Chief Gutti's Corner

Our bunny mascot's kidnapped...

2007-01-20T17:30:00.000+01:00

Whoever you are out there, you won't go unpunished. We'll find you.

Project Blue Eyes - 任務開始

2006-08-15T19:41:00.000+02:00

俺=２５％
+
彼女=１００％
=
成功する確率=５０％

完成度=５０％

The Miso Shiru Digest

2006-08-10T22:07:00.000+02:00

While studying Japanese business related subjects at Kansai Gaidai in Osaka last year, I was in the same class as another dedicated student of the Japanese language. Chris, as he is called, was without doubt our top student, and clearly showed this during our regular presentations and home assignments. The goal of the Japanese language class was to prepare us for the 1 Kyuu Japanese Language Proficiency Test. This is the most advanced Japanese language exam for foreign students. And, to call oneself fully fluent, passing Level 1 Kyuu should be on every student's priority list.

Chris has as of present returned back home to London, and is currently on the job hunt. However, he has not stopped his motivation for preparing for the 1 Kyuu exam.

Due to he lack of Internet pages devoted to Intermediate to Advanced Japanese language courses, Chris has put down time to create his very own blog on the subject. This will hopefully help others who are in the same situation as us, thriving to pass our current number one goal.

The Miso Shiru Digest, as the blog is called, is written in Japanese. You will need to install Japanese font to view the text. Each day, Chris will include a new set of vocabulary to learn, as well as a high-level reading comprehension.

If you think you will benefit from this page, please take a look at it by copying and pasting the following link:

http://misoshirudigest.blogspot.com/#

Versus 2006 - Stockholm, Sweden

2006-08-10T03:50:00.000+02:00

Hi, everyone!

Just got back from Stockholm, attending yet another big fighting game gathering! Did any of you have time to read my posts from back in April? Well, if you look through the archives of April, then you can see a little report I wrote from Rautanyrrki, the first real Nordic championships in fighting games, held in Helsinki, Finland. Our Finnish friends at Arctic Charge did such a great job at hosting and organizing, immediately giving all the foreign visitors motivation to hopefully host something similar in the future. As expected, it did not take long before Sweden was ready to announce its own concept, “Versus”.

Versus 2006 went underway on the weekend of 5th till 6th of August 2006, and thanks to a wide variety of sponsors, Versus 2006 was located at Dragons Lair, a club activity house. At Dragons Lair, people could enjoy a Net Café, card games such as Magic, Pokemon and Digimon cards, an area for console and arcade gaming, as well as an own room for Warhammer figures and such.

Visit the homepage at: http://www.vs2k.se/

Diary from Versus 2006
After having such an excellent time in Finland, we were looking very much forward to yet another similar event. The Swedes had already begun discussing the possibility of hosting such a gathering during our time together at Rautanyrrki, and through the use of MSN Messenger, we were quickly informed of the work in process. In the beginning, it was only certain that Wallace, Robbie3s and I were ready to attend, but as time passed by, we managed to persuade fellow Norwegian fighting gamers Netrom, Raider, JINsama, Nukleuz and NiloPilo to tag along, too. Although the Norwegians did well while in Finland, we definitely knew for sure that Versus 2006 would be tougher than ever. Staff members of Versus 2006 put up a homepage for fighting game enthusiasts to read about the tournament, as well as how to register for it. Foreign guests were given special treatment by having reserved spots for up to 30 people. Due to lack of space, as well as for security and comfort reasons, the limit of registrations was set to 120 people. It did not take long before entries were exploding beyond the limit, and this occurred even before the advertisement for the event was published in Level, a Swedish video gaming magazine. Entrance costs and tournament fees were simultaneously published on the homepage, so high money awards could be expected for the winners of each tournament.

Tournaments were in the following games:

Tekken 5
Street Fighter III 3rd Strike
Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution
Guilty Gear XX Slash
Soul Calibur 3
Tekken Tag Tournament

As you can see, the Virtua Fighter tournament to be hosted was in VF4: Evolution, console version. I had recently been able to obtain a Boardmaster Controller Box, a device usually referred to as a Super Gun in the West. By having such a Controller Box, arcade games can be played at home using a regular TV or projector. The box is basically a huge arcade stick with a built-in power supply, and through to use of an arcade harness, you can connect the PCB (Game motherboard and software) directly to the box. Via an RGB cable or any kind of display device, you connect the box to your TV to receive picture. I brought the Boardmaster along with me to Sweden so we could play the arcade version of Virtua Fighter 4: Final Tuned, the last chapter in the Virtua Fighter 4 series. Although it was very heavy to carry, I got some help from my friends in Norway. In the end, I must say it was well worth it. I had an excellent time being able to play the Swedes, Finns and Brits at Final Tuned, and hope to be doing more of this in the future.

