I just found out about the MomoCon that happens in Alanta Gorgia Tech every year. I was reading my RSS feeds from Kotaku and I was appealed by an atricle describing Cosplay happening at Georgia Tech University in Alanta Georgia. I continue to read the article and check out some of these cosplay photos, which I have to say some are really good.

So I continued to explore the history of this event. For five years now the Alanta Georgia University’s Anime Club has been producing this cosplay event. At first it was strongly focused on Anime Cosplay but then grew into more gaming as gaming culture has also grown. What is really interesting is how big the event has grown they have keept it a free event.

The club works tightly with the University and Club Alumni, and they continue to produce a free convention for the fans in the area. This year they had a cap of attendances of 7,000 guests and I do hope they got close to that.

I will be keeping an eye out for MomoCon and maybe have some insights from the event in the future.

Gamers Outreach Foundation is a not-for-profit video-game organization based out of Saline Michigan. The organization started off as a rocky start in 2007, when the founders we’re actually just high school students. The founder, Zach Wigal, wanted to organize a Halo 2 contest at his local school. The unfortunate thing was Halo had a M rating and his high school mainly consisted of children under 18 years old. Now we all know a lot of kids under 18 do play Halo 2, but the parent-teacher committee at the school did not want the school to partake in this. Because of this the student couldn’t host their event.

The students still wanted to host an event, so with the focus of it being a charity fundraiser they held a public event. They took on the very positive charity focus of Gamers Outreach Foundation and hosted the Halo 2 Tournament along side with a local LAN Party. Their Halo 2 tournament had over 500 spectators and participants and raised $4,000 for Autism Society of America.

In May the Gamers Outreach Foundation will be hosting their 3rd Gamers for Giving event. They have a Facebook event page which already has over 500 people attending and another 1,000 maybes with still another month and a half away from the event. Campus Gamers will be attending this event, and report on the amazing ways these gamers are giving back to their charity.

For more information about this organization you can visit these sites:

Website
Event Webpage
Facebook Fan Page
Facebook Event Page
Wikipedia
Twitter Page

Deviant Artist – Daniel Velez

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the UWGamers Fight On! event. It was quite a pleasure to attend with lots of friendly faces. This was University of Waterloo’s first fighting game event of the season. Fortunately with the support of Pownz gaming center and the excellent management of Robert Black the event was a success.

I arrived a bit late myself so I couldn’t enter the tournament, but by the sounds of it the school had a hefty turn out. There was a total number 34 of competitors were that spanned both Waterloo & Laurier Univeristy. Actually word of this event did reach out to the local gaming community and the school also had entrants from as far as Mississauga and Hamilton. Including spectators and passer byers the event was hosting well into 70-80 people.
The tournament had an array of competitors, with people sporting with fighters like Ryu, Abel and Balrog. Actually a lot of non-standard charcters did make it to the scene with Vega, Cammy, Rose and Rufus being some of the best players at the tournament. Each entrant paid a $5 entry fee, and $4 of that was entered into the prize pool. There was a total prize pool of $136 divided amongst the top 3 contenders.

The top player was Peter, a university of Waterloo student, playing with Abel walked away with $95.20 cold hard cash. Next up was Wilson who was playing with Ryu and Balrog, who was awarded $27.20. And in third place Calvin was awarded $13.20, who was playing with Ryu and Sagat. For complete list of competitors and the their ranking can be found on the Shoryuken Forums

Pownz gaming center supplied all the equipment for the tournament, which included 4 LCD TVs, 4 X-Boxes, Arcade Sticks and Speakers. The Pownz gaming center CEO actually attend the event and participated as Vega, one of the best Vega players I’ve seen if I can say so myself. On the side he met a greeted a number of the spectators making sure everyone was comfortable and promoted Pownz next gaming event, which is an entry event for the ESports Championships.

As a spectator of the event, and this being one of the first fighting events, it was a little intimidating at first. Fortunately for me I was greeted by a friend as soon as I walked in, the runner up of the tournament Wilson. Socializing at a gaming event is something different since most people are watching the game and staring at screens, but fortunately UWGamers has a very friendly crew that was nice to meet. A few friendly face and a couple pretty girls did make me feel welcome, but I really came to play the games. The UWGamers had a number of casual gaming booths scattered around the tournament for easy pick-up and play. Spectators were given the option of playing Soul Caliber 4, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Melty Blood and Super Street Fighter 4 HD remix. People at the event were always welcoming to allow new people to play and give a few pointers.

