I’ve been invited to attend a huge Capcom event next month, one that favours the hardcore/old skool beat-em-up gamers from across the nation. The best of the best are gathering for a series of tournaments involving Street Fighter II anniversary Edition, Street Fighter III : 3rd Strike, strangely the appearance of Namco’s Tekken 5 : Dark Resurrection and Capcom VS SNK 2 at the Battle Of Destiny in London. This is where true rivalry and real comparison of the quickest thumbs and fingers will be seen. Everybody will be fighting their way to the top prize, a ticket and entry to Los Angeles to compete in the worldwide tournament Evo 2008!

Once again I’ll be able to revisit Street Fighter IV and this is the first time the public get to try it out. I can’t wait to see who else will be on the character roster, perhaps we’ll finally meet our mexian luchador El Fuerte. It’ll be interesting to see how SFIV has changed since the last time I was lucky to get an exclusive back in March. Also featuring at the event is Super Street Fighter II Turbo Remix, a first hands on before this gets out to xbox live/PSN networks. July will certainly heal my beat-em-up withdrawal symptoms!

If you haven’t heard already, I’m signed up to the list of contenders for the Capcom VS SNK 2 tournament. You’ll find me under my usual gaming tag, “TinyShaz”. Reckon I’m risking for some serious humiliation? I think so too, ya know but my main reason for entering is because I want to experience the atmosphere, fighting people on my/above level and meet those who love Cappy’s games as much as I do. It’s my first time participating in a tournament so I’m not expecting to win by miles. in fact when you see a lot of championship clips like this, or this, or even this, I’ll be lucky to even lay a scratch on my first opponent!

However I’m also not going to just sit there shaking with intimidation, with 42 days left to go I’ll be putting my best into training at least once everyday. Having already started it about 4 days ago, I’ve been hopping on the PS2 at every lunch break at work and every evening at home. It had been over five years ago that I last played Capcom VS SNK 2. Day one totally showed how rusty I was so it was time to put in some harsh training, recapping the blistering controls, tightening my focus and developing my strategies. After analysing various Street Fighter tourney snippets on youtube, I’ve come to notice that what seems like the players are untouchable, there’s an easy answer. They’ve just played enough to know how to judge the space and range of their jabs and kicks (useful to stop a special move before or midway in execution). Before I got too ahead of myself though, my starting goal was to beat the arcade mode on the highest difficulty.

14th June, I finally completed the arcade mode. It took quite a bit of effort but the plus side is that I’ve adopted to using the “dodge/roll” move. Quite an important tactic, I don’t know why I never implemented it before. Truly made things a whole lot easier when fighting the worst killers like Sagat! Damn the obstacle course that was made of his stupid high and low Tiger Shots!

So I’ve conquered the first hurdle but this now springs new things to mind:

*I need to master more characters or my roster will become predictable and people will be able to work out where I’m vulnerable

*I must be careful not to fall into repetitive fighting patterns, after all I’ll be fighting players of the quickest thumbs and fingers

*I’ve got to break out of teeny habits in making empty jumps, it makes me totally ask for getting caught up in deathly combos

So goal number 2: “With more practice, I’ll have to establish a better sense of punch/kick counters, their range and effect of countering incoming attacks. In addition I need to heighten my awareness to precise moments of attack opportunities in those slight seconds after a roll and just before the opponent lands on their two feet from a jump.”

Bit of a tough one but if not made for the tournament at least it makes me a better player than I’ve ever been before. Here’s hope to my current favourite team: