Live (Tape-Delayed) Blogging: Street Fighter IV Launch Party

This was live if you were one of the many people who saw me at the party and screamed out "ITS THE REP FOR OUR STORE!!!!!!" For the rest of you, this baby is "tape delayed" like most award shows and basketball in the early 1980's. Cutting and pasting to follow.

9:10pm-Live from the Street Fighter IV Launch Party at the Giffen Museum of Contemporary Art, this blog is being written in the middle of the storm. I am currently waiting for my raffle ticket number to be called so I can hopefully walk away with a free copy of the game. No such luck. My best friend Jai is on the phone with me asking what he is missing out on. "Why is Jai, a HUGE mark for Street Fighter, not there next to you kicking ass and taking names as he boasts about so often?" you ask. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view), for once in his life, he made a responsible decision and decided to not skip class and be there for a quiz so he can pass the class without any issues. The fact he did the RIGHT thing cannot heal the pain he is currently in since he missed out on meeting Yoshohiro Ono, the producer of the game and the chance to test his skill against the multitude of opponents that are available here. 

9:50pm It is funny to think that I was trying to talk myself OUT of coming to this event. Dispite my insane nature in front of an audience, I usually would rather stay home then go through the trouble of traveling out, searching for parking, waiting in large crowds of people to get inside a crowded place. This effect is multiplied 10-fold if I have to go about it solo, like tonight. Fortunantely for me, Jai used the mighty power of guilt and made me promise to go for both of us since he could not go himself. One of us had to be there for the launch party of such an epic game. Things were not as bad as I thought they would be as I had forgotten that many of the people who I have run into in my gaming life would also happen to be here. One of these people who remembered me was kind enough to let me cut in line, saving me about an hour or so of wait. As I progressed through the line, many other people started popping up out of the woodwork from my present and past gaming lives. People from back when I worked at a dinky local store to people who recognize me from my current gig with the big red(....errr grey) N. The constant flow of familiar people throughout the night was a miracle considering I thought I was going to be alone all night.

10:15 pm - As for the game...as much as I LOVE fighting games, I have never had the time or dedication  to actually be GOOD at playing them. I would downright say I am pretty damn average, and when it comes to street figther, that usually gets downgraded to below average and sometimes FAIL if I run into the correct buzzsaw. The majority of my gaming friends have used me as a punching bag of sorts in various fighting games. Hell, the only ones I was ever DECENT to ALMOST GOOD were the early Marvel arcade fighters, Marvel Super Heroes and Marvel Vs Street Fighter and that was only because it took TWO things that I love (fighting games and comics) and combined them. Getting back to the point, I got in a few matches against some people I met there and somehow overcame the shittyness of the Xbox360 d-pad and won a couple matches with the old school power of Guile. The game plays very smoothly and makes the transition from arcade to console seamlessly. I just need an arcade stick so I can play PROPERLY and not whiff on every other blade kick/sonic boom attempt. 

11:00pm - I got to see a pretty damn good DJ from what I have heard from the Korean Hip-Hop girl, a fellow by the name of DJ Q-Bert. Obviously with a handle like that, he must like video games. Honestly I was pretty damn impressed by the speed of his hands on the turntables, he must be pretty damn good at fighting games with reflexes like that. The beats he dropped were also impressive, I particularly liked it when he had "Rapper's Delight" in the background and scratched out ALL the lyrics in place of the actual words. While the hearing in my right ear may be permanently damaged from the massive speakers, his performance (along with the B-Boys and B-Girl from the MTV dance team who came out and also were very impressive) lived up to the hype and gave me something other than a bunch of angry nerds to blog about. 

11:15 - It is at this point, in spite of all the rest the blogging is giving my bum knee, I need to get out of here before I am unable to walk the 6 blocks needed to get back to the parking garage. Working all day and THEN standing in line for 2 hours and THEN standing around taking photos, playing/watching the game, and enjoying the hip-hop entertainment was too much for my bad wheel to take for one day. I call Jai and console him by assuring him that the Street Fighter IV poster I had in my hands was destined to be in his possession. 

12:20 - back home after my drive through bum infested areas while waiting for my GPS to remember where the fuck the freeway entrance is. It is amazing how I used to travel downtown LA all the time as a child with my mom and I knew all the streets and how to get home, but now if I have to drive on any street other than Figueroa or Cesar Chavez at night I get more nervous than a little boy at a priest convention. 

12:40- Sleep is calling as I finish the editing for this Blog, stupid photo included. As much as I would like to do a tidy conclusion to this entry, I honestly have nothing but the urge to sleep left in me. SF4 was cool, I will be buying it for my xbox360 and you can kick my ass on the INTERNETS!!!!! (XBL: SoCalClone) More photos of the event to come this weekend I hope. I took a shitload of them and most of them suck!

 

Good Night and Good Luck

-Dre