Crowds of gamers stood outside the Rio's ballroom in Las Vegas, Nevada. The gamers came in all varieties. Some of them were casual gamers, dressed up as characters like Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike's Dudley, while others were hardcore gamers here on business, carrying their most prized, trusted controller and hoping to place, or even win, the biggest fighting game tournament in America. They were all here for Evolution 2009, or EVO.

 

Right at 9:00AM, the doors opened and gamers rushed into the Rio ballroom, where stations of TVs were ready for tournament play, loaded up with copies of Street Fighter IV (SFIV), Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, and Super Smash Brothers Brawl (SSBB). Players with tournaments at this time were told to report to their stations to prevent delays, while others lined up in the center of the room to get their EVO badges and shirts. The line reached the door in a matter of seconds; by early afternoon, EVO was already out of badges and t-shirts, leaving many attendants without either. With so many attendants walking around badge-less, although not shirtless, it felt like the EVO staff did not prepare thoroughly. It's puzzling why they can be short on either badges or shirts by such a large margin, considering that they knew how many people registered, which meant they also knew how many badges or t-shirts to produce.

 

Aside from the stations laid out along the walls, there was also a stage with its own station set up for play. The most notable players played here throughout the weekend. If any players were here, either one or both of them were important, skilled players. Right above that station was a screen, broadcasting that station's game to the entire room and the live stream online. The stage was either players' time to shine and show everybody their skills or a chance to get humiliated in front of the tens of thousands of viewers online. For established players like Mike Ross, one of the top 16 finalist for the National Gamestop SFIV tournament, this was familiar territory. “Well, there is no pressure to me for playing in front of thousands [of people],” Ross said, reflecting on the experience on stage, “And I think this is the only direction Street Fighter IV should head – playing on stage in front of huge crowds, while people at home can watch it online. The experience is truly amazing.”

 

Three major companies were present to either show off their game or cooperate with EVO: AkSys Games, Bandai Namco, and Capcom. AkSys Games had a booth with huge BlazBlue backdrops and surrounding tables with four TVs to host the official EVO BlazBlue singles and teams tournaments. They were also selling their newest t-shirt, one with BlazBlue character Hakumen stomping on Ragna with the words “6B” in bold, large font behind them, for $15, which was $5 cheaper than buying it from their websites.

 

Bandai Namco's booth had several HDTVs, all playing Tekken 6 on console. While the build was the same as the one presented at E3, this gave EVO attendees a chance to try out the game in case they had not attended E3. Considering that EVO was free to attend, this gave considerably more people a chance to try the game before its console release in October. The Bandai Namco staff also ran an exhibition tournament, allowing arcade players to show off their skills several months before the game is out on console, and handed out posters for Tekken 6.

 

Capcom's booth had several attractions. The most notable was the most update version of Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars (TvC). Recently shown at Anime Expo 2009, there were several stations Capcom had set up so that players can try this new game as well. In addition to that, the first ever public build of Marvel vs Capcom 2 (MvC2) for the PS3 and Xbox 360 was present, allowing players to preview the game and foresee any bugs or inaccuracies there may have been. During the event, players found slowdown where there should not have been, amongst other gameplay inaccuracies. These and more errors will hopefully be patched when the game becomes available. Of course, Capcom's booth wasn't without its own side event. For TvC, they had a competition challenging players to do a single combo with the most points of damage within three minutes! On the other hand, for MvC2, the competition challenged players to the largest combo possible within three minutes as well. The prizes for these competitions weren't cash, unlike EVO's own tournaments, but collectibles like DVDs and comic books.

 

SFIV is immensely popular and definitely pushed EVO's numbers beyond anything the organizers had ever seen before. Boasting 1040 entrants, the SFIV tournament had three times as many entrants as games like Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (STHD), which had the second most entrants. With so many entrants, EVO had also attracted a new market of players, whether they be casual players who wanted to try going to a tournament or skilled players who want to gain some recognition out of the other 1039 entrants.

 

While walking through the Rio ballroom during EVO, one would have to notice Roger Fitzgerald (on the picture's first player side), who wheeled around the room, assisted by a group of people. A quadriplegic, Fitzgerald has to find alternate ways to play the game, rather than using his hands on a controller like other players. However, he manages and does so quite well, pulling off combos and strategies that many players wouldn't even attempt. “Well, I've been playing games for 30 years,” Fitzgerald said, “so I have ways around it.” To help Fitzgerald get started, his crew plugged an adapter into the Playstation 3 (PS3) that allows it to read Xbox 360 controllers, and then positioned the controller in front of Fitzgerald's face. From this position, he used his chin to maneuver the analog stick and his lip to press the controller's buttons. For many players, it was an honor to be in the presence of players like Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong,both of whom are renown players. At the same time, any players watching Fitzgerald play were humbled to be in the presence of such a dedicated player.

