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.