Capcom E3 News Extravaganza

Head to Capcom-Unity for all of their official E3 updates, trailers, and press releases, which all just hit simultaneously. I'll highlight some of the more interesting stuff here as soon as possible.

• Street Fighter IV: Volt is an update to the iPhone version, featuring worldwide multiplayer over Wi-Fi

New Street Fighter X Tekken Footage

From testyourmight.com

AE DLC Now Live on XBL - PSN Tomorrow?

Get your $15 Yun booster-pack today! Supposedly, the PSN version may not be available until tomorrow.

Worst Combo Ever

Perfected by Maj of SonicHurricane.com, this two-hit masterpiece does zero damage. In his words, "Dan is profoundly awful at everything."

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Professor Killian @ NYU

This past week, NYU's Game Center held its second annual Spring Fighter series of events. This year's endeavor was sponsored by the folks at Capcom, who were nice enough to send Seth Killian to the three-day extravaganza. Though you might be aware of the tournament portion (thanks to Team Spooky's stream) or the fact that Arcade Edition was demoed on console, Spring Fighter comprised several amazing — but less publicized — events.

The festivities began Thursday with a screening of Ian Cofino's I Got Next, a documentary about the competition and camaraderie driving the dedicated Street Fighter community. The movie was not only enjoyable for fans like myself, but also would be a great introduction for anyone unfamiliar with the fighting game community. The night concluded with a Q&A session with Seth Killian and notable fighting game player and organizer "Long Island" Joe Ciarmelli. The back-and-forth chat with the audience of about 30 people focused on community. Topics covered included online versus offline competition, how to improve your game, and how games are evolving to meet the needs of the exponentially-expanding community. Seth and Joe were frank and honest in their answers, and you could feel their honest love of the games and the community surrounding them. It was clear that this was not a PR mission; this was for the benefit of the fighting game community.

Friday's session was a lecture on game theory in fighting games by Seth Killian. Professor Killian explained how he has a fondness of dissecting how competitive games are played, dating back to his days as a poker player. You see, before he was playing Street Fighter, Seth was trained in poker by none other than 1996 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion, Huck Seed. For Seth, the transition to Street Fighter was just a natural progression. Every action in a fighting game, he said, is like a bet. You are putting yourself at risk in order to force your opponent to react. If you play wisely, your risks will pay off and your opponent's will not. To illustrate his points, Seth presented a Street Fighter 4 match between Daigo and Nemo (viewable below) and broke it down almost frame-by-frame. He had actually discussed the match with Daigo, so he was able to tell us exactly what was going through Daigo's head at any particular moment. It was a phenomenal insight into the moment-to-moment decisions made as each successive gambit was launched. Seth literally has fighting games down to a science, and he is clearly capable of communicating their allure in a very scholarly manner. After his lecture, the audience got a chance to ask questions. Just as he did the previous night, Seth truly shined during the Q&A. This session, however, focused more on the games themselves and the mechanics that make them interesting. It was once again a friendly, PR-free chat between a room full of fans and another fan — who just happened to be Seth Killian.

Seth reassured us that the fighting games we love are only going to get even better in the coming years. Despite all of the amazing games that have come and gone, he is confident that the perfect game has yet to be created. I'm proud to have Seth Killian working for us, the fans, and cannot wait to see what the future holds.

Under Pressure: Higa's Ibuki

Higa's Ibuki is absolutely on fire, especially at the beginning of this video. Watch and be amazed at the intense rushdown. Video courtesy of TheShend's YouTube channel, which you should certainly subscribe to if you like Third Strike at all.

Video Proof of Mid-Air Raging Demon

LI Joe shows everyone how Oni is played. (Or at least he did... but then the CapCops got the video taken down from YouTube.)

Fresh Second Impact Footage

It's not every day that I get to post up new Street Fighter III: Second Impact matches. Here we have Tokido and KSK playing the defunct game recently.

Awesome AE Footage from Capcom

Capcom's Japanese YouTube channel has hours of SF4:AE footage available for viewing, including this great Guy (played by Legendary Otaku) vs. Dictator (played by Shungoku Neurosis) set.

Back to (Fight for) the Future

You didn't think that AE's release would make me forget about Third Strike, did you? I couldn't let a month go by without an obligatory Third Strike post. Today I present you with a video featuring a mystery Hugo player going on a serious tear, complete with really sneaky standing 720's. Also, we have this little tidbit (found on SRK) from Capcom's Christian Svensson about Third Strike: Online Edition:

There are places this game is going for fans where no fighting game (not even our big retail fighting games) have gone before.

