Don’t be a Scrub Podcast Episode 2: Heavy Weapons

Posted on November 2, 2010 by muttonhead

Spider Muttons Productions © 2010 is back with the second episode of the Don’t be a Scrub Podcast and our guest is none other than Melbourne’s own Heavy Weapons. He is one of Melbourne’s best players, and is very candid, outspoken, and always entertaining.

Heavy Weapons and Nick at BAM 2010. From Shadowloo.

This time Igor/Spider Carnage is the one conducting the interview, which is good because I feel he has a stronger vocal presence than me. I have also transcribed this interview for you guys, hope you all enjoy it. Be warned, there’s a lot of NSFW language in this interview, but we simply couldn’t have an interview with Heavy Weapons any other way. Kick it off, Spider!

Don’t be a Scrub Podcast Episode 2: Heavy Weapons

(To download, right click and “Save As”)

DBAS Podcast Ep. 2 96 kb/s version

Igor: Brief introduction:

Hi everyone we are here at Chris’s clubhouse. Today is the 23rd [of October] and today I have with me a man who really needs no introduction for the Melbourne scene. He’s definitely one of the top players in Melbourne; he very regularly places in the top 8 at the monthly ranbats at Couch Warriors. (Melbourne’s monthly ranking battles). What more can I say; the man has a lot of passion for this game. He mains Sagat and Ryu and I am talking about Mr. Heavy Weapons.

Thank you for joining me this evening.

Heavy Weapons: Thank you for having me.

1. Ok every interview out there always starts off by asking a little bit about their past, so who am I to buck the trend. Why don’t you tell us a little about how you got into fighting games?

Basically just the original starting point for me, like a lot of people around my age, was Street Fighter II: World Warrior. [I] then got into the extensions of [Street Fighter II], [but I] kinda phased out [playing Street Fighter] once I got past fourteen or fifteen. Not for any reason actually in particular, yeah but it was SFII days and I keep making the mistake as if it was champion edition or tournament edition but that game was [what] I was heavily into at the time.  Back in those days I played mainly Ryu, and a bit of Sagat. But yeah, it was mainly Ryu, and Sagat was sort of my other character. But I used to like Ryu because I really liked the character.

Um then with SF4, I was randomly just walking past Bluehouse one time (a Melbourne Chinatown arcade). And at the time, I used to just get a kick out of playing Tekken, just mucking around, it wasn’t anything serious. ‘Cause me and my friends used to just muck around with Tekken, not at my house but at another friend’s house. Just mucking around, for the fuck of it. Nothing serious.

Then I actually stepped into the arcade, and I was playing Tekken. And then I noticed, fuck, new Street Fighter! And I think it was like two months maybe, or three [months] tops, after the game had come out. I saw the game and I go oh, what’s this? This looks way different.

And I played a little bit of Alpha, but fuckin’ hardly at all. I also played a bit of [Street Fighter] EX, but not serious again at all. Just dabbled into it, [a] tiny bit. So then I saw [SF4] in the arcade, played it. No one was actually there at the arcade at the time, except for Eddie, Ero_Oyaji. He saw me playing Tekken, and then he saw me playing SF, and then he would have been like “This guy’s a fucking king fimbler”. All I was doing was just fireball uppercut you know, because I hadn’t played in years, I was very, very, very bad, very rusty, very shit to say the least.

Played it, and I thought oh yeah, fuck, this game feels pretty fun, but it looked really technical. When I first played it I was like what the hell’s a focus attack. What’s this, what’s that.

Because back in the era when I used to play, I was just into the fireball uppercut technique. Pretty much like the old school cats.

When you look at the majority of Super Turbo and earlier Street Fighter games you did zone a lot with fireballs.

Yeah, that’s what my background’s from, those games. And probably the best thing about me was just that I could react to a jump in or a Blanka Ball or something I could uppercut it. That was my thing. And pretty much when I was young playing against friends, and again they weren’t very good, [and] neither was I. But out of my friends, I was always better than them, but these dudes didn’t play [that much].

So anyway, I played the game, I finished the computer [arcade mode] and I thought; fuck, this game’s pretty fun. And then I happened to walk past [Bluehouse] another night, it would’ve been Saturday or Friday or something. And there was these dudes just playing there. At the time I think it would’ve been Eddie in there, there would’ve been Khanh was in there and a few other Melbourne players. So [I] played a few games with those guys, got fuckin’ owned. I go fuck man, I’m not as good as I used to be, or these guys are better than me.