Wuff playing KIWE at Final Tuned

The tournament itself did not start until Saturday the 5th of August. However, to get a non-gaming impression of Sweden, the Norwegians decided to arrive in Stockholm on Thursday the 3rd instead. Together with Wallace, JINsama and the Twins (Netrom and Raider), we booked a plane to Sweden leaving as early as 07:45 in the morning. Wallace and JINsama came to my place by car late at night on Wednesday, and to kill time, while I was doing late packing, Wallace and JINsama played the PSP version of Tekken Dark Resurrection for the very first time. Connecting it to a stereo, we got to hear the music in better quality, and I must say I am rather impressed with the stage music. Some tunes resembled Guilty Gear style guitar playing, while others were remixes of the Tekken 5 stages. Unfortunately, due to the PSP Directional Pad, Wallace and JINsama were having difficulties in guarding attacks while crouching. There are ways to fix this by installing a miniature stick. Some go even further to modify their PSP units so that you can connect a regular PS2 joypad or joystick to it! Considering the fact that Dark Resurrection is finally a very good Tekken game, I am sure that many people are thrilled by the fact that this modification is possible.

Even though departure time was getting closer and closer, I was still being sloppy while doing the packing. Consequently, we ended of staying up all night not getting a single minute of sleep. Oh, wait! If I remember right, I think I had a 40 minute power nap at the end, haha.
We decided to leave for the airport 2 hours in advance of departure. We took the local tram to the main train station, and got on the Airport Express train from there to the airport. There, we met up with the Twins some 30 minutes later. Passing the X-ray scan was like hell. No wonder, when you come to think of it. I had the Virtua Fighter 4: Final Tuned and Street Fighter III 3rd Strike arcade boards in my hand luggage and was forced to take them out to show the contents. JINsama had a belt on which kept on ringing, and due to some strange equipping feature, it took him minutes to take it off, hehe. On the plane, though, we mostly slept a little or played a couple of rounds of Tekken Dark Resurrection in Network mode. The flight only lasted for 50 minutes, so before we knew it, we were ready to land.

Raider, JINsama and Netrom at Arlanda Airport, Stockholm.

Jeneric, the Swedish Virtua Fighter gamer, was not off work until late in the afternoon, so after arriving at Stockholm Central Station, we decided to search for a hotel. After about 4 hours of researching, Wallace, JINsama and the Twins found a nice looking hotel very close to the train station. I however, had spent lots of money on the shipping costs from Japan on the Boardmaster unit, and had, therefore, to stay for free at Jeneric’s place if I were to bring along VF4: Final Tuned. While waiting for Jeneric to phone us, Wallace and I went out to get some lunch at a close-by McDonalds. One thing is for sure: I have never in my life ever waited this long to be served! And after finally getting to the register, it took an extra 20 minutes before the food was ready, haha. While in queue, two separate Swedish people even passed me whenever I would look away to talk to Wallace or the others. I was like, in Norwegian, god damn, are these people fucking idiots or what? Deliberately sneaking by whenever they could. I never thought this was possible in Scandinavia. Haven’t even experienced this in London or Japan! After finally getting the food, Wallace and I found out that we should run by Dragons Lair to see how things were like there. It only took us about 10 minutes to walk there, so, very nicely localized. Once we got there, we were greeted by Maxi Milian, one of the Staff members who I have introduced in my posts from Finland. I also got to meet Grahf for the very first time. He is without doubt the strongest 3rd Strike player of Sweden, and I had heard lots about him beforehand through Wallace and Robbie3s. His friend, Rafael, showed an extremely strong Ibuki! I just learnt plenty of new things by just watching a couple of matches, and I must say, after this gathering, I have implemented a lot of Rafael tricks in my own play :)
Dragons Lair also had a versus set-up of Tekken Tag Tournament. A versus set-up is referred to as two arcade cabinets faced opposite of each other, so that each player play against each other on their personal cabinet with only one set of sticks attached to the panel. This way, people can challenge an opponent whenever they wish without having to ask the current occupier. Also, due to having only one set of sticks on the panel, no need for complaints having to do with lack of space :)

Grahf receiving his cash prize in the 3rd Strike tournament. On the far left is Talon from London.

Later that day, Jeneric finally showed up at Dragons Lair. We decided to gather my luggage at the hotel after Jeneric had picked up another Swedish Virtua Fighter gamer, KIWE. We then got into Jeneric’s car and drove to his house some 30 minutes away from inner Stockholm. Once we arrived, it did not take long before we tried to hook up Virtua Fighter 4: Final Tuned.
Jeneric had a brand new HD-Ready TV-set in his room, but due to the fact that Virtua Fighter 4 does not run in High Definition, we experienced picture lagging when hooking the game up. We also tried to turn down the resolution of the game to 15khz, but still experienced the same problems. We then decided to connect his normal RGB compatible CRT-TV unit. Like expected, things went perfect. Even though we could not play the game in 31khz resolution, the game still ran well enough in 15khz, so, no complaints there.

