Battle for your Country in the Battle of the Year!
The weekend of Saturday 25th
and Sunday 26th July saw Street Fighter IV
make its public debut at Neo Empire’s highly anticipated
“Battle of Destiny” tournament
in North London.
Over two days, more than 500 players turned up to get their
mits on the long awaited update to Capcom’s premier
fighting game series, as well as getting up close and personal
with a development build of the forthcoming Xbox Live and
Playstation Network downloadable title, Super Street Fighter
2 Turbo: HD Remix.
Upon arrival at the event, fans were treated to the sumptuous
site of 6 Taito Type X-2 Vewlix cabinets running the finished
version of the arcade version of Street Fighter IV, fighting
fresh from Japan. All eyes were transfixed as lucha libre
El Fuerte, French MMA expert Abel, the super-cool Crimson
Viper and the larger-than-life Rufus made their debut amongst
established favourites such as Ryu, Ken, Zangief and Guile
in Capcom’s newest tour de force of gameplay and visuals.
Competition was fierce as gamers fought for glory and bragging
rights as the new “Focus Attack” gameplay system
was explored and uncovered. Scores of players were blown away
by stunning visuals, incredible sound and a gameplay experience
that had players queuing up to play again and again and again.
In the midst of hundreds of the most skilled and experienced
players from around Europe who have been playing fighting
games for over 10 years, the question on everyone’s
lips was “Can Street Fighter IV live up to the hype?”
The answer, an emphatic “YES.
Downstairs, players got to grips with eight setups of Super
Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix on 8 swish settees in a chilled
out environment. The latest build featured the return of T.Hawk,
Dee Jay and Akuma as well as crisp hand-drawn sprites drawn
by those talented chaps at Udon. With setups for pad and stick
players, HD Remix saw plenty of action and many were highly
impressed and keen for the finished version to be released
so they could take their Street Fighting skills online. With
online rankings and multiple gameplay modes, this is sure
to be an epic battleground for Street Fighters everywhere
to cpmpete on.
But the debut of SF IV and a showcase of HD Remix were not
the only things going down at Battle of Destiny.
Justin ' Marvelous ' Wong VS Sinity
Exhibition Play Off!
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All the way from USA, Justin “Marvelous”
Wong made his first appearance at a European tournament as
players challenged him to exhibition matches all weekend.
A multiple Evolution champion and winner of tournaments in
multiple Street Fighter games, this was a once in a lifetime
opportunity for European players to get their chance to take
on one of the very best Street Fighter players in the world
today.
And although Justin humbled many a player, one of the UK’s
most famous and talented fighting game players, Ryan Hart
defied the odds with an exquisite display of skill!
Prodigal Son [ Ryan Hart ] VS
Justin ' Marvelous ' Wong Exhibition
Play Off!
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And lets not forget the reason why most
players put sweltering summer plans aside for some old fashioned
Street Fighting antics, the chance to pit themselves against
the best players in Europe and to win the chance to play at
Evolution, USA.
Battle of Destiny saw the crème de la crème
of players from around Europe travel down to duke it out for
four slots to represent Europe at this year’s Evolution
tournament in Las Vegas. Over 300 players signed up to take
part in tournaments for Capcom classics such as “Hyper
Street Fighter 2,” “Capcom vs SNK 2” and
“Street Fighter 3: Third Strike.”
Competition was fierce as some spellbinding Street Fighter
skills from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Greece
were put on display as the toughest fighters endured to secure
their plane ticket.
All in all hundreds of SF fans were treated to an incredible
day out. The opportunity to play people from around Europe,
the opportunity to play SF IV for free, the opportunity to
play HD Remix and an excuse for some old-school Street Fighting
fun proved that the magic of Street Fighter doesn’t
just live on, it’s back and better than ever.
For more coverage of the event, why not check out Inside Xbox’s
coverage of the event below!
Written by The Golden Gunman
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Tournament
new comer
Sam Smith 'Crunch King ' gives his personal
perspective on Battle of Destiny
Click
here to read more! |
An official
apology to Aenica from Neo Empire
Dear Aenica and all Greek players,
On behalf of Neo Empire, I would like to apologise
to you for the handling of the last CvS2 qualification spot
for Evolution given away at Battle of Destiny. On the final
day, we received mixed messaged from the building owners where
Battle of Destiny was held. At one point they informed us
that we had to get out as soon as possible because there was
no way we could over-run. As a result we cancelled both CvS2
and 3S 3rd/4th place playoffs. However, later in the evening,
we were told that we could overrun after all. This was the
reason why we had the exhibition matches with Justin Wong
at the end of the event, and why we did not have time for
3rd / 4th place play-offs.
