Evo2k10 Retrospective

If you’ve never been to a major tournament before, it’s hard to explain what it feels like to experience the main event: Evolution World Finals. There’s a widespread misconception that Evo is a Street Fighter competition. It’s not.

Evo is a fighting game community social event. This past weekend was the highlight of the year for me so far, and i could probably say the same for every year i’ve been able to attend. It really is that much fun.

I hung out with old friends i hadn’t seen in several months, some of whom had moved away to other states or countries. I finally got to meet people i’d known for many years via SRK and other forums. I even made some new friends through random conversations about everything from MvC3, to Skullgirls, to the World Cup, to chewing.

I stood in the crowd and cheered on underdogs and people’s champs (Clockw0rk, GamerBee, TheGreaterForce) taking on giants (Justin Wong, Sanford Kelly, Daigo Umehara). Sometimes they pulled off the upset, and the whole audience erupted. Other times they got absolutely dismantled, and the whole crowd winced.

Believe it or not, i didn’t play a single round of a single game all weekend. Honestly i have no idea how that happened, and didn’t even realize it until after i got home, but it goes to show how much there is to see and do at Evo.

By the way, if you’ve never volunteered to help – whether it’s running a bracket, moving stuff around, or helping clean up for fifteen minutes – try it next time. It’s a good feeling, knowing that you pitched in to make Evo a little bit better for everyone.

As i’ve said before, the Evo atmosphere is indescribable, but videos like this are a good start:

Richard Li cut together a montage of scenes he shot over the weekend. It provides a glimpse of the range of emotions that everyone in that hall went through. But let’s be clear: No photo, no audio, no video could ever convey the energy in that room. You have to be there for that.

Lastly, i’d like to apologize if what i said on stage was strange. I know i was rambling; i didn’t know what to do up there. All i was trying to say is that i learned all this stuff from someone, so i’m just trying to put the penny back in the tray.

8 thoughts on “Evo2k10 Retrospective

  1. Maj Post author

    Btw anyone know what match that last moment in the video was from? I can’t quite make it out from the game sounds.

  2. Masamune_Shadow

    I read somewhere that Ski was “Wilsoning Out”

    So it might have been when Jason Wilson was taken out of HDR.

    I thought I heard some Balrog sounds in there, but I just kept hearing SONIC BOOOOOOM a lot as well.

  3. Maj Post author

    Was Wilson even at Evo this year? I haven’t heard that name in a long time.

    Speaking of skisonic, the whole commentating/announcing crew did a spectacular job. Major shoutouts to s-kill, Dogface, jchensor, Keits, and everyone else.

    But especially tragic! I felt like we were witnessing a miracle that he was even able to talk at the end of Sunday night. The fact that he got up there and yelled out Ricky’s and Diago’s names at the end of all that is hero status.

  4. carminemac

    Maj, it was a pleasure to meet you! Congrats on the award, and I thought your impromptu speech made perfect sense. I also barely played any rounds of anything all weekend, but I still had a blast. EVO is amazing, and if you like fighting games at all, you have to be there!

  5. Maj Post author

    Likewise, sir. Sorry we didn’t have more time to talk. I was basically rushing to get something from my room and take off at that point.

  6. Tarnish

    If you didn’t go on stage I would have never found you in the first place. Good shit to whoever put you on blast (can I even use it in this context) for that award, cause I pretty much gave up all hope of finding you until that happened.

  7. EasierToRun09

    I saw Skullgirls! I was watching it at least for 40 minutes a day near the casuals area… I was very interested, and it looks pretty cool. I remember going, “What the hell is that?” watching this girl do a bunch of weird things with her hair, haha. Looking forward to seeing it be released.

  8. Maj Post author

    Tarnish: Is that what being “put on blast” means? Man, we really need a new slang dictionary. Mine’s become outdated.

    EasierToRun09: Yeah that’s the game Mike Z is working on, so i hope it does well. The combo system seems to be well-designed to prevent infinites, which gives him the freedom to implement some crazy powerful weapons. Character designs are a little weird, but you get used to it after a while. All the lighting effects are pretty awesome though. Anyway i’ve only seen one playable character so far, so the rest is just “wait and see” status.

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