First off I would like to say that Anaheim being my first MLG was prolly a damn good choice. The venue was super huge, tons of space, really clean and all in all a great choice so big ups to MLG for that one, excellent venue! The scale in which they are doing production for gaming is totally on another level than I originally thought entirely. Granted I had an idea but they completely blew away my expectations. It was pretty dope being able to see the action going on in each section with so many projectors! From the StarCraft2 expansion testing area to the fighters arena, to even the Sony and Madcatz booth! You could literally see everything if you just looked up just a little. Yet another plus in my book.
The event itself showed love to each and every area too! TONS of casual setups to practice on before tournament time and during tournament time. Granted they closed the casuals off for a period of time to push for some more spectators which makes sense. People should be paying attention to the main events instead of casuals. Not upset at that because it makes sense again so moving on...All the players from what I noticed were having a genuine good time from casuals to watching. I know I sure did! I mean throughout they allowed players as guest commentators as well. That I think was really good for each community. It really shows that they care a lot more than one may think and we have people like Arturo Sanchez to thank for that so big ups to that guy always trying to do his thing and help out. Not only that but they did live player interviews which was also dope. I was grateful to be one of the few picked for the interviews during the "Real Talk" session lol. You can catch that on the fighters stream archive at 43min into it ^_^ (YES SELF PROMOTION LOL)
The competition was strong in all games. I competed in King of Fighters 13 and Soul Calibur 5 and I was impressed across the board. Not so much in KoF because I was already aware of the strength of SoCal however SC5 and MK was quite interesting. With players like Hawkeye, Link RKC, Kayane, Keev and Japan's Tokido in there going for the gold...it was quite the tournament to just watch alone. MK on the other hand was filled with at TON of upsets like Curbolicious not getting far or Reo falling short of top 8. Or how about Perfect Legend 3-0'ing CD Jr? I'd also like to add my very own homies from Houston Showtime(Cage), Cat(Kabal), Scar(Skarlet), DevilJim(Mileena), and Starcharger(Kitana) making some noise as well. I'd like to say I'm super impressed by these guys performance because nobody really knows about TX MK as far as I know outside of perhaps Tom Brady and Jop. Either way that was great to see as a Houstonian for sure. All in all watching the event was just pure win if you ask me. Top players, high lvl comp, great crowd, lots of exposure? PURE WIN.
My performance?
I was actually quite pleased by my performance actually. I believe whole heartedly I did the best I could with what preparation I had. With that said, I have zero excuses to be quite frank. Anything that was missed was purely my own fault and it's up to me to fix these problems. My philosophy in fighters is that, no matter what do your best to not make excuses. Whiners and complainers make excuses about tournament losses. Champions re-evaluate and improve on their short comings. I have already went back and look at the archive of my KoF match and replayed my SC5 matches in my mind and have already been improving on those faults of my own. I'd give this advice to every player because it can be difficult to take tournament losses especially if they set their sights super high just to get shot down. It happens and one shouldn't beat themselves up over it, just simply improve is the only thing to do other than taking a break or just quitting..DON'T QUIT lol!
All in all I had an amazing time and I totally intend to try to make even more MLG events. I'm very pleased that they're giving fighting games a chance and I sure hope some where down the line more of the fighting game community pick up on this and embrace the support that MLG is offering the players. I think both FGC events and MLG events can be supported equally. MLG DALLAS~ HERE I COME!
