have even cut it. It had to be two.

The reason is that it adds one extra layer of complexity. See, with just three keys (as the original GuitarFreaks had) or four keys, the player is allowed to keep their hand stagnant while managing the "frets." Thus, to learn to pass the difficult songs, all you would need to do is gain the proper reactions to read and press the necessary button combinations. There is little movement. I know it's an exaggeration to say this, but think of playing Dance Dance Revolution with only two arrows, so you never had to move your feet much.

By adding a fifth key, a whole new skill is added. Now, you cannot keep your hand in one place. You cannot "assign" a finger to a button and grow comfortable with it. Because you only have 4 fingers and 5 buttons, now you are forced to learn to keep in mind whether your hands are in the upper position (fingers on buttons 1 through 4) or the lower position (fingers on buttons 2 through 5).

So why is this such a big deal? Sounds like this added difficulty might actually make the game more frustrating. Wouldn't it be more fun without this extraneous complication? Well, anyone who's ever seen a guitar being played knows that no one keeps their hands steady when playing a guitar. So by forcing players to shift their hands up and down from time to time, there's something that just feels more authentic about it. As a "guitar simulation" game, there is definitely more of a simulation here.

Also, it adds a similar level of intimidation that actual guitars have. You've read comments like the one by an anonymous reader in the first post of my Rhythm Games series: why not put down the controller and pick up a real guitar? I truly believe that no one would have ever said that about GuitarFreaks. But just because of that fifth button, it's not shocking at all to hear comment aimed at Guitar Hero because it now has a perceived necessary "talent" that one must possess to play the hardest difficulty. And this adds a level of credibility to the game.

And speaking from experience, once you learn how to play with that fifth button, there's nothing quite like it (outside of playing a real guitar). Anyone who can play Hard Mode well with all 5 buttons can easily tell you how exhilarating and fun it is. It makes you feel good... it really does. When you hammer out a particularly difficult sequence while shifting your hand up and down flying through all 5 buttons and manage to combo the whole section, it's a gaming high unlike any other. With only three or four buttons, it feels almost rudimentary. But when your hand is jumping up and down, it's fantastic.

It may not have seemed like that important of a decision, and it might have been something argued over by the creators when first designing the game, but Red Octane made an extremely wise and keen decision to really amp up the difficulty by adding that fifth button. Playing the actual guitar is such a revered talent because everyone who can't play a guitar believes that it is one of the most difficult tasks one can partake to learn. And the fifth button makes a game version of that same revered talent.

This of course is all contrasted by a game like Elite Beat Agents. Whereas Guitar Hero's appeal is solely based on its perceived difficulty (but surpringly intuitive interface), Elite Beat Agents' appeal is derived mostly from its simplicity. There is no skill to learn in this game. You look at the DS touch screen and literally tap circles in numeric order with your stylus with the right timing. Nothing could possibly sound more mundane.

But it isn't mundane. It's actually one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played on the DS (well, to be fair, I got hooked on Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, the original Japanese version of the game. So I'll be referring to Ouendan rather than EBA since both games do have the exact same interface, and because EBA actually hasn't quite managed to acheive the same level of addiction from me, but I'll discuss that more in detail in future posts). So how did they manage to make something that sounds so boring so much fun?

The reason why this interface works so well is simply because we've never had this type of interaction before. With buttons, you can only have a one to one matching rhythm game. But with a touch screen, you have such an analog interface that a circle to tap can appear anywhere opnscreen. This removed a huge restriction that all other Rhythm Games have. We've never had this type of freedom before. Okay, maybe we did with PDAs, but no one was smart enough to use touch screens for hardcore gaming until Ouendan was born.

All right, I'm calling it out right now: Ouendan is a nothing more than a light gun game. Things pop up on the screen and you are told to "shoot" it. Aren't we just playing Point Blank or Virtua Cop? Light gun games have always been a lot of fun, so is that why Ouendan is fun?

Like a fifth button being added to the guitar controller, Ouendan's secret is not that it is a light gun game, but a supremely accurate, easy hand-eye coordination light gun game. The challenge of a light gun game is that it's actually hard to aim for things. But have we ever played a light gun game where hitting the targets is a foregone conclusion? So with that difficulty removed, how can we keep it challenging and fun? Easy: by making the hardest light gun game you canpossibly imagine.

In most light gun games, you just have to shoot a target before you are shot first or before the target disappears or something. It doesn't matter when you shoot it as long as you do so before your time expires. In Ouendan, not only must you "shoot" the target, but now you have to shoot it with a specific timing. And we're not gonna throw two ducks on the screen for you to deal with. On the hardest difficulty levels in Ouendan, there are times where there are 20 targets you must hit within the span of 5 seconds. But this isn't a problem because of the complete simplicity of the touch screen + stylus interface. So rather than making it hard due to aiming issues, you just have to deal with timing and quantity now.

And then slap on top of that the part that is pure genius: set it all to music. That makes the tapping of the stylus automatically intuitive. And the designers also had another stroke of genius by making sure the targets to tap came out in logical patterns. I'll get into this a lot more in a future post, but the thing to note that is relevant to this topic is that the lack of randomness makes the target tapping very appealing and addictive, and allows you to get into a real zone. And, as hinted at before in my initial post, nothing helps you get into a zone better than music.

So what was it that I said before? You look at the DS touch screen and literally tap circles in numeric order with your stylus with the right timing. Nothing could possibly sound more mundane. And in truth, this game could have been as boring as watching paint dry. But because they realized the strengths of their interface, they were able to create something insanely enjoyable. And, more importantly, something that could not exist on any other medium.

Next up: Approachability

(Note: Edited the first paragraph a bit to give more accurate numbers and information regarding the sales of Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II.)

Rhythm Games - Part 2: Establishing My Rhythm

2007-01-05T00:47:00.000-08:00

Originally, I was going to review just Guitar Hero II and follow up with a review of Elite Beat Agents. But while thinking about exactly what I wanted to say, I realized that this wasn't the proper way to go about reviewing these games at all. Why? Because there's just too much history to go over regarding both games. I can't really review Guitar Hero II without talking heavily about GuitarFreaks and the original Guitar Hero. I can't review Elite Beat Agents without also reviewing it's predecessor, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!

So originally what you were supposed to see was two articles that reviewed each game across five criteria for what I believe makes a great rhythm game. The list of criteria is as follows:

1) Interface: Rhythm games are synonymous with gimmicky controls. From the bongos of Donkey Konga to the maracas of Samba de Amigo, rhythm games have all sorts of odd interfaces. And some are definitely better than others. So a lot of what makes a good rhythm game comes from how good their interface is.

2) Song Selection: This is a bug "DUH." If the music sucks in a rhythm game, no matter how fun the game is, you won't want to play it. Also, the song selection needs to fit your theme well, if you have one (don't pick classical music for DrumMania, for example).

3) Approachability / Difficulty Progession: These are two things, but very closely related. It all refers to how easy it is to learn the game. Is it easy to pick up? Once you are hooked, how easy is it to get good at the game? Does the game do a good job of progressing you through the skills you need to learn?

4) Learnability: As I hinted at with my last post, many rhythm games are so much fun because, once you've played them a lot, you actually "learn" the skill needed to play it... so much to the point that you can play new songs that you've never played before and still do well. Get as good as you want in Gradius... the next Gradius comes around and you'll still get mopped up by the new levels. But once you become good at Dance Dance Revolution, you're ready to start with the hardest difficulty on the next revision from the get go.

5) Presentation: This is all the stuff separate from the actual gameplay. This involves the extraneous things: menu displays, stories (if applicable), etc. While not hugely important to the gameplay, it can affect how good the game is. And once I get into full swing with my reviews, you'll see where this can really make a difference.

I came to the realization that, for each of these criteria, I have a lot to say about both Guitar Hero II and Elite Beat Agents. So one article covering all 5 areas for one game will be a long, long, long post. And the longer the article takes to write, the longer it tkaes for me to get it out. And I've been feeling quite bad about my lack of content recently.

(An aside: I will have to say that the hardest thing about writing about video games is the fact that the video games you play take so much free time away from writing about them! Right now, I'm extremely addicted to Super Turbo, as hinted at in Derek's and Eric's blogs, and Final Fantasy XII. Anoyhow, back to the topic at hand...)

So in order to increase the frequency in which new posts arrive, I will instead take one post each for all 5 areas and review both Guitar Hero II and Elite Beat Agents at the same time. This also allows me to discuss that aspect of rhythm games across all five games: GuitarFreaks, Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Ouendan, and Elite Beat Agents. And, hopefully, it'll allow for shorter and, thus, more frequent posts.

So up next: discussing the first area that makes a rhythm game good -- the interface of Guitar Hero II and Elite Beat Agents.

- James

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T01:29:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Hope you all got the games you wanted. As for me, I've got my Zelda: Twilight Princess, my Wii Component Cables, some extra Wiimotes, and rechargeable batteries for them.

All I need now is a Wii.

In the meantime, though, I'll be keeping myself busy with Final Fantasy XII and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, with Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy V Advance waiting in the wings. So I'll have plenty of games to play before I get the Wii.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas. Have a great time with your families, and watch where you swing that Wiimote.

- James

Rhythm Games - Part 1: The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You

2006-12-15T10:07:00.000-08:00

I've only just recently joined the iPod Revolution maybe 4 months ago, which is surprising for a lover of geek gadgetry like me. And in the 4 months that I've had it, I -- like many others who have come before me -- now wonder how I lived without it all these years. To have all of my music at my fingertips (after three months of ripping my CDs) is far more useful than I could have ever imagined. I've listened to songs recently that I haven't listened to in years, and it's always great to rediscover a song you loved before.

And one shocking revelation that I've had, since getting the iPod, was this: I have a whole lot of lyrics memorized! Some of those songs that I've been rediscovering haven't left my subconscious, apparently. I can sing along with songs I haven't heard in ages with practically no effort. It's like the words were just there, waiting to get back out.

I guess this shouldn't be much of a shock. Researchers have shown for a long time now that music can be an aid in memorizing just about anything. I've had people recite R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World (As We Know It)" back to me without missing a beat. Yet if you ask the same person to memorize the preamble to the Constitution, it could possibly give them fits. It's amazing how much music aids the memory. Heck, I once memorized an entire Game Theory theorem word for word by making it the lyrics to a fake song I wrote right before a midterm. I ended up having that theorem memorized for a good year or two afterwards. Music just is like a mystical power that taps into that area of the brain that only Raymond Babbitt can access at will. But honestly, how many opportunities does one actually get to use this power?

Enter: the rhythm game. I believe that everyone needs to have an outlet for that repressed talent. It's why good music makes you want to dance to the beat. It's why so many people love to sing in the shower or their car. But for those who cannot sing nor have the time to learn a musical instrument, rhythm games are the only way one has the opportunity to utilize that hidden, musical talent that one possesses. This makes rhythm games as essential and important a game genre as Role Playing Games, First Person Shooters, Real-Time Simulations, Sports Games, and Platform Games. For both the musically inclined and the musically challenged, the rhythm game can provide the outlet that might not be available anywhere else. Thus, everyone owes it to himself/herself to at least try rhythm games because very few experiences allow us to enjoy music more.

But if we stop and think about it, why are they so fun? Most of them are really glorified games of Simon, right? You are literally told exactly what you are supposed to do. In almost every rhythm game, you are given a sequence you are supposed to mimic and you, note for note, mimic it -- whether it is with your controller, your feet, a plastic guitar, or your stylus. There's really no gameplay when you think about it. You don't get any tactical strategy. You're not solving any puzzles. You don't get to level up your character. You literally just do what you are told to do. So why are these games so much fun? I think the answer is two-fold.

First of all, it all goes back to the discovery I made after getting my iPod. Music has the magical power of making anything easily memorized. After listening to a song numerous times, you cannot help but have the words memorized eventually whether you tried to or not. And it's this ability that makes rhythm games so much fun: there's almost no effort in memorizing the "track."

Various games require memory. Racing games like Gran Turismo need you to remember which twist and turn is coming up in the track, as one brain lapse could throw your whole lap time off. Shooters like Gradius V require you to memorize stages oftentimes, particularly in instances where taking a wrong turn leads to a dead end or moving too slowly causes walls to form in front of you. Many boss battles, such as the ones in Metal Gear Solids 1 and 2, have attack patterns that must be memorized in order to come out victorious. And for most of these examples, the memorization takes some effort.

But with rhythm games, memorization is almost automatic. Sure, the first time you play a difficult song may be overwhelming, but you'll find after a few plays that you'll have the sequence memorized without even trying. Even if you don't have the actual notes you must play memorized, the timing/rhythm in which they must be played will be ingrained in your mind forever. Little cues like hearing a song about to go from a verse to the chorus oftentimes can be a reminder that a particularly difficult sequence in coming up. It's almost as if you have hints about what is about to occur. And it all happens because of the music.

Thus, you become more and more skilled at a song with a natural progression. Just like memorizing lyrics to a song without trying, your ability to perform something difficult in a rhythm game seems to become stronger and stronger just through repeated play. This is very empowering to the gamer. In most other games, you must develop a new technique, learn a new strategy, or spend some time powering up first. But with rhythm games, it's all very natural, and thus very comforting and enjoyable.

The other reason I think rhythm games are so fun goes back to something I hinted at in an older post of mine: that proverbial zone. I am a firm believer of this mythical "zone" being exactly what makes video games fun. Any gamer out there will fully admit that games become their most enjoyable when you can transcend your normal, every day playing to reach the level where you are playing a game purely on instinct and at a very high level. And no type of game exemplifies this ability better than rhythm games, the most powerful evidence being that no other gaming genre provides the ability for one to become a "virtuoso" in the game.

Let me try to explain that last statement, as it is obvious that people become experts at just about every game. The distinction I am trying to point out with rhythm games is this: once you become an expert at the first Guitar Hero, you can play brand new songs on Guitar Hero II for the first time and still have a chance to not miss a single note. Once you've become so proficient at reading the notes in a rhythm game, it's almost magical when you combo your way through a particularly tough sequence. Oftentimes, in games like Beatmania and Guitar Hero, I'll see a really tough sequence come at me and, though my eyes and brain cannot consciously process what I see, my fingers just automatically pull off every note for a complete combo, much to my own amazement. I'm sure I'm not the only person to have ever experienced this, and I find that that experience is more unique to the rhythm game than any other genre.

Thus, expert DDR players will get a full combo on songs they've never seen before and Guitar Hero II players will pull off those tough guitar solos the first time they see it. And even if a song is trickier than expected, that automatic memorization will help you eventually pass the song. And once that happens, playing these games is a joy like no other gaming genre. I think all of us secretly want to be musicians, so when it feels like we are "playing" the song on instinct, it's just a great feeling.

For the most part, the rhythm game still seems to fall under a niche audience. Few people I know are willing to try them and some even go as far as to ridicule them. I guess there's something about them inherently embarrassing. Whether it's Dance Dance Revolution or Parappa the Rappa, people will not allow themselves to play these games for fear of looking foolish or childish. And I think that's a huge shame, because anyone with any sort of musical bone in their body should play rhythm games. Those who think it is "uncool" to play them are seriously robbing themselves of one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences ever. And once they finally give it a try, like the lyrics to Cheap Cheap's rap in Parappa the Rappa, the step rhythm to Dead End in Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix, and the actual notes in the guitar solo for War Pigs in Guitar Hero II, it'll be something they'll never forget.

