What’s up, everyone?

I’m rebooting this blog, and I want to start fresh. More importantly, I want to start honest. My name is Eric Tharnish. I’m an Iraq War Veteran, I spent 5 years in Active Duty for the Army, and I’m currently in the Maryland National Guard finishing up my Mandatory Service Obligation of 8 years for the military. I will have proudly served my country for the required time come November of this year, 2009. Currently I am trying to figure out civilian life by living on my own in Fredericksburg, VA.

I also love video games. Specifically fighting games. A substantial amount of my personal time is spent playing video games or thinking about them. I can proudly say that I am no longer about the self-entitlement the comes with most consumer discussion of video games by armchair enthusiasts. I have never made a game, designed a game in my head, or gotten far beyond small ideas that would have eventually gone nowhere.

I just play them and probably talked about them way more than any person should without pursuing a place in the field or business of video games.

That being said, I’ve never truly excelled at any fighting game I’ve played until 2008, when I started taking Super Street Fighter II Turbo seriously. I’m a Veteran and a Nerd. That’s who I am and that’s what this blog will be about. I hope to chronicle my attempts to become something more than this, perhaps it will help others, but mostly I hope I can eventually help myself.

Now that that’s out of the way…

Today was the first Round of the Street Fighter IV tournament, sponsored by Capcom, Gamestop, and the Evolution Fighting Championship. I’ve never participated in a tournament before, though I did go to one this very same month. That tournament being SinSation located at the Mariott in Fairfax, VA on the 7th and 8th. Truthfully, I was only able to attend, I didn’t enter any tournaments as I had Drill that very same weekend.

I had managed to slip in later in the afternoon after a job fair/interview I had attended and it was where I had my first experience with Street Fighter IV. My initial 2 games were less than adequate, as far as giving me an understanding of the game. That didn’t stop me from spending a substantial amount of time reading about the game the closer its console release date approached.

During that wait, Gamestop’s official tournament was announced. I’d been playing an insane amount of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. A few friends were telling me I was more than just average at the game, as my lack of self-esteem had me making comments along the lines of “I just hang with the folks I want to beat.” Self-Doubt is the path of the loser, though I’ve yet to truly overcome this aspect of myself. It is not something I’ve discovered solely through fighting games, it is something I’ve dealt with my entire life. Personal success should not truly be a surprise to anyone, yet there I am with any of my own personal goals.

Beyond that constant haze of self-loathing and doubt, part of me truly desired to “level up.” To increase my skills and see just where I stood with my peers. Enthusiasts with fighting games, whatever. In an official setting or whatever you might call tournaments. Fighting games, to me, are something of a phenomeonon. I believe that “Street Fighter” is Hip Hop, I believe that it sets itself apart from other games in the way that it connected folks, became a social experience. Something today’s video games lack or do contain but in a way that comes off as superficial or artificial to me.

There are better ways to socialize with folks if games aren’t what you’re about, but if you truly love competition and fighting games, you’re not looking at a diverse list of options. Video games in general are pretty bereft of truly rewarding social experiences. There’s no real impact other than what’s contained within the game. That’s one of the things I really stress over when it comes to this activity. A love-hate mindset that I can never truly reconcile without the occasional mental tussle.

Even with that back and forth, I ended up deciding to attend SinSation to take advantage of one of those few options that presented itself in relation to my interest with video games. Mainly due to a pep talk from a close friend of mine, as she had had enough of my vocal brooding over what I thought of attending. Having invested a lot of time with HD Remix, I had a fairly decent amount of success against the players I faced. However, a player named Masaka, a guy I later found as a member of SRK, was an experienced player ended up teaching me a few things about the scene and my own expectations. His attitude seemed somewhat stand-offish or distant, but I imagine that would be the case with a guy who was treating the event as “business as usual.” When I had asked him about a few things, he had explained he’d been competing for some time. When I expressed shock over the near 3-4 hours it took to actually start the various tournaments for the games present, Masaka said something to the effect of “It’s like this all the time, man. These things are never on time.”

My overall perspective on SinSation Fight Club ended up being that it was quite a bit of hype met with a ton of reality and a whole lot of nerds. For a fighting game tournament in a place with barely any sort of scene, I imagine the turnout was fairly positive. I am, in fact, a former outsider just starting to obtain an informed opinion about these events. It made me a bit wary of opening my mouth as a new comer to this stuff. For ever few bits of proper perspective I do have, there are quite a bit of bad guesses I made that really just let me know to shut up and listen before opening my mouth.