We played throughout the night, switching whenever someone would win by getting 3 matches. The winner would sit and face the next opponent until he lost. The next day, some early time in the morning, Swedish VF gamers Shmolz and Wuff were picked up at the train station by Jeneric. I will still sleeping when they got back home, and was immediately woken up by Shmolz who wanted me to turn on Final Tuned. Six hours later, we met up with Nybec, a former notorious Virtua Fighter gamer for beating Norwegian gamer Raider and myself in a rather big VF tournament some years earlier. We had some more McDonalds at a local Drive-in, and just as before, I was passed in the queues while waiting in line to get served. Also, I had to wait at least another 15 minutes for the food to get ready. I guess that’s how it works in Sweden. If you have an opportunity, you take it. If a guy looks away when his in line, pretend you didn’t notice he was there, then sneak past. Though, you cannot complain about one thing. The girls working behind the counter were all very nice. No bad attitudes or anything. After seeing their smiles and politeness, you just could not stay angry :). And, since I did not complain, I was also given a free sundae ice cream. Nice service!

We continued battling each other at Final Tuned throughout the night, but had to go to sleep around 03:30 so that we were ready for the next day, the first day of Versus 2006. We were also informed that Western gaming Legend Ryan Hart of London, England was to attend! Even though I immediately knew that our chances of winning Virtua Fighter were next to none, I knew that I would learn tons by just having the opportunity to play Ryan a couple of matches. Together with Ryan, London Lion-player Jide (known for his Jide Pressure tactics), Talon and current Soul Calibur III champion Smotu came along.

I will continue the diary within the next days to follow. Pictures taken by other attendees can be accessed by copy and pasting the following link:

http://bergin.se/vs06/

Norwegian Striker Frode Johnsen off to Japan!

2006-07-15T19:07:00.000+02:00

Having served his position as a Striker for Norwegian football club Rosenborg for many years straight, Frode Johnsen will finish his career and retire from the game of professional football by joining the Japanese team Nagoya Grampus Eight.

Frode Johnsen is mostly known for his aerial headers, and has scored numerous important goals for his club team Rosenborg during the Champions League. It remains to be seen if he manages to keep his position on the National squad, but I am at least going to promise myself to watch one of his games the next time I visit Nagoya, the 3rd biggest city of Japan.

Having lived for a year in Nagoya during 1997 - 1998, I instantly became a Nagoya Grampus Eight fan. Being more specific, I actually stayed in Toyota city, the city of the famous car manufacturer. Nagoya Grampus Eight started off as being the Company Team of Toyota Corporation during the '50s, and even today, the team still receive high amounts of money-supports whenever needed. Despite the strong economy, with literally having the possibility to buying any kind of Japanese player they would desire, Nagoya Grampus Eight still have problems placing high in the J-League. My absolute favourite football player of all times, Gary Linker, played for the Nagoyan squad for a couple of years until 1996. However, due to seasons plagued by serious injuries, Gary Lineker rarely played, and sat mostly off the pitch as a substitute. Nagoya Grampus Eight fans do not forget how much money was invested in acquiring this well aknowledged player, and one thing is for sure, very few benefits were ever seen. However, the Grampus Manager at that time, Current Arsenal coach Arsène Wenger, did do his job in 1995 when the Team managed to take home the Emperor's Cup. Alongside Lineker, other greats like Dragan Stojkovic have appeared on the Grampus Eight rooster list.

Lets just hope the Norwegian striker retires from football by leaving a positive reputation behind, which highly likely ends after his time with Nagoya Grampus Eight.

Nagoya Grampus Eight fan, Chief Gutti Guttormsen

Not getting any ladies? Here's how

2006-07-11T21:09:00.000+02:00

It's all about the garb

Are you having difficulties approaching the women of your dreams?
Are you being ignored by women who are always at the center of attention?
Are you stuttering while talking to the fittest among the opposite sex?

Then, fear no more. We have found the solution to all these problems.
- It's all in the garb.

So, you thought Hello Kitty t-shirts were only for little girls? Well, think again.
We will guarantee you that, while wearing these artistic-looking t-shirts, you will portray three sets of characteristics which women unconsciously seek in Men:

- Confidence (Every girl in the room notises you)
- Challenge (You can pick whoever you like, this time you choose)
- Control (Your confidence will keep you on top. Now the girls stutter)

This is no joke, we have witnessed numerous Hello Kitty T-shirt-wearing chumps, who have developed from being geeks/nerds to becoming the King of the Hills in the dating game.