 

Eduardo “Vw Scrub” Perez of Puerto Rico made lots of noise throughout the weekend, mostly forcing people to ask “Who's Eduardo Perez?” On Saturday night during the semi-finals for SFIV, he knocked both Alex “CaliPower” Valle and Martin “Marn” Phan to loser's bracket in sound fashion. Anyone who had seen those matches could not question Perez's victories – they weren't by a stroke of luck or a random ultra, but by skilled zoning and footsies, both of which are important tools to Street Fighter. By Sunday night's Top 8 SFIV event, Perez was still in the winner's bracket, having never been defeated. At this point, he got taken down by Southern California's Ed Ma. Even in the loser's bracket, Perez continued to wow the crowd, showing off combos with E. Honda that many either had not seen before or simply could not perform. Although he lost to New York's Sanford Kelly right after being sent to the loser's bracket, Perez was definitely a standout amongst the SFIV competitors.

 

Before this year, the majority of EVO's attendees came from either North America or Japan, while one or two came from Europe. For the first time ever, a competitor from Hong Kong attended and placed in an EVO tournament. Ricky “Kit” Tam (on the picture's first player side) is ranked as the third best SFIV player in Hong Kong; confident in his abilities, he came to EVO to try and see how he'd do. “I want to prove that Hong Kong has a chance to be good at fighting games, too,” Tam said. Although unable to get the coveted top 8 spot that many competitors dream of, he did get an opportunity to face off against Umehara in the semifinals on Saturday night. During the intense set, Tam won the first game, forcing Umehara to have to win two in a row. In true Daigo fashion, he did so, but Tam still put up a good fight, taking Umehara to the last round of the set before losing. Overall, Tam was satisfied, being able to show the crowd and viewers at home that Hong Kong had the potential to take out many people at EVO including the famed Umehara.

 

This year, in addition to being marked by high attendance numbers, also included a large amount of side tournaments - tournaments not included in the main EVO lineup. While there have always been side tournaments in the past, EVO organizers showed an unprecedented amount of support this year. On Friday and Saturday, almost half of the Bring Your Own Console (BYOC) area was allotted to SSBB tournaments, ran by AllisBrawl.com. Instead of allowing items, this year's tournament used the rules the community was used to. Michael “mikeHaze” Pulido, a top Marth player from Southern California, came to this tournament, despite skipping out on last year's item-inclusive tournament. “AllisBrawl is running it with our rules,” Pulido said, when describing why he came back to EVO, “We just wanted a tournament run with the community's rules.”

 

 

As mentioned in the interview last year, every Sunday at EVO is Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar's holy grail. That is when all the best matches of the tournament happen, when the top eight survivors from the tournament face off against each other. If you were lucky enough to be there this year or to have seen the stream, you would have witnessed events such as Kelly's Cable defeating Wong in MvC2, despite losing the set of three out of five matches before, Wong's Balrog outplaying Umehara almost to the very last round in SFIV, or funny moments like Alex Sanchez's Sanchez walking up and booting Mark “Mopreme” Rogoyski's Ryu right at the beginning of the round in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. But aside from these match highlights, notable videos premiere or events happen at EVO every year.

 

This year's combo exhibition video came courtesy of sonichurricane's Majestros. Before showing the video, he told the crowd the hard work he put into the video: a full year's worth of planning, recording, and editing. Knowing Majestro's record with producing ground breaking combo videos, the crowd awaited the video anxiously. As each combo passed, the crowd gasped at every combo, at every gameplay intricacy that Majestros took advantage of. The combos didn't wow the crowd with its a seemingly unending barrage of hits, but with smart, interesting exploitations of the game mechanics. The editting was also superb, seamlessly transitioning from one combo to another. It's hard to describe this combo video's beauty in words – check it out for yourself at Majestro's website.

