I managed to see the stream of The King of Fighters XIII and Melee and it made me want to enter a tournament, just to see how could I fare. I mean, it was very exciting to see all of that.
EVO Week 2nd Strike Final Day: Beyond EVO Moment 37
|
 On 07/14/2013 at 09:10 PM by Vice's Assistant See More From This User » |
It is the probably the most important moment in fighting game history, arguably competitive video game history. EVO moment #37 from 2004.
Regardless of how much you know about Street Fighter, EVO, or even competitive gaming, most people have probably seen it. Its been emulated, animated, replicated and even graphed. All of the main characters who play out in this clip are now famous. The Chun-Li player, Justin Wong, is now and international professional fighter for the team Evil Geniuses. The main commentatior, Seth Killian, going from commentator to community manager at Capcom, and finally in excutive position at Sony's Santa Monica. Finally, we have the winner of the historic match, Diago Umahara playing as Ken. From that victory Umahara won various other tournaments and EVOs. He now is sponsered gaming peripheral company Mad Catz and is a part of their growing stable of competitive video game champions. It's hard to such an EVO like that which is why every EVO is compared to that one. It's quintessentially birth of the mainstream competitive fighitng game scene. So did this EVO do better than EVO 2004?
No. It doesn't have to be better than EVO 2004. To me every EVO special and different. I have only been watching the event for the last 4 years, so I can't really say much but man every year it only gets better. This EVO we have so much going on I could barely keep up. Almost every game had stream, every game has their time to shine. Smash Bros Melee no only came back from obscurity to win a charity stream, came back from Nintendo almost shutting down the tournament, but came back and became the most watched fighting game in history. I'm watching Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 and its hype beyond words. That coming a hyped Melee finals, Injustice finals, and even a hyped stage demo for Killer Instinct. Hell, I am legitimately exited for Killer Instinct again. Xbox One though....
EVO 2013 will just be EVO 2013 and that's OK. Every EVO is its own entity with something new added every year. We can't just look at EVO 2004 and the moment as an end all of the fights in the fighting games. We need to move beyond, not just bigger crowds, but in different ways. Being more open to new people and every year stepping up ourselves. I know now, I've got get to a tournament sometime. I don't know how and I don't know what game. But if you see this energy resonating from these streams, then you understand why I want to go. Writing about this, doesn't fully capture the feelings that you get. Like most people will say from any tournament, you literally have to be there.
Thanks for everyone reading this week. I hope you had some fun with my fighting game ramblings. Feel free to leave your thoughts below. Thanks again.
Comments