Order your Hello Kitty T-shirts now! Change your life! You will not regret it!
1 T-shirt: $65
2 T-shirts: $100

Still not sure? Read the following testimonials:

- Kjell Benny (29) - Norway
These T-shirts have absolutely changed my life! Up until now I have never had a single girl to come up to me while being at a club or activity. From the moment I got the shirts, girls were all over me telling me I looked cute and adoring. This has led me into converstations which have ended up in dates and long lasting parties. An absolute must buy! You won't regret!

- Man Gus (27) - Poland
My little sister is a huge fan of this usually annoying cat, but due to a small down-period with women after a heavy break-up, I decided to try this wonder item out. Oh, boy, I'm glad I went for this! I met my current girlfriend who I absolutely adore to the max, and strangely enough, I might not have ever met this girl unless I bought these kick-ass looking Hello Kitty t-shirts! Cannot stop to recommend these items, an essential buy for anyone at any age!

- Michael Andre (21) - Finland
While growing up as a kid I seldom specialized in more than one thing. I was absolutely absorbed in computer games from elementary school to high school. I never talked to girls even though I liked many and hoped they would talk to me. I then one day browsed through the Internet and stumbled upon Chief Gutti Charities which is a page dedicated to supporting Chief Gutti and his positive deeds. His Hello Kitty t-shirts were an instant attraction to me as I had finally realized that I had to change to become prouder of myself and more confident among girls. I have now become a couple with my long-lasting child-hood love from elementary school. I just have to say a huge thanks to Chief Gutti! You really helped me! Hope to see your other mesmerising products in the near future!!! I'm ordering a set of t-shirts for my World of Warcraft addict little brother straight away! He needs to get out!!!

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Where has Gutti been lately?!

2006-06-28T04:09:00.000+02:00

Holiday, Working, World Cup

Sorry for being totally away for a month now. I've promised to update the blog more than once, and can't blame it on anything else but being lazy. I have, though, had an excellent time both in Las Vegas and Los Angelels, experiencing things like never before (in the positive way, lol). To me, Vegas is probably the coolest place I've ever been (my interest to Japan and London come through other reasons) on holiday. Friends of mine, who have been there before, had told me before I was leaving that 3 days in Vegas is more than enough. Oh boy, how wrong was that! Together with my colleagues and friends, I spent an entire 11 days in Vegas, staying at various hotels, all ranging from lower end to top notch. After our stay in Vegas, we rented a car through Avis and drove all the way to our next stop, Los Angeles. On the way, we got to enjoy some kick-ass theme parks, including a couple of rides on the Desperado rollercoaster which was ranked as the fastest and bumpiest ride of all in 1996. On the way, though, I got a nice impression of the Nevada scenery. Desert everywhere, lol! Man, I'm wondering how the hell those old cowboys and Indians ever found their way about. Man, absolutely nothing in sight for miles and miles!

After 5 hours of long driving, we finally got to L.A. We have made it a tradition to stay at a hotel at Venice Beach, Santa Monica called "The Cadillac Hotel". Although not in the highest range, we've chosen to stay at this hotel due to the closeness to the beach (it's practically on it), the nice scenery and shopping areas located close by. Recently, we have even found at that no other than MacGyver himself has been our neighbour to the hotel during the first season of the MacGyver series! We were well happy when we found out that, lol! Since our work related issues did not start until two days later after we arrived at the hotel, we decided to visit Disneyland the next day. Our timing to visit the theme park was absolutely perfect. In the beginning of May, all kids are in school, and there are hardly any school field trips or excursions. The holiday season has also not started, so there were very few visiting tourists as well. Basically, there were so few people that day than we never had to wait in line for a ride more than 17 minutes max! The weather was great, not too warm or chilly, and we went on our favourite rides multiple times. One of my co-workers, Mangus (also known as Man Goose), is probably the biggest Norwegian Disney fan ever. His mother is a flight attendant, and the family has kept a tradition of visiting Disneyworld once every year. Mangus got what he wanted in Disneyland, too: A picture of him and Mickey.

After having an excellent day in Disneyland, we were ready to go home. We had to prepare for the next day, as fun and play time had inevitably come to an end. E3 (Electronic Entertainment Exposition) was on our list, and it was time to stay focused. We all had a mix of press passes and exhibitor passes so that we were able to attend the pre-show, a pass that would let us in on the show floor three hours prior to opening hours. Even though we had tons of meeting with various dealers and publishers on our schedule, nothing was more important to me than having the opportunity to trying out Virtua Fighter 5 for the very first time. The SEGA stand had one arcade cabinet for show-off, and it was free to play. However, due to the small amount of cabinets (hehe, only one), rounds were set to 2 rounds only, and you had to get back into line even if you won or not. I could understand why, as SEGA would want to get as much PR to as many visitors as possible, avoiding a situation where people would refrain from daring to try the complex game out. Other than Virtua Fighter 5, I also got the opportunity to test out a variety of interesting looking games. Playstation 3 showed games to look forward to, mainly games like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Virtua Tennis 3, but what really caught my eye was a game called Assassin's Creed, a game produced by UbiSoft, where the aim is as expected, to control an assassin doing his job impacting the surroundings.
Nintendo Wii was as exciting as we hoped, so no complaints there.

