David Kudrev
Saturday mornings.. Be it the extremities of the Australian summer or winter, they were the mentally active days of my youth, when it SHOULD HAVE been during the week at school, studying. The memories of either racing out of bed to get my money’s worth from the two games I would hire (on friday after school) from the local games store at the time. Or rushing to the bay to get a solid block at a lock-in at the most iconic amusement centre Adelaide has ever seen and will ever see. Saturday mornings always were great times of gaming for me.
The other day, from the Ganatomy podcast, I found out, and was invited to attend the national Super Street Fighter IV tournament at the Uniting Church in Colonel Light Gardens which was also on a Saturday. Bearing in mind that I more or less suck at this game, but still went to support and finding out what was a vibrant community-orientated gathering of gamers under the one roof.
Streetgeek is a community for people to go somewhere to yearn for their thirst of digital entertainment in many different forms. There were a few rooms set up in the entire church, like the PC-gaming room, and then the two rooms set up for tournaments and all other forms of gaming, including retro-gaming!
I got to the place too early, thinking I had to register at 11am.. No problem, I said g’day to the Ganatomy team who were there as organisers/supervisors of the event as well as the tournament. Lo and behold I then saw this thing:
Let me get in a bit closer…
I spent most of the day instead of practicing on my (poor) skills at Super Street Fighter IV on this thing. As I wandered around to see what else was going on, everyone was quite social and just having a great time! From the Worms World Party tournament in one room, to the Super Smash Bros. Brawl corner rigged for laughs and there was something for every gamer. Now, as for this ‘arcade cabinet’
Street Fighter 1. Finally got to play it.. didn’t think so much of it (granted I was spoilt by playing starting on SF2 back in the day).
Okay here’s a fascinating title that I didn’t know about, called Pistol Daimyo Bouken. You play as a Samurai who, get this, has a cannon mounted into his head.. What I love the most about folk that I’ve spoken to, who appreciate retrogaming, is that somebody would know of some obscure title that I’ve never heard of or played, and vice versa. Knowledge is power people, and through community, it works! :D
Aliens VS Predator, using the CPS1 engine (ala Final Fight). Probably one of the more entertaining of the side-scrolling beat’em ups that wasn’t Final Fight.
And of course.. it wasn’t a gruelling gaming morning without this classic!
Time flew quite fast, and it was almost 2PM, the start of the tournament. I thought I’d go brush up briefly (and getting the hang of those arcade sticks that almost everyone brought with them)
Okay practice was over, my name was called up to play in the tourney. Akuma was the flavour of the 45 second stints, no surprise, but I lost. Oh well, I still had fun! With all tournaments/competitions I’ve played in the past, it was always quite intimidating, yet intense to have a crowd behind me when playing.
All in all I had a great time, I sadly had to leave after my punt at the tournament, but it was a great vibe in the place, a fantastic event to be a part of. Be sure to keep an eye on www.streetgeek.com.au for upcoming events at the Colonel Light Gardens Uniting Church.