That’s a lot to think about when I think of whether or not I want to compete, much less analyze the scene. Truth is, I love to win. I don’t have a boisterous personality on the surface, but traits like pettiness, competitiveness, and a desire to succeed all come to the surface when I play these games. It’s something certain and static to me, something I feel I can understand but perhaps don’t fully grasp yet.

Following that experience, I was apprehensive about going to Gamestop’s official shindig when it was first announced. My knowledge of Gamestop’s tournaments left me with an opinion that they are atrocious for enthusiasts. The only thing I’d say in regard to that now is that Gamestop’s Smash Bros. Brawl tournament used the regular Wii controller as opposed to the preferred Gamecube controller. Their Street Fighter IV tournament, Round 1 at least, would be played on 360s with 360 controllers instead of arcade sticks or fight pads. For me, that did suck in a way, but it’s about as much criticism as I’ll levy toward the event.

Gamestop is, first and foremost, a video game store. Any illusions about it being for gamers or about “the culture” are just two examples of fool’s philosophy. They sell video games to people who play games. That’s what their business is about. That being said, the fine folks at the Gamestop here in Fredericksburg did their best to accomodate the participants of this event. It was, to be upfront, a really great experience.

I had fun, I’d play again and I will play again as I won the event along with another player I met named “Jake.” A really cool cat from Mary-Washington University.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of the actual turnout, especially given that fighting games are a niche market, even in light of the recent explosion of new fighting games from 2008 going into 2009. There was a decent sized player list, about 10-15 something players, maybe almost 20. I didn’t bother to actually do a headcount, but for what it’s worth, it wasn’t too huge of a turnout depending on what you would consider a major event.

I arrived 10 minutes early and found the participants standing around, reminiscing about fighting games they had played or the fact that they’d just picked up fighting games with Street Fighter IV. Most folks were talking paper theory or about ancient fighting game history. You know, games from like 2001 or even as far back as 1995. “That X-Men vs Street Fighter cabinet over at the old bowling alley or something, man, that was my SHIT!” Beyond that, there were folks jumping in and out of a few player matches before the event officially started.

There were two people in front of me, but the store owner hadn’t filled out the brackets yet, so I breathed a sigh of relief as the tournament would not start before I got my practice on the 360 controller. I spent the days prior to the tournament playing on my Hori EX2. I breathed a sigh of relief as I took the time to play a few games to see what I was working with.

After each of the two matches I played, I shook the player’s hands and said “good game.” I had almost let my first opponent walk away without saying anything, but I caught myself and extended my hand before he had completely turned around. I wanted to be a good representative of the fighting game community and try to build a good rapport with players, regardless of where they come from. All that personal stuff can emerge naturally, I really wanted to make sure that this was a positivity.

Even if I shut someone down, “good game” isn’t just a sarcastic quip or a rare comment for those few great matches you may get while playing. It’s a sign of sportsmanship. That we respect each other before and after the fight.

Destroy Spark.

Jokes aside, the sportsmanship thing is important to me, even if some folks don’t represent it worth a damn. My experiences with “Gamers” are less than positive, and even if I can’t change that scene by myself, it only takes a few positive experiences to leave the right sort of impression on people who have a brain upstairs.

I tried not to reveal too much of what I was capable of in my warm-up matches, though I did reveal to folks through my playstyle that there was no way I was going to perform Bison’s Ultra Combo. A fact I was heated about, since it’s useful to have. The one thing I walked away with from those two matches was the knowledge that my fundamentals would have to carry me through the tournament.

As I hadn’t seen everyone play, I was unsure whether my basics were enough to win amongst the competition. I wasn’t going to invest more time in learning as I didn’t want to show off any more of my tricks prior to the tournament starting. I decided to just observe players and was nearly tricked into thinking some Zangief player in the tournament was legit as he toyed with some poor teenager playing as Blanka.

The 20-30 minute period of folks reminiscing about fighting games and warm-ups was over fairly quickly, as the store employee running the tournament wrote in the first few player matches for the opening bracket. I was lucky enough to open up the tournament as one of the first two players. My opponent was a kid who picked El Fuerte. He told me “Get ready to lose!” jokingly, before we started.