This has mostly been a short summary of what happened on our trip to the States. I want to go into more depth about each stage, but I took very little pictures and have to meet up with a friend of mine to borrow some of his. Since I got back home to Norway, I have been working for the most part. We're also at the Quarter Final stage in the World Cup, and I'm proud to be supporting the England squad from start to finish. My friend Ari in Germany is as happy as ever, but it's going to be interesting to see how well Germany can defend themselves against Argentina.

Random spectators watching the World Cup on the outdoor big-screens.

Project Blue Eyes - 任務開始

2006-06-27T04:06:00.000+02:00

俺=２５％
+
彼女=１００％
=
成功する確率=５０％

探し完成度=２３％

Moomin Valley Diary 2

2006-05-20T19:18:00.000+02:00

You're never gonna win by that strength!

Sorry for the late arrival of the diary update, but like most of you have figured, I was away for a period of time having some fun experiencing the adult version of Dinseyland, Las Vegas, as well as being on a business trip in conjunction with the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3) held in Los Angeles, every year. Since most of the details have already been covered in some of my earlier posts, I am only writing a few words on the Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution tournament. Anyway, as always, enjoy reading!

Tournament Day 2, 15th of April 2006

At last, the day we had been waiting for had finally come. The Norwegians were ready to prove themselves worthy of being the top Virtua Fighter country in the Nordic region. Although we had the ability to test our skills against our opponents the day before, and did relatively well showing our level, we still had to stay focused for the tournament, making sure our command inputs and reaction skills were at their best. Manjimaru drove us to the venue some hours before the Virtua Fighter tournament was about to begin. It was the first tournament to be held that day, so the Twins and I only had about an hour to search the venue area for some more supermarkets. We had wanted to take a bus to visit Lake Bodom –the lake which was the ground for the murder case which is mentioned earlier in this diary-, but due to the time constraint, we had to pass on this. Although not directly related to Rautanyrrki, I was with work covering the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2006 (E3). During the second day of E3, all the Norwegians who were attending the exposition met up for an exclusive dinner party at a restaurant next to the Sunset Strip in Beverly Hills. After that, we headed further to this really amazing bar which is called “the Saddle Ranch”. What one would say is particularly exciting about this bar, has to do with the mechanical bull and the nice looking waitresses. Imitating real-life bull riding, customers get the chance to ride a mechanical bull, where the aim is, as expected, to stay on top of it as long as possible while the bull increases in speed and bumpiness. Anyway, while enjoying my Long Island Ice Tea, I overhear two guys speaking in Finnish. At first, I thought they said something in Swedish, so I introduced myself to them shortly after. After talking awhile, I told them that I had been in Finland two weeks earlier, and that two friends of mine were huge fans of Children of Bodom. Since I was eager to hear more details about the Lake Bodom murder case, I asked one of the guys what really happened. Apparently, the kid who got back alive was in a court case recently accused of the murder. I was told that the victims had received knife stabs and cuts through the tent, and that the kid who was prosecuted had most likely inflicted stab wounds to himself to make it look like he was assaulted, too. Witnesses claim they saw one person running away from the scene at the time of the incident, but due to the far-away distance, the killer could not be identified. Some also claim that the accused was not present with the three victims when they went to sleep that night. Even though the prosecutors had evidence such as DNA samples to tie the kid to the murder, due to the time frame, large amounts of evidence was classified as out-dated, or too old, and was, therefore, nullified. The kid was ultimately declared innocent. Even so, 50% of people in Finland still believe he is the murderer. I can imagine how worried people might be, knowing that a potentially dangerous man is out and wandering the streets. I am sure the prosecutors are working 24/7 until they discover new evidence leading into a guilty verdict.

Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution Tournament

In order to qualify for an 8 Men Double Elimination tournament, all contestants were put in a classic group stage. The Twins and I, received special seeding treatment and were put in separate groups. Netrom, the Akira player, was, without a doubt, put in the most difficult group out of all four. He had to face tough competition from Sweden’s Jeneric, as well as strong Lei Fei player from Finland. In all battles, Netrom was down by two rounds, but amazingly managed to come back and win with only a dot left on his health meter. It was insane; Netrom could have been knocked out of the tournament as early as in the group stage! Another really strong group consisted of Finland’s Pexi and THR, Sweden’s BlixtBob, and Norway’s Wallace. We had heard rumours of BlixtBob’s Jacky play, emphasizing on Jacky’s elbow (forward + Punch) setup, but his game was stopped by some astonishing play by our very own Wallace. Wallace’s Akira had more than 5 launching counter hits, quickly stopping the Swede’s attempt to proving his worth. THR, using Lau mostly, qualified as number two, only beaten by Pexi. Raider did what he had to do in his group, and same as me, never lost a single round. Coming 2nd in Raider’s group, was Finland’s Manjimaru, while NeoChu in mine.