This was Robert Black’s first gaming tournament event. With the success of the event we here at Campus Gamers hope that he host many more in the future. Thank you Robert Black and UWGamers for hosting an excellent event.

Havcee you been considering going to design school and acquire the skills to be in the gaming industry.  Princeton Review ranked the top 50 schools to go to for the skills.  Princeton review is more commonly known to analysis which school is the best party school, but here they are stretching out to review the best design school. 

The listing is:
1. University of Southern California, Interactive Media Division
2. DigiPen Institute of Technology
3. Drexel University, RePlay (Digital Media & Computer Science)
4. Becker College, Game Design and Game Programming
5. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences
6. The Art Institute of Vancouver, Game Art & Design/Visual & Games Programming
7. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Interactive Media and Game Development (IMGD)
8. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab

For the remaining 42 schools you can go to Pinceton Review Site

Street Fighter 4 was the first Street Fighter that used 3D models. No that’s a lie, little remember the ever so failure of Street Fighter EX, an attempt by Capcom to jump onto the 3D market that was starting up with Tekken and Dead or Alive (little did they know Street Fighter is kind of stuck in the Second Dimension). Well, Street Fighter 4 is the first good attempt of using 3D models (or their 2.5D models) and it has brought Street Fighter years forward.

The original Street Fighter debut in 1987 and wasn’t too popular. You got to play as Ryu through a series of battles and the second player got to play with Ken. You didn’t have many options in the game, was pretty much a dulled down fighting game but it was ahead of its time. There are people saying the Final Fight was supposed to be its sequal but the idea didn’t fly.

By 1991 Street Fighter released a sequal.  Everyone remembers Street Fighter 2: The World Warriors. We all played it as a kid, well we all may have not been kids but I was. I remember sneaking quarters and wanting to go to the arcade to play it. I remember my older brother’s friend being so cool when he played it and I wanted to be one of those Arcade Rats who were so bad ass at the game.

Street Fighter 2 was so popular that it was re-release it 4 times within five years. Unfortunately they weren’t very creative with the names, Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Super Street Fighter 2, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Some people rumor that they didn’t make a fifth one because they struggled so much on figuring out a new name (dam it we used up all the combinations). No, actually the game was so good and popular that Capcom remade all the sprits and re-released in for the current 7th generation consoles on the PSN and Live Market Place – and yes it does sell.

What made Street Fighter 2 so good? Well it was one of a kind when it first came out. It was the first game that allowed two players to competitively fight each other with a selection of characters. Every character fought differently, they had an array of special move button combinations and they had grapple throws. This was something new no other game in the arcade offered in the early 90s. The original Street Fighter did exist but it allowed you to only choose Ryu and the second player would be Ken if he decided to play. This was a break through game for Capcom and they release so many sequels because yes it did so good.

Around 1996-1997 Capcom decided to let go of the Street Fighter 2 line and move on (finally, we get to see a sequel). Unfortunately the sequel didn’t go over too well. When Street Fighter 3: The New Generation came out well it was just that, a new generation. I personally grew affection for Cammy (what can I say I like little cute girls). When I saw Cammy didn’t exist in the new version it made me a little sad. What was also sad was seeing Ryu and Ken as old men. It was good to see they could still kick some ass in their old age, but it’s not what I wanted to see or play. And a lot of these other great Characters I did overlook and not play with – make me sad.

Honestly I didn’t really play it because none of my friend were playing Street Fighter 3 (sorry, when it comes to games I am a follower). A popular one that was being played with my friends was Street Fighter Alpha. Alpha didn’t have the harsh bite of Street Fighter 3 because it kept a lot of my favorite characters, and if anything they were younger. For those who missed the Street Fighter Alpha phase, it was essentially a prologue to Street Fighter 2. It gave background stories to all the characters we loved and introduced some new characters along the way. I loved it and found it fairly popular. Not as popular as the original Street Fighter but DAMN did it have so many cool characters.