I was a bit worried, since players who don’t pick the usual suspects tend to be wild cards. His Dan Hibiki-esque performance against me resulted in a quick win for myself, as well a few comments from folks I impressed in the crowd. I tried to keep a straight face and not smile while playing, I wanted to carry through the match without making unnecessary banter or comments and maintain good focus. The El Fuerte player managed to break that with a comment he made after I shook his hand and said “Good game.”

“Nah, I let you win man!”

He was pretty cool about it, and I knew he was there for fun. It got a good laugh out of me and everyone else to break any of that initially tense atmosphere. I was happy someone was there with a great sense of humor.

After my initial match, I took the time to observe all the following matches. The brackets were uneven, so the sole Guile player in the tournament received a “buy” after his first match against a Ken player. Aside from the 4-6 something Ken players, one being a Ken vs Ken match that was pretty entertaining to watch, there were a few surprises to be had. There was the same Blanka player who ended up getting crushed by the same Zangief he had played earlier. I wanted to coach him, but I could say that about all the matches I saw.

I decided to abstain and just ride the event out.

Another match had a stereotypically nerdy and awkward/creepy C.Viper player against a Ken player, the Viper player talked a good talk but just couldn’t perform on the D-Pad. Conversations he had interjected in while we played just really ended up on weird notes, I wanted to slowly back away as he professed his obsession with Rose. I like Rose too, but I don’t think it was quite on the same level of whatever was going on there.

*backs away slowly*

The first Bracket was wrapped up in about an hour’s time, at around 3:30 or so. It was time for the second bracket and I found myself eagerly waiting to play my next opponent. Confident I wasn’t going to lose, I had no reason to believe otherwise, the second bracket played out with Jake’s Ryu, a Ken, a Sagat, a Guile, and my M.Bison proceeding to the semi-finals… Or what would have been proper semi-finals had enough players actually shown up.

Forced to make a judgment call, the Gamestop employee running the event pulled us all to the side and asked us if we had any objections to just having all 5 players face each other with the two holding the best win records of the matches moving on to Round 2 of the tournament.

No one had a better idea to present, so the Semi-Finals and Finals were scrapped in lieu of a playoff.

The Sagat player, I feel, ended up in the finals via luck, as he didn’t face anyone competent for even casual players until the 5 player playoff. He would constantly panic and jump around, blurting something about wanting his Ultra combo to come out. He ended up leaving after going 1-1 against 2 of the players in the playoff, which narrowed the playingfield down to myself and three other players.

My matches began after the player’s departure. While it mostly played out the same as all the other matches I had throughout the day, the Guile player was where things actually got interesting. The first two rounds of the fight I had won easily, all my mind games worked so that the player would never throw Sonic Booms and he would also whiff his Ultras and Supers, allowing me to dash in and throw or Focus Attack him. The third and final round had nearly ended up my sweeping the match, that is until the Guile player began, little by little, figuring out the tricks I was using to damage him.

My teleport was rendered ineffectual, headstomps were met by Guile jumping straight up into normals to hit me out of the move, Devil Reverse was only working sparsely. While my tick combos were working and he was almost dead, the match came down to the wire via my actually being out poked by Guile. I stood to lose a round and some very important momentum. Something I did not want to have happen, I wanted this match over and over right then and there. A loss would mean a possible turn around, or a war of attrition that are most Guile vs Bison matches. We were both in the corner and he had somehow managed to turn my corner pressure around on me by going airborne.

As he was above me, I could not headstomp out to counter him. Nor would I risk a teleport on a shitty 360 pad. After eating a enough damage to give us both a small chunk of life remaining, with his life being slightly higher than mine, I managed to throw him back into the corner after he whiffed a vital cross up. I hadn’t thought to use the standing roundhouse Bison has to possibly remove the pressure, but I’m not even sure it would have worked in the situation I was in, I was happy enough to have him back in the corner and on the ground. Because the one mistake he had been making the entire match, I was counting on him repeating in order to allow me to clinch the victory.

I took to the air with him in the corner and went for a cross up medium kick. As I was counting on, he performed Guile’s Ultra, which managed to tag me for the first hit and knock me down at nearly the apex of my cross up attempt. Falling in the corner, I recovered in time to watch Guile descend from the second part of his Ultra and throw him. It was enough to kill him, but I had reset the match and made him scared enough to start my footsies/pokes again. One mistimed medium kick of his later and I managed to tag him with a crouching medium kick to clinch the third and final round.

