Thursday, May 28, 2009

Poongko is coming to town


(Korean champion Poongko, center, with SF4 lead producer Yoshinori Ono)

That's right folks, Poongko is confirmed as the first of our 3 special guests for the K.O. finals and the 3-nation exhibition match! Poongko is the Korea national champion and represented Korea in the famous 4-man world tournament in San Francisco a while back against Daigo Umehara, Iyo and Justin Wong. Although he wound up losing, he definitely put on a good show and gave those SF4 superstars a good run for their money. Also, it was reported that he cleaned up shop against the rest of the US including the likes of Gootecks. Poongko's PSN nick is efzzang and he was the top ranked player in terms of BP for at least a month when SF4 was released on console.

Recently, Laugh (Korean 3rd place) also came to Singapore and gave most of us a taste of how good Korean play is, so I'm excited to be able to play Poongko. (Again for me. I played him in Korea and it was apparent back then that he was levels above me, at least. I do hope it's different this time around tho!)

In case some of you didn't catch the World Tournament feat. Poongko, here are the videos.

Remember, by signing up for Represent!!(Yo) for this Saturday, you get a free pass to play best of 5 against.Poongko on the 3rd of July at Virtualand Bugis. Poongko plays every character in SF4 VERY well, (here is proof) so I'm sure if you want to see how a certain character can be played to a high level, you can request it on the night.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

I am extremely proud to announce: Represent!!(Yo) and K.O., presented by the all new www.round1.sg and TKA!


(click on the image for the full size)

Presented by me and the all new (and still under construction)...



That's right Singapore SF4 playaz, this is your chance to make your country proud! Our contacts over in Korea and Japan will be holding qualifying tournaments to determine who will represent their country here in Singapore for K.O., and so we embark on a quest to find THE best player in Singapore to represent us as well in a 3-way exhibition rumble going down on the same day! Here's what's up for grabs on the night.

1st place:
Will represent Singapore on July 4 against the best from Japan and Korea. Will also receive automatic qualification to the K.O. finals on the same day.

2nd and 3rd place:
Limited edition SF4 premiums + priority seeding for K.O. qualifiers.

What's more, ALL participants will be given a ticket to play a best of 5 game against one of our guests from Korea and Japan!!!

This is our first tournament in which the entree fees will proceed to Round1.sg to help cover the costs of bringing the foreigners into Singapore. On top of that, we are also looking to offset the costs we've incurred running tournaments and the website so far, and therefore your support for this event will be much appreciated as this will help us bring more to the table with regards to the Street Fighter 4 scene in Singapore. A big 'Thank You!' in advance to all participants. So what are you waiting for? Click here for tournament rules and to register now!

Round1.sg is a project that me and some friends have been working on for the past few months. The main site will eventually launch on the same day as Represent! that will feature links to community blogs and websites of all the major fighting game franchises, including Tekken 6:BR, Blazblue, Arcana Heart 2 and many more! You are welcome to join and post on the forums that have been functional for a while now, but please note that even the forums are in beta-stage right now and we will be continuing our maintenance (content-wise) and upkeep as we gather up speed towards the official launch.


(click on the poster for details)

K.O. is organized by TKA Virtualand and will be the BIGGEST and most prestigious Street Fighter 4 tournament of the year, with our Korean and Japanese guests also participating during the finals. Do support TKA's efforts to bring SF4 in Singapore to another level and register for the BUGIS qualifier now. I'm encouraging everyone to sign up for the Bugis qualifier (6th June) first in order to generate hype that hopefully will encourage more people to join at the other venues. Don't worry about not getting a spot at a later qualifier should you not get top 3 at Bugis though. The higher the placing you have at Bugis, the more priority TKA will give you in terms of seeding and registration for the other qualifiers. Therefore, signing up for for the qualifiers in chronological (time) order as they happen will offer you the best chance of getting a spot amongst the top 16 @ the K.O. finals.

Remember, if response for this is good, this will allow TKA to host bigger things in the future and will also help to generate interest in the game. Now is the time to stand up and be counted! Potential things on the horizon are SBO/Evolution spots for Singaporeans so let's all work towards that. These qualifiers and Represent!!(Yo)leading up to the K.O. finals will be the biggest SF4 events of the year, so miss these and you'll have to wait next year for events of these scales to happen again.

Anyways, I'll be hosting Represent!, the K.O. qualifiers AND the events at TGX, so see ya'all there. =D

- Special thanks to Tetra and Cody for their help on the Japan side; and to Ryan "Laugh" Ahn for the Korean side! Major credit to Farp "Shen Yu" for his on-going work on the Round1 website!

Thursday, May 14, 2009

News: Zangief can lariat into ultra!

This was too good to not share. =) Saw this on the www.shoryuken.com forums, posted by PasteyMF.

Oh and here's a reminder to everyone that there's no tourney today because we're getting ready for the big one at the end of the month. Details to follow...

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

What's with the lack of updates?!



Wah lau eh! Is what some of you may be thinking of right now with regards to this blog... What's with the lack of updates on this site?! Why hasn't he even uploaded the RESULTS of his own tournament at Plaza Singapura when other websites like Gamesync [our friends <3] have?! Not to mention videos of the tournament. Heck, you've probably heard of the upcoming K.O. tournament from someone else before I'm posting details here...

Well folks, me and my team has been working on some super-duper secret awesome project the past few days that I'm sure will please all Street Fighter 4 fans, so apologies for the lack of updates. Look out for a BIG announcement that you won't expect in the next few days! In the meantime I guess I'll leave you guys with this video of me and Aheda on Singapore's very own Gameaxis GAX Point show where we debate the merits of getting an arcade stick! Thanks to the host and editor, Jonathan Leo, for having us! Do check out his site for regional gaming news and updates.