Khanh at BAM. From Shadowloo

So I sort of came back a few days later, or a week later, and eventually I met Khanh, who I then became really good friends with. Eddie I got really good friends with. And very shortly after I met Toxy. And I saw Toxy, I was like fuck, this dude’s very good. At the time he actually wasn’t using Sagat when I first met him. He was using Sagat, but the few times I saw him he was just mucking around with Balrog, and getting fifteen[-win] win streaks, just slapping everybody. Pretty much he was just using bread and butters, very simple things, and everyone was just falling for it. I was like, this guy’s good. And I wanted to challenge him. Continue reading →

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Run It Back- The Road to Socal Regionals

Posted on October 30, 2010 by muttonhead

from Zaid Tabani.

This is the story of how Alex Valle tried to bring back…1992.

Wow, so this is what Redrapper has been working on Wednesday Nights Fights all this time. I can’t wait for more of this series!

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Toxy Tells

Posted on October 28, 2010 by muttonhead

For those of you who don’t frequent the Ozhadou forums, the best player in Melbourne, Toxy, has decided to start his personal thread detailing advanced Street Fighter strategy and techniques.

You can find the thread here: http://www.ozhadou.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=5508&start=0

Please do not miss the opportunity to gleam some insight from the one of the premier SF brains in Australia! Here’s an healthy cut and paste:

SSF4 Whispering – An insight into SSF4 Strategy

Postby ToXY » 20:51 Wed 27 Oct 2010

The main reason we are falling behind the rest of the world in SSF4 apart from the smaller player base is that most of the players are playing this game in a very basic way, and that style can’t cut it in this day of SSF4 if you want to be able to compete with top players around the world.

I will write a bit about different thing I notice people in Melbourne in general are lacking each day or two, my goal is to make you guys understand about each concept and how important it is to implement them into your game so you will be able to compete in higher level play.

Today I will start off with the mind games revolving around close combat.

I’m not too good at writing so if you get a bit confused, you can post a question or you can always ask me when you see me to clarify somethings since it may be easier to understand in real life.

#1 YOU MUST LEARN THE OPTIONS BASED AROUND CLOSE COMBAT
(I will use Ryu for these examples below since everyone knows Ryu)

For example in Melbourne i see most people do a basic block string and finish it with a tick throw or do something for example with ryu and do c.lp, c.lp, c.lp, c.mk > fireball to push the opponent out.

If you keep doing a block string into throw every time against someone who knows how to crouch tech, it’s going to be too hard to get a throw on them since you are not mixing up your block string, and if your doing a block string just for the sake of pushing them out, your wasting an opportunity, doing a block string for no reason doesn’t achieve anything, it’s your chance to deal damage to your opponent.

What you should be doing is mixing up your block strings so your opponent has to guess, e.g

HOW TO BEAT DELAYED CROUCH TECH

To beat someone who does delayed crouch tech you can do for example [c.lp, c.lp, walk up, c.mp+lp+lk] [c.lp, stand up, c.mp+lp+lk] (if you LP + LK while doing your c.mp, if they go to throw you, you will tech)

If you timed it right and opponent went to crouch tech you will get counter hit on him and then you are able to confirm into a combo, so once your opponent sees that you are able to beat delayed crouch tech hes going to be more scared to just spam crouch tech because he knows your able to beat it so then you will be also able to start landing throws on him.

HOW TO BEAT SOMEONE WHO’S GOING FOR A SETUP TO BREAK CROUCH TECH

If the defender believes you are going for block string that beats delay crouch tech, then he can mash on a quick start up move like a c.lp which will beat that setup since you will hit him while hes walking over to you.

HOW TO BEAT A JAB SPAMMER

If the attacker thinks your going to do that he can do a “frame trap” for example c.lp, slight pause , c.mp, which you time so it leaves a 1-2 frame gap for him to stick out a normal, if he went to spam c.lp you will score a counter hit on him.