Next: Part 2 - Guitar Hero II review

Games I'm Currently Playing: The Thanksgiving Edition

2006-12-01T13:57:00.000-08:00

My holiday weekend has now come to an end (I went back to work just this past Wednesday). During my period of rest and relaxation, you can imagine that I managed to squeeze in a lot of gaming. After all, as an adult gamer, it's really hard to find time to put in a solid session of gaming these days, so when I have a few days to spare, it's nice to see if I can finish out some games while starting other new ones. Thus, a lot of game time was put into four games: Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Lumines II, and Guitar Hero II. And along with the game time, a lot of impressions were made. So without further ado, here is my Thanksgiving rendition of "Games I'm Currently Playing."

Name: Okami
System: PlayStation 2
Stage: Completed

There's something very dangerous about a game that is just enjoyable enough to spur you on to finish it and just not quite compelling enough to make the experience joyful. And that's what Okami was, which resulted in me believing that Okami is, after playing all the way through it, a good game. But that's about the highest compliment I can pay it. It's not a bad game by any stretch, but calling it anything more than "good" is unjustified. And I actually think the thing that makes Okami weak, really, is that is really just feels lazy.

It's weird calling a game that is so packed to the teeth "lazy." I mean, lazy would seem to imply that someone made a game with a lot of potential that wasn't realized. Yet strangely, I interpret the makers of Okami as being lazy because it is so tightly packed. It's like someone said, "Okay, take as many things as we can think of and cram it into this game. No need for creativity. Just put in things that are fun from other games." So the game ends up feeling like a hodgepodge of so many other games we've played. I firmly believe it's more work to know what to keep out in order to maintain the game's integrity than it is to try and put as much as possible into the game, especially for a game in Okami's genre. Okami is not a Sandbox game like Grand Theft Auto so it shouldn't try to be packed like one. As a result, by the 15th or so hour into the game, I completely forgot how beautiful it looked and forgot what any of the game's themes were. At first, I was amazed by the backgrounds, the art style, etc. But at some point deep into the game, the environments ceased to interest me and none of the character designs registered in my mind anymore. That should never happen with a game as pretty as Okami.

And I mentioned in my first impressions of Okami: the anachronistic characters and dialogue really affected my enjoyment of the game. Hearing one of the main character, Issun, utter a line like, "Let's lay the smackdown on them," was jarring. And hearing him continually making references to a bosomy female character's "2 bouncy friends" just seemed so out of place. Again, it's a shame, because one thing that impressed me a lot about the game was how much Japanese mythology was referenced in the game. I read a FAQ online discussing how the majority of the characters and events in the game mirrored a lot of Japanese mythology, and I think that fact gets lost by the anachronism. Of course, the wealth of mythology referenced may only seem impressive because I am personally unfamiliar with Japanese mythology. It could very well be the Japanese version of God of War, as God of War certainly is very loosely based on Greek mythology, drawing from multiple areas of the Greek mythological canon (I'm still personally waiting to see if there is an evil two-headed tree in God of War II named Baucis and Philemon). Thus, perhaps to the Japanese gamers, there really isn't anything that special about that aspect of Okami either.

And yes, though you don't need to do everything, you end up coming really close through the natural course of the game once you reach the end anyhow. In my game, before the point of no return, I had fed about 85% of all the animals, found about 75% of the Stray Beads, and obtained all but one treasure. It's just too tempting to go back and find the rest, which really is a big mistake for an adult gamer with no time. This game would have been a joy for me had I still been in high school or college. But at this age, it's hard to spend that much time on one game. Even knowing that, I collected everything except for catching the entire variety of fish you can catch (admittedly, for the last few Beads and animals I couldn't find on my own, I gave up and used a FAQ). And I actually don't have any sense of accomplishment from collecting it all, either. In fact, I feel worse off for being compelled to do it all (since I am a completist), thus extending my total play time for the game by a considerable number of hours.

So in the end, Okami just couldn't ever get to the point where I could quite understand what it was trying to be. Was it trying to be a 3-D platformer? A "Zelda-esque" clone? A sandbox game? An artistic game? I could never tell. It's a very solidly made game: beautiful, above average controls, good story, and no obvious glitches or bugs in sight. But its insistence on putting so much into the game and making it so long (yet so easy) really took a lot of the punch out of the game. So again, all I can do is repeat my earlier assessment: the game is good. But that's all it'll ever be to me.

Name: Shadow of the Colossus
System: PlayStation 2
Stage: Completed

If I had to describe the game in one sentence, it would be this: "Shadow of the Colossus is the story of one man's journey to bring his one true love back to life by fighting, over and over again, the camera."

Between Okami and Shadow of the Colossus, I've had my fill of bad camera angles affecting my game. I mean, while we are only entering the third generation of 3-D console gaming, there really shouldn't ever be any excuses anymore for having your screen filled by a giant close-up of the texture from a wall, which seemed to happen more often than it should have while playing Shadow of the Colossus. And many of the times I ended up falling off of a Colossus, trying to jump from place to place, was due to awkward camera angles and the inability to properly judge distance. It really ended up testing a lot of my patience.

Also, between Shadow of the Colossus and Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, I've had my fill of controlling horses. Will someone please assure me that the horse controls in Twilight Princess is better? Please? If I have to watch my horse in that game stop from a full gallop because a scary, thin tree (that could have been easily avoided) got in its way, I may be one of the only people to throw their Wiimote at the TV on purpose.

Okay, now that I've gotten the complaints out of the way, I must do a 180. Because these two mechanical problems are pretty much the only complaints I have about the game. I picked up Shadow of the Colossus very late in its existence mainly because of how much people had been lauding it, particularly during the infamous "Gaming isn't art" debate with Roger Ebert. And, after completing the game, I really do feel better off having played it.

It deserves most of its praise. The game, for me, falls under the same category as Silent Hill 2. In regards to Silent Hill 2, that game would easily be one of my top 10 all time favorite video games. That's how highly I think of that game. But even I would be a fool to pretend the controls and camera in Silent Hill 2 aren't terrible. In fact, they were downright awful. But they couldn't even come close to ruining the game for me.

So while I don't love Shadow of the Colossus nearly as much as I love Silent Hill 2, I have to say that I came away with great respect for the game despite its shortcomings. Few games are as beautiful. And what makes it even more impressive is that its beauty doesn't come from high-resolution graphics or colorful environments or fancy graphic filters. No, Shadow of the Colossus is more like a painting. It's very deliberate and its look is definitely used to drive home its themes. I love looking at screenshots of the game because, from one picture, so much is conveyed. For example, just from one of my favorite screenshots, shown below (click on it to get a full sized version), you get a good impression of the game's themes of scale (the Colossus you fight and the land you can explore are both huge), desolation (there is definitely a sense of isolation), and determination (your character, that little guy on the horse, is supposed to kill that giant thing in the sky).

Also, the plot is amazingly full yet minimalist at the same time. Not much story is provided, but it gives you just enough that you can easily derive a wealth of information anyhow. And the fact that they still hold back a ton of knowledge leaves the game open to so much interpretation. It’s almost David Lynch worthy (I’m thinking Mulholland Drive here). The game doesn't spoon feed you anything. And I'm referring to the story and the gameplay itself. No sprites telling pointing everything out to you, no NPCs to give you clues, and no convenient signs to read. There are power ups you can find in the game, for example, that you are never told about. You, like the protagonist, really are almost entirely clueless about this new world you've entered. I played the entire game completely oblivious to them.

The artistic aspect of Shadow of the Colossus is truly admirable, and it being used as the paragon of art in video games is justified. So while the controls are dubious at best and the camera is really inconsistent and bugs and glitches do exist, it is largely overshadowed (no pun intended) by how well the game presents to you its vision. A game like Okami will probably be forgotten years from now, but Shadow of the Colossus has the potential to be the kind of game remembered for a long, long time.

Name: Lumines II
System: PlayStation Portable
Stage: Addict

It's always fun to find out you suck at a game. For any fighting game fans out there, it's probably a familiar feeling: you are the ruler of the roost. At your local arcade, no one can touch you in Street Fighter. And then these guys come from out of town and proceed to beat you down like you've never been beaten down before. Suddenly, you realize you have so much to learn. (As an aside to fighting game fans, this is actually what happened to me and my group of classic Street Fighter II playing friends... and the guy who came into my arcade and beat us down was none other than Tomo Ohira.)

Well, this is exactly what happened with Lumines II. I thought I was decent at the game after playing the first one. I could last very long and get a decently (I thought) high score. But they added "Mission Modes" to Lumines II, and the mission that was the catalyst for me finding out where I really stood was to clear at least 170 squares in 3 minutes. I couldn't even come close. So I went online to see if I can find any strategies on beating this mission. And what I saw shocked me. Someone cleared not just 170 squares but 186 squares... in only 1 minute!!! I watched it on YouTube. I watched it and my heart sank.

This spurred me on to really try and learn how to play the game properly. And I've been improving little by little. I think you may have remembered me mentioning a while ago that, on my vacation out to the East Coast, I became obsessed with the original Lumines. I've come to the realization that what I thought was an obsession was nothing. No, my Lumines obsession has now reached Tetris level. Tetris, you must understand, would easily make my top 3 games of all time. So when I say my Lumines obsession has reached Tetris levels, that's not something to be taken lightly.

So what does it mean to have reached Tetris level? Easy: while writing code at work, while talking to other people, while watching Laker games on TV, and even while writing this blog post, I have visions of Lumines blocks falling in my head. I am trying to optimize how to place pieces almost 24/7 now. While I sleep, Lumines blocks dance in my subconscious. It's probably unhealthy... maybe it’s a chemical imbalance or something. I should probably go see a doctor about it when I get the time.

Is there anything about Lumines II that makes it better than Lumines? No. Some nice new modes and options, but it is the same game. I'm talking exactly the same game. Does that make Lumines II not worthy of a purchase? Not remotely. But keep in mind that I’m the guy who keeps buying every new version of Tetris that Nintendo churns out because I'm such a Tetris junkie. Overall, Lumines II is better than the original just because of few extra featuresand extra modes. It’s missing a few of the best skins from the first game, sure, but that’s not a problem.

I dunno what it is about Puzzle games but, for lack of a better way to put it, I am their bitch. I have to give Tetsuya Mizuguchi credit: both Meteos and Lumines start off largely uninterestingly. But the more you play and the more you learn, you slowly figure out how to properly play these games. And then everything changes. And they become super addictive. Both games are very strong, though there is probably still a debate out there on which is better. And to give you an idea of just how strong Lumines is to me now, I have to declare it better than Meteos. Remember, I'm still a Nintendo fanboy so I want to believe that Meteos on the DS is better than Lumines on the PSP. But there's no debate anymore: Lumines is a better Puzzle Game. This is largely due to Lumines being a far purer and more straight-forward puzzle game. There really are only 2 or 3 rules to the game. It really is like Tetris after its been completely pimped out.

Name: Guitar Hero II
System: PlayStation 2
Stage: Heavy Play

I am actually going to refrain from commenting on this game for now, as I plan to talk in length about this game in a future blog post. So if you really want to know what my impressions of this game are, you'll just have to wait. Sorry.

So that's my Thanksgiving vacation. Also getting some minor play has been Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS (but that will also be discussed in a future blog post) and Capcom Classics Collection 2 (if you love Capcom games, you owe yourself to buy this and play Capcom Quiz and Dragons). I did not get my hands on a Wii, so I am unable to write any impressions on that. I will try to rectify that situation this weekend, so wish me luck. Hope your Thanksgiving vacation was as engaging gaming-wise as mine was. And thanks for reading!

- James

All the Wiis are Gone...

2006-11-20T00:35:00.000-08:00

And the sky is grey.

Man, it's tough to try to write about the Wii without making some lame pun-filled title.

I'm mainly writing to say that I was very shocked at how difficult it was to find a Wii on launch day. Given how many machines were actually shipped in America, I thought there would be some chance of walking into a store and getting one. But maybe the area I live in is too far populated, but as Derek predicted for me, I was unable to obtain one. In fact, Derek is probably mocking that I am so shocked, considering he warned me long ago. At the Best Buy I checked, the employee stated that they had 102 Wiis and there were enough people in line by midnight to purchase them all. At the CostCo, they had 42 consoles and were sold out in 15 minutes. After checking about 4 different places, I could see the writing on the wall. The only way for me to get a Wii was to find a store farther out from where I live. So I gave up the chase, knowing full well I'd be okay not getting one right away. I did get a copy of Twilight Princess, but no console to play it on.

And once again, I performed my eBay check for the Wii this time, only just for curiosity. I swear it is like staring at a car wreck on the freeway, seeing just how far the re-selling madness has gone. At one point today, there were almost 30,000 results when looking for Wii Consoles and clicking on "Systems." The PlayStation 3 had reached similar numbers. But of course, it is noteworthy to mention that while the numbers are similar, obviously a larger percentage of people buying the PlayStation 3 had the intention of reselling it. So it makes me happy to see that a larger percentage of Wiis purchased were actually purchased by people who intended to play and enjoy the system. But regardless of percentages or whatever, even having 28,000 results come back from an eBay search is insane. It's complete madness. I just have to wonder to myself: if eBay had never come into existence, would as many people go and buy these things just to flip for profit? I mean, would they even have an avenue available to them to sell these things?

Regardless of how many are selling on eBay, though, I can pretty much guarantee you I'll wait it out until I can just buy the console myself personally from a store. Zelda is the only game, right now, that I really want to play, and I've got plenty of games to keep me busy in the mean time (like Final Fantasies XII, V, and III for starters, none of which I've actually started yet). So I'm not particularly eager to begin a game that reportedly takes 100 hours to beat.

Anyhow, I'll be continually on the lookout for an opprtunity to get myself a Wii. In the meantime, I'll have to make do with being at least very happy to hear the console doing so well.

- James

What a World...

2006-11-17T00:12:00.000-08:00

It's midnight here in California. The PlayStation 3 is now officially released across the States. Just for shits and giggles, I decided to stop by eBay and type in "PlayStation 3" into the search bar. Do you know how many results came up?

3,853. Already.

The highest one has a Buy It Now price of $49,999.

Seriously, what has happened to gaming? We can't even buy video game consoles normally anymore, let alone games.

I just have to say this much: being a hard-core video game fan in this day and age really, to put it bluntly, sucks. Consoles can't be purchased normally without overnight lines and inflated eBay prices, games that are even remotely "hot" can only be bought if pre-ordered, and even trying to buy a new TV is a pain if you are worried about lag when using your older gaming systems (a pain two of my friends are currently going through).

(Side note: if anyone has any recommendations on a good TV that can play old systems with no lag, please inform me right away so I can pass it on to my friends.)

What happened to the days of buying a SNES, plugging it in, and playing Super Mario World right out of the box with no hassles? Isn't technology supposed to make life easier?

(Edit to add: It's actually a fun little mini-game to keep refreshing the search results and watch the number continue to climb with each refresh.)

- James

P.S. This is my first of super short posts which I hope I can write more frequently. I prefer writing more, but I figured many short posts is better than no posts at all. ^_^

Speculation: WiiConnect24 Possibilities

2006-11-06T16:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am still alive... but barely.

Work has been killing me of late, so I can't promise many updates in the upcoming weeks... even though I have a bunch of things I'd love to talk about. But I did want to show people I'm still around and I do plan on continuing the blog. So I figured I'd at least update the blog with a casual post regarding a random speculation I had a few weeks ago.

I was thinking about the Nintendo Wii, particularly about "WiiConnect24." For those of you who aren't aware of what that is, in Nintendo's own words, it is where "The Wii console can communicate with the Internet even when the power is turned off. The WiiConnect24 service delivers a new surprise or game update, even if the system is idle." In other words, it never really turns off and actually just goes into a standby mode.