Undefeated in the finals with a 2-0 record, I talked to Jake for a bit before he would go on to fight in his final matches. He won, though the Guile player had given him more trouble than I had expected, with their matches coming down to the fifth and final round. Come time for me to face Jake, I knew I had to be careful but that I could win without too much trouble. Jake’s Ryu play couldn’t adapt fast enough to my own. He took the second round after I guess incorrectly on a vital exchange, but I played the third and fourth rounds much more carefully and ended up winning.

I played two people who wanted to face me after the finals, including a player in an MLG sweater who had been talking about Halo 3 and the equipment he had from a sponsor giving him the edge. Halo 3 and fighting games are vastly different beasts, in some ways I feel Halo 3 is a much more intuitive game with a stronger emphasis on reflexes. Those traits themselves don’t necessarily translate into fighting games all that well. I nearly double perfected his Zangief during our exihibition match as a result, and he left pretty broken up. Even after a quick handshake.

Even if the players were slightly uninformed or out of their element, I hope that they left with a desire to become better. I managed to give my gamertag to one player as well as set up a few games with the second guy who qualified for Round 2. I was surprised to have won, but greatly satisfied by the outcome. The many “personal victories” I’ve had pale in comparison to something like this, with something tangible attached to it.

A certificate to the next round, a goofy yellow headband that I will never wear that reads “Store winner”, and a black Street Fighter armband and 2 new folks to play are what I left the tournament with. Round 2 is next week, and I’m expecting much more intense competition. I am not so assured of victory, but I feel I can make my odds better by playing more folks on Live, doing more homework regarding my match ups, and actually practicing with a damn 360 controller as opposed to shooting from the hip like I did today.

While I had a bit of anxiety watching some of the other players in action today, I walked away with the typical impressions most players have of participants in this niche interest. Beyond the obvious player observations during matches, which featured a lot of missed combos or poor decisions, I heard a lot of discrepancies regarding the things they spoke about in relation to Street Fighter IV or just fighting games in general. This was a casual crowd, regardless of their investment with the game or appearance at a tournament such as this. The Gamestop tournament being the first of its kind for Evolution, Capcom, and all parties involved in promoting Street Fighter IV in the first place.

Still, I had to shake my head in disappointment given what I was hearing at this small gathering. A group of kids were talking about Zangief having an “infinite” in IV, for starters. Later on, while I was discussing Shoryuken with the would-be 2nd place guy, a participant in a green mario pullover and hippie hair spit some hate about “real tournaments” as he had heard some tournament held at a Game Crazy cost money to enter. The fake concern folks show over things they don’t participate in can occasionally give me a good laugh, so nintendo guy was pretty funny to hear.

These guys should have read some of David Sirlin’s blog, in light of these descrepencies.

Clearly, I had an edge at the tournament. My experience and online play prior to going was against folks who have a vested interest and history with these games, hard fought battles and several losses were had. I had a background to work with regarding who I had trouble against and what I would have to do in order to turn the tide in my favor. I won because of it… that or I won because this is an obsession!

You be the judge.

My friend Nick in Ohio didn’t have the same luck, as his tournament attracted some legit players who prepared in a similar fashion to myself. A lot of Sagat and Zangief players who were proficient with the pad and displaying some truly impressive play as a result. Nick later ended up playing the 2 finalists at from his tournament at their place on the new MadCatz fighting pads for Street Fighter IV and he managed to win a great deal of those matches when put on a much more adequate controller. I had to agree with his assessment that he would have stood a better chance with a controller that wasn’t the 360 pad.

Should these events have more prominence and better sponsorship, I would hope that this kind of thing can be avoided. Playing on the 360 controller was probably the one sour note for a lot of people who participated in this tournament, and it didn’t have to be this way. Regardless of how you feel about competition, video games or otherwise, the folks who participate should have standards beyond “conditions may vary based on store location.”

In spite of that, I left with the tournament with the opinion that this was a good experience. Though I hope it means something more for the community if Street Fighter and fighting games do have a small, but barely existent chance of getting popular again. I don’t see it happening, I am on cloud 9, but I do respect the folks who play and play well. It’s important to look back on this stuff, regardless of who you are, if you do intend to get any sort of enjoyment out of it. Be that winning or just playing to test your own abilities come what may.