HOW TO BEAT STAND TECH

If your opponent uses stand tech instead of crouch tech you have to do different things to beat that, eg [c.lp, c.lp walk up uppercut] any type of move that has invincible start up will beat throw e.g DP type of moves

But this is very risky if they block it they will be able to punish you, so mostly use this when you have 2 meters so you can cancel in case they block it

another way to beat someone who stand tech is by using dive kicks e.g Cammy and Rufus, do block string walk up a little bit then do a dive kick, If you dont use those character though you can also do something else

e.g c.lp, c.lp, walk back (they have the whiff throw animation) then you can just punish their whiff animation with what ever you want

HOW TO BEAT SOMEONE WHO TRIES TO REVERSAL YOU WITH AN INVINCIBLE START UP TYPE OF MOVE EG SHORYUKEN OR EX SPINNING BIRD KICK

simply do a string with no gaps in between e.g c.lp, c.lp then just crouch block, or if the opponent is the type that will uppercut only when your a bit closer, after your string walk up slightly then crouch block

IF YOU’RE A BIT CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT I HAVE WROTE AND ARE VS’ING SOMEONE WHO MAINLY DELAY CROUCH TECHS HERE’S A QUICK REFERENCE TABLE OF THE MIND GAME

Frame traps > Normal spamming
Normal spamming > delayed crouch tech counter
Delayed crouch tech counter > delayed crouch tech

The next time I will post about the importance of Safe jumping and Option selects, see ya for now

Muttonhead:

He should be updating with new posts pretty regularly, be sure to check it out.
Extremely good stuff, and props to Toxy.
I can’t help but think back to some advice Heavy Weapons gave me. I know and try to research a lot about the different kinds of option selects, safe jumps and frame traps. Yet I still suck at Street Fighter because my fundamentals are poor.
Heavy’s point to me was that you can study up as much as you want, but if your basic Street Fighter fundamentals are not there you will still be a poor Street Fighter player.
I guess his advice is more suited to players around my level rather than the more experienced players in our scene though. But I still think it’s good advice to think about.

Continue reading →

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Melbourne Player Profile: Sol/ Don’t be a Scrub Podcast Episode 1

Posted on October 25, 2010 by muttonhead


We’re back with another interview, this time with Melbourne’s own Sol T. A good buddy of mine, he’s one of the brightest stars in the Melbourne scene. He put on a show at BAM, knocking out 4 of the 5 members of the Sydney team during the Sydney Melbourne exhibition. And I’m sure many of you are aware of his brilliant video work over at www.shadowloo.com.

Sol’s site: http://www.funksolbrother.com/

Once again, this is a two-part interview, with audio edited by Igor once again. Special thanks to Igor and to Sol for his time. Thanks to Just-S/Boss Logic for providing the awesome banner as well. (Conducted at CCH 23 October 2010)

The Melbourne Player Profiles were originally intended by me to be text-based interviews with Melbourne top players. My friend Igor/Spidercarnage has been meaning to do a Melbourne-centric fighting game podcast for a while. So we decided to join forces! Here’s episode one of the Don’t be a Scrub Podcast.

Don’t be a Scrub Podcast Episode 1: TEC Sol T

(Right click and “Save Link As” to download.)

Sol T interview 96kb/s

We’re here today with Sol, the “Pride of Melbourne”. He’s a top, top player in Melbourne. He plays Abel and Bison, and let’s get right into it.

Sol and Muttons

1) Tell me about your history in fighting games.

As most people can tell, I got my name from Guilty Gear. Sol Badguy, that’s where it came from. I started playing from then but [I] wasn’t really competitive until late 3rd Strike, early vanilla [SF4], and I just went on from there.

You’ve been playing Street Fighter for a long time right? With Just-S and [EXC355UM]…

Yeah. As the brothers.

What was your first tournament?

[It was] Couchwarriors, the first one last year. And I was a pad player back then.

Oh you were a pad player back then? How’d you do in your first tournament?

I came 13th! I beat Wei on pad against his Bison. It was good, it was good.

What’s up with you [guys]? First Somniac gets top ten his first tournament, and you get 13th…

Ah it was just luck. I didn’t even know what was going on. (Being modest.)

Continue reading →

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Melbourne Player Profile: Somniac

Posted on October 18, 2010 by muttonhead

Somniac is one of Australia’s top SSF4 players. He recently placed top 8 at Battle Arena Melbourne, and was one of the two Melbourne players to travel to Las Vegas for this year’s Evolution.

Somniac and Bomb at EVO

He consistently places top 8 in Melbourne with his Bison, and was also the first top player I ever encountered on PSN, and the first guy to sort of encourage me to show up to local tournaments.

