 Bahn Unplugged: Time after Time |
4/17/01 |
| Bahn looks back on an arcade event, E3 hopes, Capcom, and IGN's fate |
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Well about a month has past since my the return of the highly-anticipated-gee-why-does-it-take-so-long-to-write column known as Bahn Unplugged. Within the period that it took me to actually sit down to compose a series of thoughts together is much greater in the time it would take for me to comprehend the reasoning behind console loyalists (but, that's another story). I won't bother getting into the Easter weekend, because I am not into holidays, and I have yet to actually indulge in any of those milk chocolate treats endorsed by that bunny who seems to have an identity crisis (it's the Cadbury brand if you must know). However, a few weeks ago...during the period when I very much wanted to have a timely article to boot, I took part in assisting a few of my friends for a local Marvel vs. Capcom 2 tournament held in the only true arcade remaining in New York; Chinatown Fair. On hand as a tournament assistant, I had the opportunity of meeting a number of new people (and no, I did not use this period to promote TNL); among them consisted of a few faces which I have already known since my experiences in the Street Fighter tournament community. Players assembled from throughout the tri-state area, Boston, VA, and even as far as Texas to compete. A approximate total of 80 players gathered within the confines of the arcade hall; thankfully provisions to make the occupancy as bearable as possible, we moved the large arcade cabinets (the type which host a 40" projection monitor) to the back. This is Marvel vs. Capcom 2.... Perhaps if I spent more time with the game (since I actually do have it in my possession), I would've entered. Hunting down mutants with aerial raves, super jumps and of course the superior attributes of Cable, Sentinnel and Blackheart (among other tasteful team customizations) seemed to be all the more reason why that reality would never surface (yup, I am a Vs. scrub - wearing it with pride) However, it didn't deter from my interest of watching others that embrace the engine wholeheartedly. A great deal of respect and appreciation really should be extended to players from varied skill levels to get so absorbed in basically what I consider to be one of Capcom's most intense fighters to date. It truly combines the elements from various engines and the product of this meshed recipe has been marveled by newcomers and veterans alike (well, accept me, simply because I don't play it). The event overall was a success, though taking practically a day to complete, familiar names to the community such as Justin Wong (who made tributes to Team Interpol and Tron Bonne) practically breezed through his competition, followed by Philly's dynamic duo - Julien Robinson (placing second) and Bryheem Keyes (placed fourth). The top 5 finishers were: 1. Justin Wong (Magneto, Cable, Cammy)
I believe the funniest highlight of the entire match was watching one of the younger forces of CF, Omar Briggs in his battle against Boston's Gabe Ong. In the final seconds of the match, Omar was up on energy, leading him to believe the match was over and proceeded to shake Gabe's hand. Gabe quickly reacted by initiating a Juggernaunt Headcrush super on Omar's Cable, leaving him with bare pixels left (and a very stunned Omar). Though he tried to quickly salvage the win with a knee-jerk HVB, Gabe was successful in killing him with another Headcrush super to tie up the match 1-1. Thankfully, Omar pulled through in another close match to win that set. Here's a few shots of the event which were taken by my friends from 2hit Combo Productions; (sorry to those that aren't featured, I would've loved to show more, but this was all I could obtain. It's all Uberjae's fault) =) So...why are we standing here again???
Digressing here, the "upgrade" will feature the two cameo characters (Dan Hibiki and Joe Higashi) that inexplicably were left out of the original. In addition, all of the hidden characters from MF 2000 will be automatically accessible, and various characters have been tweaked. Yup, that's about it, no new stages, no more characters. Prepare to slap down some more cash for a game that we could've easily waited for had Capcom taken the time to complete the game as it was intended. Ah well, I'll reserve my final judgments if the game is truly worth the purchase when the game is released. On the road to E3 It's hard to believe that the time to prepare for my trip to Los Angeles is almost here. The moment where members of the industry all assemble, high anticipation of the latest game annoucements, the opportunity to check out all the upcoming games, and of course, the booth babes (you know, someday there's going to be a protest about women being acknowledged in this manner, mark my words!)