Hmm, maybe I should hold back a little?

Match videos from the Knock-Out Stage can be downloaded from the following page:

http://www.arctic-charge.com/temp/rn6/vf4evo/
http://www.divx.com (You need a divx codec to view the footage)

A more thorough description on what happened at the Knock-Out Stage can be read at my blog at http://chiefgutti.blogspot.com. Topic name: “Norway representing well”, written on 21st of April 2006.

1st place: Chief Gutti (Norway)
2nd place: Netrom (Norway)
3rd place: Pexi (Finland)

Las Vegas mini diary

2006-04-29T18:27:00.000+02:00

Hey, man. How's it going?

Currently on our 2nd full day in Vegas. So far, it's been very cool. Got completely wasted yesterday from coming back from this concert. We then ate an "all you can eat" steak dinner at a restaurant called Samba, at the hotel we are staying at. Fucking hell, I was totally acting like a muppet according to the others, that's how smashed I was, lol. Anyway, been looking around for an arcade here, but never found any Virtua Fighter cabinets. Obviously, Tekken 5 was available at most places. Not sure what we are doing today, but I think we are going to try out some of the killer cool rollercoasters.

Right now, we're discussing the price level of stuff here in Vegas. Fuck, it's expensive. Imagine how it must be for people living in countries with low pay wages. One beer costs like 6 dollars, which is the same amount as an hours pay over here. For us Norwegians, it would be like paying 120 kroners. Mind though, I'm talking about Vegas, so if you head 20 minutes away from Vegas on car, you probably reach places where a beer is only at 1.5 dollars.

The other guys staying at the room, are playing poker 9 hours a day. You get nice discount prices on room fees if you play a minimum of 6 hours of poker per day, registered per room. Since the two others I'm staying with are playing constantly, I'm free to walk around doing whatever I want.

Anyway, I'll write some more stuff whenever I have time.
Later folks!

Moomin Valley Diary

2006-04-24T03:43:00.000+02:00

Did you feel the real power? Go back to school!

Most of you have probably noticed my below-mentioned posts about the recent ”All Fighting Games” tournament that took place in Helsinki, Finland during the Easter holidays of 2006. If not, you can access my blog by pasting and copying the following link:

http://chiefgutti.blogspot.com

The Finnish fighting gaming community is mostly being kept alive by Arctic Charge, a website wholly dedicated to fans of the fighting game genre. Thanks to Webmaster Entomo, as well as all his assistant volunteers, the site gathers players from all over Finland to battle it out at a variety of fighting games, both new and old. Every year, Arctic Charge (http://www.arctic-charge.com) puts time and effort together to host Rautanyrkki – Iron Fist in English –, an event were the players can test their might to the fullest in a big, organized tournament. By having top players travel across the boarder to compete in International tournaments, has led Arctic Charge to be known to fighting game fans from other countries. Last year, and especially this year, 25 gamers or more from both Norway and Sweden, managed to find time off their schedules to participate in the Rautanyrkki, and I am here glad to be able to share my thoughts on the event by writing a thorough diary.

Our incentive to participate

Story starting from way, way back.
Virtua Fighter has always been a game lacking in fans in Europe. Although, I remember from living in London from 1993-1995, that SEGA’s flagship title Virtua Fighter 2, was played to the same extent as any other fighting game. Some years later, I was able to spend a year in Japan as an exchange student. Virtua Fighter 3 had had its release a year earlier than that, but despite the fact that I was determined to become better at the game, I ended up over-practising at more easy-to-pick-up games like Street Fighter III Next Generation, 2nd Impact and Tekken 3. “Gamest”, a magazine purely dedicated towards arcade games, not only improved my game enormously, but also became my teacher at the Japanese language. My Japanese vocabulary and speaking abilities easily surpassed that of other exchange students, but no matter how much I’d spend on Japanese language training, the guides and texts on Virtua Fighter were just TOO complicated. After returning from Japan, I was practically unbeatable in Street Fighter and Tekken on Norwegian ground. My Virtua Fighter level, however, remained as crusty as it was a year earlier.