Street Fighter EX was also released at this time, and like Alpha and SF3 it also had 3 sequels to it. Of course no one I knew played it. The only time I heard of it was, “Hey you remember that time Street Fighter tried to go 3D, you remember how bad it was”. Yeah that’s exactly it. At this time when Street Fighter 2 was dying off games for the PS1 like Tekken or Dead or Alive were coming out blazing. People loved playing these new creative 3D games and the plain old 2D games didn’t have the flair. When Street Fighter attempted to go 3D it seemed like a desperate attempt by Capcom to grab hold of the changing market. I honestly didn’t even know there were 3 versions of the game until I read it on Wikipedia – ouch coming to reality of what poor Street Fighter fan I am.

Now enough about Street Fighter failure, let’s talk about their epic success. Around the same time Street Fighter EX, Street Fighter 3 and Street Fighter Alpha were coming out Capcom was getting a contract with Marvel to make some Marvel fighting games. Someone in the office, probably up way to late and had too much fun mixing things together, thought “Hey how about we get the Marvel Characters fight the Street Fighter Characters”. The first game X-Men vs Street Fighter was released in arcades in 1996. This was so awesome, I remember the first time I saw Gambit and Ryu on the same screen I became ecstatic. And the fun didn’t stop there, this was also the first time they allowed players to have a tag team. Ah it was so awesome it ate far too many of my quarters. This concept of crossing over characters became more and more popular. Soon it was Marvel vs. Street Fighter, then Marvel vs. Capcom, and then Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Which each successive game the action became more intense and flashy and awesome until it hurt my soul. I would wake up in the middle of the night in cold shivers scared thinking that there’s no way Ryu could throw a fireball that would consume the entire screen. And unfortunately, that is when Street Fighter did become too flashy. Not that it’s really a problem, people seem to love it and recently Capcom released a Capcom vs. Tatsunoko which is doing pretty well – but not my thing.

Talking about failures, did you know there was a Street Fighter game base on the 1995 movie?  They used human models and based it on Mortal Combat styles.  Unfortunately it didn’t do that well. But really a video-game based on a movie based on a video-game – come on!

In 2008 Capcom tried another strike at the Street Fighter franchise with Street Fighter 4. The concept based around 3D modeling, Cell Shading and Water-Colouring concepts made for brand new graphics never seen before. At first a lot of people didn’t like the idea too much, and honestly some time it does make the characters look really ugly. But honestly they have brought the Franchise to a new level. There are many things that the game does graphically that they couldn’t do before (like spins and super flashy move) because they now have control of the 3rd Dimension. The game is considered to be 2.5D because really the characters move only in the 2D plane. To be honest I’m gad they do, if they changed this then it wouldn’t be that Street Fighter style we’ve came to know and love.

Other details were kept, like the way characters moved. For those who are really into Street Fighter know that each character in Street Fighter has their own fighting style. The hard kick in the air is done this way, and the medium kick on the ground is done another way. Not only that each character does it differently and each one reflects the style of the character. I love Cammy because she’s a little girl who moves fast and hits hard. She needs to attack physical and can’t keep a lot of distance between her and her enemy. Her style is a completely different then Vega or Zangief, and they depict it really well in the game.

Another thing that Capcom did well to revive the game was the online play. The problem with Street Fighter was not having anyone to play with, or at least someone of your equal skill. My father actually said he had a hard time believing that fighting games made their way to live play, because the quick button pressing would require a lot of bandwidth and speed (I’m glad technology is at the point they can support that). Having people to play with in this highly competitive game gave the option for World Wide ladders and playing with friends across the world. This was needed and fortunate for Capcom to step up and deliver it.

One thing that I have been fortunate to find out about was the underground scene surrounding Street Fighter. Like I knew about the comic and the art, but I didn’t know until recently there is such an popularity for competitive fighting games. People who are really good at this game can make money playing. There are clothing lines for Street Fighter and competitions in Las Vegas. I got to meet some people and play with them, all good people. Fans of Street Fighter thick & thin and they definitely appreciate that Street Fighter is going strong.