What does this mean? I'm focused on two specific facets of this statement: 1) There's something that's never been done before. 2) It's "for fans." The "never been done before" part makes me think of stuff like Danisen ranking. (What's Danisen? There's a great intro at iPlaywinner.) This is something that hasn't exactly been built into any fighting game before.

The "for fans" part might support the idea of Danisen being included, as it has been requested by fans; however, the idea of a fan-service feature seems to suggest something less obtuse. Also, are the fans being catered to general/casual fighting game fans or Third Strike fans in particular? If we're talking about general fighting game fans, the additions might include new modes and features akin to Challenge Mode and such. What kind of mode would make for something totally new, though? If we're talking about Third Strike fans, the additions would likely not affect the gameplay as much. If I were to guess what new feature would appease 3S fans, it might have to do with better replay uploading and viewing — perhaps built-in YouTube uploading.

Since the game was announced so early in development, it'll be quite a while before we find out. Sven did promise that we'd be hearing more "in 2011," so we'll just have to be patient for now.

SF4 AE @ Chinatown Fair

Henry "Golden" Cen, operator of Chinatown Fair, just laid out some details about Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition on Team Spooky's NEC stream. CTF will have the game "before Christmas," and there are "at least two" time-release characters. It is unknown if the two characters are Shin Akuma and Evil Ryu or if there will be additional characters. I'll be sure to hit up the arcade as soon as they have the game to get some impressions.

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SoCal Regionals Schedule

All times are Pacific. Also, clocks go back an hour Saturday night. Don't forget!

SATURDAY
Prelims run from 10:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M.
Special events run from 8:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M.

SUNDAY
Finals start at 10:00 A.M. (TvC @ 11:00)
1:30 P.M. to 3:00 P.M. is a live Dogface Show.
3:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M. is intermission/Tekken.
6:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M is Street Fighter finals and a NorCal vs SoCal 5-on-5.

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And Now for Something Completely Different

How about a little Street Fighter EX3 action? I was a fan of the first two different, yet decent, EX games. I never played much of EX3, however, which makes this match all the more interesting. I like that the video starts out looking like a traditional Street Fighter match (albeit with some odd characters) but eventually devolves into total madness.

SSF4 Online Highlight Reel

LiangHuBBB brings us this compilation of odd and exciting moments from online SSF4 matches. My favorite moments are the Blanka/Sagat unexpected side-switching and Makoto's full-screen standing roundhouse kick.

OUT (Q) vs Dance (Ryu)

Here's a nice, recent Third Strike match from Japan:

Turn the Tweet Back: 3S Online Playable!

According to this tweet from Yoshinori Ono, Third Strike: Online Edition is already in a playable state on PS3:

"Today, I had played something! It's non-stress match-up ! So, I'm looking foward to it!! Eveyone Plz wait soon. http://twitpic.com/2usjxs"

Hiropon Makes Seth Look Broken

Here's one of Hiropon's many matches from ShinAkuma's YouTube channel. Seth might be drastically changed soon, so enjoy this while it lasts.

Street Fighter High: The Musical

Cool cameos, including PrincessAura as Ibuki, and a real knowledge of Street Fighter make this worth watching. Did I really catch a reference to the above artwork?

Alpha 3, the Evolution of Custom Combos

Alpha 3 never felt like a proper Street Fighter game to me. It was something quite different than even the prior two Alpha games. It had an abusable air-juggle system, one that necessitated aerial recovery for the first time in a Street Fighter game. The game's new V-ism mode allowed custom combos that could lead to 100% damage (see below). This was all facilitated by the game starting both characters with full meter. How did it come to this?

It all started, obviously, with Street Fighter Alpha. I really liked Alpha 1, especially the ability all characters had to perform chain combos. Alpha 2 took away chain combos and made the general gameplay feel more SF2-ish. There was one major difference: the introduction of custom combos, possibly to make up for the loss of chain combos. Custom combos made supers basically obsolete, as supers dealt less damage in most cases. Also, in certain situations, a properly-timed activation would lead to a completely unblockable combo. Alpha 3's take on custom combos, V-ism, was an even greater threat when combined with the new air-juggle system.

When you trace its heritage, you can see how the Alpha series evolved into something very different from the game it began with. Alpha 3 came a long way from Alpha 1. But even with all of its quirks, Alpha 3 can be fun to play, as it is certainly a unique take on the Street Fighter formula.

Vangief vs Magus1234

From yesterday's Shadowbrooke On Notice tournament, we have the grand finals match featuring everybody's favorite Zangief player. Can Vangief defeat Magus and avenge his loss to Ricky's Chun at EVO 2010? Also, pay attention to just how far he is able to advance while performing his patented walking 720.