After Higher Secondary School, I was lucky to get a part-time job at a videogames shop. Being the correspondent on the Japanese gaming community, gave me an incentive to improving my Japanese, daily. By keeping myself updated on what was happening in the Land of the Rising Sun, I checked Japanese websites constantly, as well as imported DVDs on the community. Whenever there was a word or Chinese character that I could not understand, I would quickly look it up, take note of it in my notebook. Then, in February 2002, Virtua Fighter 4 was finally released for the Playstation 2 system. I said to myself, “Finally, my language skills should be sufficient enough for heavy kanji reading, I’m putting away SF and Tekken for good”. Ok, maybe it also had something to do with the fact that Tekken 4 was totally rubbish, plus Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, which launched in 99, was Capcom’s final stand-alone game in the series.

Living in Norway, in the beginning, only one other friend of mine was prepared to take on the challenge of learning a game such as Virtua Fighter. He was already super strong at fighting games like Tekken 3 and 4, but during a visit to Japan in October 2001, JINsama got the chance to try out Virtua Fighter 4 for the first time. Being immediately mesmerized of the beauty and excitement the game had to offer, he swore to learn this game properly as soon as it hit the Playstation 2, the year later. Through the only surviving fighting game community in Norway, JINsama got acquainted with two even more dedicated people of life. Raider and Netrom, or the eWil Twins as they are also referred to, happen to be among the most capable people I have ever met. Being twins, these two brothers, in their early twenties, challenge each other constantly at becoming the best they can be. These two half Norwegian, half Finnish prodigies were promised soon-to-become professional football players, but due to unfortunate incidents, this road had to stop earlier than hoped. Their dedication to perfecting anything they were interested in became easily visible just months after they embarked on the journey of Virtua Fighter. Even without International experience, Raider and Netrom outmatched every other Scandinavian Virtua Fighter gamer with ease. A few years thereafter, the Twins moved to Shanghai during their studies. During this time, they were finally able witness what was needed to really become a Virtua Junky. 6 months later, after returning to Norway, gamers from all over Scandinavia were super eager to test their skills against the so-called Shanghai Twins. A Norway VS Sweden Virtua Fighter tournament was arranged, and as much as 9 Swedes and 1 Dane took their time to visit Oslo for the VF challenge of their life. The Team Tournament would, for once, decide which Scandinavian country was at the top of the pillars in Virtua Fighter, the most advanced and demanding fighting game to date. In the Team Tournament, Sweden’s Virtua Fighter veteran, Lau VF, had all but Netrom and Raider down for the count. With all other Norwegians eliminated, Netrom remained calm and completed his job. It was decided. The Norwegians were the true Virtua Junkies.

Then, for 8 months straight, in 2005, my turn had come. My final term of Bachelor studies sent me off to Japan, and I was finally ready to learn from the best. The Twins and I had already become friends with top players in Japan through a trip to Japan in summer, 2004. I was allowed to stay at a friend of mine called Hiroshima for three weeks until school started. Hiroshima works for a company called Dora3 (pronounced Dora-san, like Mr. Doraemon), and as a freelance, does jobs for big media companies like Enterbrain - the owner of Arcadia Magazine and Famitsu. If you have ever watched an Enterbrain DVD, like the Tougeki tournament DVDs, Famitsu WAVE DVD or Kakutou Shinseiki II/III etc., Hiroshima is the one doing all Menu designs. Hiroshima introduced me to the core of the Virtua Fighter community, and took me to events such as Beat Tribe, Kakutou Shinseiki III and Tougeki 2005. Then, during my stay, Shou and Mukatsuku-Shun (Eric and Dave) taught me the essence of Virtua Fighter. I learnt how to interpret the frame system in the game, something which has led me into knowing which moves are guaranteed after blocked moves, as well as after successful evades.

Being fortunate to having Naomi Universal Cabinets back in Norway, the Twins and I, as well as another friend called RAT, put money together to buy the arcade version of Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned. While being back in Norway, we still have the opportunity to play. The knowledge of the presence of Final Tuned on Scandinavian turf, quickly spread on Virtua Fighter forums. Sweden’s top Lion Rafale player, Shmolz, took time of studies and work to only spend ONE day in Oslo to try out the game. After returning a second time, it was decided. “Norway are truly way ahead of the rest in the Nordic Community”.
Most people agreed with Shmolz’ comment, but Manjimaru, one of the top Finnish Virtua Junkies, was quick to share his opinion. “Although you are certainly very strong, you have only had the opportunity to play me so far. I am by far not the strongest Virtua Fighter Junky in Finland, so before the community reaches early conclusions, there has to be an official battle to confirm the fact”.

Due to the recent lack of challenge in the game, and also by hearing about the Arctic Charge community, made us start thinking about possibility of entering the Rautanyrkki tournament. The Twins had met up with Manjimaru at an earlier occasion, and had only positive things to say about him. Also, Entomo, the webmaster of Arctic Charge, was extremely helpful with information. With such a great opportunity, we could not turn our backs to this. Having people such as Manjimaru and Entomo doing whatever they can to promote the fighting game community just HAS to be appreciated. In only a matter of days, or flight tickets were confirmed. We were ready to go and represent Norway in Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution!

