Guys! It's really a good deal:

1) You can play casual matches there too
2) You can see how good players bring the best out of the character
3) You can witness different styles of play, from the most cheap, to the most tactical
4) You get to share / receive tips on how to improve your game
5) You get 2 tickets for the new movie to boot, and many more

You don't have to win to have fun!

(I'm talking as if I'm organizing it myself.. hoho!!)

Hi Alan,

Anyone from Singapore, Ipoh, Penang or Johore joining in?

My report (from the cheapo Dictator with Tekken 4 stick):

First and foremost to Alan and team:
WELL DONE! For a TWO-day tournament of this scale and media attention you have done an EXCELLENT job! People may share their first-day (Saturday) experience as being somewhat draggy but you guys were being very fair by using a more preferred points system (winner = 2 points, loser = still get 1 point, top 4 from each group with the most points at the end of the day will progress to Sunday's elimination system). As the saying goes, "you can't please everyone", you took a bold step to ensure everyone had a fighting chance even when they lost their first few matches. Overall I believe Saturday's agenda went smoothly and according to schedule. Kudos!

Your flexibility to accommodate both pad and stick players are commendable, as with your ever-entertaining crowd-pleasing commentating. At the end, you and team made everyone a winner and brought the fighting game community closer together. Also, good cosplay with appearances from Ken, Chun Li and Sakura - to match your Ryu. Tournaments of these types has been long-desired and thanks to you it has materialized. Please bring in more of these in future, and as spoken you don't need to be ambitious to make it a regional event - let's start off with building the local scene first!

To FatCatLim and GameAxis:
Good MC-ing and coverage - and thanks for bringing news of this event to us as well. You absolutely got the right words out whenever something spectacular happened during the elimination rounds today! Good to have a fellow gamer being The Voice.

To Sony Malaysia:
More please! As from the turnout you can see there IS a community!

The Experience:
I witnessed many people playing their best today, some being tenured arcade veterans, some being more casual-like players who showed remarkable sportsmanship, and some of the "armchair champions" - good players who don't need to bother with a stick to become good, as evident in their flawless execution on a pad. I managed to put a face to some of the PSN friends whom I play almost every night with, and made friends with many more who share the same passion.

Taking 1st place was Kenneth (Ryu, non-forumer and friend), which played his best IMHO today and his religious daily sparring with our gang since the game came out paid off, in the form of a PS3 set with SF4. He earlier eliminated my Dictator and I readily admit he was the better man as he played extra safe unlike my carefree rush down and by now predictable game play. Could his win be attributed to widely-discussed character tier-rankings as on professional SF forums e.g. SRK, NeoGAF and Capcom-Unity?

1st runner up by a very close and tension-filled match was the amazing TristanX which gave his best with Ken. He was very patient and made the most of his given opportunities, which did not come by much due to the carefulness of both players. It was truly a classic battle to the finish between the series' two main protagonists - the crowd went wild at every comeback and life-bar depletion. Wow! In my many years of knowing him, he has shown great consistency in high-level matches and he carved his way to the finals with extreme surgical precision!

Freddy (Blanka, non-forumer and friend) took 3rd place with a very skilled Blanka. He took advantage of every opening, wow-ing the crowd when he took the first round with an ex-ball through Ken's fireball. He was on equal par with our long-time friend TristanX and both played very careful matches against each other but it was Ken who had better advantage via keep-away and Blanka's missed Ultras. It was very tension-filled and really gave atmosphere to the eventual finals.

Darkstalker (Boxer) was good too and secured 4th placing. He didn't had many openings against Kenneth (Ken) and Freddy (Blanka) but managed to hold up well. This is a player who plays on a pad and has only FOUR days' worth of experience at Outpost Cafe - with given time who knows he could have climbed higher in ranking! No chance for any Ultras after a Buffalo Headbutt in the last few deciding matches, as seen through his road to the semi-finals, punishing his opponents with this move!

In the end, EVERYONE wins - it was truly a good move forward for the SF scene - and a good comeback from its dormant years a decade ago. WE WANT MORE!

This post has been edited by rawfish: Mar 2 2009, 12:04 AM

Well said! Your match against Blanka was my favourite and the one I was looking forward to the entire tournament. Tense all the way to the final round! Freddy also placed his focus on you the most too hence his game play was thrown off a bit in the end, agreed? Nevertheless he fared well over Boxer later on though I expected he (Boxer) to have a 50%-50% equally good chance of winning.

Best tournament? Agreed - in terms or organizing and overall experience. I'd like to fight Aiman too - I can see he did plenty of research for his character e.g. d+lp/lk links to Buffalo Headbutt > Ultra (KPKKK/KKPKK variants to see which hits best?) for best hitting percentage. And he doesn't lose his focus easily.

As I said earlier - EVERYONE WINS. Plus did anyone mentioned the champ and TristanX fought again on the big screen before the movie? But was for fun only on the DS3 pad - both plays on sticks only

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Added on March 2, 2009, 7:26 amWho knows

But it's going to be a really long way, looking at the Jap players - no, let alone Singaporeans who had a great head start ahead of us.

This post has been edited by rawfish: Mar 2 2009, 07:26 AM

Through my limited knowledge (I don't use boxer), corner and mid-screen ranges are different, and yes the safest is KPKKK (2nd hit whiffs) I've seen most people connect it when opp. falls head to upper-torso level.

I can imagine you on a pad and yet still using a charge character. Painful to retain DB charges and/or charge buffers. Good for you to stick to it when you had chances to use a stick, which you were not used to.

u always got rawfish to beat as punching bag what...

Thank you Alvin, you are truly the Mastah. Didn't get to fight your Gouken that day. But I realized I fought your brother's Gouki towards the end of Day 1 (group F). He landed plenty of RDs that day on lotsa people.