So what can we expect for Super Street Fighter 4? – A lot of disappointed followers.
When a Sequel was announced to Street Fighter 4 one of the first outcries were “why are they making another game instead of just making downloadable content”. Capcom is notorious of pumping out content for us to purchase and now they are making us buy a new game. Well, even I asked why? Turns out there is so much coming out and even the core of Street Fighter 4 is being re-balanced that it couldn’t be released in just DLC. Street Fighter 4 was out in arcades and in 6 month it was being ported out to consoles to keep up with its popularity. Super Street Fighter 4 has been in development since, balancing the characters and perfecting the faults. 9 new characters have been announced, and like the tradition of Street Fighter they are bring back old ones to keep their fans. They are even bringing some of the characters from Street Fighter 3 which I am very excited to see.

Actually right now you can see many trailers for Super Street Fighter 4. This is another awesome feature of the 3D engine of Street Fighter 4. Because everything is 3D they can pump out videos like nothing else, this is something that took tons of tedious work to keep up with all the drawing. Now we are gonna see Street Fighter like we’ve never seen before. I am excited for Super Street Fighter 4, it is gonna be Awesome.

Last Wednesday, Feb 10th, Devil’s Playground had a Dante’s Inferno release party at the Dragonfly Nightclub in LA. For this occasion Devil’s Playground hosted a burlesque show that brought comical light to the nine rings of hell and seven deadly sins. The event was quite a success and spread word of EA newest game release.

For those who haven’t been or don’t know what a Burlesque Show, it is a comical over-exaggerated theatrical show usually involving a strip tease by attractive girls. Devil’s Playground has been known for hosting video-gamed themed burlesque shows and in the past hosting a Star Wars themed show and Zelda and Princess Peach themed shows. Their shows add more culture and twists to the already existing video-game culture and the fantasy people may have about their video-game heroines. There is nothing wrong with divulging in a bit of sexual fantasy, a lot of our video games are already appealing to this (like Bayonetta and Dead Or Alive).

On February 10th the Devil’s Playground hosted a Burlesque show in LA to celebrate the launch of Dante’s Inferno. The show involved girls comically demonstrating the seven deadly sins. During the show guest were also given an opportunity to play Dante’s Inferno on 50″ Plasma Screens. Door prizes were given out which even included comic books and a copy of Dante’s Inferno – a pretty good price for the evening at $12 cover for the night.

Gamer Girl had coverage for this event, and attached is a link to their article which includes a video interview. Dante’s Inferno Launch Party

The works done by Devil’s Playground by hosting this video-game burlesque launch party for Dante’s Inferno shows that there is growing culture surrounding video-games. Both burlesque culture and video-game culture are a minority in our society, but there are the few people who enjoy both and enjoy being appreciated. Hopefully we’ll see more bars and clubs appreciating video-game release as media grows the gaming culture will grow with it.

There is no place on a resume for XBox Achievements

When I was a child I played far too much videogames. I was playing Populas on my computer when all my friends were running around playing with sticks (I was a young kid at the time). It was a great escape since I moved to a neighborhood which I didn’t get along with most of those kids. I had a Commodore 64 when I was born, a Nintendo, an Atari, I actually was the first person I knew to ever own a Super-Nintendo. I loved my Super Nintendo and had more games than anyone else, with more adventures than I can remember.

I remember there being a summer break from school that I didn’t leave my house and I played Might and Magic 3 the entire summer. The entire summer when kids where camping and playing outsides I sat in a dimly lit room leveling up characters. When I grew up I became more and more distant from gaming. I found gaming itself being something that was a waste of time that you’d work towards achievements that didn’t mean anything. I wished I could go back and enjoy those summer days instead of playing through the same old story again and again.

By my early teens I was very anti-videogames. I didn’t spend any time playing and if anyone talked about them I would rebuttal how they were a waste of time (never giving them a chance). Last year I had a roommate who kept offering to introduce me to multiplayer games and wanted to play LAN games of Starcraft – I would always refuse. Until one point my brother came back from Seattle with and I threw him a video-game party (he was really into video games and I was really into parties). I played Castle Crashers and experienced something I didn’t experience in a long time, comradery from playing a game together.

