A Fighter’s Journey Continues…

Man, it’s been a bit of a Capcom adventure for me lately and my… where to begin?

Well there’s no doubt I’m all hands down for fighting games, especially old skool beat-em-ups. Just to name a few favourites, Nightwarriors, Pocket Fighters, Rival Schools, Samurai Showdown, Marvel Vs Capcom, X-Men Vs Street Fighter, Soul Blade and sooooo many more.

In July, Neo Empire hosted the Battle Of Destiny and I decided to swoop in for some Capcom Vs Snk 2 action. I hadn’t ever faced real one to one competition before so I wanted to get a taste of what tournaments were all about. Would I be able to revive my fighting abilities of 5 years ago? What is the level of gaming like for the old skool fighters now? The prospect was exciting and despite whatever happened, it couldn’t get any better for me to meet people who also share a passion for beat-em-ups.

Refreshing my mind on special moves and combos, I put in as much practice as I could, in the morning before work, during my lunch break at work and in the evenings after work. Starting from scratch I worked to develop myself into a better player, this was the start of a fighter’s journey. Only now where real competition was concerned, I discovered a lot more about the game that I hadn’t thought about a few years back. One example was that I had never started an Arcade mode as Player two. Generally in fighting games characters on the opposing side have reversed move sets. The mirror effect messed up my gaming co-ordination!

Battle Of Destiny was a blast and I couldn’t be any more grateful to my brothers and sisters here at Ready Up. We’ve come a long way now and being with the team has found me a lot of new gaming friends and events out there!

My first time cosplay action got me a little more attention than I expected. You know what? It feels great, people seem more inclined to talk and there were loads of photographs, I’m pretty sure there’s more than what I have collected floating around online. So some know me as Sakura, fancy that? Best of both worlds I guess, in one I can just about pull off a mini-hadoken and an excuse to shout randomly in Japanese. My other life is the awesomeness that is Ready Up where we can geek talk, play games, jump in on crazy events and of course bring you the news of our quirky antics, Yeeaah! Now the question is, who shall I cosplay next?

Neo Empire = my second home. Well done on the organising boys, who cares that it all ran a little late than scheduled it was still FANTASTIC! My gamer circle expands… more people to play with and plenty of challenges to settle.

As Inside Xbox highlighted during my interview, my tourney resulted in me getting beat by “four random guys”. Ha ha, yeah I already expected it but I’m glad to have been able to play against the UK’s most noble fighters. Considering that I had only practised for a month I’m still pleased with my performance. Close matches, but lack of experience was the cause of my defeat. Outside amongst the casual gaming zone was where I found my victories but win or lose, everybody was friendly and shook hands. A lot of folks gave me good feedback and some hints and tips.

B.O.D left me inspired and Neo Empire have lit my eyes, time to say goodbye to the gamepad and hello to the Hori stick, an essential arcade element for true fighters. The arcade stick has more precision and swifter execution. Consider it as a more efficient layout, like how a it takes us ages to type in a text message over Xbox live with the game pad unless you have the Messenger kit.

My journey continues and my Capcom spirit grows fiesty. Practice makes perfect and I’m sure to be back harder, better, faster, stronger!

I’ll leave you with a little montage of my adventure…

[flv width=”320″ height=”240″]http://ready-up.net/generalassets/bod/shaz_bod_experience_h264_aac.mov[/flv]


Posted

in

,

by

Tags:

Comments

5 responses to “A Fighter’s Journey Continues…”

  1. theBlackHalo avatar
    theBlackHalo

    Get in there Shaz!

    I remember when i used to practise as player 2 to try and match up to your bro… never helped lol – he was too darned good in his prime.

    In the end what really helped me personally and improved my game 10 fold was the SFII variants where it allowed you to adjust the game speed. I believe it was on SF II: Hyperfighting where you could set the speed up to 10 stars, absolutely crazy speeds, possibly unplayable to begin with – BUT, when you got used to it for a period of time, going back to normal speed, which was around 3 or 4 stars, you felt like the game was in slow motion, but it meant you could react and anticipate things much quicker than ever before, like bullet time or something, but i don’t know how applicable it will be to the current SF game generations… good luck!!

  2. Chris avatar

    Congratulations on doing so well Shaz, it must have been a fantastic adventure for you! Very effective costume as well!

  3. PADDY-HACKERS avatar
    PADDY-HACKERS

    nice right up! and i seen my stick in there a few times lol

  4. Sho Dragon - Neo Empire avatar
    Sho Dragon – Neo Empire

    Hey Shaz!

    its great to have such positive feed back, Neo Empire is nothing without its members, fans and followers! 🙂

    im glad you have ditched your pad and joined the joystick world, try and get yr hands on a hori arcade pro, simply the best joystick EVER! lol

    hope to see you and the ready-up crew at the next Neo Empire event Super Vs Battle World, March 2009 ….. we may even run a cosplay competition!! x x

  5. lidd avatar
    lidd

    hey shaz

    im glad i had the oppurtunity to fight with you in the CVS tournament….. have to say the ryu vs sakura was a classic fight (sakura will win one day 😉 ) and i think you were a tough fighter glad you gave it your all xxxx

    peace out
    lidd

    aka dan

Leave a Reply