Btw, I think you'd be the best person to create a new SF4 thread.. since TS had gone AWOL *hint*

This post has been edited by rawfish: Mar 3 2009, 11:52 PM

At the tourney, when playing at the 5th Bravia, a friend of mine heard someone from the crowd asking, "this game don't have Excel ah?" LOL

This post has been edited by rawfish: Mar 4 2009, 12:15 PM

You don't have their contacts, even ICQ/MSN/Yahoo anymore? Penang Ryu-bot... Ah Tai's Raging Demon.. the Ipoh Yit Foong gang... miss them - all having unique play styles

Trying to get some friends come along too. But I'm free this Sunday so will confirm later, Alan.

DS, hope to see you too.

Alan... I think "SF/Street Fighter Fight Club" will be better. Just like the awesome movie

Alan,

My friends Nick and Peter will be dropping by. He's the guy who didn't get to join the Sony Tournament due to having needed to work, if you could still remember.

Don't hate the fat guy ler bro hehe.

Anyway, good games tonight and I'm sure everyone had fun! Hey Alan, thanks for putting this whole thing together, especially when it was back-to-back with your Dragonball event!

To Joshua and (sorry I forgot the other guy's name), if you're on PSN please add me - rawfish_us - didn't manage to get your PSN contacts as I had to leave early today.

Actually, on being defensive, turtling is a style which has been much discussed, debated, disinterpreted and digressed since the days of past.

The player who would simply just crouch his/her own end of the corner and bank-in on opportunities aka mistakes by the other player, is usually the least popular person in any match with an audience. Just because he/she doesn't show any flash, proactiveness or initiative to make the attacking move does not mean he/she has lesser skill. Over the years I have grown to accept this style of play even if I find it irritating. Turtling requires plenty of patience and concentration, as the intended effect is to bait your opponent to give in to come forward.

I faced a really good Japanese Claw user on PSN a few days ago, and he was so good at being defensive, aka TURTLING and at the same time excellent at prioritizing his pokes and footsie game I fell for almost all his tricks, when he went all out for the offensive. His timing for cross-up (on me waking up) EX Wall Dive to Izuna Drop was flawless. To differentiate his play style, he later on switched to Ryu which was close to Daigo's offensive play style. What an experience.

Bottom line, I strongly recommend you guys to accept this defensive play style and to work harder to tactfully counter their tactics / break through their defence. Nothing's more satisfying than having a big lead in the round while they themselves play "catch up" when you turn the tide on them

EDIT: disinterpreted = misinterpreted.

This post has been edited by rawfish: Mar 16 2009, 01:27 PM

You can be sorry if you're going against the fast-paced flow of casual matches where win/lose doesn't really matter, moreover among friends, but never ever, never ever - be sorry for having your own style of play. Don't let anyone tell you different. The only reason people get mad COULD be:

1) perhaps they don't feel the need to invest more effort or patience than you, to go for the WIN

2) perhaps they feel threatened that by blocking some/all/most of their block strings, it becomes ineffective hence reflect on their own character inadequacies. That way, you've already won the match psychologically

3) perhaps they have the perception that turtlers are boring to play against, which INFHO is indeed not interesting but also offers a unique challenge, as I am presented with more attacking options this way while the opponent figures out how to punish any of my mistakes. More importantly, it provides good training experience against similar turtlers. Face it, defensive players are around and here to stay so what can we do about it?

People who don't adopt and evolve will always be at the losing end - regardless if they play rush or turtle.

Sifu Alvin hah hah, yeah I like the way you put it. My point on posting here is not to advocate or defend turtling, but sharing a bit my opinion that it's a way of life in the SF world. Even careless offensive play will cause lifebar-depletion symptoms hehe

Just like a broken record... i repeat... damn it felt GOOD getting my A$$ kicked by that Jap Vega. Turtle turtle... poke... bait.. turtle... go for KILL... "YOU LOSE"!!

This post has been edited by rawfish: Mar 16 2009, 11:02 PM

Wahaha - true or not. That's why Japs are good. Many arcades = better competition. Evolved gameplay + innovation = pwnzage skillzzz!!111 We're not only far behind, looks like we don't have a good chance to catch up. Glad people like Alan and you guys are organizing/participating in get-togethers

Hey Mike, Abel's your friend ok. Not the forgetful Frenchie... the REAL Abel haha

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Added on March 16, 2009, 7:29 pmBro.. tonight I think I need to catch up with work ler. Till very late.. otherwise cannot even afford wantan mee. Another day ok.. here got many other better people to gaduh with

This post has been edited by rawfish: Mar 16 2009, 07:29 PM

Wow Brastel, you really are in a good location (Nippon!!!) to have first-hand experience with Japanese play-style. Seen any top-level game play there? If so, must be very exciting, to even be a bystander!

All SF4 cabinets there are like this right? Taito Vewlix *yummy*


Not even a full Sanwa-modded HRAP3 can compare with the experience of being there.

Can you just feel the love here.

Anyway, I won't be playing much now but am still pretty much into this game. I am currently undertaking a new self-funded secret SF project which matters I can't discuss much here but it should involve popular Japanese and American players . Details may be revealed shortly, depending on my need to balance my time at work with paid projects.

Addition: Alan! The food was decently priced with good portions, as with the drinks. No further comments other than having a PS3 + 2 good sticks there permanently for matches.

This post has been edited by rawfish: Mar 17 2009, 06:12 PM

Is there any reason to add 54 extra underscore characters?

More on the get-togethers, Alan - I myself will be free on Sundays. I even know some people who run underground "SF4 Fight Clubs" and frequent on an almost daily basis at ungodly hours... hence the suggestion earlier on. They will definitely show up if there's another big tourney

This post has been edited by rawfish: Mar 17 2009, 06:20 PM