A-class
I would have never imagined reaching the top of the online leaderboards of any game, but I guess it finally happened. Even though I’ve been in the top 10 or 15 for the past couple of months, I never reached the top 5 or A class rank until today. I never like to boast when it comes to this game, but I was crazy today. Out of about 25+ matches, I only lost about three times. It’s really safe to say that I’ve really stepped it up in the past month and I’m a lot more cautious when it comes to performing careless moves and attempting to button mash out of situations. I know that the Xbox and PS3 leaderboards are far more competitive and if I were playing on there, my rank would be much lower. I might as well the bathe in the glory of my accomplishment while I still have it though.
With spring semester right around the corner, I’ll probably have to put the Street Fighter away for a while. Surely my skills will go down as will my rank, but it was fun while it lasted. Thank you Street Fighter 4 and Capcom, for nearly three years of challenge, frustration and fun with the most addicting game in my entire life.
Facing The Beast
8/7/2011 – So it turns out that Ray didn’t get a chance to fight Daigo. Even though they didn’t face each other, Ray left the pool along with Daigo and was shy of reaching top 32. Regardless, congrats Raymond!
EVO Championship Series is the biggest annual fighting game tournament in the world. Players from all over the world will come to Las Vegas, Nevada to duke it out in SSFIVAE, MVC3, MK9, Tekken 6, and BlazBlueCS2. This year is a great deal since a good deal of players that I know will be going to represent Killeen. I’m extremely hyped and excited to see them all go and I wish them all luck!
One fighter that I will be particularly be looking out for is my close friend Raymond. This is the first EVO event he will be participating in. Even though he has the plainest facial expressions in the world, I can tell he’s super excited. But all of that excitement and joy may have turned into nervousness and stress due to a recent assignment. For his first AE match at EVO, Raymond has to face the world famous renowned Japanese fighting video game player Daigo “The Beast” Umehara. Talk about pressure. Out of the tens of thousands of players that will be participating, he has to start off by fighting HIM.
Proving Grounds UCC Tournament Flyer
Just spent the night collaborating with Raymond to create this guy. If you’re in the Killeen area and looking for some great Fighting game competition, then this is the place to be! This was pretty fun to make, but it was a little bit annoying. Supposedly we were given rights to name the tournament anything that we wanted. They said, “Go ahead, yeah! Just name it anything that you want!” Raymond and I brainstormed and did extensive scientific research to come up with the perfect name. After discovering nuclear fusion and finding the cure to cancer, we finally came up with the perfect name. It was an exciting moment. A breakthrough in the history of tournament names. Our children, their children, and many other generations would remember this moment for centuries to come. This moment in history would forever be remembered and worshiped by mankind.
The proposal was submitted. With such a perfect name, we knew that the chances of it being approved was 110.45%, but instead we got this back:
Seriously? We worked hard for that! Eons of valuable research, thrown away just like that. You guys just lost at least 40 participants. Way to go!!
Joy of the Stick
These days, I have been committing to a lot of things. Running for miles to raise my stamina. Reserving time for my wonderful ‘miles-away-but-oh-so-close’ girlfriend. Studying two different languages. Korean for my family, and Tagalog for hers. And just simply working hard in preparation for moving to College Station and starting my university career at Texas A&M. One thing that I have not been committing to anymore though, is Street Fighter IV. *gasp* Yes, that’s right. The game that I have unwisely played for an accumulated 23.2 days in an eight month period has been placed on the shelf. I’ll gladly play whenever I’m with friends but I just don’t have personal time for it anymore. But one thing I want to note: while in my Street Fighter prime, I had a small passion on the side for modifying MadCatz SFIV SE Arcade sticks. They were really fun to take apart and be creative with. I don’t think that I will see myself modifying anymore arcade sticks anytime soon. So with that said, below you’ll find all of the arcade sticks I’ve worked with in the past and a little bit about them. Consider this as a small tribute to the end(?) of my Street Fighter IV career.
Women of Street Fighter
- Original artwork: Street Fighter Tribute Cover by Arnold Tsang
- Paint used: None
- Print finish: Lami-label from Fedex Office
This was my first arcade stick mod. After learning about how easy it was to modify, I decided to give it a shot. I wanted it to feature Crimson Viper, the main character that I fight with. Because Viper is a new character, finding decent artwork for her was tough. I chose this work of art primarily because the Viper work was very well done and also because it features every other female character in Street Fighter. If that’s not something good to look at on an arcade stick, then I don’t know what is! SFIV has a design concept of using brush strokes as a way of illustrating the art of ones moves. With this in mind, I added colored brush strokes to the buttons to place emphasis that the template is more focused on SFIV than Street Fighter in general. This was also my first time using Lami-labels from Fedex Office. Though the print quality was top-notch, the quality of the laminate was questionable. Cut it wrong, and you could end up tearing the paper that the laminate was supposed to protect. I ended up going back to the store three times to get it reprinted due to small mistakes while cutting it. All-in-all, it was a quick job and ended up looking great.
Inverted Viper
- Original artwork: C. Viper Official SFIV Character Art
- Paint used: Dupli-Color Vinyl & Fabric HVP104 Gloss Black
- Print finish: Lami-label from Fedex Office
I quickly became tired of how the “Women of Street Fighter” stick looked. Giving it color seemed to be a good idea. For the template, I changed the color to black and used the official SFIV artwork for Viper. To have her match with the black environment, I inverted all of her neutral colors while retaining all of the rest. I didn’t change out any buttons so the brush strokes from the WoSF tempalte stayed. For this design, it was the first time I’ve painted an arcade stick. Though it was easy to do, I failed to do it perfectly and it was only moderately satisfied with the result. The paint began to peel after a few months. The print was also lami-labeled and revealed small air bubbles all over the print due to the black background.
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Top Tier
Yesterday, a Street Fighter IV tournament was held at GameFX, a new small shop in Killeen. My friends Anthony, Matt, Raymond, and many others competed for the number one spot. As far as I know, there was a pretty good turn up, about 30+ entrants. There were even people coming from places such as Austin and San Antonio. I was not able to compete because I had to work, but I took the time to visit during my breaks and play a few casual matches. Raymond emerged in 2nd place, right behind a San Antonio competitor. He seemed to be slightly upset, but at least in a sense he can proudly hold the title of being the best Street Fighter player in Killeen. Nonetheless, it was a pretty good event that I enjoyed watching. You can view the results here.
Afterwards, we had a small get-together at Matt’s house with a few more people. We were all able to finally catch up together before leaving back to school before the break ended. It was good being able to have dinner and relax. We also played Heavy Rain again for a while, but to me it didn’t seem to be as intriguing as the first time we played it because I already knew what was going to happen. Still, I had a good time. A perfect way to end my busy day.
So, as of today, Spring Break is just about over. I hope that everybody enjoyed their week off and continues enjoy what is left of it. If you’re leaving, please have a good trip and be safe! :)