CW R5 GF Somniac vs Naruga

This interview was done at Deakin University on the 16th of October, 2010. I have to give a big thanks to Igor, who not only lent me his high-quality voice recorder, but also edited the audio file while watching the Season’s Beatings stream at 3 am. Now that’s hardcore.

This is a particularly long interview as Somniac was kind enough to really go into detail with his answers. This is the first time I’ve broken from the low tech combo of pen and notebook for my interviews, and I guess the resulting interview is a lot more fluid. I have also included the audio file for people to listen to.

Somniac Interview

(To download, right click the link and click “save link as”)

Update: At the behest of Gizmophunk, smaller kb/s files of the audio file are now available thanks to Igor once again.

Somniac Interview 128 kb/s

Somniac Interview 96 kb/s

I did not intend for this to be anything more than a text interview, but when transcribing it, I realised that people might not want to read a 10,000 word document. Please forgive my stuttering and endless annoying “I see”s. I’m not a very confident speaker.

Thank you very much for sitting down with me Somniac, and let’s get started.

1) Tell me about your history in fighting games.

SF4 is the first game I took up competitively. I used to play SF3 just in the arcade. I used to go the arcade on Sundays and play against Junky John, and he basically taught me how to play 3rd Strike. He was one of the more unknown players in the scene, and he was probably one of the best players that I’ve ever played against.

And this is back in high school or?

I used to go to TAFE at Box Hill. And during the lunch breaks and stuff we used to go over there [and play]. ‘Cause there’s nothing else to do. I used to leave class early and go to play at the arcade. It’s like [the] normal story. Everyone does that.

So Third Strike was the first arcade game that you started playing, and Street Fighter 4 was your first competitive tournament game.

Yeah, first competitive game for fighting games, because I used to play Quake 3. Yeah, I won best in Melbourne and I’ve travelled up to Sydney a few times because of Quake 3.

So you kind of have a history of competition [in games].

Yeah since [playing] FPS games, I don’t really like the direction they’re headed, [so] I’ve sort of stopped playing them. And for a while I wasn’t playing anything competitively, until Street Fighter 4 came out in the arcades. I decided to start playing it, and there was an actual scene and I joined up.

So what about a kid, did you play ST on the SNES, or anything like that?

Uh…I was really bad at every game. I never actually played Street Fighter 2 other than on the computer. And I would get destroyed by the CPU and I would give up and not play [anymore]. The most I’ve played Street Fighter was probably Marvel vs Capcom 1, and Alpha 3. But that was just the extent of me just trying to beat the hardest CPU. And I never actually took it anywhere; I never learned the infinite combos like Toxy did. I was pretty bad!

2) Which was the first tournament you ever entered for a fighting game?

First tournament I ever entered for a fighting game was the Box Hill ranbat. It was on every Thursday at the time, I think it was. I actually did pretty well. I think I got top ten?

So you got top ten in your first tournament??

Yeah…but the next three I got like…last (laughs).

Continue reading →

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Finally…a Hakan tutorial!

Posted on October 14, 2010 by muttonhead

I’ve been waiting for the Option-select.com Hakan tutorial for quite a while now. While not strictly an Option-select production (hit up their site for an clarification), this tutorial by Low Tier Entertainment is still a pretty comprehensive guide to all the basics of Hakan play.

To be honest, I’ve been neglecting my Hakan for quite a while now to focus on my Ryu for tournament play. Now that BAM is over, maybe it’s time to oil up a little once again. This video has definitely recharged my Hakan batteries. For example, I still have trouble nailing Hakan’s crossups consistently. But with this tutorial here, I can watch the video of the crossup over and over and try to match it to what I’m doing in the training room to help me get the timing down.

Bonus entertainment video!

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BAM 2010 Match Videos

Posted on October 12, 2010 by muttonhead

I updated my BAM 2010 recap with the link, but I felt that this warranted it’s own post. Shadowloo has done a nice collage of the BAM 2010 SSF4 top 8 match videos here: http://www.shadowloo.com/?p=2913

Much thanks to them and also a huge thank you to Bugs who not only ran the stream, recorded everything, AND is in the process of uploading everything as well. He is truly a champion.

He will be uploading more stuff on his channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/BugsimusAUS and I will be updating this post as more footage comes out.

And to kick things off, here’s my favourite match of the weekend.

Update: From Bugsimus. Complete playlists.

