Finally, the Saturday came. After so long, Singapore finally have their own fighting games competition. The Revival takes place in Bugis Virtualand and I humbly feel that this night was worth going. $2 to compete is nothing compared to the atmosphere generated by the crowd.
John and I arrived when Tekken 5: Dark Ressuraction just started at around 3.30pm. Crowd was insane, much more than I expected. Microphones suck though, but I'll let that pass. Because of the huge crowd, I couldn't see anything so I headed to play a few casuals instead.
There was a horrible delay...around 2 hours, to set up the KOFXI competition. Apparently the video capture wasn't working or something and OldMan wanted a working machine that can video capture properly or something. jellon wanted to fuck the video capture thing and proceed with the competition. The crew's decisions clashed and ended up delaying the KOFXI competition for like 2 hours to get another machine, set it up and test for it's video capture abilities.
The crowd for KOFXI was immense. Fucking awesome crowd. I wish I had taken pictures really but the organisers didn't allow it...at least that's what they said at the website but I still see people taking pictures. I don't know if they have been caught or not though. If I was a player, if flashlights pop out from nowhere I'll definitely be more distracted than the crowd cheering me while doing my combos. But for such a huge crowd, the noise level and cheers were utter crap. I'm beginning to believe that KOFXI IS a game for anti-social people...mostly anyway.
So the CVS2 competition was delayed until 10pm. I wasn't pissed tbh, I'm just happy they didn't so dumb things like cancelling or postponing the event. The consequences are disastrous. And one of the goal of The Revival is also to somewhat 'revive' the CVS2 scene. I heard they were on a brink of cancelling but most of the crew opted not to. Props to them =).
So the game started, half the crowd left because it was getting late I guess. But man, the CVS2 crowd was fucking awesome. About 3 times more hyper and crazier than the KOFXI mute crowd. I fought this guy that fucking looked like tanakan. I wish i had taken a picture of him. He seriously looks like tanakan with a chubbier lower half of his face. The hair style is EXACTLY the same AND he wears the EXACTLY SAME white frame glasses. I have to look at him a few times before I am fucking sure that this guy is not tanakan.
Fighting him, I can tell that he lacks practice and experience, but he knows how to play. Probably haven't played for some time, which he claimed it was the case. Finn walk-overed Ken because Ken is happily killing hongkong people 30 games straight and couldn't make it back to SG. He fought with an yishun guy that came over to bugis recently. The yishun guy was good, plays smart and turtles, compared to a more rushdown, combo-whore person like finn. Finn did well abusing RC A-Iori, but the yishun guy was better.
Leo walk-over to fight me. He choose A-groove and fuck I played damn well that round. But fuck why did he change to K-groove. I do horribly against K-groover. It's like those things when you suck at fighting against your own weapon kind of crap. And when he chose blanka above all, I know I am doomed. Small jump blanka totally eats the fuck out of my team. I'm just happy I didn't get ocv'ed. imo, I think I did really well against his K-groove. Usually he would totally school me. But Leo is Leo, the ultimate taiko king, the guy who anyhow play, the Ino of Singapore. There is almost no logic to his attacks, making it pretty damn hard to pressure or read his moves.
Weitian (K-Maki/Rock/Hibiki) fought someone I wished to fight. It's like fighting a person who knows what all the top tiers can do but have absolutely no clue what oddball characters can do. Why should I not stand near a raged Maki? She has no uppercut or anything dangerous like Sagat! Well you can eat the otg 720 super in your face. Why should I not stand near Rock? Eat 360 grab into super.
roland is my hero. He managed to fight all the C and A grooves. Managed to eat all the top tier Sagats and Blankas and managed his way to 4th place with his super low tier K-R2 Zangief/Haohmaru/Todo. Everyone was cheering for him. He lost to thambi's A-Are (K-groove killa) though but even then he managed to fare extremely well against A-Are. 3rd place was Raven aka fatty. I really admire his playstyle with his C-geese/rolento/Sagat. Though those characters are top tier, it is not everyday you see a Geese or a Rolento in singapore of such high caliber. He deserves the 3rd place, though I believe that he should be 2nd. His rolento is really really unique to me. He's the only rolento I've ever seen do pogo hop for okizeme game.
The 1st and 2nd place was pretty dumb to me. It's 16-year-old airconman aka thambi vs 32-year-old anthony. A-Are vs A-Are. Sounds boring doesn't it. I too don't want to see two A-grooves, A-Are at that, mirror matches, but here we have 2 really talented players from singapore and they happen to choose A-groove. Anthony was really really rusty. He missed his customs and performed 0 combos whatsoever. Thambi on the other hand perform those sweet bison and sakura BnBs. but Anthony, despite his rustiness, his able to pull of impossible 1-frame links like chaining two sakura's hurricane kicks. Anthony won the match 2-1. Very close matches all of them. And commentators went pretty crazy and so did the crowd.
All in all, everything went great despite the delay. The cheering were especially great. Like the time I went up, roland and weitian were like cheering "low tier! low tier!". I thought the commentator would distract me, but really I didn't hear him much at all. I know he is talking about my match, i just don't know what he's talking about. All I can hear his the game. And damn the sound system from the game is fucking loud. It's damn cool. I think it's the original volume set for the arcade, but with the place quiet except for the people, the empty LAN shop nearby, the echoing. It's damn cool.
Wrapping it up, i'm hoping for a future tournament like this. The participation for all the games is incredibly good and damn the crowd for CVS2 is fucking great.
[u]Memoriable quotes[/u]
Commentator (after roland defeated a character): "So Roland, what have you got to say to your opponent?"
Roland: "Taiko rocks!!!!"
(next match lasted 5 seconds as rolento jumps in, comboed into super'ed roland's R2 zangief)
Commentation: "That's what Raven has to say about taiko!"
"Low tier! Low tier! Low tier!" --- K-groove low-tier players cheering as I go up to play
Commentator: "What the..?! How the hell? How the hell did Sakura managed to grab Blanka first? I mean how did Sakura grab Blanka first? Roland, how come Sakura managed to grab Blanka first?"
Roland: "Er...dunno..."
"shoshoshoshoshoshoshoshosho" --- Crowd and commentator during Sakura CC
"Rargrrargrargrargrargrargrarg" --- Crowd and commentator during Bison CC
Commentator: "So Roland, anything to say about today?"
Roland: "Er...nothing..."
Commentator: "Nothing? Just say something! Anything!"
Roland: "Er...no bus."
Thambi (after the match): "Fucking nabei @$#!@#$ Anthony fucking !@#$@#$ taiko !@$!@$!@"
"ONE PIXEL SAGAT!" --- Commentator after raven's 1 pixel health sagat managed to beat anthony's bison.
