Evolution 2008 Fighting Game Championships

I think as my first post with an actual topic, I'll start with my love of fighting games. If you read my first post (and if you are cool you will) you know that I am a big fan of fighting games. Well Evolution is the big North American tournament for fighting games. Players from around the U.S. and other countries like Canada and Japan come and compete in their respective games. For people who love and play fighting games, this is our Super Bowl.

Evolution hosts a number of games each year, some are staples and appear yearly, others come in and out. Basically what determines if a game is ran is if it's new and good.(Good as in has strategical depth. And yes I know that could be different to different people, so if a large number of people think it's good, it'll be there.) So for example, when Virtua Fighter 5 came out, it was ran at Evolution 2007. But as said before, it also has to be a good fighting game, so don't expect the next Mortal Kombat to be in the line up anytime soon (except for the off chance it is actually good.)

That criteria is used for it's initial run. But for it to stay in the line up, the game must not only be good, but it must have a strong player base so that the turnout is good. Unfortunately even though it's a great game, Virtua Fighter is just not that popular enough to have a good player base, so it is not in this year's line up. Obviously if a game is returning, it's not new anymore so that criteria does not matter.

This year there are six games being run. Those games are: Street Fighter 3: Third Strike (3s for short), Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (MvC2 for short), Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix (ST for short and by god does it need a shorthand name), Capcom vs. SNK 2 (CvS2), Tekken 5: Dark Ressurecction (T5DR) and Super Smash Bros. Brawl (SSBB).

As you can see, it centers a lot on Capcom's older fighting games. This is because the tournament in it's early days was a Street Fighter only tournament. Later it changed to accept other fighting games based on the criteria I mentioned earlier. But this is also because of all the fighting game communities, Street Fighter is the most popular (keep mind this doesn't refer to mainstream popularity.)

On an interesting note, one of the staple games has been dropped this year, the 2-d fighting game Guilty Gear. Apparently many finalist were late for finals because they took a 30 minute break even though they knew finals were happening. The tournament staff saw this as (rightfully so) a slap in the face, and decided to drop the game this year. It will probably be back next year, since CvS2 is a dying game.

Evolution has incredible amounts of hype, just as any big sporting event would, and like sports has it's own set of "celebrities". These guys have been playing for a long time and have practiced their asses off to get as good as they are. And no, I am not saying video games are like sports. But just as my friends like to get hype for the Super Bowl, I am hyped to see match videos from this tournament. If I had the finances, I'd go participate.

If you have more interest in this, go to EVO 2008 Championship Series

Now to give you a taste of the hype, I'll leave you with the DVD trailer to Evolution 2006. Two things you'll notice is that Dead or Alive 4 is on there, which was quickly dropped and Smash Bros. is not on there, since it was added last year.

Enjoy!