And it got me thinking. If the Wii can receive information 24 hours a day -- updates for games, messages from other Wii users, etc. -- why can't it send information 24 hours a day? That way, you can access your Wii via its IP Address or something from work through your typical browser or a special application you install on your computer or...

The DS?

And that's when the lightbulb went off in my head. Think about how cool this could be. The Wii has the ability to store things like messages, photos, e-mails, etc. in your memory card. What if they release special software on the DS that allows you to connect to your Wii to download these messages and photos and such for portable viewing? Hell, what if the Opera Browser they are releasing already has this special functionality built into it, and they haven't told us yet? And then I thought to myself -- maybe the best part yet -- what if... just what if...

We could also download the Virtual Console games into the DS temporarily?

Ohhhhh, the possibilities. Buy your your favorite NES games or SNES games or Genesis games for the Wii and then download them onto your DS. If you've got a broadband connection, the download shouldn't be that long. And you wouldn't ever need a memory card or anything for the DS. Whichever game you have on your Wii, you could just grab it at any time on the go. And with the DS's ability to sleep, you could download it once and have quick access to it up until you actually turn the DS off.

And what if developers starting creating DS-specific mini-games included with actual Wii games? Download these mini-games from the disc to your Virtual Console and then access them via the DS. Let's say for an RPG released on the Wii, the developers could create a mini-game where you can do some grinding to earn experience points or money that you could download and play on the DS. All you'd need is wireless internet access.

I don't know, somehow I can only imagine Nintendo already has this in mind, and this may actually be their final trump card they've been waiting to pull out on the public. Technically, any system could do it, but it'd only be practical if the system is on 24 hours a day. That's the key thing right there. You could easily accomplish the same thing with the PSP and the PS3, but I've heard the PS3 requires twice as much power to run as the 360. No one will be leaving that machine on when away from home.

Anyhow, it's food for thought. If actually implemented, though, it would be really cool.

Sorry again for the lack of updates, and thanks for still reading and checking up.

- James

Wherefore Art Thou Okami? (Games I'm Currently Playing)

2006-10-11T01:18:00.000-07:00

Okami is beautiful. Visually, it's more impressive than most games that exist in this current video game generation's final years. In fact, it's probably more impressive than even the games from next generation's baby years. Okami has become a paragon of how, by paying attention to the artistic and aesthetic aspect of the game, developers can create a stunning visual experience even on what is graphically the weakest current console. Those who believe video games are just guns, carjacking, and football will see Okami and maybe, just maybe, they may begin to understand what gaming can really be about and the variety it can bring.

Which is why it's so sad for me to find out that Okami's gameplay is rather pedestrian. I've been championing games to try and be artistic and creative; to try and push the boundaries of realism by giving us games that look exquisite like Okami. And so Capcom has managed to give us a game that looks like nothing we've seen before -- they really managed to make the game look like ancient Chinese paintings come to life. But the question must be asked:

Why?

What are you trying to accomplish by making the game look like it does? There should always be a creative reasoning behind such decisions. And right now, Okami doesn't quite feel like it has one. Previous to playing Okami, I had wondered how, exactly, I felt about another one of Capcom's visually experimental games: Killer 7. And after playing Okami for a small period of time, I realize now how much I love Killer 7.

Killer 7 is really what an artistic game is about. It's not just the looks, it's the whole package put together -- the sparse visuals combined with the mind-fuck story combined with the eclectic music combined with the very unconventional and restrictive gameplay. Many found the "on-rails" movement of the gameplay a poor decision by the makers of the game. But if you imagine playing Killer 7 running around in circles trying to find hidden items and seeing if there is something in that shed that's just actually a background decoration, the game would have suffered greatly. That's not what Killer 7 is about. It's not about interacting with environments. It's really about trying to convey the sense of insanity and the unstable psychoses of the characters in its story. So, accordingly, that's what the all the elements of the game are there for. For example, one of the main gameplay elements, the "blinking" to make all of the invisible enemies appear, is completely superfluous. Blinking is free (it costs no meter or anything) and the fact that your enemies are invisible rarely comes into play because you can blink as many times as you want in rapid succession. But knowing that there could be an invisible enemy somewhere adds to the paranoia of the game. And in regards to the visual, the simplistic style used is just one other element that creates the overall package. The sparseness of the imagery, the skewed angles at which most of the areas are presented, and the washed out look really help put the player into the mood of someone who's not quite there.

Playing Okami also inspired me to return to Shadow of the Colossus, a game which I started a while ago and had put on hiatus. Shadow of the Colossus is another game that is highly touted for its visual style and atypical gameplay. And surely enough, immediately after picking it up again, I remembered what was so enjoyable about the game. Everything in the game was designed to help create a very distinct mood of feeling small and lifeless. The protagonist has recently lost the love of his life, the only thing that brought color to his world, and every element aids in conveying this atmosphere. The missions are very one-track minded: there isn't anything to do outside of your one goal of taking down each Colossus. The fact that there are no basic enemies to fight along the way adds to the sense of scale. Everything feels big so that you, in turn, feel insignificant. And then, there are the visuals. The colors in the game are very monochromatic and evoke a mood of sorrow. And the Colossi are designed in such a majestic way that, because of their visual representation, you never get the feeling that what you are doing is correct, adding to the emotional distress and anguish of your character. The Colossi come in all shapes and styles, but are never truly depicted as obviously evil nor hideously ugly. Making enemies unappealing is an often used convention to allow players to feel it's okay to kill them. But because the Colossi aren't like this, the question if what you are doing is right plagues your mind during the entire course of the game.

Finally, a third game that I recently played popped into my head: Rez. This is a game that chose to implement a visual scheme that is more sparse than any game I can think of since the advent of disc-based console games (outside of Vib Ribbon). But the reason the graphics worked well wasn't because it was visually stunning. It worked because the reduced emphasis on the graphics helps us focus on what Tetsuya Mizuguchi, creator of Rez, wants us to focus on: the audio sensations. The game is really about keeping you in tune with the music and the rhythm of the music. It's no surprise that the game doesn't feel right at all without the vibrating controller. Everything is designed to strengthen that auditory experience. So again, the graphics helped the game through the visual technique of making itself less important so it could be secondary to the audio.

So this all brings me back to the question again: Okami is beautiful and a true work of art visually. But why? Why go through all the trouble making the game look so incredible when, in the end, all we are doing is playing a clone of Zelda games? Can this game really distinguish itself, gameplay-wise, from other Zelda-like games, such as Beyond Good and Evil? As I began my tour of Okami, I completed the first initial mission (that, by the way, all these types of games seem to have) and I ended up in a town. And there were people. And they all had some sort of problem, whether small or large. And I ended up playing a bunch of mini-games to earn bonuses. And playing a fetch quest to solve a puzzle on how to get out of the town. And in the midst of all this, I was struck with a really bad feeling: I've played this before.

To add to the already very Zelda-like experience, there is a small fairy-like character who follows you around and, just like all fairies in the Zelda games do, calls you by a cutesy nickname and points out everything to you. And you collect money to buy items at shops. Oh, and all the characters talk in a non-sensical, sing-song mumble just like all Zelda games. Basically, we have Wind Waker all over again. Okami is a game we've played before but with a much nicer coat of paint. But regardless of how you paint the outside of a house, the inside is gonna look the same.

"But wait!" you say. "Of course the graphics are pertinent, you moron! The game takes place in a fictional ancient Asian land and all of the power-ups you gain are performed through Brush Strokes!" Well... yes and no. Let me address those one by one:

1) Yes, the graphics represent the environments very well. I never said they didn't. Much of this game references Japanese mythos, as hinted by the instruction booklet, and by having the visuals represented through classic Asian art style, it aids the creation of the world tremendously. But if you are going for this sort of Japanese mythos, why is the game delving into the land of cutesiness? I've mentioned the comical sprite (who obviously hates being called a "bug") that follows you on your adventure calling you "Ammy" as opposed to Amaretsu, your actual name. All the characters talk in those cartoonish voices. One of the main characters starts off as someone repeatedly made fun of. And then there are random humorous jokes spattered throughout the game's dialogue, including, at one point, a very anachronistic joke made at the expense of a female character's bosom. This is ancient Japanese mythos?

If the game was really truly interested in achieving the right feel, you would probably have created a more grand and formal mood. I would have made every character mumble nonsensical words in the style of spoken words of a Chinese opera (that would have been really cool, even though I grew up hating the way Chinese opera sounds). Characters would be more majestic and serious. And the humorous dialogue would be replaced with more colloquial and poetic language, giving us the proper sense of history and mythology. So far, the only thing that helps the mood is the graphics and music. Again, if that's whatthey were trying to acheive, they have to remember that it's really the whole package that counts.

2) Hitting R1 to bring down the "painting canvas" to perform my attacks, so far, has no functional difference than going to the submenu and equipping the bombs in Zelda. The only difference in Okami is that I have to draw the bombs. On top of that, the strokes rarely consist of more than just circles and lines. Ancient Asian calligraphy is very beautiful, and the strokes are very important. If you really wanted to help the feel of the game, they would have allowed you to draw more than just circles and lines and maybe had you write some very simple Chinese or Japanese characters (though I do understand the difficulty of this given that you are just using an analog controller for painting). So far, the use of the paint strokes hasn't afforded me much in terms of the overall package. I'll admit that the first time I cut down a large tree, I was pretty floored by how cool that was. But once you get back into gameplay, the painting actually hurts the game. It affects the pace, forcing you to stop and freeze everything every time you was to draw a line.

And in the end, that's all the painting becomes: an aid to your quest. The painting should have been the point of the gameplay, not merely a tool to help you. This game was begging to be made on the Nintendo Wii, where you could paint strokes in real time. Could you imagine the game if Amaretsu, herself, couldn't actually attack? Instead, you could have ran around with the wolf avoiding enemies while attacking with the paint brush in real time. And how fun would it have been to use the paint brush during platforming, jumping over large chasms and drawing in platforms, a la Kirby Canvas Curse? Take a cue from games even as old as Bionic Commando on the NES. They took jumping away from your character to emphasize the use of the bionic arm. So in Okami, they should have taken away your ability to attack to emphasize the painting.

But as it is, you simply use the appropriate brush stroke to solve whichever puzzle needs to be solved. And in the meantime, your character can attack with your standard chain combo (square, square, square... and yet more squares if you buy power ups) just like most games. And you can buy items that aid in your combat at shops just like most games. And can power-up your attributes just like most games. And can equip new weapons just like most games. And, in the new bane of video gaming, must hunt down things for "collection" purposes. When I first fed some birds in the game, I thought it was a nice little touch, complete with a skippable animation sequence that was there for no other reason than for you to watch the animals eat. But then I saw that in a sub-menu, I now had found 6% of the birds in the game. And then I noticed that there are a whole mess of empty slots to be filled in by all the new animals you find to feed. I nearly cried at the revelation of the purpose of feeding these creatures. Do I really look forward to trying to make sure I find 100% of the animals? Not at all. Why not just let us feed them because it's cool to feed animals?

Speaking of feeding the animals, I think that, besides the Japanese mythos, the other prominent theme of Okami is the idea that we benefit from being one with nature. There is a lot in this game with bringing things to life, creating peace with the land, feeding animals, and just being really good to the flora and fauna overall. I love how Amaretsu temporarily leaves flowers wherever she runs, sprouts temporary patches of grass where she lands from jumps, creates lily pads in the water when she swims, and other such effects. But this hasn't factored largely into the gameplay (thus far). In fact, if I'm supposed to be bringing life to nature, why am I rewarded for cutting down every plant and tree I see with the slash attack of the paintbrush? It's the equivalent of mowing the lawn in the Zelda games. Cutting down grass in Zelda games gave you supplies and money and health. Same goes for Okami. You can take the time to slice down every tree you encounter, pretty much. Shouldn't you be punished for that? You can use your power to bring dead trees back to life, and then proceed to cut them down right before your eyes. And you should, too, because you get items! Of course, the trees soon regenerate, but the fact that it is beneficial to cut down trees sorta ruins the whole "nature is good and precious" theme.

Well, I've spent the whole article, so far, really making Okami sound horrible, I admit. In all honesty, the game isn't horrible. In fact, it's fun. It's a lot of fun. If there was any game you are going to be similar to, Zelda is a good one. But as a result, it's fun in a way that we've had that fun before. I've only put a few hours into the game so far, so I'm hoping the game will grow more serious and grand as it goes, giving me more of what I was hoping to see with the game. I think the impressive graphics really set me up to expect the game to be something it wasn't. That much attention paid to the graphical style, I thought, meant that the makers really put a lot of thought into the overall package. But now it just feels like it was something they tacked onto the game as an after thought. In fact, a video was released on GameVideos.com that showed a side-by-side comparison of Okami in its original style (more realistic) and Okami in its current form (artistic style). Both are very impressive visually, but it does give you the realization that the whole painting style of the graphics wasn't something that was planned from the beginning. That's a shame because, if it were, they could have made something very beautiful and abstract. I am aware, however, that such a game might not sell well. Yes, video games are a business, so the choice to make the game as Zelda-like as possible with all of your standard Zelda formulas is an understandable one: it's more marketable.

(GameVideos.com video embedded below. Click on the "Play" button to view video.)

(As an aside, I would have loved to have been in the boardroom when Fumito Ueda, creator of Shadow of the Colossus, told the heads of Sony that there would be no basic enemies to fight in the game. "So the Colossi are the bosses, right? What are the regular enemies?" "Nothing. There are no enemies. You just have to find the Colossus." "Wait, I thought I just heard you say there are no enemies. Ha ha ha ha!! Forgive my aging ears. What did you actually say?" I gotta wonder how he managed to swing that one by.)

But I still can't even find this game at my local Best Buy, so I have the feeling the game isn't selling too great anyhow. After seeing the two versions in the above video, however, I sometimes wonder if the game would have been better off with the realistic graphics, given that the artistic graphics really just feel like a skin applied to the game. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the game was made the way it was, as I will love showing this game off to all of my non-gaming friends.

But that's all it ends up being, really: a show-off piece. The nice thing about games like Killer 7 and Shadow of Colossus is that, after I'm done showing the game off to friends, I'm eager to shoo them away so I can sit down and play the game. With Okami, I just feel like it's another one of those "job" games that is just enjoyable enough that I feel obligated to play through and complete. Hopefully, though, after putting more hours into the game, I will find myself more consumed by it.

- James

Evolution 2006 Season Wrap Up

2006-09-20T01:46:00.000-07:00

And so, after another year of Evo come and gone, I'd like to officially end the Evo Season on my blog with one final "State of the Games" post. I've had a good month to stew on Evo and read the general community reactions and let everything sink in. Thus, I would like to sum up my feelings in one last post. After this, I will move back to discussing the game industry once again (and I have a lot of things I want to discuss). So without further ado, I bring you my End of Evolution 2006 Article: "The Current State of the Fighting Games," an examination of the games that were played at Evo.

(Note: Though I am on the staff, please DO NOT use this article as evidence of any theories you have on what may happen at Evo 2007. My opinion is only one person strong, and over the course of the next few months, so many new games will come out, circumstances may change, and moods can alter so that what I say now may not even reflect how I feel half a year from now. So don't go quoting me as a source of proof that next year will feature such-and-such game or not.)

Dead or Alive 4: It's tough crafting a community out of nothing. That's essentially what was happening with Dead or Alive 4 at Evo. The Dead or Alive 4 community doesn't currently exist, really. Is it realistic to expect a large turnout for the game?

