Daigo Wins Over Justin at Seasons Beatings 4

In what was a much awaited rematch, Daigo "the Beast" Umehara was able to overcome Justin Wong's devastating Fei Long and win Seasons Beatings 4.

Daigo had previously been sent to the losers bracket by Justin, who's choice of Fei Long worked against the former's lack of experience with console characters. In an impressive show of skill, tactics and Yomi, Daigo was able to quickly adapt to the unfamiliar opponent and force the finals to reset before impressively taking the last set with 4 wins to 1.

New Street Fighter IV announcement teaser?

After having been teased for the longest time, and then not appearing at TGS (except at supposed secret showings), Capcom Japan has now released a teaser for an announcement that will occur tomorrow at 5PM Japan time.

Click on the image to see the teaser.

The URL itself also contains the words "new warrior" which is sure to fuel speculation until tomorrow. So does this mean that the supposed Super Street Fighter IV (as hinted at this photo that was supposedly taken behind closed doors) is real? I guess we'll find out tomorrow at 5.

Weekend Update #4: well, not really.

No true update this week as I spent most of the weekend at the MCC. To make up for it however, here are some shots of the SFIV arcade machine at Timezone at SM Megamall.

STREET FIGHTER IV SON! AAAGGHH!

Not visible, crappy Korean stick and buttons.

Chun Li kicks high... but not high enough!

My Sagat is fight!

Thanks to plsburydoughboy for bringing a camera and making me look like a cocky douche.

Umehara Kumite: Daigo VS Shiro

One of the matches from the second batch of Umehara videos from Arcadia magazine. Daigo vs Shiro, one of the top Abel players in Japan.

Thanks to Capcom's Seth Killian for the heads up.

Weekend Update #3: Taking it Back to the Streets!

Didn't really get to spend time with online with BlazBlue this weekend (although I racked up a few good matches during the week). Instead, I found myself back with Street Fighter IV . This is partly due to my younger brother who had installed Street Fighter IV on his MacBook (running Windows 7 via BootCamp). Thanks to this, him and his friends have started running informal "tournaments" amongst themselves. Inspired by this, I decided to join in when a he brought a friend over and they had decided to play on my PS3.

At first, I did notice that I was trying to things that would only work in BlazBlue's engine (air dashing and wake up rolls). It took awhile for me to transition back to SFIV. I also noticed that, while my Cammy was nothing to really talk about before, I was terrible with her now. I ended up using my S-tier crutch Sagat to get a few wins against my brother's friend. Against my brother however, winning wasn't really an option seeing as he really is that much better than me (he runs a terrifying pressure game with Gouken). Still, I had fun, I even got inspired to give Balrog (Boxer) a run and did quite well with him.

Now after that, I was initially ready to go back to BlazBlue the following night, however a couple of other friends dropped by (one who plays a mean Zangief) and, after a few rounds of NBA 2k9, decided to challenge them to SFIV. Now, by this time, I had actually practiced a bit with both Sagat and Balrog meaning that my Sagat was unbeaten the whole night and my Balrog at least gave my friends Zangief a hard time. Also, I was able to get some good wins with my Cammy again (against Akuma no less). The key was not playing it like HD Remix (which I tend to do) and instead build my game around pressuring with her high priority Cannon Spikes. We also messed around with the other characters, including some low tier hijinks with Dan and Rey Mys..I mean El Fuerte.

All in all, it was good to get some decent time with SFIV. While I still will be maining BlazBlue, SFIV is still a solid and fun 2D fighting. Also, the game's more defensive, less combo reliant pace means that I had to really think about strategy and mind games in contrast to BlazBlue where the pace of the game tends to focus on offense and quick reflexes.

Get your SFIV PC skins, all in one place.

This one's for those who are too intimidated to go to the Shoryuken.com forums to get them.

Street Fighter 4 - Super Skin Combo Attack/

This is basically the same list as in SRK, but with FilePlanet download links to back them up.

SFIV Arcade Cabinet (SM Megamall) Impressions

Went to Timezone SM Megamall over lunch break today to check up on the news that yes, we finally have SFIV arcade machines here in the Philippines. Upon arrival, I was happy to see that not only where there two machines (on system link), but that there was no line yet. So after getting my credits I sat in the vacant machine and challenged the guy next to me. Long story short, I racked up 3 wins before losing upon which I decided to follow the Japanese rule of not continuing (to let the player behind me play).

The game itself has been out for awhile so I'm not going to talk about that, instead I'll focus on the hardware and setup of the cabs. The cabs themselves are not Taito Viewlix cabinets but seem to be custom built cabs that mimic the Viewlix setup. The machines seem to have come from Korea and have Korean markings and instructions however the game itself is in English.

The main issue that I had with the machines however is the sticks used. Instead of the traditional Japanese ball-top stick (usually a Sanwa JLF), it has an American style bat-top that felt weird, loose and dare I say, spongy - surprising since the bat-top Happs sticks that I've tried before were usually tighter and more precise. Other than the slight sponginess, the thing that really threw me off was that the gate wasn't the traditional square gate which means that the corners weren't as defined as I would like.

The buttons themselves, flat topped coloured ones, while not the usual convex Sanwa/Seimitsu buttons worked fine, requiring only light action. However, the true test of buttons is in their durability over time, something which I cannot give comment on.

Finally having Street Fighter IV in local arcades is big news indeed. Those of us who are tired of the endless show of Tekken can finally have a proper 2D fighter to sink our teeth into. The choice of sticks for the custom cabs is a bit disappointing for those who prefer Japanese style ball-tops but in the end, I'd rather have SFIV with those sticks than no SFIV at all.

EDIT: Now with a couple of blurry cellphone images.

Viewlix clones, seem decent enough... until you see the sticks.

Those sticks are atrocious.

EVO2k9 final match and Daigo interview

Videos of the final Justin Wong vs Daigo Umehara match from EVO2k9 as well as the post match interiew with Daigo.

EDIT: The videos of the epic final match set have been removed due to a copyright claim by the people behind EVO so all we have left is the interview.

Daigo interview:

More SFIV custom shenanigans

Found these thanks to a post by TongariDan over at Capcom Unity (who in turn got this from Eventhubs). While at first people were just simply swapping character models around, it seems now there are actual customized character skins going around the net.

Bikini Cammy, Ninja Vega(Claw), Goatee Balrog (Boxer) and Flaming Ken


Evil Ryu and Violent Ken


More videos as well as instructions on how to do these can be found at the original Eventhubs post. Meanwhile you can check this post over at SRK for where to download the skins.

Street Fighter IV: the Legend of Chan Li

Too funny to pass up! It seems that some intrepid folks have figured out how to edit and swap character models in the PC version of Street Fighter IV. The result is this, "Chan Li" - Dan, with Chun Li's moves.

Absolutely hilarious!