NZism current status

First off, I apologise profusely for my lack of posts, there are several reasons:

1) The current content I’m working on is taking WAY more time & effort than I had expected
2) I haven’t had as much time to work on it as I’d have liked, random things keep popping up
3) I’ve been sick the past week so have been pretty limited to what I’ve been able to do in general. This includes not being able to attend the Southern Cross-up event that was on last weekend :/

Rest assured, I am working on stuff and do still have a big list of topics I’ve been wanting to post about.

Also, I’ve kind of re-opened the NZism forum, but it’s not really the forum you remember. People are welcome to use it, but it’s never going to be pushed as a forum ‘for the community’ again. All your old logins will work though. Any problems, just pm me on the forum or email me.

Fav Vids: #3 - 3s: 5 on 5 teams final, Co-op cup #1

Game: Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
Date: 2002
Location: Japan
Players: Boss (Yang), Hitotsume (Ken), Ryo-chin (Remy), J (Makoto), KO (Yun) vs JOE (Ken), Nuki (Chun), Match (Akuma), Tokido (Urien), Xiao (Ibuki)
Source: Co-op cup 1 DVD

2002 was a good year for fighting games. In fact, so far every one of these favourite vids have been from 2002! It used to take a good couple of years after a game’s release for people to really break down the engine and work out some nasty tricks, and 2002 was about that period after the release of the last few fighting games before the ‘dark years’ which lasted until the release of Street Fighter 4.

I believe this video surfaced after the Evo 2k2 video I posted previously, but either way it reaffirmed Tokido as true master status and also Urien as one hell of an awesome character. The top tier was already set in 3s, but Urien and Makoto were beginning to shine, with people like Tokido and J showing off the potential of these characters. It was a very exciting time for 3s.

Although the gameplay may look a little clunky by today’s 3s standards, you’d better believe this was still lightyears ahead of anything in the US at the time, since the US didn’t think much of 3s for a long time. In fact, this video was one which really helped to invigorate the US 3s scene.

It’s also worth thinking about how primitive video sharing on the internet was back in 2002 – I downloaded this 20-odd minute video (with the between-match footage included) on a dial up modem from an FTP site! You actually had to have some contacts to see video like this. The excitement of seeing ANY footage from Japan was tangible. It was hard enough to get any from the US!

This video also popularised the “Ei! Ei! Ei!” chant during Yun’s Genei Jin super, for better or for worse.

Highlights:

00:49 For Euan!
02:42 The good ol’ double shoryu in the corner. Even this was hot stuff back then!
04:19 A very tense Ken battle!
08:22 Good ol’ jab reset dash under grab
10:07 Low parry can win you games…
10:42 I find knees scary too.
11:18 Good start to the round by Gouki, yeah?
12:20 The first midscreen unblockable I’d seen – even as ghetto as it is
13:03 Here it is! Eiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!
13:15 I’m sure this looks way nastier than it is, but it’s still cool.
14:38 NO FEAR!

For more videos from this team tournament, check out the coop cup playlist