video game culture

My Experience at T12: Toronto Fighting Game Championships

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Get hype!

Yesterday, I came to bring the pain at T12: Toronto Fighting Game Championships. While it was not my first-ever fighting game tournament, it was definitely my first fighting game tournament of this magnitude. Everything about this one had a lot more weight to it, from the Team Spooky stream, to the international players flying in for this event, to the skill-sets of the players attending, to the hype that filled the room when something dramatic happened. Having watched these types of events take place for years from afar, it was very cool to be a part of it this time.

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The Toronto Fighting Game Championships Are Taking Place Today

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The biggest fighting game tournament that Toronto has ever seen is upon us! T12 Toronto Fighting Game Championships are set to take place today, and if you’re reading this shortly after I posted this, I’m most likely on my way to the venue. If you’re interested in watching all of the hot fighting game action, you can watch it all thanks to the Team Spooky stream. If you’re lucky, you just might catch me on the steam! If so, If you’re super lucky, you might catch me winning a match or two, though I’m not holding my breath for that particular outcome. 🙂

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Watch My Performance on the NeoGAF Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition Lobby

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A few nights ago, I was on the NeoGAF Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition live stream, hosted and streamed by Kadey. As a long-time lurker of their Street Fighter IV threads since the original Street Fighter IV, I was excited to see Kadey’s lobby appear on my list of lobbies to choose from, which I did immediately. It was really cool to play against a number of forum members that I recognize by their NeoGAF name and see where I stack up. If you’d like to see me in action, click through to the rest of this post!
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I’m Going To T12: Toronto Fighting Game Championships

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Last year, I dipped my toe into the competitive gaming waters by participating in Fan Expo 2010’s Super Street Fighter IV tournament. While I was bummed out that Fan Expo didn’t run any fighting game tournaments this year, I am attending something that will most likely be way cooler.

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We’re Going to Fan Expo Canada 2011

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Last year, my girlfriend Steff and I had a blast at Fan Expo. It was the first convention we ever went to, and we told ourselves very early on that we have to do this all over again next year. If you’re interested in reading up on our exploits last year, check out the posts below:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

With the 2011 edition of the show approaching in a matter of weeks, we already have our tickets and are getting pumped for the ensuing awesomeness.

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Is Mega Man Dead?

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The Blue Bomber will always be one of gaming’s most iconic characters. It’s hard not to be when your legacy includes over 50 games across 8 different series’ and when one of those games is Mega Man 2, which is one of my all-time favourites. However, the outlook for Mega Man has looked grim since the release of Mega Man 10 last March. Is it possible that Mega Man is dead? I hope not, but here’s a few indications that it might already be too late.

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Out Now: “Focus” – The Mike Ross Documentary

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One of the cool side-effects of the growth of the fighting game community is that the personalities within the community have in their own way, reached pro-wrestler status. There’s good guys and bad guys, as well as story lines around the games themselves that fans intently follow. One of those players that has reached that level is Mike Ross, who is one of the best Street Fighter players on the planet. It also doesn’t hurt that he and Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez have been supporting the community with their Cross Counter content and that Mike Ross seems like a genuinely good guy.

Just days before EVO, G4TV decided to do the community a solid and release the Mike Ross documentary entitled “Focus” for our viewing pleasure for free.

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EVO 2011 Story Lines

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The biggest fighting game tournament in the world is only a week away. As a hardcore fighting game fan and stream monster, I can’t wait to sit in front of the computer all weekend to watch the scene’s best go at it all weekend long. If you’ve never watched a fighting game stream before, but have any interest in it, EVO 2011 is definitely the place to start.

If you do start here, you should know that this EVO tournament is actually the last tournament in the 2011 EVO season. A lot of drama has taken place between the start of the season and now. Unless you want to sit through hundreds of hours of tournament footage or read through much more comprehensive and better written recaps on the EVO tournament season, I can give you a primer on a few of the story lines surrounding EVO’s biggest games.

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Haters Gonna Hate: The Worst of My XBOX Live Message Inbox

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It is unfortunately, a fairly well-known fact that the online video game community is not the most pleasant place in the world. Especially in the competitive gaming space, where there are no shortage of people spewing hateful epithets from their mouths, or sending over colourfully-worded text messages to others about others’ in-game behaviour.

During the last few weeks of playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3, I’ve received an abnormally large amount of hate messages; way more than I ever did playing Street Fighter. I don’t play Marvel to infuriate others, but for whatever reason, the player base seems to either really hate me, or are just a talkative bunch.

I thought I’d share some of the messages I’ve received with you just for kicks (and to expose some of these jerks who really should behave themselves). As much as I’d like to expose their gamertags, I have censored those (and any coarse language) out of respect to the message senders and to my readers. Anyway, here’s a taste of some of the worst messages I’ve received through XBOX Live of late.

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Will You Ever Grow Out of Video Games?

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A few months ago, my dad came down to the basement as I was playing a video game. I don’t remember which game, but I guess that’s irrelevant to the story. He said something that kind of struck a chord with me. “Are you ever gonna give this up?”

Once upon a time, video games used to be a kids-only deal. My dad used to be into games during the Atari/golden era of arcades, but he pretty much dropped games because that’s what adults did at the time. I’m well into my 20s, but I haven’t let the medium go and don’t plan on doing so any time soon. He’s still confused as to why I haven’t given up this ‘kiddie thing’.

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