 

Last year, fans got a chance to see Bang the Machine, a documentary following the community and the first ever US vs Japan exhibition. This year, fans got a different treat – a video interview with the legendary Tomo Ohira. Ohira was an active player from the original Street Fighter II until Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers. During that time, he was rumored to have only lost in four tournaments and did amazing feats like declaring and beating another player using only the light kick button. The interview was conducted by Mike “Papa Watts” Watson and filmed by Ross. An old friend of Ohira, Watson was the perfect person to conduct this interview. “When I saw Tomo again after so many years, it actually made me feel like a kid again,” Watson reminisced, “It was also a great honor for him to say I was his main competition back in the day.” It dove into interesting questions like why he quit, what his most memorable loss was, and his interpretation of the fighting game scene at the time. Like Bang the Machine, this interview opened up the eyes of many gamers, giving them a glimpse of what the scene was like almost two decades ago. When describing the importance of this interview to new gamers at EVO, Watson said, “I am very happy to bring the legend of Tomo to reality for the current, younger community of Shoryuken.”

 

EVO also treated fans with another interview; one conducted by Victor “dogface” Ratliff with Tony and Tom Cannon, two of the main organizers for EVO. Ratliff, known for The Dogface Show that combines both humor and thought provoking questions, said “I was lucky because I was able to tap into the crackling energy of the room. All us 'fighting gamers' are on the same wavelength, and speak the same language.” Questions ranged from, “What's the difference between Evolution and Super Battle Opera?” to “Would you rather your daughter date Justin Wong or Justin Long?” The difference between posting the videos online and doing the interview live was wild, Ratliff said. “Imagine, there were at least 1200 people there. So when they all laughed, it was a high. And when a joke fell flat,” Ratliff continued, “well, I'll just call that a learning experience.”

 

At the end, Ratliff asked the Cannons to go on stage, each standing on one side. “We're not going to make you two play against each other – that's just tasteless,” Ratliff said to the twin bothers. Instead, Ratliff presented them with the first ever Cannon award, in recognition of their contributions to competitive fighting games, through organizing tournaments like EVO, running Shoryuken, and creating the amazing GGPO netcode that runs games like BlazBlue and STHD. The entire room gave a standing ovation that lasted for several minutes. Considering how important EVO, Shoryuken, and GGPO netcode was to the community's growth, there could hardly be a more worthy recipient of the Cannon award. The name doesn't hurt, either.

 

Ratliff closed up his thoughts on the live Dogface Show by stating, “I would love to do more live stuff and hope to in the future.”

 

 

Another problem, also brought about by PS3's, was the constant “You did not receive a trophy” glitch. Although EVO staff have not confirmed the reason for this glitch, this message appeared whenever players met the conditions to receive a trophy. Because the systems don't receive trophies, the message continues to come up whenever those same conditions, such as doing a certain amount of specials or ultras, are met. While the text box itself was not a problem, the lag it caused was a problem. Being the largest fighting game tournament in America and having spent research into buying the lagless ASUS monitors, EVO seems to have fallen short of their lagless competition expectation due to this glitch. It created losses where there should have been wins, hits where there should have been blocks, and other mistakes that may have cost many players at key moments.

 

On stage, the players were separated quite far from the PS3, causing the controller cable to dangle. On several instances during the semi finals on Saturday, players' controllers disconnected. The most notable instance was during John Choi and Ma's match, where Choi had to forfeit a round because his controller had disconnected, causing a pause and disruption during gameplay. It effectively took away Choi's chances to win, because Ma won the round after. At this point, nobody would have known the consequences of that match had Choi's controller not disconnected. The problem didn't occur during Top 8 Sunday, thankfully. This problem could easily be solved by placing players closer to the game system, so it should not be as big of a concern as either of the first two.

 

While not new to the fighting game community, delays were a big problem at EVO. On Sunday, although EVO was scheduled to begin at 9:00AM with Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, competitors and spectators alike were waiting outside. After about ten minutes, an EVO representative came out and put up a sign saying that EVO would begin at 9:30AM. The doors, however, did not open until a little after 10:00AM. Starting at 10:00AM is not a problem; starting an hour late from the designated time is a problem. Technical difficulties continued and several more delays happened throughout the day. Understandably, this was out of EVO staff's control at times, but delays did make the event's energy die down.

 

With that, dreams were shattered for some, long awaited victories finally came, and the first true SFIV champion was crowned. Overall, the event was a success – crowds both present and and at home were able to witness some of the best matches from some of the best competitors around the country and world. The support shown from game companies towards EVO and vice versa is one that we hope to continue seeing, as it enriched the event with more games and variety. While there were some kinks that needed to be worked out, hopefully there will be an EVO2010 that will fix them.