[Insert Terrible Joystick Based Joke Here]

I have an almost finished report on last months Vs Fighting 2010 tournament that will be with you all very soon...

But before I get to that, it's probably worth mentioning my performance at last years VsF.
I lost both of my Street Fighter 3: third strike matches (No surprise. I entered on a whim and I've never played it that seriously) but fared much better in Super Street Fighter 2:HDR. Winning three games before getting knocked out by the guy that went on to win the whole thing.

Overall, not too bad for my first ever tournament. And I would've been perfectly satisfied with that result if it wasn't for the fact that two of my four losses were entirely because I accidentally pressed the pause button on my ancient ps2 fightpad during the match, which instantly (and understandably) means that the player has to forfeit the round.

This was not going to happen again.
If I was going to lose, it would be because the guy I fought was better than me.
I had to man up and learn to play on a real controller.

So for most of this year I have been rolling around in the filthy world of custom joysticks, ultimately leading to the construction of this tiny little beast/beauty:

Based around a cheap little Hori ps3 fighting stick (portable!) which I gutted in a brutal fashion. I then swapped out the internals for arcade quality Seimitsu parts, replaced the ps3 PCB with pad-hacked circuit boards from PS1 and Xbox 360 joypads and garnished the whole thing with some half naked anime girl artwork. (Because anything else would be just plain wrong) So now, armed with a handful of PS1 adaptors, I'm ready for fighting on pretty much any modern video game system. No more busted-ass fight pads for me.

(Many thanks to the Tech Talk guys over on the Shoryuken forums and the folks at gremlinsolutions.co.uk without whom  none of this would've been possible for an electronics n00b like myself)



Now nothing could stop me. OR COULD IT? dot dot dot

Stay tuned for part one of my report, which will be slightly more interesting than this post. Honest.

Hakan't Believe It.

While discussing the slightly odd new characters for Street Fighter 4,
I pointed out that Capcom had simply returned to their tried and true SF2 method of simply going with almost racist stereotypes (or if that fails, just rip off the nearest SNK design *cough*C. Viper/Iori*cough*)

This method even applied to many of the returning characters chosen for Super Street Fighter IV.
(Tea drinking english gentlemen, Native Amricans with feathers in their hair, Japanese high school ninja/karate girls and so on)
But when I heard rumours of the final new character to be revealed, I dismissed many of them without a second thought.

"A comedy mustachioed Arabian character who's obsessed with oil? Surely you jest, sir!"



Oh, Capcom.


There will be some non-street fighter updates coming soon, I Promise.
Especially once I've played more FFXIII and Bioshock 2.

STOP THE PRESS GENTLEMEN.

Prepare yourself for the most important news of 2010:

Dudley from Street Fighter 3 will be in Super Street Fighter IV.
Suddenly, I'm ready forgive Capcom for releasing this game as a stand-alone game instead of releasing it as a nice handy DLC pack for the game that I ate instant noodles for a week (Oh god, the noodles.) to afford just last year.

Time to practice ...with dignity.

And by "dignity", I mean "furiously slapping my meat claws onto my poor cheap arcade stick"


A more reasoned and in-depth analysis of SSFIV will be flung your way soon. 
Promise.