The Salty Runback: FADC into Seppuku

Laws control the lesser man.  Right conduct controls the greater one.  -- Chinese Proverb

Historians point to the Kojiki as the first written record of the code of conduct that would later come to be widely known as "bushido" after the publishing of Inazo Nitobe's 1899 work, "Bushido : The Soul of Japan". 

For hundreds of years, samurai lived lives of fealty and service guided by a code built upon a foundation of Confucian teachings, later folding in philosophies and dogma from shintoism and buddhism. It was a way of life that held above all else the value of loyalty, mastery, and honor to the grave. 

In today's society, the concept of living with principle is foreign. We have become a culture driven by reverence for consumption and dangerous nationalism. Loyalty is a simple matter of handing your two dollars and fifty cents to the sales clerk at the gas station so you can walk out with a magnet to slap on your bumper printed in the motif of the American flag. In the scene, we casually toss about words like "brother", or "family", when in reality so many of us view our contemporaries as resources - not Jeff, the guy that likes Smash Brothers, but Jeff, the only guy in the area that plays Gen. So we're friendly to Jeff, not because he's funny, but because we need match practice. We win tournaments and give post-match interviews about growing the scene and helping the community, but the truth is that before we even got into our car, we asked the folks that have been to this tournament previously for the dollar amount of the last event's prize pot, because if it isn't at least such and such amount, we aren't coming.

Five hundred years ago, faced with surrender before a foe unworthy, a man would lay open his belly with a short sword, a sword he carried only for that moment, so that he might be embraced by death clad in his honor. Today, some of us might have a hard time just spelling the word "honor". 

Men and women that stand for something have a habit of transcending. There is a strength imparted by integrity and character that can not be stolen away, and can not be imitated. Placing your name beside a virtue is a potent act - one that can make you one beastly mother at the arcade.

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The Salty Runback : IPlayStarcraft

This week, Haunts and I have played a lot of Starcraft 2 on battle.net. A whole lot. The more time I log Void Ray rushing, the more I begin to squish bits of Starcraft into the cracks in my Street Fighter game, like some sort of Korean aftermarket caulk. 

A lot of players seem to be under the mistaken impression that any game other than a Capcom fighter is anathema to their personal progression. The reasoning is that if they play too much of something else, their mindset will adjust to the new game, and their hard-earned automatic muscle fiber will re-program itself like some kind of Star Trek nightmare. To wit, this is the excuse that many Street Fighter players give for not even attempting to dabble in Tekken, which is especially confusing, considering the truth - Tekken is a far inferior game in all respects, and its players are slavering goblinoids whose flesh transmutes to stone at the mere touch of the sun - marks a sufficient explanation. 

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World Officially Ending - Capcom vs Namco Rumors

Game Informer is reporting a rumor that two very different Versus style games are being developed by the two biggest companies in the fighting game arena. Supposedly, both companies are developing their own game, pitting their characters against the rival's. Namco's game is reportedly being built with the Tekken 6 engine, while the rumor has it that Capcom's game is being developed with the SFIV engine. Given that the heads of both franchises were recently on stage together in Vegas, hamming it up, and with Ono's imminent announcement of a game, the stars do seem to be in alignment. 

Note, that these games are not continuations of the previous Namco x Capcom, an RPG. These are fighting games.

Update on Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 7:18PM by haunts

Video Game - E3 2011 - The Feed

On G4's, the Daily Feed, there is mention of Namco vs Capcom as well, citing the GameInformer article. With so many major sites reporting this "rumor," it makes me wonder if this is even a rumor anymore. Can't wait for Saturday!

The Salty Runback : Post-Evo M.O. Edition

Welcome to first official volume of "The Salty Runback". I apologize for the brief absence of my articles in the weeks leading up to Evolution 2010, but contrary to popular belief, I do actually play this game, and I've been in hard training. Now that we've put another one in the books, I'm revitalized and ready to get back to work. 

Spending five days of indulgence neck deep in the scene from a nation-wide lens, I've returned to NorCal with a lot to get off my chest, a honed sense of purpose, and a heap of creative ideas. The thing I'm most excited about is taking the sort of opinion-based commentary I provide on the iplaywinner.com streams and using it as a launching pad for a regular column, i.e. the Runback. Trust me; the salt will flow.

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EVO 2k10 Promises Its Winner Boxer's Fight Money

The Evo 2k10 crew lays out some of the surprises in store for this year's tournaments. One of the more eye-raising announcement amongst them? A twenty thousand dollar pot up for grabs in Super Street Fighter Four. 

With guaranteed payouts for all top 8 finishers, even 8th place could be walking away with triple digit winnings. 

Source : SRK

Open Discussion : The Night Before NCR

The great battle approaches. How do you spend the night before a major tournament? A last minute grind session with your crew? Playing a different video game? Meditating like a jedi? 

Me? I plan on going for a nice, long jog tonight, followed by helping with set-up for tomorrow. And then sacrificing a live chicken to Baron Samedhi in order to curse two hundred Street Fighter players with leprosy in their fingers. 

You?

Street Fighter is Dead

"You are God and I am free; each of us is alone, and our anguish is akin." -- Sartre, "The Flies"

"Boop bop with da' schwoop schwop, get this idiot outta' here." -- Magus1234, Keystone II stream

Inevitably, there will come a time when you stare into the blank look of confusion splayed across the face of a new acquaintance after you tell them that you devote a lot of your free time to something that falls between “hobby” and “masturbation” on the task priority check list. Depending on how much a person masturbates. The question in their eyes is always the same : why?

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A Look Inside Arcades in Kuwait

Kuwaiti photo-blogger "Yousef" brings us this fascinating look into what he describes as a vibrant arcade scene flourishing in the Middle East. Personally, I found a lot of comfort in looking at pictures taken on the other side of the globe that look like they could have been taken at any of the arcades I play in. 

Eff It... Shoryuken!

You're on Xbox Live. You're at an arcade. You're playing at a friend's party. You get matched up with someone that doesn't know the first thing about the game. They pick Ken. They walk right up to you and shoryu you in the mouth. You shake your head and mutter, picking blond white boy out of your teeth. Match continues. You bait the shoryu and punish. He starts throwing out crouching roundhouse and jump back hadoken. You're walking into his “offense”. He gets confident. You make love to a wake-up Ultra. His. You lose. You eat an entire can of salt and vinegar Pringles.

Sound vaguely familiar?

Think about the reasons why you'd get upset losing to that Ken. There's a disease in your game. Those reasons are silent symptoms.

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Samādhi Street Fighter

Super Street Fighter IV drops in less than twenty-four hours. Some of you lucky readers may already have the game. As you count down the hours to the retail release, what's your plan? How do you envision the hours after you get home and break that plastic seal? If you're anything like most tournament players, the first thing you're going to do is play mad scientist and hit the lab. Once you pick that new character, or learn your old character's new tricks, you're going to spend the rest of that time in Training Mode committing all that goodness to muscle memory. Good plan, but is that all there is to this game?

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