It's not like there isn't plenty of DoA4 players out there. The problem is that they're spread throughout the country and they play mostly on XBox Live. And then there's the kicker: Dead or Alive doesn't have a rich history, and Dead or Alive 4 may be only the first game in its series to be really considered a tournament worthy game due more to its exposure (and, thus, decently large player base) on XBox Live than to anything else. As a result, the players of the game really have only one experience playing others: online.

Every other Fighting Game community out there has had deeper roots that DoA4. Those other communities have been playing fighting games long before online play was even worth discussing. Thus, players were used to traveling 5, 10, 25, or even 80 miles to go to an arcade to play other high-level players. And then, traveling across the country for a major Fighting Game tournament was a natural for players of the more established games. But the DoA4 players aren't accustomed to it. Few have ever gone farther than their own living room to play against people across the country. Thus, it might be hard pressed to expect them to entertain the idea of traveling out of state for Evo.

So while there are a lot of players playing DoA4, there really is no community that exists. And this ends up being a tough reality for the small number of DOA4 that are trying to form a community akin to the ones that exist for, say, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 or Tekken. And so for these players, DoA4 at Evo is hugely exciting. As one player stated, if I recall correctly, on the Shoryuken.com Forums, DoA4's inclusion at Evo gave the game a bigger shot of life to the small existing community than anything else ever has. It did its part to help stir up the community and help it grow a bit larger.

But it wasn't enough, it seems. After last year's Evo, DoA4 already seems to be dangling dangerously at the precipice of obscurity. DoA4 had a very small turnout at Evo compared to the other Fighting Games featured. And to top it all off, many of the players who entered the tournament were actually new to the game, picking it up only weeks before Evo Finals just to get a shot at the prize money when they figured the turnout would be small. Thus, its community probably barely represented half of the entrants for the game. That doesn't bode well for DoA4.

I was pleasantly surprised, however, at how enthusiastic about the game the actual hardcore DoA4 players at Evo were. As small as the crowd was, they were able to generate a lot of noise and excitement. They seemed to have their characters and rivalries and short history nicely established, which helped stir up a lot of energy and bravado from the players that were there. There's definitely evidence that a community is lying there, waiting to spring forth from underneath the covers. I'm just afraid there wasn't quite enough to be able to rally up this potential community in time as new games continue to crop up as potentials for next year's Evo. Some games will have to miss the cut. I'd love to see the Dead or Alive players get another chance, however, and see if they can answer the call. I can see the potential there, but it is up to them to prove why they deserve another shot.

Tekken 5: Tekken found itself in an awkward situation. Currently, it is stuck in limbo. Naturally, if it is accepted within its community, updated versions of the game are the ones chosen to play at major tournaments. The Guilty Gear community, for example, fought tooth and nail to make sure Evo carried the upgraded Guilty Gear XX Slash in its roster, a game not even officially released stateside. Evo obliged and Slash was added to replace the older Guilty Gear XX #Reload. After all, who wants to be playing an outdated version?

Unfortunately, this is the fate that befell Tekken. A new version of Tekken 5 exists called Tekken: Dark Resurrection and it is preferred by the majority of its fanbase over the original Tekken 5 that exists on the PlayStation 2. But Namco ended up doing their fans a great disservice by not releasing Tekken: DR on any consoles other than the PlayStation Portable (though it might not actually be Namco's fault). Even though Tekken DR can be extremely addictive in its portable form, I've heard from players that playing it across the WiFi connection against another player can be laggy at times. Thus, it's not as playable as it would be if it existed on an actual non-portable console.

So unlike the Guilty Gear situation, there wasn't really anything Evo could do. We had to play the original Tekken 5. However, to the Tekken community's credit, the players made do with what they were given. With nary a foreign player in sight, the Tekken 5 Finals produced some great dramatic match ups, playing host to various forms of rivalries and grudges. We had East Vs. West in Jinmaster vs. Arario, the outspoken JRA from Texas piling up victims, East Coast supremacy on the line between Jinmaster and Justin Wong, and, in the end, West Coast and Texas vying for the championships with California's Insanelee going up against last year's reigning champion from Texas, Crow. And with Crow winning his second Tekken 5 Evo World Championship in a row, it looks like a dynasty could be building up here.

Which is exactly what may happen, if Tekken remains in limbo. Tekken 6 is slated to be released onto the PlayStation 3, but no one is sure when. Rumors are that Namco will release it only in the arcades for a while before putting it onto the console. If they wait too long and it is not out on console by the time Evo rolls around next year, we may be seeing Tekken 5 one more year in a row! This would be a very harsh blow to the Tekken community, as it would certainly be preferable for the players to be competing on the latest game. Playing one revision behind is one thing, but two revisions behind? Hopefully, Namco will help out the Tekken community and release either Tekken DR or Tekken 6 on a console soon, because the Tekken community is a very solid and close-knit group that deserves better from Namco.

Hyper Street Fighter 2: There are two aspects that Hyper Street Fighter 2 brought to the light for me this past year at Evo 2006: 1) America has reached the next step in this game. 2) We really, really need to have a pure version of Super Turbo.

In addressing the first point, I was very excited to see the real old school players like Alex Wolfe and Jason Nelson come in and dominate the game, proving that, not only are the old school players still the cream of the crop and are not ready to bow out to the new players just yet, but that they were also ready to really defend home turf. Allowing only two Japanese players into the Final 8 (and limiting only one to the top 4) was quite a statement. In particular, watching Alex Valle defeat Daigo Umehara was a very inspirational win for the U.S. Players.

But we can't become over confident. We may have reached the next step, but most people who follow Super Turbo in Japan know that the Japanese players at Evo, outside of Daigo, are not even considered the top Super Turbo players in Japan. There are a whole host of players in Japan that have never come here to challenge us, and for any of us who have watched many Japanese ST match videos, such as the X-Mania tournaments, we've learned to recognize a lot of those names. There's "Ryu," who (unlike his nickname suggests) plays a really strong Bison (Dictator). Gian, who won last year's Super Turbo tournament at Evo, doesn't even seem to have a Dhalsim as strong as the Dhalsim of "KKY." And crowd-favorite Kuni himself admits that his strong Zangief is not comparable to the likes of the Zangief of other players, such as one by the nickname of "Pony."

And there's still many more. There's Ani-Ken, the famous Ken player using New Ken, a character few Americans use. Then there is the infamous "More Vega," a player known for his super defensive style of play using the clawed Spaniard. And I've even seen this one really killer Blanka, who won a Round-Robin tournament despite Blanka's perceived low tier status. There are so many other players I see repeatedly (I recognize their nicknames written with Japanese characters, but don't know what their English equivalent nicknames are), and I don't think any of them have come to Evo before. With all of these player known to be the best at Super Turbo, we may have to be concerned a bit that Tokido, who placed third and is not considered a top ST player in Japan, only decided to pick up and practice HSF2 a few days before Evo.

A lot of this will be addressed by the second point, however. Admittedly, Tokido's high placing was largely thanks to the use of Champion Edition Bison, a bane upon the entire existence of Hyper Street Fighter 2. While not completely over-dominating, the presence of CE Bison really makes a beautiful game look very ugly. Yes, we can learn to fight him properly. Yes, he has weaknesses to exploit. But who cares? CE Bison is like the river card in poker. Through random bad luck, it can be brutal. Being able to win through guessing games and, sometimes, luck makes CE Bison an abomination.

Hyper Street Fighter 2 needs to go away, to put it bluntly. If an arcade-perfect Super Turbo really is on the horizon in the form of Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2 (under the watchful eye of the reliable David Sirlin, author of the "Playing to Win" book), nothing but good could come from this. We won't have simple tactics, like CE Bison's Psycho Crusher fuzzy guards, affecting the game anymore. And though a character like O.Sagat will be back, he's never been dominating, as most of the top tier crew (Dhalsim, Vega, Bison, Balrog, and Ryu) can defeat him.

And most importantly, if a huge pot is on the line once again and the Japanese players see that we have moved to an arcade perfect version of Super Turbo rather than the defective HSF2, the draw may be large enough for the elite ST players from Japan to actually come and play. Not only is there a lot of money to be won, but the Japanese also need to re-assert the dominance that has been taken away from them. If we can get some of those players over and Alex Wolfe, Graham Wolfe, Jason Nelson, and Alex Valle can still defend home turf successfully, then we can declare the gap in player skill-level between America and Japan officially null and void. Let's all hope that Sirlin's efforts succeed in bringing us an arcade-perfect Super Turbo and that Super Turbo makes a return next year to Evo.

Guilty Gear XX Slash: Frankly, Guilty Gear doesn't stand still long enough for anyone to really give it a fair evaluation. I've already told the tale in the Tekken section of how the fans were outraged at the idea of playing Guilty Gear XX #Reload for another year knowing that there existed the upgraded version of Guilty Gear XX Slash. But the outrage really is a good sign: it shows how dedicated the Guilty Gear fans really are. They wanted Slash despite the fact that Slash hasn't ever been released, Arcades or Consoles, in America! So everyone who loves Guilty Gear somehow has access, whether by buying it themselves or knowing someone else who has, to a machine that an play the imported Guilty Gear game.

So while Guilty Gear may have the smallest community of the 2-D fighters featured at Evo, they definitely are very dedicated. And it was definitely loud enough to demand having Slash at Evo. And then the players demanded even more, rallying behind the idea of having Guilty Gear be a Team Tournament. I will say this: the Guilty Gear community is awfully demanding for being relatively small! But as proof that, yes, the Evo Staff does listen to the community and, yes, the Evo Staff is willing to change their minds, we succumbed to both pleas: not only was Guilty Gear turned into a Team Tournament, but the Staff went the extra step and, rather than asking players to donate Japanese PlayStation 2's and copies of the game as originally planned,
went ahead and purchased multiple Japanese PlayStation 2's for the sole purpose of running the import Guilty Gear XX Slash copies that were also purchased.

And so Evo also ended up having its first Team Tournament, which was run with fair success. The Team Tournament concept itself caused a few minor problems. 1) It seemed that it was difficult, at times, for people to properly form teams of three, and I can only imagine there were a lot of last-minute teams formed. 2) Because of having three people on every team, the pool areas got rather crowded. 3) A lot of times, there seemed to be teams that were mostly one person strong, with the other two players not really contributing much.

However, there were a lot of positives as well. Team tournaments guaranteed a lot of players chances to play multiple times even after losing twice (having been rescued by teammates). Also, the character variety was a welcome sight for those watching, especially with Japanese players like Ruu decimating everyone with Bridget, a character not widely viewed as top tier in Slash. Also, just because it is so hard to find Guilty Gear competition, many small "sub-communities" have formed within the community's entirety. Team Tournaments seemed a perfect way for those sub-communities to not only band together to compete against the other sub-communities, but it also provided a way to avoid having to play against your friends in the tournament. Having tried it out and seeing how positively the community responded to having a Team Tournament, I would not be surprised to see more Team Tournaments in the future.

As for Guilty Gear itself, I would like to see it continue to thrive. I personally enjoy the game very much, and I think it's one of the most well-constructed fighting games out there today. Not only that, but the creators of the game are never content to rest on their laurels, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. The #Reload/Slash debate before Evo last year was a direct result of the creators always tweaking their game and trying to keep it fresh and balanced. While it's definitely nice, especially as a Capcom fan watching Capcom fail at their upgrade attempts over and over again, to see the creators always trying to make their game better, it also makes it difficult to really judge the game's performance at a major tournament at Evo. Does it really matter how well the game looked? I ask this because there is already a new version of Guilty Gear being beta tested in Japan: Guilty Gear XX Accent Core. Next year at Evo, if Guilty Gear is brought back, which one will it be? If Accent-Core is released on the consoles by Evo next year, what will the players demand this time? I guess only time will tell.

Capcom Vs. SNK 2: I'm not gonna lie. I don't like Capcom Vs. SNK 2. I've argued with one of the biggest proponents of the game about it as well: Kim-Hahn Hoang, creator of CrazyAssKim.com, pretty much the only American CvS2 dedicated website out there. I've pointed out the things I don't like about the game to him before, and while he tried his hardest to convince me that it was a great game, I never really quite believed him. And, much to Kim's dismay, he could only end his argument with a simple, "You just don't understand the game properly."

And after seeing this past year's level of Capcom Vs. SNK 2 play, I may have to concede that Kim was probably right. After a mediocre CvS2 showing at Evo West and a fairly blasé CvS2 showing at Evo East, CvS2 showed what it was capable of at Evo Finals. In fact, if I were told I had to choose a game for this type of an award, I would give Capcom Vs. SNK 2 "Game of the Year" for Evo 2006. Maybe it looked so good because I expected so little from the game, but what I saw this year displayed by the players was crazy. I think, of all the games at Evo, I saw the most advanced play in CvS2 in all of the Semis and Finals. I hate Roll Cancels, but even I have to admit that it's added a different level to the game (though I still think it makes Blanka's Fierce Electricity a tad bit too powerful). For example, I can think of two instances when Roll Cancels were used during Custom Combos as a means to overcome not being able to Block, one which involved having a perfectly timed Reversal Custom Combo activation followed immediately by a Roll Canceled Blanka Electricity to beat the opponent's Roll Canceled Blanka Electricity, courtesy of Kindevu.

Not only was the level of play very strong, but it had all the right elements needed for an exciting tournament. We had players like Evil Elvis showing a strong performance against Japanese players. We had newcomers like Gene Wong assert themselves. We had the veterans from America show their true power, with guys like Combofiend and Buktooth and Kim doing massive damage throughout the Pools and the Finals, which included keeping Daigo out of the top 4. And, in the end, it was the only game where the final match was between a Japanese player and an American player, giving the audience a stronger vested interest on the outcome, hoping that the American (Ricky Ortiz) could defeat the Japanese (Kindevu) for the victory.

It had all the proper elements to provide the audience with an entertaining show. And the amount of people entering CvS2 always remains one of the highest at Evo, so it's obvious that the game isn't going away anytime soon. Before, knowing that CvS2 was sticking around for the long-haul would have made me cringe. Now, I'm looking forward to seeing CvS2 next year to see how far the players have advanced this time. Well played, CvS2! But now, its community needs to ban together to show their support for their game. CvS2 fans are definitely the quietest and they are very casual. If CvS2 wants the respect that the other games have, its community will have to start stepping it up.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: Someone has gotta get to a point where they can challenge Justin Wong. After taking a hiatus last year, Wong was back to his usual self, dominating Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 and taking back the crown. And while it's great to see Justin back on top of his game and, thus, the mountain, you just sometimes wish it would more of a struggle before he achieved his victory. But, instead, it looked business as usual, with Justin Wong really not sweating too much on his way to the championship.

And it's a shame to have it end on such a note. Everything for MvC2 at Evo previous to the Finals on Sunday was exciting as hell. Having the whole audience cheering and going nuts while watching Duc Vs. Sanford on the big screens during pools was great. The rivalry between East Coast and West Coast also generated a ton of hype and excitement (anyone who says otherwise didn't see or hear the money matches going on in the BYOC). And then there was the most hyped up match-up ever in Evo history with the Sanford Vs. Duc Super Championship Money Match on Saturday.

And there was even more reason to be excited about Finals Sunday. There was a lot to be hyped up with Duc trying to defend his championship from last year against the huge entourage of East Coast players coming to Evo for the first time, all wanting to prove that Duc is really last year's news. Heck, Duc even had to try to defend his championship from all of the West Coast players itching for their chance to take the MvC2 crown and for their chance to fight Justin Wong.

