Editor’s note: Fernando describes the two Capcom NYC “Fight Club” events he attended, and ponders why the last one, a tease for Super Street Fighter 4, didn’t live up to the first. -Demian
Thursday, October 22, 2009: The scene felt vaguely familiar. I skipped out of work early to stand in line on an otherwise nondescript street, situated right between Chinatown and the trendy, hipster part of SoHo. What made this street stand out today was the fact that a few hundred guys were queued up for hours on a brisk, if not cold autumn evening in the lower part of Manhattan. And New Yorkers, being the nosy folks that they are, naturally wanted to know why. Many would frequently stop their dog walking or roll down the window of a taxi and yell out the question, “What are you guys waiting in line for?”
The popular response of the guys I happened to be standing around was that we were all waiting to enter a beat-up-Kayne-West event, or something along those lines. I don’t think it got any laughs, just stares of confusion. If I felt confident enough I’d probably blurt out that Puppetry of the Penis is back in town, and these 500 guys wanted to get their tickets early, but I don’t think that would have gone over very well either.
In any case, the guys in the line would eventually resort to actually answering the question: They were waiting to play some Street Fighter. Capcom was throwing another “Fight Club,” this time with a few more fighting games to hype up to their biggest fans in the Tri-State area. Marvel vs. Capcom 2, which was released on XBLA and PSN a few months ago, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, which, after spending a year in licensing limbo, will finally make its way to these shores, and the main event of the nigh,: the public debut of Super Street Fighter 4.
While some portions of the Internet bemoan the fact that this will just be an upgrade to a game they bought only eight months ago, these guys eagerly await what will likely be the definitive version of the game they’ve been playing since it was released. The excitement in the air was palpable, and perhaps that excitement ended up being the evening’s downfall. How could Capcom live up to the hype?
Rewind to Friday, October 24, 2008: I skipped out of work early to stand in line on an otherwise nondescript street in the middle of nowhere, Brooklyn. To someone who wasn’t a native of the city, it certainly appeared as if we were standing in the middle of the ghetto, though there were signs of impending gentrification. I mean, we weren’t too far off from Williamsburg, and while the building that this line led up to looked like a burnt-out bodega from the outside, the only groceries they had were for show. This storefront was converted into a night club which is usually host to local indie bands, and Capcom rented the place out to showcase Street Fighter 4 to the public.
New York City is lucky enough to have one of the few arcades in the US that sprung the 30 grand to import the Japanese version of SF4 a few months earlier. So anyone who wanted to play it by then could have, assuming you didn’t mind shoving a dollar bill in the machine. There was no shortage of those who didn’t mind; back then you’d have to wait at least half an hour at Chinatown Fair before your turn rolled around. So there was certainly a pent up demand, and the teasing Capcom performed in the weeks leading to the event helped to stroke those gamer boners.
So there I was, walking inside after hours of standing, and the first thing I saw after passing through those doors was a busted-up TV, likely older than most of the kids attending, hooked to a SNES with a crusty copy of The World Warrior. The perfect way to set the mood, along with the out-there art of the world warriors scrawled all over the walls, a projector screening old animated movies on the ceiling, and a DJ spinning with some loud speakers to back him up. I grabbed a typically greasy slice of pizza and made my way to the basement, where there were a dozen Street Fighter 4 set ups, five months before it would make its way to retail. It was a good night.
Back to the future of October 22, 2009: In stark contrast, the evening at SoHo felt like a massive cock tease. I suppose if I look back at whatever Capcom wrote to hype this event, they never actually said that we would lay our hands on Super Street Fighter 4, but from where I was sitting they sure seem to imply it. After three hours of standing in line they began to let us in, and the first impression wasn’t nearly as nostalgic.
This time, we were inside a well-lit sneaker store. I reached for a slice and notice it was from a Two Boots pizzeria, notable mainly because they use cornmeal for their crust, resulting in a very untypical taste for a slice from New York. Not that it’s bad, just very…trendy. I made my way down to the basement, and seeing nothing but vanilla SF4 machines lined up on the right side of the wall, I realized that Super wasn’t happening. Glancing over to the left, I saw plenty of TvC stations on display.
At that point there wasn’t much to do other than make the best of it, so I killed a few minutes playing. It wasn’t long before Seth Killian, senior manager of community for Capcom, took the mic and began to hype up the room. Hundreds of dudes crowd the DJ table at the end of the basement hall, inching closer to a large plasma screen running Super Street Fighter 4 just beyond.
Only a demonstration, however. It didn’t help when Seth started going on about how the journalists he’d been seeing throughout the week were denied a chance to play the game, but the “community” would be the first to get their hands on it. Unfortunately, this community only consisted of Justin Wong, the US Street Fighter 4 champion, and some dude who I think was the first in the line. We were then treated to two minutes of Justin messing around with Juri, hardly anything we hadn’t seen before, before they pulled the plug. You may have already seen the footage on YouTube, and got a better view than most of us in attendance did. Many folks in there were feeling a bad case of blue balls after that tease.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAgBQHcdlVw 500×500]
I stuck around for a little while longer and tried to get a game or two of SF4 in, but playing with a Japanese stick while standing doesn’t work well for me, and I didn’t feel like waiting in that crowded, hot basement for another turn so I just decided to split early.
And now I’m left wondering, why such disappointment for what was a free event with free food, good music, and a bag of free stuff? I’m sure it was plenty of work to put the whole thing together, and I hate to sound like an ingrate, but what went wrong?
A few scenarios have run through my head. Perhaps the Capcom PR folks just happened to be in town for other reasons, and figured they could quickly whip up something for the fans. However, it seems much too early when there’s really nothing to show. Perhaps the Japanese branch of Capcom has a strict schedule of doling out information, they had to stick to it. And with another four or five months before Super’s release I suppose we can expect something ridiculous, like drip-feeding the reveal of a new Ultra Move for each character once a week until launch. The cynic in me wants to believe that this was a dirty bait and switch, telling us to come for Super Street Fighter 4 and making us stay for Tatsunoko vs Capcom.
I think above all else, expectations were inadvertently set too high. I’m likely just salty from having to spend money I hardly have at the moment to make my way to and from Manhattan, just to see what would be on the Internet in mere hours anyway. More importantly, it didn’t feel as ‘real’ as the last one, whatever that’s suppose to mean.
The first Fight Club hit that nostalgic note right in-tune, it brought back memories of being a ten-year-old in the Bronx, back when you could find arcade machines in grocery stores, bowling alleys and video rental shops. Any place that had a decent amount of foot traffic would also have a cabinet standing in the corner, with those familiar sets of six buttons lined up next to a joystick.
I’d go around the neighborhood trash cans fishing for soda cans before a homeless guy would beat me to ’em, then trade enough of those in for a few quarters. All that work for a few games at a burnt-out bodega that somebody turned into a makeshift arcade and pool hall, where I’d get beat by some random dude who was beasting with Blanka while I’m trying to figure out how to throw a fireball.
This time it was just another Thursday, in the year 2009.