BAM2010 Super Street Fighter IV : Sydney vs Melbourne : 5 on 5

BAM2010 SSFIV Singles Top 8 Including BAM2010 Combo Video

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Another one bites the dust

Posted on October 12, 2010 by muttonhead

My friend HeartProfessor/ByeBi is hanging up his SF boots. And he made a nice final  video eulogy of the last few fights he had. I also played him for the last time last weekend, and I was happy to send him off with a nice double win over me.

I’m sad to see him go, but I understand that not everyone simply has the time to put into a game like SSF4. GGs, ByeBi!

This reminds me of when after BAM, I was having dinner with Team Loser’s Bracket, and Eugene told me that he was happy the tournament was over because he could finally stop playing Street Fighter 4, and play some other games. (He was practicing for the tournament for about two weeks, for which I’m proud of him.)

I won’t lie, that saddened me a little, but I fully understand. There are all kinds of gamers, and Eugene happens to be a casual gamer. He wants to play games like Transformers: War on Cybertron, Rock Band etc. Not a game like SSF4 where you need to sink hours and hours into training mode just to be semi-decent.

Don’t get me wrong, those are good games in their own right. And games you can pick up and casually play definitely have their place.

But personally, I’ve always been a fan of the grind. Putting the time in to be good at something. That’s why I love Demon’s Souls. That’s why I quit playing basketball.

And that’s why I love this never-ending struggle that is being a Street Fighter scrub.

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An addendum to Links by Ribxus

Posted on October 6, 2010 by muttonhead

I spotted this on the SRK frontpage. An incredibly good read, and I encourage anyone who cares about this stuff to read it. I’ve copied the full text below after the jump, otherwise you can just go to the link.

Continue reading →

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BAM 2010 Recap

Posted on October 6, 2010 by muttonhead

Shadowloo BAM 2010 Recap: http://www.shadowloo.com/?p=2806
Ozhadou BAM 2010 results thread : http://www.ozhadou.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5452

BAM 2010 SSF4 Top 8 videos: http://www.shadowloo.com/?p=2913

BAM Recap: Saturday

I meet up with Spider at 930 in the morning, and he shows me his nifty new voice recorder that he’s hoping to use for interviews. I couldn’t sleep at all the night before. I tried to lull myself into numb slumber by visualising anti-air dragon punches, but to no avail.

We head into CQ and register. The venue looks really nice, with a bar and everything. During BAM I would often feel like the venue was smaller than last year’s, but I realised later that’s not the case. It’s just that BAM 2010 was absolutely packed with people.

 

Entering BAM (by Shadowloo)

 

 

$4.50 a Coke (By Shadowloo)

 

I go over and say hi to Dave and everybody else. There’s the big projector screen on the left of the room, with Bugs manning the stream behind, and there’s casual stations on the right, and finally Smash further in front.

 

Bugs, the man behind the stream (By Shadowloo)

 

I was really impressed by the casual setups; we had actual couches! It must’ve been hell for Loki and Zan and the others to lug all that stuff up the stairs. I also notice the Tekken guys even lugged in an actual Tekken arcade cabinet for BAM; now that is hardcore.

I settle down for some casuals. Right away I end up playing Somniac, and get beasted as usual. What a good way to build some confidence before the tournament. Sol offers me some encouragement, as well as a hearty “Muttons…I’m gonna kill you if you go 0 and 2 today!”

 

Somniac and me. And Andrew behind us. (By Shadowloo.)

 

I have to reiterate; the place was Packed. I actually wanted to play some people that I normally don’t get a chance to; mainly the Sydney people and especially Humanbomb. But with so many people around, I didn’t get a chance to. In the end I mostly wandered around and talked to people, which was good fun too. (Note: I got to see Zerolance in person for the first time, and his Guile was hella impressive.)

All the Whirlpool guys were there, azn_killbox also manning the stream, Zero and Impakt being upbeat as usual, and I got to talk to Infinity a little bit about his upcoming money match with Heavy. And hey, Heavy was taking the match seriously; I spotted him getting in some Cammy practice with Alex during the Melbourne Sydney 5 on 5 right before his MM!

Brackets are soon put up, and I stare at my opponent’s name for a long time before I realise I’m playing Genxa, the sick Sydney Cammy player first round. Oh shit. Continue reading →

Posted in Melbourne, Ultra SFIV | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 23 Comments

Pre-BAM jitters

Posted on October 1, 2010 by muttonhead

All the training has been done, the venue has been set up, and interstate players are already here beasting in the local arcades as I type this. All that’s left is to show up at BAM tomorrow in a good state of mind, and to see whether all the work was worth it.