But in the end, it wasn't quite as exciting as we'd all expect it to be. It's not that we are disappointed in Justin Wong winning every time. It's not that Chunksta didn't give it his all and didn't throw everything he had at Justin. No, I think it's more that Justin has no solid rival. In 5 years of MvC2 Championship victories (B5, Evo2k2, Evo2k3, Evo2k4, and Evo2k6), Justin Wong has faced five different opponents in the Grand Finals. It's almost just like how the Chicago Bulls won 6 championships playing only one team twice, which never really built up the excitement of a true rivalry. It should be more like the days of the Lakers and the Celtics, with the two teams facing off against each other year after year. Justin needs a good, strong rival, one from the West Coast who can give him the challenge he needs every year. That would be a really good way to keep the community and the life of MvC2 going strong. Let's see if the like of Soo, Chunksta, and Duc can continue their strong play and start giving Justin a really good run for his money.

But sadly, I don't even think the biggest danger the MvC2 community is the lack of a rival for Justin. Actually, the scene is in danger because of the shoddy hardware it must be played on. Year after year the Dreamcasts we use continue to die on us, and these machines really don't grow on trees. Eventually, there will be no new Dreamcasts for us to scrounge up. Not only that, but year after year we have to continually deal with the blue screens / random pausing because the Dreamcast hardware cannot take the punishment dished to it by all of the custom joysticks. A solution to the lousy hardware needs to be found to keep MvC2 alive, otherwise the scene might just die out by default. It's a shame Capcom's attempts at releasing the games on the other hardware (PlayStation 2 and XBox) have been so poor that the community cannot accept them. Is there any chance of expecting an arcade-perfect version to appear in the future at all? The chances seem very slim.

I would love to keep MvC2 going, as I still think the players in the community are the most passionate of all the Fighting Games. I love watching the East Coast players in particular because their unbridled passion for the game is an inspiration. All communities need to be as passionate about their game as the MvC2 community is about theirs. It's that passion that keeps MvC2 a staple of Evo every year.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike: If you throw out Guilty Gear, where there exists a HUGE gap in terms of level of play between Japan and America, Street Fighter III: Third Strike is probably the most lopsided game at Evo. Two games (HSF2 and CvS2) at Evo had 2 Japanese make it in the top 8. Three games (DoA4, Tekken 5, and MvC2) had zero Japanese players make it in the top 8. In Third Strike, 5 of the top 8 spots went to the Japanese, with Japan taking the top 4.

Many people have been citing Third Strike's finals as being completely boring with too many Yuns crowding up the field. Someone told me that, to settle a bet, they counted up 120+ Genei-Jin activations in the Finals alone. 3 of the top 4 Japanese finishers, Nitto, Mester, and Issei, all used Yun. Add to this the fact that none of the 5 Japanese players in the Finals were Daigo (eliminated in the semis), K.O. (didn't come), or KSK (eliminated in the Semis), all three crowd favorites. I'm not downplaying the other 5 Japanese players, it's just that we know there are players that the crowds just prefer to watch.

And so, people grew very tired of watching Yun Genei-Jin every opponent to death. There is now even discussions on the Shoryuken Forums on how to "jazz up" Third Strike, sparking up huge arguments on banning certain Super Arts and discussions on creating a "new" altered version of Third Strike using the System Direction available in Anniversary Collection.

While many of the players have a point (Third Strike Finals were awfully unexciting this year), I blame it less on the Yun-fest as I do on the fact that the Americans still cannot keep up with the Japanese in this game. If the Americans could give a good challenge, it would be a lot more exciting to watch. Not convinced? Lemme try to paint you a scenario:

If one of the Yun in the top 4 was Pyrolee, do you think the audience would have been as bored? If Pyrolee were landing Genei-Jins on the Japanese players, giving them a "taste of their own medicine," per se, you don't think the audience would have been more interested? If the finals came down to Pyrolee vs. Nitto, the crowds would go mad every time Pyrolee landed a Genei-Jin on Nitto. If it ended up America vs. Japan, don't you think the audience would watch more carefully and enthusiastically?

I do. That doesn't solve the problem of the game being a Yun-fest and a Chun-fest, but it certainly helps. Every year, America thinks it gets closer and closer to matching the Japanese in terms of skill level in Third Strike, but year after year we always fall short (with the closest chance of victory being last year, with Justin Wong finishing 2nd). Compared to what we accomplished in HSF2, we have a long way to go. And since Third Strike never loses steam (remaining by far the game with the most entrants), you would have to think we're improving overall 'cause so many people continue to play the game. I do think we continue to get better, but I think we gotta keep trying harder and make bigger leaps every year. Many people are worried that Third Strike will be boring as it is at every Evo from now on, but I think if we can get 5 or 6 players out of the top 8 from America, things will be a lot different.

And with that, I officially end the Evo Season on my blog. It's been a great year, and I think it's only gonna get better next year. We learn so much every year, and when the things that were hard before become pedestrian, we can start adding more and more to the event that will definitely make Evo even greater. So I hope to see you all next year!

And for those waiting for me to get back to my ramblings on the gaming industry, starting next post, we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming.

- James

P.S. If you haven't already, please check out all the photos from Evo Finals Sunday here.

Evolution Finals 2006 - All Growns Up

2006-08-28T23:55:00.000-07:00

Evolution has grown up this year.

Not just the tournament itself, mind you. Evolution 2006 at the Red Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, sponsored by the Toyota Yaris, has grown in every way, shape, or form; every aspect, detail, and angle; every one, where, and thing. Evolution has grown up. The stakes were higher, the competition fiercer, the quality of play stronger. The underdogs tougher, the champions wiser, and the players more mature. Yup, this was the year that Evolution grew up.

This is the year we saw America assert itself. Many predicted that the Japanese would come over to our home court and walk away with the prizes. But this year, through a valiant effort, many of the American players managed to show that not just a few players have grown stronger, but the overall level of play in the country has grown stronger. Players like Warren Patten can take Kindevu to a few pixels, lose, and still have the strength to immediately follow-up by taking out Tokido in Capcom Vs. SNK 2. Alex Valle has the confidence to take down Daigo not once, but twice (and thrice if you count arm wrestling). And Alex Wolfe, Graham Wolfe, and Jason Nelson, the "OG'est" of the OG crew, were able to show that, despite a casualty, home turf would be more strongly defended than previously thought.

This is the year that the dark horse of Street Fighter, Capcom Vs. SNK 2, showed why it belonged in the canon of fighting game greats. In a year where Hyper Street Fighter 2 had so much anticipation built up, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 had so much drama ready to go, and Third Strike yet again boasted the largest pool of players, Capcom Vs. SNK 2 stole the show and ended up being perhaps the most exciting game at Evo 2k6. The level of play on display was more advanced than I've ever seen in the game, and the level of excitement was incredible. Kim, longtime proponent of CvS2, had always tried to tell me the game was good. This year, I was convinced.

This is the year that the tournament was run as smoothly as it ever has. Gone was the past inevitability that the tournament would run late into the night past midnight or 1:00 a.m. or even 2:00 a.m. Gone were the problems of having players playing multiple games at once, forcing them to ferry themselves back and forth between two pools from two different games. Gone were the schedules that were eventually disregarded. This year, the Staff put on a great show, and I'm proud to know that all the blood, sweat, and tears put in by the Staff gave an event everyone could enjoy.

This was the year that saw a change in the way we view rivalries. A proud Josh Wigfall proclaimed on the forums that the Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 scene wasn't ready for the cards that the East Coast were going to bring to the table at Evo 2006. But after the West Coast withstood the East Coast onslaught, Wigfall came back and, once again on the Forums, congratulated the West Coast for putting up a strong fight. And what was the result? A forum full of East Coasters and West Coasters giving each other shout-outs and props, focusing on the enjoyable matches in the steamy bathrooms of Red Rock and in the "Bring Your Own Console" area. So even though there was plenty of room for immature bragging and excuse making, the players chose to use the competitiveness to form a stronger overall community by congratulating each other instead.

This was the year that saw that we only get better with time. I already mentioned that Alex Valle and Daigo squared up twice at this year's Evo. And if you recall, these are the same two young fighters that competed in 1998 in the very first US Vs. Japan event in Street Fighter Alpha 3. And now, 8 years later, here they are playing twice on a grand stage in front of huge audiences in Las Vegas. And while, back in 1998, Daigo was viewed as the foreign enemy, Daigo is now a hero in America, having given the American audiences probably the greatest moment in Evo history two years ago in Third Strike. And after the tournament, this former enemy partied and hung out with Valle and other American players, getting so... uh... "into it" that he and Combofiend had to be wheeled back to their rooms afterwards. My, how far we have come in 8 years...

And while Daigo and Valle showed that the experts only keep getting better, we had players like one Gene Wong come in and show that the crop of new top players doesn't end with another guy named Wong. Gene came into this year's Evo, his first ever, and showed that no one can ever be underestimated and that the veteran pros can't take any ol' 15 year old lightly. With the poise and determination from players twice his age (yes, we exist), Gene powered his way to 7th place in Capcom Vs. SNK 2, taking out even top players such as Nitto from Japan. This is a good sign that there will never be a shortage of top players.

This was the year we saw one of the most anticipated match-ups ever. With more money than you can shake a stick at -- gathered from an entire fighting game community -- on the line; with so much trash talking and posturing on forums; with so much pride in the hero of your coast on the line; with all this, we saw two people battle it out in what could be the most hyped up competitive gaming event in fighting game... nay, video gaming history. And despite all of the competitiveness, the lasting visions I have were Duc and Sanford discussing their pools match in a very cordial fashion after Duc's victory and Sanford shaking Duc's hand and then the two engaging in a respectful embrace after Sanford won the money match 7-4.

Evolution is a competition, a gathering of players ready to defeat one another. But, to quote Chris Li while he MC'ed the Duc / Sanford money match, "It's not about the hate, it's about the hype." I echo his sentiment that it's events like the money match and Evo itself that keep the community strong, energized, and everlasting. Though the arcades have died and the new games are scarce, Evolution has grown larger. Evolution has grown stronger.

Evolution has grown up.

- James

P.S. Check out photos here, from the first three days of the event. More photos will go up as I write more about the event. I intend to write what I think the state of every individual game is.

All Signs Point To...

2006-08-11T02:19:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. I've been decidedly busy recently, both voluntarily and involuntarily. The Evolution stuff has been taking up a good chunk of my time (doing things for all three Evos and practicing the games I'm entering as well), as well as friends being in town and some not-so-fun stuff happening at my job. Thus, I've been neglecting this blog for a bit, to make sure I take care of all the things I need to take care of. But as Evo Finals is only one week away, I figured I'd better get in a couple of posts now before that rolls around, at least to prove that I'm not dead nor neglecting this blog.

I've wanted to post for awhile now. And during the course of the last couple of weeks, I ran into a lot of situations that inspired blog topic ideas for me to write about. See, even though I've been busy, a lot of what I've been busy with still involved games because, well, there's always time to get in some games! And what's even more curious is that, even though there may be about 5 or 6 incidents that inspired me to write a new post, all 6 incidents ended up reinforcing one main point. So, over the course of the past few weeks, I have:

1) Completed New Super Mario Bros. completely.
2) Been getting more mileage out of my PSP than my DS all of a sudden.
3) This PSP usage has rekindled my love for Lumines.
4) Street Fighter II Turbo was released on XBox Live Arcade.
5) Decided to go through and play a whole mess of old arcade games at random with my friends on emulators.
6) Read a post on Joystiq stating that platform games are no longer en vogue.

And these 6 incidents have helped me determine one thing:

(Note: Though my one main point will be covered in this post, these incidents have also inspired a couple of side articles I'd also like to also get posted: my full review of New Super Mario Bros. (now that I've played the entire game and collected everything in it) and a discussion on the proper way to deal with unlockable content in games (grrrrrr.... Lumines). But the main topic I'd like to discuss is:)

Arcade games need to come back.

And no, this is not your typical declarative statement from me. Arcade games aren't "better" than what we have on consoles today. They shouldn't replace what we have now. What we have currently isn't bad or the sign of gaming demise. No, it's nothing like that. The reason I think arcade games need to make a comeback is much more innocent than that: I miss them.

I should probably clarify on what I mean by arcade games. I'm thinking along the lines of what arcade games used to represent. An old arcade game was a good, simple diversion for players to play. You never needed more than a day to enjoy the game. There was no long-term goal. You popped in a quarter and played it and, for the free time you had, you enjoyed it. But you could then go a whole week or two without playing it again, and there would be no feeling of a need to go back and play it more to "finish" it or advance the story. This is the type of game I am referring to when I say arcade games need to come back. This is the type of game I'm missing. This is the type of game that I'm craving.

But here's the kicker: I don't think I'm the only one. In fact, the trends I see seem to support the idea that the general public craves arcade-styled games as well. The signs are all there. I mean, every time I ask someone to give me reasons why I should own the XBox 360 right now, the one main reason I get is indelibly to play Geometry Wars. And the general feeling I'm getting is that people are enjoying having things like Pac-Man, Frogger, Joust, Uno, Bejeweled, and such available to play on XBox Live Arcade. And they want more games like this, such as the 4-Player arcade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Konami. And when people talk about how the PSP hasn't had any real breakout hits, they always have to add the caveat of Lumines being the best PSP-only game. And then, Eric Williams writes a post craving for a pick-up-and-play game for the DS.

Speaking of the DS, I have a few games on my DS that I haven't played through yet, such as Trauma Center and Resident Evil. I want to complete these games, but as I went on my vacation in the East Coast for Evo East, I found myself only playing my PSP on the trains and buses and subways and planes that I took when I traveled. And it was pretty apparent why: I just wanted to find games I could pick up and play. I didn't feel like playing anything that involved advancing or finishing or save points, which were the only type of games I had slated to play on my DS. So the games I ended up playing most were Gradius Collection and Lumines, two games that are easy to pick up and play and enjoy. And even after returning from my vacation, I find myself popping in and playing Lumines more than any other game right now because, not only is it a very enjoyable game, it's easy to just play it for an hour before bed. The only other game taking up my time is an import copy of "Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan" that I recently got for my DS, and it is yet another simple pick-up-and-play type of game.

And recently, a few of my friends were just playing a bunch of random old arcade games through an emulator. And it was surprising to see just how innovative some of those old games were. Admittedly, the majority of games we played were garbage, and the innovation rate was low, but there were a few really good standouts that, I think, would even make great fun XBox Live Arcade games today. But the main point is that, despite technical limitations of older games, the creativity and fun factor were still there, particularly because of their ability to be played on a whim. And it was just really fun to see just how creative game-makers tried to be back then, coming up with very cool and hugely innovative ideas for games.

I honestly believe people do want these types of games still. There is definitely an audience for it. As I stated earlier, I don't think game designers should focus on making these types of games only. They shouldn't make these types of games instead of the games that dominate the market currently. Obviously, there will always be room for long-term single-player games such as Grand Theft Auto, Legend of Zelda, or Final Fantasy. But the fact that there doesn't seem to be any real reliable source for new arcade-style games seems to have created a void for many gamers. I think there is a great case to be made that both types of games should happily coexist with each other because both types of games have a strong audience.

