Archive for the ‘Games’ Category
Taeyeon arcade stick completed!
The mailman delivered a nice surprise yesterday: my custom artwork and plexiglass from ArtHong! I keep plugging his site because he makes quality products and his customer service is phenomenal. If you’re interested in customizing your arcade stick, I give him my highest recommendation.
Anatomy of an arcade stick
The response was unanimous: every person I asked preferred TaeYeon design #2 so I placed my artwork and plexiglass order with ArtHong. It’ll probably be two weeks before the goodies are delivered, but I decided to get the hard part out of the way and prep the arcade stick for the artwork swap.
I successfully followed this detailed tutorial to open up the machine and get everything ready. Since I was taking photos along the way to document the process, here’s my own version of the tutorial. Switching artwork is much more involved than you might think and requires essentially disassembling the machine. However, don’t be intimidated as it’s not nearly as difficult as it might appear. This was by design — MadCatz consulted pros to build a very modder-friendly machine with the SF4 TE arcade stick.
This is the first time I’ve modded a stick and the procedure was relatively painless. If you are interested in customizing your stick but are hesitant about the work involved, I encourage you to give it a shot!
SF4 arcade stick custom art
Today I started working on a new project: customizing my Street Fighter 4 TE arcade stick! At this point, I am only focusing on creating some custom artwork. In the future, I may possibly go beyond that and upgrade the joystick and buttons. But baby steps first…
Here are 2 SNSD designs that I made featuring Taeyeon, the leader of the group. I would really appreciate some feedback as to which one you like better, as I’m having a hard time deciding which one to finalize and print.
Evo 2009 Championship Series
Watching the massive, 1000+ person Street Fighter 4 tournament at EVO2009 dominated my past weekend. The online streaming was shaky but a worthy effort for a first attempt at broadcasting the tournament live. Aside from the heart-pounding, world-class level of competition, I was most impressed by the running commentary that accompanied the action, particular from Capcom’s Seth Killian.
Seth is a natural. Not only can he concisely describe what the players are doing at the moment with snappy play-by-play, he also provides insightful commentary on the larger scale strategies and mind games. Hopefully he will be in the announcer’s booth for many more tournaments to come.
I recorded some of the highlight matches from the SF4 tournament and posted them on youtube. Check out my playlists for an organized list of matches. A few personal favorites that I recommend watching:
Sabre vs. Alex Valle — an incredible display that brought one of the biggest roars of the weekend.
Ed Ma vs. Evil rahsaan — extremely tense match late in the semi-final rounds with everything at stake.
Justin Wong vs. Daigo — 2 legends meet in the Grand Finals for pride and country. It’s difficult to miss the symbolism displayed on screen: Justin Wong playing as American boxer Balrog in his red-white-and-blue costume, Daigo as the Japanese warrior Ryu. The match was a nail-biter that delivered on every level, a stunning ending to the weekend of competition.
Even though I likely can’t attend the event in person for at least the next few years because of scheduling conflicts, this was my first taste of EVO and I crave more. Hopefully I’ll be amidst the roaring crowd one day. EVO, wait for me…
Fantastic photo by Kelly Bracha. Please click on the thumbnail for full resolution.
UPDATE: Of course, right after I made this post, a good chunk of my recordings (and especially the 3 matches I highlighted above) were deleted due to copyright claims. Faaantastic. You can still watch the recorded online stream at Ustream.
Street Fighter 4 mania
Evolution 2009, the premiere fighting game tournament in the U.S., kicked off yesterday in Las Vegas, and I’ve been eagerly following the Street Fighter 4 event via online streaming. Over 1,000 people are participating in SF4, which makes it the largest live fighting game tournament in U.S. history. I am a very amateur SF4 player so half of the time I’m in disbelief watching these guys play. Their skill and watertight execution are so slick. Even more impressive is the adaptation. The pros might be caught off guard for a round by unorthodox play, but they’ll quickly learn the habits of their opponent, settle into the flow of the match, and powerfully turn it around in their favor.
Other than a few mishaps, the live stream has been great with running commentary and picture-in-picture so that we can see the players’ faces and reactions. Even if you only have a passing interest in fighting games, I’d recommend checking out the live stream on Sunday night. SF4 finals will be hot!
While on the topic, I want to share some SF4 goodies I’ve acquired over the past couple weeks. Triumvir, a SoCal-based clothing label, partnered with Capcom a while back to create the official SF4 T-shirts. They were produced in very limited quantities and sold out quick, but an even more limited second run was produced in May. I managed to place my order for the second run and got a nice stack of T-shirts.
PS3 impressions
I leave all my consoles at home so whenever I go back to Los Angeles for Christmas break, there’s typically the “big game” of the year that I can’t wait to play. For 2007, it was Halo 3 and Mass Effect. 2006: Gears of War. And so on. For 2008, I was expecting it to be Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, and Gears of War 2. However, lately I have become so weary of investing time into single player campaigns (and gaming in general) that I ended up playing none of these. Instead, Geometry Wars 2 and Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix were my games of choice this holiday when I did sit in front of the TV, both supremely excellent titles on Xbox Live Arcade.
But I’m here to talk about my first experiences with the PS3. When the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundles were first announced almost a year ago, I was excited about the PS3 finally having an appealing bundle/deal. However, I wound up talking myself out of buying the system. It wasn’t until Amazon restocked the limited edition Gunmetal MGS4 system for $200 off the original price that I was convinced and bought the PS3 in November.
Farewell 1up
Wow. With the buyout of 1up.com and many Ziff Davis properties by Hearst, scores of Ziff employees have been suddenly laid off. A very harsh reminder of what a volatile and shaky industry videogame journalism is. I wish the best to all their staff. I’ve personally met only a couple of their writers years back when I was writing for GamerFeed/GameDaily, but I’ve long enjoyed the articles and podcasts by the group. They have a talented ensemble over there. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the staff banded together and created a GiantBomb.com-like resurrection.
Coincidentally, I was giving a classmate a ride home literally this afternoon when he asked me completely out of the blue whether I still worked for “that videogame company”. I could only wistfully reply, “Nah, that was in a former life.” Writing about videogames was never a serious career I had considered for a second and I did it only for my own entertainment, but nonetheless I still spent many hours dedicated to the company and got to enjoy many very cool experiences as a reward. It had provided many unforgettable memories. I’m sure the 1up.com staff are now feeling the same way looking back.