Other post-E3 highlights: More coverage - There's an adequate number of editors attending this year, which means that I am gunning for a lot more hands-on impressions and personal insights to be featured in this year's E3 coverage. Honest to say, that it's rather easy to get caught up with the sights and sounds, and the sights of women covering every corner of the convention hall, it's amazing that we even remembered one of our main reasons for attending. Defeating Lawd in A3 - Yes, the time has come once again where our annual rivalry will commence. Last year, Interpol's femme fatale battled against the Brazilian beast and came away victorious. However, the training of thy arch rival has been intense and Lawd promises that things will be different. Other areas of competitive nature will ensue in Soul Calibur, Tony Hawk's Pro Skate, Samba de Amigo, Guilty Gear X, SF3: 3rd Strike, and whatever else gets thrown in the mix. Much of these events will of course not take place at the show (unless attendees are battling for chicken), they'll be held within the hotel rooms or some ideal location to host a room full of game savvy players. We'll of course have results on these events after the show (and possibly some movies!) More pics - Ugh, though we featured a great number of booth babe picks, I simply wasn't in enough myself. No pics with mascots, hardly any pics with booth babes (Reno was simply on a babe spree!)...I intend to take everyone's camera and take plenty of pictures of me (um, doing something) =) Sleep - Rest...hm, what's that? Surely if I am taking time out to rest, then how in the world is one expected to have fun? My only moments of sleep will take place during my flight there, and my journey back home! The end of Snowball/IGN I suppose it was only a matter of time before this speculation would become a reality. It's no secret that the industry is currently in one of the biggest dry spells I've ever seen. The only reason why it's become more apparent to me is the fact that I've spent the past 3-4 years endeavoring to rub shoulders with members within the gaming industry itself. While I did expect the surge of websites to grow in popularity as it did, I wasn't prepared for the lackluster quality of many that opt for your right to support them simply because they can sling together a fancy script, cliche name and bam - you've got a website thing going. Gaming venues have come and go, UGO, IGN, among others have all had their share of layoffs, Gamefan became a casuality of circumstance no thanks to Express.com (though if you've already heard, their return is forthcoming as GameGo Magazine). In the end, all of these gaming entities are expected to surive, but how can this be done when the financial support is fading? Banner advertising is hardly making the impact as it used to be, thus because of it, new ideas to generate revenue is established. Thus this happens to be the case with IGN/Snowball, which created a transcipt expressing the current situation and their plans to resolve their financial conflict. To put it bluntly: Snowball is really hurting, more than most of you probably even realize. Thus, a subscription effort (you got it folks - IGN Insider) has been created to prevent the firm from falling flat on its face. Personally, I don't see this type of deal working out in the long run. Why should anyone have to pay for gaming news? You don't pay to turn on your television to watch current events, if anything, you simply pay for utilities that power your television and provide access to cable stations. It's bad enough that free ISPs are practically non-existant, charges are placed on gaining higher status in search engines, the list goes on and on. One thing is for sure, I won't be among those persons that runs up to IGN and paying for content. Though I have nothing against the network (my friends Jeremy and Anthony work there for one), but I don't see this solution working - at all. Kevin Deselms put it best when he stated "If they thought it was a pain in the butt keeping people from stealing their content and regurgitating it elsewhere, wait till they go subscription-only and EVERYONE is doing it. Bye bye, revenue stream. Hello, bankruptcy." Seems the best action to take will be the standard - wait and see attitude. Hopefully, the subscription plan will work out for them, but I don't see it attracting any more readers. As a whole, I only visit a few of the console channels and Sci-Fi IGN (specifically the Voyager columns because the editor makes me laugh for the most part), but once again as Hi-Fi stated, the content overall really isn't worth reading...and that's where the my main complaint lies, not just with IGN, but with many gaming sites. If your content is simply a rehash of the same ol' news found on 100 other gaming pages, the writing is basically close to being non-inspiring, a melodramatic tone of "we got news, reviews, and previews and then some", can you really expect anyone to remain interested in what you have to offer? Perhaps I am looking at this matter too intently, but there's definitely going to be more events to come that will affect us all, pro and fansite alike. In the end, I am hoping that TNL can remain among the gaming entitites who endure through this dark cloud and continue to deliver a unique perspective and a focused attitude of what assembled us all into the world of gaming... - having fun. Game On!
Past Columns:
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Speaking of Capcom games, it's no secret that Capcom vs. SNK Pro is on the verge of release, scheduled to hit the Japanese market on June 14. As much as the announcement initially gave many a sigh of relief, the end result once full details were presented made for some rather mixed emotions. CvS Pro in effect is the 'game that should've been'. Simply spend some time with the original: Millennium Fight 2000 and you'll see my point. The game just doesn't feel complete...and sadly I didn't discover just how incomplete and unsatisfying the coveted crossover title would be until an extensive period of time (about 3-4 months to be exact) had passed. I came to accept that Capcom took the lazy route by not establishing brand new sprites for the entire Capcom cast (exceptions to Ryu, Ken, and Bison) in favor of reused animation ripped directly out of SF Alpha 3. Is integrity and uniqueness a thing of the past? if Guilty Gear X could demonstrate what fighting games SHOULD visually represent on Naomi hardware, surely Capcom could establish the same feat.
At present, I am highly looking forward to checking out what Nintendo has in store for the GameBoy Advance and Gamecube...well moreso with their new portable. 32bit power on the go, you simply can't go wrong with that. It's actually somewhat odd to me becoming all giddy with handhelds, since I jumped out of the handheld involvement ages ago (although I periodically provide token GBC coverage here on the site). GameBoy Advance has somehow revitalized my interest, with many classic titles making their return, one would be hard pressed to turn their nose up. Clearly, the industry sees this as a solid platform to develop for, given the successfuly track record of the GameBoy platform (not to mention, that Wonderswan is the only other handheld on the market that doesn't begin to touch the surface that GBA will establish). Rest assured, expect many of the TNL staff to personally have one of these babies when the unit hits stateside (which means a lot more handheld coverage to come).