After Yamazaki and ADM both declined to travel to Las Vegas
for Evo, we were in a tough situation. We wanted to send a
representative, but we did not have a clear qualifier because
both Desk and you were tied for 3rd place. In the end we opted
for Desk because we needed to book tickets as fast as possible
and it was far easier to organise trips for everyone from
London rather than buying a separate ticket from Greece to
Las Vegas.
In retrospect, we should have contacted Aenica and informed
you why we decided to send Desk, and for this I apologise.
To further this apology Neo Empire intends to pay for Aenica's
travel for our Super Versus Battle "World" event
early in 2009. We really enjoyed the Greek players being at
BOD and SVB over the two years and hope to see more of you
at our future events.
Kindest Regards,
Marc - Sho Dragon - Denton
Battle of Destiny Tournament Co-ordinator
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BOD Results!!
Legendary French Fighter Professor Jones
kindly donated his flight to Evo Las Vegas to 2nd
place contender R3ko, as he could'nt
goto the US at the time. Top sportsmanship!
Winning character: M.
Bison |
The
Polish Double Team, brothers Devil
and Matt were unable to travel
to Evo this year. Prodigal Son
was awarded the flight to Vegas.
Winning character:
Craig Murdock |
French
Superstar Yamazak 93 was also unable to
go to Vegas this year. ADM was unable to travel,
due to time restrictions the 3rd place match wasnt
played. Neo Empire awarded Desk
the flight to Evo.
Winning Team: K Groove
- Ken / Geese / Sagat |
British Power House Zak claimed the last
flight as he impressed the crowd with his skill and
talent! Again the 3rd place match wasnt played resulting
in CIV and Cyrox sharing third place.
Winning character: Oro
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Check out Game
Zone's event coverage
Check out Ready-Up’s
coverage of the event
The Road
to Evo 2008 - Las Vegas
R3ko,
Desk, Prodigal Son, Zak
accompanied by Harmonaz, Pedram
and the Dragon Twins, made their way statesides
to pit themselves against the Evolution contenders! Situated
in the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, The Tropicana
Hotel was the venue for the electricfying three day event.
Players from all over America, Japan, and the rest of the
world battled through the first two days to the action packed
finals, on Sunday 10 Aug.
The UK Euro Team entered serveral
games, fighting through the pools of hundreds of players
but only one was victorious. Prodigal Son made
it to the finals of Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection
and Street Fighter III 3rd Strike.
Unfortunately Prodigal Son was
knocked out of the 3S finals but did UK
and Europe proud by winning the Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection
tournament, after a very surprising final showdown. It was
thought a spectator with a PS3 pad paused the game on the
thrilling last round of the final!! Prodigal Son
had the choice to be crowned the champ, due to having more
health than his opponent Gandido, or to
replay the whole match. It was discovered that Gandido
actually paused the game himself!!! P-Son
decided to replay the game and defeated Gandido
with Kazuya Mishima with an Electric
God Fist of flare and power!! Huge congratulations to
Prodigal Son!!!
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For
full info and results on EVO 08 click here <<
Capcom USA decided
Evo 2008 would be the perfect backdrop
to showcase
Street Fighter IV, SSF2T: HD Remix and Tatsunoko vs Capcom
to the American public.
Both SFIV and TvC
received an enormous amount of attention while the
single Xbox 360 setup of HD Remix didn't attract
the same levels of interest as it did at BOD.
Justin Wong immediately got to grips with
the ' Rival Schools meets MvC2 ' game engine,
performing deadly arial raves, chain combos and super cancels
against helpless opponents including NE's Dragon twins!
Sho Dragon has this to say about the game:
“TvC is another triumph by Capcom. It has
familiar aspects of both MVC2 and Rival Schools, but with
a new 4 button layout (weak attack, medium attack, fierce
attack and tag/assist button) and incredible cell-shaded
3D graphics it has very fresh and unique feel. It would
be a great shame if this game doesn't get a release outside
of Japan, maybe Capcom will tweak the character roster to
allow for a worldwide release. MvC2 fans will love this
game!”
Shin Dragon Vs Justin
Wong @ Evo 2008
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Seth Killian also
hosted knockout tournaments for both Street Fighter
IV and TvC.
Shin Dragon was invited to enter the SFIV
invitational. Picking Ken he showcased
various tricks with the focus attack, but
was knocked out by top Japanese player
Nuki with a very lethal Ryu!
Team Neo Empire warned the Americans & Japanese that
SVB World is coming in 2009 and the Europeans are waiting
for them!!
Battle of Destiny 2008 - A Neo
Empire Production |
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