Links into untechable knockdowns polished? Check. Option selects freshly memorised and tested? Check. Hit confirms practiced, and corner FADC combos ready to go? Check. Time to get beasted? Check.

While I believe the past few weeks of training and meetups has probably improved me as a player, it has also served as a big reality check. I used to dream a little sad dream of placing in a tournament, and perhaps improve enough over the months to do so at BAM. But the meetups at Deakin, CCH, etc have pretty much made it clear that I’m just not good enough, and have a long way to go.

The fact is, while I’ve been making it a point to improve my game, everybody else in the scene has been doing so in preparation for BAM as well. So my competition has been levelling up as I have been; and the reality is that I will probably will not in move up in the rankings and maintain my normal low-tier tournament placing.

I don’t want to be so dour before the event, there is so much else to do there. I look forward to fully enjoying myself as a spectator, talking to people, as well as entering in the team tournament with my two good buddies Joon Win and Eugene. Even though they may play even less Street Fighter than me, the point is to have fun together. Failing and succeeding as team, with full bromance powers.  No point dwelling too much on my shortcomings.

I also realise more and more the sheer scope of this game. Just when I thought I was beginning to show improvement in some matchups; Chun Li, Dhalsim, Guile, Dee Jay etc, a whole new bunch of matchups suddenly appear to smack some humble pie in my face. Matchups like Honda and Adon tear me up, while I still can’t figure out some old matchups like Bison.

There seems to be no end to this game. But that’s also what I love about it! I never seem to stop learning for one second. The meetups have been so useful in this regard, and they’re been so much fun as well. Hopefully they will continue to be arranged in some frequency after BAM.

I know I’m not a natural at this game, and I’ve been thinking about the dark reality that no one seems to want to talk about; that not everybody can be a top player. Maybe some of us are simply not cut out for it. Spoony and I have discussed at some length about our own individual mental frailties, and the level of footsies and zoning that the top players display still seem light years away for me. Maybe I’ll be a scrub for the rest of my life, never getting to taste the big stage or top 3.

But that’s fine with me. I believe either Dogface or Derek Daniels once said “the entire community is made up/run by people who aren’t top players!” I totally understand where they are coming from, and I believe going more into the community side of the scene would be just as fulfilling for me as being a top player.

That’s not to say that I won’t stop trying to improve. I’ll still try my best. But sometimes being a bit more of a realist can’t hurt.

Continue reading →

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BAM update: Stream monsters, baby

Posted on September 27, 2010 by muttonhead

Quick BAM update, it looks like there will be a stream this year!

At http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bam2010

I encourage everyone who loves fighting games to come to BAM this year, or if you can’t make it, watch the stream!

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Melbourne Player Profile: EXC355UM

Posted on September 26, 2010 by muttonhead

BAM is swiftly approaching, October 2-3, and I was thinking of doing a series of player profiles and interviews before the event to sort of put faces to the names. While it might kind of late to start now, who better to interview and kick off the series than EXC355UM, one of the pillars of the Melbourne fighting game community, the man behind Shadowloo, Gamerhold, part of the competitive gaming clan TEC, and all-round nice guy. This interview was done on the 25th of September at Deakin Uni Session 4. Much thanks to EXC355UM, or Ali as I call him, and let’s get started!

Ali at Deakin

1) How long have you been playing fighting games?

I’ve been playing fighting games since the days of ST but SF4 is my first competitive fighting game.

2) What is your favourite fighting game?

That’s hard to say. For me I would have to say I got into 3rd Strike a little too late, or else it might have turned out to be my favourite. But right now I’d probably have to go with CvS2.

What is your favourite game, period.

Haha how am I to answer that! (He thinks for a while.) Super Mario Bros 3! I don’t think I have ever finished any other game so many times before. I used to go through the game at least once a day, and the total number of completions must be over a few hundred!

I know you guys (TEC) play other games other than SF competitively, why don’t you tell me a little bit about that.

As you know, we used to have Team TEC which we started out playing a whole bunch of different console games. Mario Kart was pretty much the real start of TEC for me, and we branched out into other competitive games such as Halo, the Call of Duty series, a bit of Smash, and Street Fighter.