I mean, how else could you explain the love for New Super Mario Bros.? People have been craving another "arcade-style" Super Mario game for so long. In fact, I think the recent dearth of good platform games, like the original Contra or the NES Bionic Commando, has fueled this desire. People have become so eager for anything resembling this type of game that New Super Mario Bros. ended up being so well-received, garnering high scores from many reviews and selling a huge number of copies, despite the fact that it's really only a very mediocre game, one not even particularly designed well at all. And even more strangely, it turned out to not be a good pick-up-and-play type game either, unlike the original Super Mario Bros. on the NES. That game, you could just pop in every so often. Easy Warp Zones brought you to pretty much whichever world you wanted, beating it really took around 30 minutes, and you could fiddle with the game as you saw fit.

Also, recently, there was huge anticipation for Street Fighter II Turbo on XBox Live. I doubt anyone wanted the game because they wanted to beat up on the CPU. No, I suspect that they wanted it because it would be so nice to come home from work or school and unwind by playing a few games online. Or to just wind down the day by playing a few games before going to bed. And had Capcom been able to deliver on the game properly (I haven't played it myself, but I've heard numerous criticisms, particularly in the lag department), it probably would have been a huge success and hit for XBox Live Arcade.

Back in the old days of arcade gaming, people almost haphazardly made arcade games, trying various gimmicks and variations of popular genres. Some of them caught on and became huge successes. Others faded away into obscurity because they were terrible. A few became good, quiet hits. Though it may have been expensive to make these types of games in the past, I can't imagine it would be hard or expensive to make arcade-style games anymore considering technology today. So why hasn't anyone decided to start a small game company to just try to only make arcade games? In the XBox Live Arcade, you have a perfect forum for this type of game. If you make 10 flops, it'll probably cost you less than watching one Viewtiful Joe game fail. And if you end up making just one Geometry Wars (which I can only imagine sells almost on a one-to-one basis for those who own a 360 and have XBox Live) every 10 flops, that'll easily make up for the cost of those flops. And if Nintendo and Sony follow suit with their own versions of XBox Live Arcade, you'll only have more ability to be successful.

So yeah, bring back the arcade games. I miss them. We miss them. We miss them a whole lot. We've all just been subconsciously waiting for them. The audience is there. I really believe it is.

- James

Evolution East 2006 - Part 2: The Games

2006-07-20T23:13:00.000-07:00

(Don't forget to read part 1 of this Evo East write up here first.)

Okay. Drama resolved. Ballroom setup. Players ready. Can we get this thing started now? It was early Saturday morning, I had only around 5 hours of sleep in two days, but it was finally time. Everything should be routine now, correct? In terms of how the tournament was run, it was definitely a well-oiled machine, after so many years of experience. But what made this particular tournament counter to the routines I normally am familiar with was this: I really didn't know anyone anymore. At Evo West, if you recall, I said it felt like a family reunion. Evo East, for me, felt more like a business convention. Not that it was any less casual, not at all. It was just that, for me, it felt a lot like a place where I went to to be introduced to many different people. Sure, there was a lot of the old familiar faces (like Justin Wong, Henry Cen, Chris Li, Mike Creque and David Wright), but otherwise virtually everyone was a new face to me. But what I felt at Evo West seemed to be what most players felt at Evo East. Everyone there knew each other, and I'm hoping it felt as casual and enjoyable to the players as Evo West did for me. It sure seemed like it.

The other really cool thing about Evo East was that it really was a different world there. Not only were there new top-tier players that I had never met nor heard of before (one such example was Lincoln Morris. I hear he's a rising star in the East Coast, and he tore fools up in all the games I watched him play, myself included in the Guilty Gear tournament), but there was an entirely different lingo there. A lot of the nicknames they gave moves/characters/etc. were terms I hadn't heard before, and it was definitely interesting trying to parse the slang there.

As for the players themselves, I met a lot of new people there, talked to a lot of old guys I had only ever spoken to over Shoryuken.com forums before, and chatted with some old buddies. I'm glad I got to meet so many new faces of people who never have made it out to an Evo Event before, I only hope that most of the people I met can find a way to get to Evo Vegas. It would be great to see them again.

The Games

Let's talk about the games, shall we?

Mario Kart DS - Hmm. I guess no one on the East Coast is interested in Mario Kart, eh? If you showed up and played for the first time, you would have qualified for Mario Kart. There were only 7 time entries for the game on Saturday, and on Sunday, only 5 of the players showed up. So pretty much, only two players didn't win money and only one player didn't qualify. Looks like Mario Kart is wide open in Vegas. Time to practice up, eh? My final thought: it doesn't seem like there is much interest in the game right now, but with the prize money in Vegas, you can bet the competition won't be any less intense there.

Dead or Alive 4 - There was definitely a lot more interest in Dead or Alive 4 on the East Coast than on the West Coast. We had around 30 entrants, the same amount of entrants as Tekken 5. It actually seemed as if there was a DoA4 contingent here. A bunch of players I saw were here only for DoA4, and I was very happy to see that. I hope that most of the DoA4 players can find their way to Vegas. So once again, my final thought is that the competition will be fierce in Vegas, and it certainly isn't too late to pick up the game if you've played it casually before.

Tekken 5 - Lots of interesting things going on here. I'm pretty sure there's been plenty of discussion already on Tekken Zaibatsu Forums already regarding drama in the Tekken community. First of all, there certainly weren’t a lot of pleasantries exchanged between Jinmaster and Spero Gin after their final match together for third place. Second of all, Justin Wong won Tekken. Now, I'm not going the route you probably think I am. I'm not going to go the route of "Oooooohhhhh, a Street Fighter player won Tekken! Ohhhhh..." Nah, that discredits Justin Wong. He dedicated his time to learning the game and he did very well learning it. And he's Justin Wong: he's an "Anything" player (third place in Mario Kart on little practice, come on!). But it was just so very unexpected. Does that mean Justin Wong has the potential to win yet another game at Evo? So my Final Thought is this: this Justin Wong development may breed some interest for those Street Fighter players who normally don't watch Tekken. If Justin can make top 8 in Vegas, there will definitely be some craziness going on during the Finals.

Hyper Street Fighter 2 - Mike Creque got Cammy onto the big screen at Evo East as well!!! Cammy power, baby! All you players out there better start practicing up on fighting Cammy, 'cause you might run into one of us! Better learn how to beat this secret top tier character.

Lots of drama here as well in the form of the return of the "Black Bracket of Death." For those who have no clue what the Black Bracket is, a few years ago at the Evolution Tournament at UCLA, the brackets were labeled with colors. For Super Turbo, the bracket that was labeled "Black" ended up having, after some random seeding, a ton of top players. So getting out of that bracket wasn't easy, and a lot of great players didn't qualify. And this year at Evo East, there was a similar bracket that included players such as JeRon, Julian Robinson, NKI, Chris Li, Phi, Sirlin, and myself. It was pretty nuts. A few people have complained about it, even claimed there could possibly be a conspiracy, and have demanded proper seeding for tournaments. The only problem with that is that seeding can generate yet even more drama and conspiracy theories. And if anyone has a right to complain, it would be me: I'm the only person who was actually involved in both Black Brackets. So if I'm in a Super Turbo / HSF2 tournament, pray you aren't in my bracket. I won't eliminate you, but everyone else in my bracket will!!

And congrats to Phil Barnell for backing up his talk and taking this game. However, I'm going to have to change Phil's nickname from DSP to DFN from now on. After defeating Justin Wong to take the finals, Phil threw out his declarative statement: "Daigo's F***ing Next!" So he's now DFN in my book. Because you can't throw that out and take it back later. I wish Phil all the luck in beating Daigo, but I hope he takes is a bit more seriously. The only proper way to beat Daigo is to give him proper respect. Just thinking you're good enough to beat him isn't gonna be good enough. You gotta at least realize he's amazing at the game, and that he's defeated the best in America in past Evo tournaments. And he's not even considered the best in his own country. But it would be nice if America could take back the classic game series, so more power to you, Phil and all other challengers to the crown!

My Final Thought: this is building up to be the most hyped up game of them all. Between DSP (DFN) backing up his talk, Graham and Alex Wolfe backing up theirs, and all three of them gunning at the return of Daigo, we've got a real potential doozy here in Vegas. I can't wait! And I'm still holding on to the dream, now, of getting two Cammys onto the big screen. So Mike and I are gonna rock the house! Beware!

Capcom Vs. SNK 2 - Beware the SmoothCat. He had a heartbreaking loss to Justin Wong in the Finals of the tournament, but I recall what happened in MvC2 at Evo West. If you recall my Evo West post, I told the tail of how Chunksta also had a crushing loss to Justin Wong, and then at Evo West of this year came back to win the tournament for MvC2. It's like they always say: it takes that heart-wrenching loss before you can achieve the next level. So even though SmoothCat has received a very tough loss, I think it'll only make him stronger and make his resolve more solid. I say look out for this guy at Evo Finals this year.

My Final Thought: there is a definite distinction between Evo West and Evo East styles of play. While the West tournament had a lot more offensive-based players, the East Coast still has a tighter more defensive style of play. It'll be interesting to see how the clash between styles at Evo Finals will play out. Which style will take the top? Can't wait to see.

Guilty Gear XX Slash - Once again, I entered this game and once again, I think I performed rather sub-par. And after watching the top 4 teams play, I came to the same conclusion I did at Evo West: I have a long way to go in this game. This game is just so much fun to watch. The audience went crazy watching this game, especially at the beatdown provided by the Anji of Josh A.K.A. Zidanel33t. There is always so much action in the game and crazy momentum shifts and insane combos. And every time I watch it, I just want to end up playing it more.

And I love the team tournament format. At Evo West, we had Slayer and A.B.A. dominating. And at Evo East, we had Anji going nuts and Chetan's Johnny dropping mad combos on people. At Evo Finals, hopefully we'll have one incredible character variety. I wouldn't even be surprised if the top 4 teams had around 10 completely different characters being used between the 12 players.

My Final Thought: Hopefully, we'll be able to see a huge character variety in the finals. If we do, maybe the finals will be able to show people why this game is so much fun, and more people will end up picking it up. It's a great game, and a shame not more people play it. Hopefully, its popularity grows in the coming years.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 – I have another nickname: instead of Yipes, I want to call him "The Programmable Joystick." Because every time I watch him play, it looks like he’s the Magneto from a Combo Video made by Magnetro2k. And it’s just like Chris A.K.A. "The Matrix" said as his advice for those fighting Yipes in his guest commentary: "Don't get hit. "

East Coast MvC2 is on a different level. I mentioned that the West Coast MvC2 players are very passionate about their game, and it's even more so in the East Coast. I think I had as much fun watching the players as I did the actual matches. The players are so loud and raucous, and they are having so much fun watching the game. I think once we get some East Vs. West action going on in the Finals, the whole room will explode. There will definitely be some great rivalries and a lot of players rooting for their guy. It's gonna be crazy stuff.

My Final Thought: As with every year, I think the thing that will make MvC2 so much fun in Vegas will be the fact that the tournament will be pretty much 100% U.S. players. So the Finals will almost definitely be some heated and very passionate matches. Bring some earplugs, folks, 'cause it is gonna get loud in the building during finals.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike - Of all the games for Justin Wong to not qualify in, it is this game. I think he will bounce back by Evo Finals, however, and hopefully can make it far into the bracket. Last year, Wong himself almost gave U.S. the win over the Japanese in the game. I would love to see the Japanese properly challenged this year, and all Evo East did was prove the Japanese still rule, thanks to the win by the guest from Japan, Issei.

My Final Thought: Hopefully, this year players such as Wong and Exodus and Fubarduck (and Evo West players like Pyrolee and Amir) can give Japan a run for their money. If we keep getting closer and closer every year, the only way we can go up this year is to win it all. Let's see what happens at Evo Finals!

The Conclusion

Disasters were averted, and hype and excitement has been built up. I think this year, Evo Finals in Vegas has the potential to be seriously the greatest video game tournament of all time. Don't miss out, and please visit!

Check out the photos I took from Evo East as well. And note that for every picture, if you click on the "All Sizes" button above the picture, you can view the picture at its full size, and do a right-click/save-as. That way, if you want to save any of the pictures for yourself, you can get it at full size:

Evo East 2006 Photos

I did my best to list people's names and such, but will intentionally leave out a lot of names. If you see I've gotten any names wrong or know the names of anyone else on the pictures, feel free to leave a comment and let me know who everyone is. And if you see yourself in any picture and want yourself pointed out, leave a comment on the picture's page so I know exactly which photo you are referring to. (Note: Once again, I will monitor the comments religiously, so I only wanna see people play nice, now, okay? Got it? Thanks.)

Some final shout-outs: Really, Gilbert deserves the biggest shout-out of everyone. What he did to help us get the TVs from Wal-Mart was incredible. Also a shout-out to everyone who helped out, like Bacardi, Phi, Chris Li, Mike Creque, and so many others. And thanks to my Guilty Gear team for journeying out form California to check out Evo East and for offering to help us with the TV situation. And once again, the dedicated staff: Tom Cannon, Tony Cannon, Seth Killian, Joey Cuellar, and David Sirlin. Let's make Evo Vegas run just as smoothly.

See everyone at Vegas! And thanks for reading.

- James

Evolution East 2006 - Part 1: The Show Must Go On

2006-07-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I can even talk about Evo East in the same fashion that I spoke about Evo West. Evo West had nary a hitch, and everything went pretty much according to plan. Evo East? Different story. That is not to say that the tournament did not go well. The tournament was great, and I hope everyone in the east who hadn't managed to ever attend an Evo event in the past had a chance to come out and experience Evo tournaments first hand. And I hope they all had a really good time. And I'm sure everyone has already heard about "The Drama" that happened this past weekend. And for those that don't know exactly what happened, lemme just say that it's just a testament to what the organizers are willing to go through to make sure Evo runs. Not just runs, but runs as well as we can make it.

The Arriving

Before I go into the drama, (which I've shamelessly teased you with and am leaving you hanging right now), I need to establish, at least, my personal state during which The Drama occurred. I figured I would fly to Evo East and that I would do it with a red eye, sleeping on the plane and checking into the hotel the following afternoon. Never again will I take the red eye. For one thing, I tried to starve myself of sleep Thursday morning so that, on my flight between Thursday and Friday, I would fall asleep easily on the plane. Well, the first sign of trouble was when I overslept my alarm Thursday morning, and got way more sleep than I had intended. So by the time 11:30 p.m. rolled around and I was on my plane, sleeping was not the easiest thing to accomplish. In fact, I think I slept for about 45 minutes and had that half-assed sleep the rest of the flight (half-assed sleep being that state in which you seem to continually convince yourself that you are asleep even though you are actually still fairly conscious). And then on the second leg of my flight, I managed to sleep about an hour on the plane. So by the time I finally reached the Westin Inn in Stamford, Connecticut, the location of Evolution East 2006, I was dead tired. But it's Friday afternoon and there is set-up to be done. So I checked in, showered up, and headed right back down on 1.75 hours of sleep and began the set up process.

And set up was a breeze. Everything went super smooth. The AV Staff at the hotel was super cooperative and helpful. We had just the right supplies for what we needed. All of the machines were connected quickly and working (scratch that... we've lost yet another two Dreamcasts. Every time we run a tournament, another Dreamcast or two goes out on us). The Toyota Yaris arrives on time and is set up with no problems. Basically, thanks to Evo West just two weeks earlier and knowing what to expect, everything was smooth sailing. And throughout the whole setup run, those of us on staff were marveling at how smoothly it was going and how fast we managed to setup. We actually thought we might, for once, get some sleep on the day of setup! But you know what they say: Knock on wood, karma bites you in the ass, pride comes before a fall... All of the staff almost had this horrid thought in the back of their minds that something was gonna go wrong. It wouldn't be Evo without us having to do some crazy emergency recovery. But nothing we've ever done has approached what we had to go through at Evo East: The Drama.