I started to notice that games could be used for something more, to build friendships. I felt that every time you play a game with someone you go on an adventure with someone. You also start to build a friendship on something you have in common, the love for the game.

Campus Gamers has been a difficult venture because I am now promoting something I hated earlier in my life. I realize that campus gaming life is something that can make people who have difficulty socializing find new friends. With our events we are socializing gamers and help building the community. From ground up Campus Gamers is trying to make friends, and it is good to see that video games can do that.

It’s good to see gamers giving back, and on Feb 10th 2010 UW Gamers had a fundraising event for Haiti. UW Gamers are University of Waterloo’s Video-Gaming club. They’ve existed for 5 years, and this year they did a charity fundraising event in co-ordination with the University of Waterloo Turnkey Desk.

The event was a large success with a number of gamer coming out to play. There was free play for the day, along with a Tetris contest. The theme with the Tetris tournament was the rebuilding blocks helped rebuild the tattered society of Haiti.

Recently Haiti has suffered from one of the world’s largest earthquakes. Organizations all over the world are coming together to support the country with its efforts to rebuild. Many people are without home and medical attention in this devastated country. Yesterday UW Gamers did their part by hosting the tournament and collecting whatever they can for the cause. The money collected will be donated to doctors without borders.

After the fundraiser event the UW Gamers executives then hosted their second Game On event for the semester. This event encouraged club members to bring in console and encourage causal by standers to join in and play with them. This event also went well with well over 7 different TV. stations setup. Casual students entered the Great Hall of the Student Life Center and had a chance to play. Many different games were setup from racing, to fighting and even puzzle games. Campus Gamers was even able to setup a rail-shooters stage with House of the Dead: Overkill which was receipted well.

UW Gamers does plan to have a number of events in the future, including a Street Fighter Tournament and a LAN Party. Hope that all goes well and Campus Gamers likely be at the next one too.

More information about UW Gamers you can visit their website [click here]

Girls in video games represent 40% of the gaming population according to statistics form the Electronic Software Association. It definitely doesn’t feel like this with video games seeming like a male dominated environment. But the most masculine gaming genre, the First Person Shooter (FPS) have always been invaded by very aggressive females.

Since the late 90’s female gaming guilds have dominated servers and have intimidated boys. Back in 1999 female guilds like Clan PMS, Women of War, Babes With Attitude, and Rail Girlz were making boys uncomfortable in Quake 2. In a largely testosterone based environment female gamers stick together to combat male gamers. The idea that females don’t game, and that agressive games are for boy is definetly a lie. To read more about late 90’s in Women With Weapons.

Recently a friend showed me an article by Regretful Morning which had a very descriptive photo of the life of a Female Gamer in FPS. Females in this environment are extremely aggressive to keep up with their male counter-part. Offensive slurs and quick remarks go hand in hand with the quick play style of FPS. Female gamers have to be sharp in the game and with their tongue if they want to keep up in this highly male dominate environment. Even the maturity of the average female gamer does a number on gamer guys as they let the insults roll of them. Ultimately it a matter to skill that is displayed in game, if a girl can kick ass it doesn’t matter if she’s a girl.

The popular web show, The Guild, even pointed out the popularity of females playing FPS when the introduced the character Riley. To the right is a picture of The Guild’s main character Codex and Riley playing a FPS, and Codex not handling it well. Riley’s character is an over aggressive spunky girl who loves to shoot things inside and outside of game. This show typifies gaming stereotypes and they well express a FPS girl who love’s to hurt things and is incredibly hot.

FPS will always have girls playing them, and more aggressive girls – and boys who play FPS will appreciate them. There is something Hot about a girl wielding a gun and fragging some zombies, and even thou they may be very intimidated were glad their out there.

Cute picture I found from TheChive.com of children dressing up in cosplay outfits of Yuna and Tidus.  It’s kinda wrong to dress your kids up in cosplay outfits, but the passion for the game exists.

In the near future Campus Gamers hopes to host a gaming/geek fashion show, and hopefully with it we’ll see much more cosplay and gaming culutre shown off.  At this time we’ll just let these kids enjoy their moment.