It's about 4 in the afternoon and I've just gotten my pool assignment. By this time, I've been on my feet since 9am, shouldering a laptop bag, and the two MadCatz Fightpads, the comics and the Nintendo 3DS within it are getting heavier by the minute. My new tourney pal, Rob, suggests we take a load off in the lobby of the hotel, the monolithic Hyatt Morristown in Morristown, New Jersey and the site of East Coast Throwdown 3.
As we slide through the sea of people who have converged on the hotel's Terrace Ballroom, I see Mike Z looking on stoicly as wave after wave of new players crowd around the monitors he has set up to demo his upcoming 2-D brawler,
Skullgirls. Say what you will about Mr. Zaimont's persona, he has a lot to be proud of. In a room full of enthusiasts and pro players, more people seemed more excited about
Skullgirls than
Street Fighter X Tekken which was being demoed at the same table by Seth Killian himself. While I won't name names, more than one pro player I spoke with thought SFXT was even scrubbier than MvC3 (apparently that's possible).
Mike Z staying hungry while players devour the latest build of Skullgirls
Much like it did at PAX East,
Skullgirls' distinct art style and posh HD sprites washed in full 3-D lighting impresses. I can almost see Mike Z's tourney sharpened mind crunching data as he watches people play. Even though I've been playing fighting games since Karate Champ, I can tell just from his eyes that as he watches people experiment with his game, he is seeing things I could never see. I continue to shuffle through the crowd.
Rob and I get out into the lobby where it immediately seems 10 degrees cooler. I find a table flanked by several cushy lounge chairs and plop down, giving my feet their first break in 7 hours. As I look over my right shoulder to see where I might get a $10 burger 0r a $3 water I spy Tom Brady sitting with a few buddies, just out of ear shot. He seems to be having a much better time than he was some 6 hours prior, when some random guy started getting at him right outside the ballroom. The man was talking all levels of shit at Tom while him and his crew just stood there smiling and shaking there head, the way one does at that one guy in paradise who finds a way to not have a good time. And speaking of paradise.....
My view of Tom Brady and friends is suddenly and pleasingly blocked by a leggy brunette standing about 5 foot 10 with a plucky smile. She looked like she would have been right at home on a runway or a men's magazine, but she was dressed like a business woman. Her name tag gave away that she worked for the hotel. She begins introducing herself and her voice completes the package: she is clearly too attractive to not be tasked with selling something to gamers.
I almost cut her off before she asks Rob and I if we are at the hotel for the tournament. I humor her with a smile and a "yes", and brace myself for the innevitable sales pitch. Instead she asks me what game I registered for. "Marvel", I answer. Her eyes grow wide with a hint of nervousness as she replies, "Oh I can't play that. I like my fighters fast but it's just a bit too fast and random for me."
Ok, I think to myself, she's good. She has learned a little about the "nerds" her manager told her to sell to this weekend. As a former salesman, I can give her some credit for that. But fun time is over, it's time to derail her obviously pre-rehearsed word track. I grin and ask, "So what DO you play?", fully expecting a blank stare or some "clever" deflection. She answers without hesitation, "Guilty Gear Accent Core. I mostly main Jam and May."
Mind. Blown.
After we finish our discussion about the differences between the flow of Guilty Gear and Blazblue, and her theory about how Taokaka might be a tranny, she bids us farewell and saunters off with that extra pop in her hip that reminds you that she is used to men watching her leave. If she was selling something, I never got to hear about it but I sure as hell would have bought a hundred of them. Rob and I cool our heels for a while longer and head back into the tourney.
The Marlin Pie Fan Club
As I re-enter the ballroom, which is now so packed with the 500+ tourney entrants, I spy Chris G at his pool waiting to play. I had run into him earlier and had asked him if he was going to hold it down for the east coast at the East vs West Marvel event at EVO. Unaware that 64 EVO seeding points were 24 hours into his future, he smiled humbly, replying, "I'm gonna try bro, I'm gonna try." I asked him who his teammates were but apparently, NerdJosh still hasn't decided who the rest of the team is going to be. I'm guessing he will make his decisions once he gets back from his extended tour of Cali and that the results from ECT 3 will play a big factor in that process.
I am almost to my pool station when I hear a familiar voice booming over the house mic, "KILL THAT BITCH, KILL HER!!!" followed by an eruption of laughter from the front of the room. I look up and there is L.I. Joe, getting hype on the mic as someone on the stream sends Amaterasu packing in brutal fashion. Joe cheers and smiles at the crowd, affable as always. From all the spring in his step and the contagious energy and enthusiasm he was throwing off, you would never know he was in a motorcycle accident just over a week ago. But clearly it takes more than that to keep "iloveujoe" from helping to run a succesful major tourney, and everyone in attendance was thankful for that, as evidenced by the many people who approached Joe to wish him well on his recovery.
LI Joe being LI Joe
And finally, it came time for me to play, and as it often goes in Marvel, things happened pretty fast and none of those things were good for me. It's hard to put a finger on it, what makes the players at a major so different from the on-line rank and file or the people you happen to play with locally. They play at a speed that, even if you are a dedicated and knowledgable player, is overwhelming to experience and deal with. However fast it seems when you watch from stream-monsterland, it doesn't prepare you for facing it.
Spooky, the high ruler of Stream-monsterland surveying his kingdom
I am a long time fighter junkie and I watched every match vid of MvC3 from pre-release, played it from a week before it came out, stream-monstered it up every chance I got and practiced 4-6 hours per day for a month prior to this tourney in preparation and I still got bodied hard by players who don't even have a name in the community. While they may seem very mortal and approachable as people, they are, quite literally, god-like when you step in the ring with them and I can tell you first hand as a life-long "best on his block" player, no ammount of training mode or sessioning with friends can prepare you for it (unless your friends happen to have "EMP" or "EG" before their names). Unless you want your feelings hurt and your sodium levels at maximum, come to these tournies with the expectation to learn and have fun.
But DEFINITELY COME because it is oh so much fun. It's unlike anything else. I have been to several smaller events like Guard Crush and Battlefield Arcadia but this was my first major and after experiencing it, I am literally counting the days until EVO. The sense of community is so powerful and I don't think there is another competitive community, "e" or otherwise, where the big names are so accessible. You can walk up to Evil Rahsaan and chat about the rumored X-factor and Phoenix nerfs, you can holler at Yipes to get on the house mic to do commentary and you can grill Ian Coffino about when we are finally getting the feature length cut of his documentary
I Got Next. You can even meet people who won't call you a pedophile for liking Arcana Heart 3 (no, seriously). And best of all, you can do all of this while leveling up your game and making new friends. Great tournament, great experience indeed!
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