The Drama

The first sign something bad was when the TVs showed up. We had great TVs in Los Angeles, but shipping them to the East Coast with super fast shipping (to guarantee we'd have them by Evo East) and then having the hotel hold onto them until we arrived was an exorbitant cost that wasn't worth it. So we called every place we could in the areas around Connecticut, and no one had 30 TVs for rent. It was pretty odd that nothing was available. Finally, we managed to arrange something with a company to ship us TVs there from somewhere closer to the West Coast, I believe. Then, before the event, we were contacted by the rental company and they gave us a nice surprise: "Hi, we've upgraded your TV order from CRTs to flat-screen LCDs for free!" I'm sure they meant it as a pleasant surprise for us, but it certainly wasn't. We told them we didn't want the LCDs, but apparently it was too late. So we figured we would hedge our bets and hope these ones would not be bad. But in general, LCDs are horrible for playing video games. If you do not know why, allow me to explain...

(Okay, lots of technobabble here. If you are willing to take my word that LCDs are horrible for gaming, skip on ahead to the next section and continue on with the story.)

The Technobabble

There are two types of TVs images that can be displayed: interlaced and progressive scan. The older technology, interlaced, basically shows only half of the TV's images at a time: every other line. Thus, if the resolution of the TV is 480 lines up and down, only 240 are displayed at once: line 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. Then, it switches and shows the other half. So it basically flickers back and forth between the two sets of lines, but does it so fast that the human eye can't really notice it... all a person sees is one completed image. But things that are not the the human eye can't see it that way. Ever try to use a camcorder to record the images on a TV? You see that weird large black bar that scrolls up the screen and makes the TV image look terrible? Yup, that's because of the interlaced image. The Video camera doesn't see at the same speed as the human eye, so it looks really bad when you try to record TV images with a video camera.

Progressive scan, on the other hand, shows the entire image the entire time, so the image is sharper and stronger. Point a video camera at an image that is progressive scan, and it will look as clear on the movie you've recorded as it does in person. Since progressive scan is so much better than interlaced images, most TVs these days would rather output a progressive image. Most old TVs can only output in interlaced mode. TVs from the years past allow displays in both interlaced and in progressive. And very recent TVs these days, the nicer ones anyhow, tend to only display in progressive.

But here's the problem: old VCR's, game consoles, DVD players, etc. all output interlaced images, because that's what all TVs used to support. So that begs the question: what happens when you give interlaced signals to a TV that can only output in progressive scan? It's simple really: the TV itself does some extra work by upgrading the image. It takes the interlaced image and converts it to a progressive scan image on the fly. So even though we pass interlaced images to the TV, it figures out how to combine the interlaced images together to form a nice progressive scan-like image to display on the screen. The person watching the DVD won't even know it's happening. But how about the person playing a video game? Very different story here.

If you are watching a movie on a DVD player, processing the image isn't an issue at all -- the TV spits a newly converted image out to you and you see the image and hear it and it all looks great. Nothing is different for you. The issue comes from when you are interacting with the TV, and really only one thing does that: video games. Though the conversion technology the TVs use to upgrade the image is very fast, it still takes time for the TV to do this. It may be just half a second, but it still takes time. So whatever you pump into the TV actually shows up on the screen itself half a second late. So when playing video games, it becomes a huge problem. Particularly when playing a video game where a quarter of a second can mean the difference between winning and losing. Particularly in games where those life changing milliseconds occur every other second.

Because of this delay, when you press a button on your controller, the game console gives the TV the image that it is supposed to display. But because now there is an extra processing time required to upgrade the image, there is now a half a second delay between your pressing the button and seeing the result on the screen. This doesn't cut it for fighting games. Many of the situations that require millisecond timing and reaction are visually based. So if you look at the image on the screen and know you have to hit a button right when something happens, you're already looking at an image that's half a second old. So when you hit the button, you're not hitting it at the time you think you are: you are hitting it half a second late. So timing is all out the window and precision is no longer possible. And this makes fighting games unplayable.

(Okay, technobabble over. Feel free to read on...)

The Drama Continued

So when we saw the LCDs arrive, a nice scare was shot through us. Did these LCDs have the same problem as other LCDs that have caused us problems in the past? If these 30 LCDs had lag, it put our entire tournament at risk. So we decided to test them out.

And this is the part that confuses me the most. I popped in Capcom Vs SNK 2, a game whose combos I am very familiar with. The staff asked me to try some harder combos and see if there was any lag. And the weird thing is: I couldn't detect any! I tried a few combos, and had no trouble with any of them. (Combo babble here... skip to the next paragraph if you have no clue what on earth I'm talking about...) I performed some combos that I am familiar with. First, I tried C-Groove Chun Li's Jab, Jab, Short into Level 2 Sen Retsu Kyaku cancelled into Roundhouse Lightning Kick. Then I linked that into Stand Fierce buffered into a Level 1 Sen Retsu Kyaku... on my first try. I then did Benimaru's Custom Combo that involves doing his Kick Uppercut move cancelled into a whiffed Standing Short, followed up with Jumping Fierce juggles like three times in a row after only a few failed attempts. I performed Rock's 360 Throw into the corner + follow-up, Juggle with Crouch Roundhouse cancelled into Level 2 Raging Storm which was then cancelled into the Jab Rising Tackle, and finally Juggled with a Level 1 Kick Super. I mean, with lag, these Combos will be virtually impossible. And I didn't experience the lag at all.

Thus, we thought we were safe and the set up process, once again, was running almost too perfectly smooth. But then, the players arrived and began plugging in to the provided TVs at the back of the room (these TVs are provided for players to play whatever games they want using their own consoles that they brought from home). And every player experienced lag. And when I went back to try it out, sure enough: there was very noticeable lag. When you hit a button on the controller, the character on screen always reacted a fraction of a second later. This makes just about every fighting game unplayable. Though you can adjust for the lag eventually, who wants to do that? It invalidates the entire tournament. Now it becomes a contest of who can adjust to the lag, not who is the best at the games.

So I put a bit of blame on myself for The Drama. How did I miss the lag in my first test? I'm still not sure. Either A) I'm that good. B) Some external factor got in the way. C) That particular TV I used was the only one in the whole set that was fine. D) Muscle memory. We know that A and C are completely improbable. So was it B? I'm not sure. I'm not 100% positive, but I do have a vague memory, thinking back on it, that the PlayStation 2 console I was playing on was not plugged directly into the TV. It might have been going though the splitter that we used to split the image to the TV and the big screen projector. I cannot think of a technical explanation of why that would eliminate lag, but it's the only "outside" influence I can recall. The only other theory is the muscle memory. Maybe I've done the combos soooo much in the past, that they are just second nature to me. But considering the last time I played CvS2 was Evo 2005, I really doubt it.

In any case, there's no point trying to figure out what happened. The only thing left to do at that time was to figure out how to solve the problem. And the staff gathered around and discussed it. Canceling the tournament is just not an option. Playing with lag was also not an option. So what on earth were we going to do? After we closed the ballroom Friday night, at around midnight, the staff gathered to figure out our options.

We went through a bunch of crazy scenarios. Ask the hotel to borrow their TVs from everyone's rooms? Run the tournament IN all of the staff's hotel rooms, sending players between rooms? Wait until the morning and hit the local CostCo and pray we can buy 20 TVs in the morning? Find a place still open and buy 20 brand new TVs? All are options, but all of those were most likely not going to happen or they provided too much risk. Except the last option. Buying the TVs right there and then was the only option we had left. But it was midnight!! Who on earth was open at midnight that would be willing to sell us twenty TVs?!?

Wal-Mart, that's who. There are such things as 24-hour Wal-Marts and we know they have TVs at Wal-Marts. Was it a long shot? Yeah. Are we gonna go for it? Hells Yeah. So we called just about every Wal-Mart in the New England states, it felt like. We tried to find not only one that was actually opened for 24 hours, but was also willing to sell us 20 TVs. And we finally found one... something like 50 miles away from the Westin Inn. So now the question is: do we drive 100 miles round-trip to buy them? And if we do, what on earth do we transport them in?

That's where Gilbert comes in. Gilbert is the man who drives the Yaris in a large truck from event site to event site. He's a really cool guy who has been talking a lot with the staff, also using his own time to help out staff and such. He was there helping us late that night and when he heard what we were thinking of doing, he volunteered his truck for us to use. After all, the Yaris was on site already and the truck was empty.

So we had everything in place. So did we carry out this crazy idea? You bet we did. 5 of us immediately went out after midnight in two vehicles to drive 100 miles round trip to find a Wal-Mart that we've never been to so that we could buy 20 brand new TVs just to make sure Evo East would run. And I must remind you that I am personally on 1.75 hours of sleep in the span of 40 hours at this point. And most of the other staff isn't much more well-rested. And we knew that going out to buy 20 TVs and coming back to set them up meant we weren't getting to bed until 5:00 a.m. at best. But we didn't care and set out on our mission. So, although this may sound like shameless self-promotion, I need to say one thing:

This is how far the Evo Staff is willing to go and how dedicated we are to put on a good show for the players.

We didn't care if we got no sleep, it wasn't even a factor in our consideration. Losing sleep to make the tournament run perfectly was a foregone conclusion. We get a lot of hatred from people for they way we do things. Oftentimes, we are told by people that we don't care about the community. And it's comments like that that drive me crazy. They really don't know what we go through to make sure the ship sails on smooth waters. Sometimes we make decisions that are unpopular, but there are always reasons for what we do. And we aren't doing anything to ruin the community. Everything we do, we are trying to make sure everyone has a great time.

And so out we went. And 50 miles later, we were in a Wal-Mart in New York buying 20 TVs and lifting them into a truck. And 50 miles later, we were back in Stamford. (And, as if the night couldn't get any crazier, even more completely disastrous misadventures occurred during the Wal-Mart run. I won't go into details, but just believe me when I say it could have gotten much, much, much worse, were it not for some true heroes of the night... you know who you are if you are reading this). And we took down all of the LCDs and replaced them with the new TVs we bought after hauling all 20 TVs from the truck into the ballroom. And there was no lag on these TVs. And finally, things were ready to go on Saturday. And by the time I managed to climb into bed to get some sleep, it was already light outside. I'm pretty sure everyone who went on the Wal-Mart run climbed into bed at around 6:00 a.m. and we all needed to be back into the ballroom by 9:00 a.m. to start running the tournament. Which is exactly what we all did.

The Drama Broadcast

It doesn't sound like that much of a drama, does it? A problem was presented, we discussed it, we solved it. So why do I keep calling it The Drama? Because right when the problem was discovered, one individual decided to run to the Shoryuken.com Forums and post about it almost immediately. It was almost akin to that tattle-tale kid we all knew in elementary school. Not only did he post about it, he called Evo East, which hadn't even started yet, the worst ran tournament EVER and encouraged those who read the post and were planning on attending the event to not show up. And the thing that really frustrates me is that he did so without talking to a single member of the staff to see if we were going to try and solve the problem. If he spoke to us and we replied with a hearty "**** you, learn to play with lag", he has every right to do what he did. But if he had come to talk to us, he would have known that we were obviously planning something else and were willing to go through drastic measures to do it.

Now understand something, I'm not trying to make this person sound bad. I've known him, though mostly through e-mails and the internet, for a while now and he's helped me a lot in the past. He's a respected member of the community. I respect him greatly not only for his technical knowledge, but also for his great play. But to go and do something like this without even so much as a word to us staff asking what we were going to do to solve the problem, well that was completely short-sighted. I'm personally not angry with him, I jut hope that in the future he'll think about talking these things through first before doing something such as trying to tell everyone to boycott the tournament. After hearing about what the staff went through to fix the problem, I hope even he realizes what he did was rather impulsive. Yes, he traveled by plane from a long distance to go to a tournament that, in his mind, was a wash. But so did others I spoke to, and they understood exactly what we were going through and were impressed by the lengths we were willing to go to to fix the problem, so much that they volunteered to help out on the Wal-Mart run (bless their souls). But we knew it was the staff's problem and so it would be the staff that needed to sacrifice their sleep and strength to fix it. So it did become a big drama on the Forums and there was a chance that, if people had listened to the individual, that the event wouldn't have turned out as well as it did had no one decided to show up.

The Tournament

Okay, 4.75 hours of sleep in two days later, Evo East began Saturday morning. And since I've already written enough for one post for now, I'll stop here for a bit and let this soak in a couple of days before I follow-up with a post on the actual tournament and my individual thoughts on each game like I did for Evo West.

Thanks for reading.

- James

P.S. Everything really did start turning for the better once we rid ourselves of that cursed, evil "Beat-Down Stick." Don't ask.

(Edited to fix typos and grammar mistakes made trying to get the post out as fast as possible... Sorry about those. "Me fail english? That's unpossible!")

Evolution West 2006: My Thoughts

2006-07-04T19:34:00.000-07:00

I'll have to admit, coming up to the first of the three Evolution Fighting Game Championship events this summer, Evo West, I was a bit apprehensive. Would we be ready? How smoothly would it run? Would people get excited and pumped up at a smaller, satellite tournament? So many questions barreled through my mind as we approached the day.

Now that the weekend has come and gone, I must actually say that I had a blast. I'm extremely excited for Evo East, now, and can't wait to see how it turns out. But regarding Evo West, just suffice it to say that I had a really awesome time and I think the tournament went very well.

I'll go into the details now, bit by bit. I do not plan for people who don't know anything about fighting games to read about the details of every game (the games themselves as well as the known players who play them). Thus, the details will become more and more granular as this post goes on. So once I start going into details about every individual game played, if you don't quite understand the details of the game or, even worse, are not interested at all in said game, feel free to skip the later parts of the post entirely.

The Atmosphere

The past Evolution Fighting Game Championship events have all had a tremendous atmosphere. With so many competitors in one room, you'd think the venues would explode just from amassing such huge amounts of tension. There is always the occasional unknown making their way high into the rankings of a game or two, and there is no reason why that unknown couldn't be you. So even if you haven't played in any major tournaments before, believe me the nerves are there.

Also, the tournaments of past years have also been fairly crowded and packed. Getting over a thousand people into one room never sounds quite as impressive as it really is. It gets pretty crazy, especially when those thousand-plus people all yell at the same time when something crazy happens on a giant projector screen. That's when you truly feel the impact of what a thousand people can do when united together. I'm not ashamed to admit that it brings a tear to my eye whenever I think of it.

With all that being said, it is impossible to expect that same number of people to show up to one of the newly added satellite events this year. Evo West is very much ensconced in the far reaches of the west coast, so more than likely the participants of the event will be exclusively from the west coast, since most people will save their long-distance travel for Evo Finals in Vegas. But so far as I could tell, players from Vegas came, players from Northern California came, players from Reno came... I'm not sure from where the players who traveled the farthest are from. But regardless, the amount of people at Evo West did not approach the thousand mark.

But the result of a smaller turn out was something I could not have predicted. Having less people, I was afraid, would take some of the wind out of the sails of Evolution. I will say there was definitely no danger of any room exploding due to an overdose of tension. But that's because of one element I had not factored in: everyone on the West Coast knows each other. And more importantly, just about everyone from the West Coast are buddies.

