Bang The Machine

riiv writes "I saw the premiere of Bang The Machine tonight at SXSW 2002. The film is a documentary of the Street Fighter tournament scene. There's another screening March 15 so if you are near the Austin area, it is your moral obligation to watch it. I asked director Tamara Katepoo if they had a distributor lined up, unfortunely they don't. If you're looking for a film to distribute please get in touch with the film creators. The movie rocked and validated my wasted life ever since the purchase of Street Fighter 2 Japanese for SNES."

Comments

Video Game to Film

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't there a high failure rate for video games making the transition to the big screen? I think this one will be just like all the rest--a failure. Final Fantasy sucked and it bombed and so will Resident Evil. I'm filled with the disgust of these greedy bastards making money on anything they can. They deserve to fail.

Can'tt beat the original

[colmore]

And by original I mean Street Fighter II (the first one never really took off)

SF2 put fighting games on the map. It was a huge step toward the dominance of video games in youth culture. Whether or not this is a good thing, you can decide.

For like 3 years SF2 dominated the arcade and home console scene like nothing since PacMan. Only Halflife compares in recent times, though the PC market is much smaller than the console and arcade markets.

I don't want to think of how much money I put into that franchise during my middle school years. I was best with Ken personally, though I thought Blanka was the most fun to play. Some of the "sequels" were cool, Turbo, Special, and Super all added something. The later editions of the series, Alpha, III etc. never really did it for me.

And who remembers the huge debate over which was better, SF2 or Mortal Kombat. Where I was from the be-mulleted redneck teens were all into MK and everyone else was big on SF2. If you go back, I think it's fair to say that Street Fighter II had the better gameplay (at least compared to the first Kombat, MK2 was much better) though MK did a better job of getting itself in the news (for obvious reasons.)

Ah... memories.

3d fighters just don't do it for me, and now SNK is gone, and Capcom has been getting diminishing returns off of newer 2d fighters like capcom vs. marvel. I think we've finally reached the end of an era... oh well.

Re:Can'tt beat the original

[infiniti99]

And who remembers the huge debate over which was better, SF2 or Mortal Kombat.

SF2 was definitely a better game in my opinion. The characters felt stiff in MK, and they all played the same (and I won't even go into the number of palette-swapped Sub-Zeros). Here's a strange fact: I can remember that there was a developer called "Ed Boon" that worked on MK, but I can't name a single developer of SF. Why can I remember Ed Boon? Midway always had a thing about putting their developers in their games somehow (remember "toasty" ?). Note to future game developers: if you want to make yourself famous, put a character in the game whose name is yours spelled backwards. Then ensure that gaming mags make a point of it. You will be remembered for all time, no matter how bad your game is.

Capcom has been getting diminishing returns off of newer 2d fighters like capcom vs. marvel. I think we've finally reached the end of an era.

Marvel vs. Capcom was pretty good. Each "Vs" game, as they are called, has been progressively better than the last (Not counting Capcom Vs. SNK series though, which has a completely different play style). Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is insane. No other game can top 56 characters, with each player choosing 3, and I think even Capcom would have a hard time topping itself here and remaining playable. Let's see how long the CvS series lasts.

Re:Can'tt beat the original

[Anonymous Coward]

Ed Boon graduated from my school (University of Illinois)! I remember he came back and talked to our intro to CS class back when I was a freshman 4 years ago. It seems Mortal Kombat was originally an underground project at Midway. He and his co-conspirators dressed their friends up in cheap costumes from a party store and photographed them to make the characters in the game. Then he showed us pictures of the costumes from "Mortal Kombat on Ice" (sounds really stupid), and unbelievably, they were worse than the original cheap junk!

Sunnyvale Golfland

[Tofuhead]

Let me tell you, the best SF2 players in the world are at a whole other level than normal human beings.

I hate the terminology, but all the players I've ever played outside of Sunnyvale Golfland are scrubs compared to those that I've played there. Good Lord. I don't know if John Choi (one of the best pro SF2 players in the U.S.) still plays there, but by God, he and those that were at his level were a sight to see. I entered a few tourneys alongside folks like them back when I went to school in the valley, and I never did better then the third round. John once handed my ass to me on a plate, double perfect rounds, then shook my hand and walked off. I didn't feel too ripped off though...we were playing SF Alpha (1), and he was taking advantage of Guy's endless redizzy combo.

I highly recommend this place to bay area locals, whether you want to play or watch, you're bound to see some of America's best playing there on almost any given night. Reeks of tobacco too, just like all good SF2 arenas.

< tofuhead >

Re:Sunnyvale Golfland

[hiryuu]

Let me tell you, the best SF2 players in the world are at a whole other level than normal human beings.

Gawd, ain't that the truth. I made it through college (in central Indiana) thinking pretty highly of my SF2 skills, until I moved to New Jersey after graduation. I looked around for a decent arcade with Capcom machines, and on some advice from Usenet, managed to find 8 on the Break ten minutes from my place. (Much to my surprise, I found out it was one of the sites for the East Coast SF tourney.) For about a year I tried to keep up with the gods who frequented that place - most of whom fit the gangsta description mentioned elsewhere in the posts - and then I just gave up. Too many times losing in a handful of seconds - ouch.