I used to be the best in Victoria for Mario Kart, and perhaps the best Metroid Prime player in the world at one point! I even had a clan named after me: EXC. Go check it out on YT, there’s a video of me having a match in Metroid Prime and beating my opponent in under 2 minutes 😛

3) Does playing other games help or hinder your ability to play Street Fighter? What’s your position on this topic?

I think it definitely helps. For example, I recently put down Super for two weeks to play Halo Reach. I was playing the sniper pretty extensively, and I found when I went back to Super that my reactions got better. I feel that playing other games, and definitely shooters in particular, can really help your reaction time.

And for other games like Mario Kart; you’re boosting and snaking continuously non-stop for 3 laps, and that takes a lot of concentration. You have to have constant finger skills manipulating multiple buttons, while staying on the right course or road in spite of your opponents’ distractions. The concentration, focus and button skills definitely transfer over to Street Fighter.

I believe that every game helps!

4) Tell me about yourself. What are your interests, hobbies etc.

I’ve always loved video games. I want to do something in the industry; e-sports shows, and reports on the Australian e-sports events. I especially feel that the console scene needs more coverage as there’s already a lot of media coverage on the PC side of competitive gaming.

I know you’re a fan of bodybuilding, now personally I don’t know too much about it. But do you have anything you want to brag to me and the world about, like a bench press mark or something?

Well, I’m not in it to compete, but if I ever did, it would probably be weightlifting, lifting up to 2-3 times your own body weight.

I don’t want to brag, but my deadlift record, single rep, is 260 kilos. I love the deadlift. If I had to choose one exercise to do for the rest of my life, it would the deadlift!

He’s gonna kill me for this vid…

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BAM Practice at Deakin 3 Recap

Posted on September 19, 2010 by muttonhead

Deakin Uni session, courtesy of Bugsimus

CCH:

http://www.ozhadou.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5404

Deakin practice:

http://www.ozhadou.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5408

BAM:

http://www.ozhadou.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5186

Update! Somniac’s moneymatch against Naruga at Deakin Practice 1 from Stryfe’s YT channel

It’s a good time for the Melbourne community with training sessions on Friday with Chris’s Club House at Collingwood, and Deakin practice right after on Saturday! A lot of credit has to be given to Chris and Igor for organising these sessions, and hopefully this dedication will result in a good showing from the Melbourne guys at BAM.

I’ve been really busy with job applications the last two weeks so I didn’t put up a recap of the last Deakin session. We had 5 setups last time which were really good, and pretty much guaranteed nonstop play.

This time however, less people showed up, and we only had 3 setups going, which was still not bad considering the number of people there. I did some prep work by obtaining and bringing Trainspotting, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Yojimbo, Raging Bull, Reservoir Dogs, The Evil Dead, and The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly on my hard drive to put on the screens. This was because I felt that last week people were not really feeling the (abysmal) quality of the fighting game movies we were putting on screen, namely Dead or Alive.

Thumbs up or down?

But as it turns out, Spoony knocked some sense into my brain by telling me there was no point in putting something too good on the screens, because people are playing at the same time. So they want something entertaining enough to not be boring, but not good enough to want to actually pause the game. So we ended up putting Mortal Kombat 1 on the screen.

I will take your soul!!

This week I think I played a tiny bit better than last time. For example against Igor’s Dee Jay and Spoony’s Chun, I was having a lot more success by eschewing fireballs for a much more aggressive, ground-based pressure. I wasn’t doing it consciously, and only realised later that I was actually not throwing any fireballs.

Against Igor for instance; a lot of the time the match would boil down to mid-screen, with him holding a charge. Last week, I would often take the easy way out and reckessly throw a fireball, and every time I did that at that distance I would eat an EX Sobat to the face. This week instead, I would painfully advance ground inch by inch by walking forward and blocking constantly, until I could finally hit him with a low forward. And every time I did touch him with a low forward, I would also err on the side of caution by making damn sure the low forward hit before I would do a follow up fireball.

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Posted in Melbourne, Ultra SFIV | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Daigo vs Tokido Holy War

Posted on September 17, 2010 by muttonhead

I’m sure you guys have seen the 3 videos of Daigo vs Tokido on the SRK front page. I got this from the thread, http://shoryuken.com/f315/daigo-vs-tokido-live-stream-251223/index2.html that amatanoshikabane has been uploading the whole set! It’s up to part 21 now…so um yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing all day…

http://www.youtube.com/user/amatanoshikabane

Convenient playlist from SpotATrain’s YT: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=26EA73D557488354

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