As a result, Evo West took on the atmosphere of, maybe, a family reunion, a gathering of people you haven't seen in a while like when one of your relatives gets married. You see your cousin, whom you really enjoyed hanging out with in the past, for the first time in years and ask him, "Yo, so what've you been up to? Still playing games?" That's what Evo West was. I got to see so many friendly faces from the past and get formally introduced to others I had known previously only through the internet. Because of the smaller amounts of people in the building, I got to chat with a lot more people, kick it with a lot more people, and just be casual around more people... all while still working the event! I really enjoyed the mood of the event. Most everyone I talked to was having a great time, and it was really cool to see that.

And yet, the finals on Sunday were still very exciting, and a lot of great matches were played. Some matches literally had huge momentum shifts in the final second of one particular game, and the reaction from the crowd was music to my ears. The tension may not have been at maximum level (everyone has their eyes already looking ahead to the big prizes in Vegas in August), but nevertheless the desire to win it all did not seem dampened by the final eight players of every game.

The Venue

The Los Angeles Airport Marriott hotel was quite a nice place, though the cost for parking was a bit much (though I guess they can't help charging so much, being so close to the freakin' airport and all). The ballroom they let us use was huuuuuuuge. And their staff was extremely cooperative. I'm hoping they were happy with us as well. And I hope we didn't disturb the 18th wedding birthday extravaganza that was going on in the room next to us. In one room, you have all these young fellows dressed in fancy gowns and tuxes dancing formal dances. Right next door, you have a ton of gamers carrying around makeshift joysticks and swearing at each other in friendly trash talk (except in one case, which I've heard has already escalated in internet lore to having had someone die at the event. I can promise you that, in the actual incident, nothing happened that is really even worth discussing).

Toyota's presence at the event was also quite a nice addition. Unlike MLG, they were not intrusive in the least, and actually added a lot of cool things to the event. They wheeled in this Yaris that was completely tricked out with not just one, but TWO embedded XBox 360's in the sucker. While one was played on a flip down LCD monitor in the backseat, the other was hidden away in the trunk! When the trunk opened, a HUGE flat screen high definition TV would literally RISE from the trunk until it was in full view. I swear that when we first saw it, angels were heard singing and a ray of sunlight pierced the ceiling of the hotel to shine squarely on the TV itself. It also had some incredible speakers attached on the underside of the trunk. With the trunk open, the speakers faced directly at those gazing upon the TV and their audio output was intense. And as one Vic Ratliff commented, "Those speakers are better than my house." If we turned the volume to the maximum levels, I think those would have caused the room to explode. It was quite amazing.

The Setup / Format

The setup was great. Half of the room was setup as the main event, the other half was setup for the "BYOC", the Bring-Your-Own-Console area, where players can use the available TVs to play casual matches on any game of their choice, or even hold their own side tournaments. And this year, the staff of Evo decided to use a different format for determining the top 8 of the match. And it worked beautifully. It wasn't a revelatory idea, just one that only this year were we able to accomplish!

In the past years, we ran the pools for just about every game at the same time, so sometimes a player would be forced to play multiple games at once. And oftentimes, they would not show up for the qualifying pool for one game because they were currently busy playing in the qualifying pool for another game, causing delays in the game he was missing from. This would cause long delays for some pools being run, pushing the time it took to complete all of the pools much farther out than planned. Thus, some pools that were meant to start at 5:00 p.m. would be delayed until times like 8:00 p.m., forcing people to wait around for their pool to actually start. And while waiting, they would grow hungry. And because eating is a basic human need, they would go grab dinner and of course still be out when their pool finally started. And so the staff running pools, particularly yours truly, would feel really bad disqualifying anyone and keep giving hem a chance to show up, delaying the pool even further. Thus, our finishing time would always be driven into a pool of excessive tardiness.

This year, we changed the format and ran all of the pools for one game at the same time. So at any given moment on the first day of Evo, only one game was being run. So if you were participating in that game, you would show up at that game's start time and stick around until the final 8 were determined. Then you could go comfortably anywhere you wanted, even, oh, say dinner, without fear. It made for an overall much more streamlined procedure and the tournament ran amazingly smoothly. I think it made for a much better experience for all involved, staff and players.

This new format took many who have attended past Evos a little getting used to. So as a warning to those who will participate in Evo East and Evo Finals, because the start times are pretty clear-cut now, we have much less remorse of disqualifying you if you don't show up for your pools in time (insert evil cackle here). There is only one time to show up for your game, so make sure you're there for your time. This is the concept that some people are still not quite used to. Someone asked me when the "later" pools for his game were going to take place and I informed him there were no later pools. That's the beauty of it all. If you are playing game X, there's only one time you need to show up for its qualifying pools.)

The Games

It's all about the games, so I'll go through my impression of them one by one:

Mario Kart DS - Mario Kart was awesome! And no, it had nothing to do with the fact that I personally finished third place in Mario Kart (this is the part where I stare at the sky, whistling with my hands behind my back). Honestly, though, it was quite entertaining and though only a few people were there to watch the finals of this game, I thought it was pretty fun (except for when I ate a Blue Shell right before the finish line, knocking me from 1st to 4th...). It was just a lot of fun because it was exciting to play new opponents that I was actually positive were not cheating, as many Mario Kart players do online with their hacking carts that allow them to do things not normally possible.

My Final Thought: If more people show up for Evo Finals in Vegas, this might actually be very entertaining to watch. I'm hoping a few people are willing to show up for the Finals to check it out.

Dead or Alive 4 - I think I was making supply runs during DoA4 pools and the DoA4 Finals. So I literally saw none of this game except, I think, for the last two matches on Finals Sunday. So it's hard for me to comment on the game outside of my one final thought: practice this game now because there is a lot of money to be won in Vegas. And because of the small turnout for the game, that just increases your chances even more.

Tekken 5 - As I told Bronsen (A.K.A. "Insanelee") at Evo West, I really do have a hard time following Tekken 5. Because I'm so unfamiliar with the characters and the mindset required to play the game, it's almost unfair for me to comment on the game. Everything I would say about the game would probably be so incredibly misinformed that I will be stoned by Tekken players everywhere the next time I set foot into a tournament room. I ended up missing the Finals as well, again making a supply run, so I did not get a chance to see Insanelee take his victory.

Hyper Street Fighter 2: Anniversary Edition - You know how I mentioned those rumors that someone died at Evo West? Well, it's true, and he was in the top 8 of Anniversary Edition. After he died, I quietly penciled in my own name in his place. At least, that's the only explanation I can give of how I managed to make top 8 in the game and make the Finals.

No disrespect to anyone I played, it's just that when you look and the top 8 of the tournament, it was literally a who's-who of fighting game experts from the past, proving that the old-schoolers still have what it takes to take on all the new would-be challengers. The top 8 were Jason Cole, Graham Wolfe, Alex Wolfe, and myself in the winners bracket and Alex Valle, Mike Watson, John Choi, and Seth Killian in the losers bracket. That's quite an impressive lineup (the only glaring outsider being myself). And I'm very pleased with that result as well. It shows that, at the top level of play, Anniversary Edition was not going to boil down to a bunch of Champion Edition Bisons Psycho Crushing each other on a constant basis. Though there was some usage of Champion Edition Bison in the final 8, he did not come out victorious in the end (though Valle's CE Bison just barely lost to Alex Wolfe's Dhalsim).

And the Wolfe brothers, Graham and Alex (attending their first Evo event), took control and took the top two spots (though, again, Alex Valle was a pixel away from keeping Alex Wolfe in third place, until Alex Wolfe made a great comeback), proving that they were definitely never truly out of the scene. The brother vs. brother final was quite intense, though I almost suspect routine for the brothers themselves. But I was so happy to see them and see how well they performed. The Wolfe brothers are true old school, and it doesn't feel right without you guys here and representing! Now go do your job and convince Jason Nelson to come back as well!

My Final Thought: I got Cammy onto the big screen of an Evo Event, so one of my lifelong goals has been fulfilled. And yet, having tasted it now, it only makes me want to practice harder. Watch out Vegas!! And oh yeah, I will say that the repartee between Tom Cannon and David Sirlin for the running commentary during this game was priceless.

Capcom Vs. SNK 2 - Sometime in the last year, I was talking to Kim-Hahn Hoang about CvS2. He is a huge proponent of the game and considered one of the best CvS2 players in the United States. I told him I don't play it anymore because I just feet the game is slow and more defensive-based these days, and no longer exciting. He responded to me, "You just don't understand the game well enough anymore."

I didn't run any of the pools, so I was unable to witness the play during those, but if the Finals were any indication, maybe Kim is right. I wasn't sure what was happening before my eyes, but CvS2 looked... exciting. Players like Kim-Hahn and Campbell "Buktooth" Tran and John Choi attacked so frequently that they made the game look like a rushdown game. And Ricky Ortiz's Vega Custom Combo was very intimidating even when the opponent managed to block! As a player, there is no way I can watch that sequence without thinking what I would do personally if I were on the receiving end of that lockdown. And all I could come up with was: be scared.

My Final Thought: I'm hoping it can remain exciting through Evo East and Evo Finals. And I just have to say that I still think Blanka's Hop into Roll-Cancelled Fierce Electricity is broken.

Guilty Gear XX Slash - There's a rivalry a-brewin'. This weekend's Guilty Gear action can only be defined truly by one match-up: Peter "Combofiend" Rosas versus Paul Kugler. Combofiend's A.B.A. and Kugler's Slayer had some epic matches this past weekend, and it's hard to say who came out on top. Combofiend's A.B.A. is a paragon of execution, with crazy rushdowns that caused his opponents to be stuck with a fully filled Guard Meter almost consistently. Kugler's Slayer had some of the best mind games I've ever seen from a Slayer (that Mappa Feint is broken as hell!!!). Once he got on top of you, it was almost impossible to ever regain your bearings.

Kugler won the BYOC singles tournament run by the players by defeating Combofiend by a sliver. And I mean a sliver. Then, in the team tournaments, Kugler's team (Team 17 Seconds) and Combofiend's team (Team RUN) were the top 2 finishers. Their teams faced off early, with Kugler's team winning it in the end with Kulger himself, again, defeating Combofiend. Team RUN makes its way back out from the Loser's Bracket to take on Team 17 Seconds, winners of the winner's bracket, again. And this time, Combofiend turns it up to another gear and defeats Team 17 Seconds on his own twice in a row to claim the Team Tournament. But everytime they faced off, the winner was determined by who won between Combofiend and Kugler. Can't wait to see their future matches.

I did enter the tournament myself, forming a team with a couple of others looking for a team to compete on. Our captain was one Andrew (I didn't get his last name), a player attending an Evo event for the first time ever. So I was very happy to be on his team to give him a chance to play in the Team Tournament and experience competition at Evo. Andrew, I was definitely glad you made it and I hope you had a great time! Hope to see you in Vegas!

My Final Thought: This weekend just makes me sad that I'm actually so bad at this game. My resolve to improve at the game is greatly increased, and I will definitely try to get some more practice. I can't wait for my next chance at, maybe, Evo East and and Evo Finals.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 - I love the MvC2 players. I love them and their entire crowd. I have never seen such a passion for a game in my life. Though the total number of players for MvC2 drops a little every year, the passion for the game from its players seems to increase. This is the only game that has true "camps" distinctly cheering for one player. And they get loud. And rowdy. And excited. And it's awesome. The best part is that the players themselves take it in such stride. "Finesse" (sorry, never caught your real name), for example, was terrific. He was very loudly cheered and he looked to be soaking in the moment very much. And even after a heart-breaking loss to "SooMighty," he took it like a champ, smiled and shook Soo's hand, and looked like he had a great time.

And congrats to Alexandre de Sousa, A.K.A. "Chunksta." I remember a few years ago, in the pools at Cal Poly, Chunksta took a huge lead against Justin Wong only to lose it in the end after a crazy comeback by Justin Wong. It looked like one of those losses in pro sports that can cause a player to spiral into a hole of doubt, judging from the expression on Chunksta's face after that gut-wrenching loss. But seeing him take that experience and allowing it to make him stronger instead was not only great to see, but should be an inspiration to all fighting game players. Good job, Chunk! I was very happy to see you pull through and I expect to see more of that in Vegas! I got the "Chunksta Scream" on film, and I'll get it out there for everyone to see soon!

My Final Thought: Every year, MvC2 goes by and it seems to only get more interesting to me. I enjoy watching it so much and I can't wait... nay, I am salivating with my anticipation to see Evo East's MvC2 run. I can only imagine the intensity there will be on another level, given the even greater passion for the game found on the East Coast. It's gonna be great fun.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike - I was really happy to see Pyrolee come to Evo and represent (though I know he would have come last year had he not had other plans already). And I can't help but be impressed with the Family Fun's crew and their dedication to the game. The top 8 was basically a list of Family Fun players: Pyrolee, Amir, Ed Ma ("THE MASTER!!"), MutantXP, Hung Bee, Mr. Alex Valle, and Combofiend. And serious props goes to Rockefeller, who did his thing announcing Third Strike at Evo West. It may not be for everyone, but I would be a liar if I said I wasn't laughing throughout the commentary.

Oh, and huge huge props go to Peter Yoon, who performed like a champ despite the ribbing from Rockefeller. He knew it was all in good fun and took it like a true champ and played well and looked like he was having a great time. We'll see you in Vegas as well.

My Final Thought: I think it's gonna be exciting in Vegas this year. I think, after Evo East, we'll have a very potentially strong Third Strike crew to give many of the Japanese players a run for their money. Every year, we seem to get closer. Maybe this year at Evo Vegas, things will finally turn around for the U.S. Players.

The Conclusion

Evo West rocked. I had a great time, and please check out all of the photos I took for Evo West at this link here:

(Edit: Added a note here to let you know that for every picture, if you click on the "All Sizes" button above the picture, you can view the picture at its full size, and do a right-click/save-as. That way, if you want to save any of the pictures for yourself, you can get it at full size.)

Evo West 2006 Photos

I will do my best to list people's names and such, but will intentionally leave out a lot of names. If you see I've gotten any names wrong or know the names of anyone else on the pictures, feel free to leave a comment and let me know who everyone is. (Note: I will monitor the comments religiously, so I only wanna see people play nice, now, okay? Got it? Thanks.)

I would like to just give a few shout outs before I go. First, a huge shout out to the Reno Crew, who helped unpack the TVs from the U-Haul truck and helped set the TVs up. Another huge shout out goes to Vic Ratliff, Duc Do, Buff Mike, and Jason Villarreal for helping pack everything up after the tournament. Thanks to everyone who helped run pools, thanks to the staff at Toyota and the staff at the Marriott, and thanks to everyone who showed up. And thanks, again, to the crew of Tom Cannon, Tony Cannon, Seth Killian, Joey Cuellar, David Sirlin, and countless others who helped with the planning and running of Evolution West.

If you are on the East Coast, I highly recommend making it out to Evo East. You won't regret it. And if you can make it to Evo Finals, do so! I think it has the chance to be one of the biggest competitive video game events ever! See everyone soon!

- James

Good Reading

2006-06-30T11:17:00.000-07:00

To give you guys plenty to read about video games this weekend, I point you to a couple of really interesting articles. The overall quality of articles about gaming is improving, and I think a lot of good discussion is being brewed by the true gamers who are growing up to become writers. There is a lot to think about regarding where games are going and, while the articles conflict in ways and I agree on some points and not on others, both articles bring up valid and interesting topics.

So here you go:

The Lester Bangs of Video Games by Chuck Klosterman

CULTURE: Games and Metaphor by Eric-Jon Rossel Waugh (via Omar Kendall's blog)

(Edit: I noticed Omar Kendall has already pointed a link to the article a day before I did, so my link now points to his blog. Find the article through the link he posted on his blog.)

Enjoy!

- James