Flight day, 13th of April 2006

Our only worry about the tournament had to do with the fact that the Twins and I had only been playing Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned until that day. Final Tuned has implemented crucial differences, including speed, frame and counter property differences. In the case of Netrom, though, Evolution is a better choice. Netrom uses Akira as his main character, and was extremely powerful and fast paced in Evolution. In Final Tuned, due to slower game speed and longer movement frames, Akira is a lot riskier to play. Netrom, who chose to play with Akira due to his aggressiveness and pressuring abilities, does not appreciate SEGA’s effort in making Akira slower and more disadvantaged in blocking situations in Final Tuned.

Although not Virtua Fighter related, 5 other Norwegians were ready to represent in other games at Rautanyrkki. Wallace and Robbie3s, Norway’s best Street Fighter and Guilty Gear players, vowed to, for the first time, show Scandinavia the level of Norway. Two other comrade, were Tekken 5 players Rising Uppercut and Dead Alchemist. This was their first time to experience International competition. The flight didn’t leave Oslo before 19:00, so the Twins and I met up with Wallace and Robbie3s at Spiderman (Videogames shop) some hours before. We were told that we were staying for free at the venue in Finland, so all that was necessary to bring was a sleepy bag and toothbrush. Wallace and Robbie3s had booked a room at a close-by hotel, so the only things worth bringing were clothes and arcade sticks.
Considering the fact that Norway happens to be most expensive city to live in, it cost us USD 25 for a one-way ticket on the Flytoget (Airport Train). Being as hungry as we were, it didn’t help much by having to pay double the price for food at the airport. Anyway, we were more than psyched up for the weekend, so everything from waiting to boarder, reading on the flight, to waiting for our luggage, was no problem at all. Although the flight was packed, Raider was the only one to have empty seats next to him. Netrom and I were reading Newsweek and other magazines, while Wallace and Robbie3s were challenging each other at Street Fighter Zero III on the PSP. Rising Uppercut and Dead Alchemist had ordered tickets on their own, so they were sitting further back in the plane. Had, therefore, no idea what they were doing to make time pass. An hour and a half later, we arrived safe and sound at Helsinki Airport. Finland is the new anchoring place for Asia travels, so most of the people on our plane were either Chinese or Japanese. While waiting for our luggage, Raider spent some time at the tax free. He picked up a Moomin stuffed animal, apparently a present for his new project.

Since I am going to Los Angeles to cover E3 with work, I had to get my passport renewed. Passport renewal time took a week longer than expected, so I had to use my Driver’s Licence as my Identification Card. Considering I’m half Asian, and not having a passport, I got some help from Entomo who wrote an Invitation Letter which I could show the people at the customs if they stopped me. Fortunately, this was not necessary, so we passed the customs area without problems. On the outside, we were met by Entomo and Manjimaru. Together with them was Swedish Virtua Fighter Junky Jeneric, as well as Finnish Tekken 5 player Iron Fart. The event did not take place until the next day, but we were able to stay the night at either Entomo or Manjimaru’s place for the night. Entomo is Finland’s top Tekken player, so it was only natural that Wallace, Robbie3s, Rising Uppercut and Dead Alchemist would stay at his place. The Twins, Jeneric and I, however, found it obviously more reasonable to crash at Manjimaru’s place. Manjimaru is Finland’s strongest Akira player, and without a doubt, the quickest of them all, too. When we arrived at Manjimaru’s house, we immediately started practising some Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution. We got better acquainted with the Swede, Jeneric, and finally got to see his Vanessa play. The formerly introduced Lau VF has his own Virtua Fighter website. It’s the biggest and absolute best VF site within Scandinavia (personally the best in the West, but written in Swedish). Through the site’s daily forum, Virtua Today, we
get the chance to talk to new members of the Virtua Junky community. Jeneric had been posting frequently, but this time was our first real-life encounter with him. His Vanessa was strong! It surprised me a lot. In the beginning it was very difficult to stick to my regular kind of play. Jeneric made well use of Vanessa’s evading punch move (Intrude Hook), a move which evades all straight moves and makes your character crumble upon hit. I realized after some time, that I had to play A LOT more defensively if I was to master Jeneric’s playing style. After some time, I would stand back and block in advantage situations to see if Jeneric would automatically input the Intrude Hook. Like I thought, it happened very often. I was then in a situation where I could get a free throw (Wolf). Again, after some more play, I also realized that Jeneric would sometimes just drastically input throw-escape commands in those situations, without pressing guard afterwards. Because he did not hit guard afterwards, his throw motions would come out automatically. I could then get a free launching shoulder counter hit, something which could take as much as 50% off of Vanessa’s life bar.
The Twins had a few rounds against Manjimaru and Jeneric, too, but did not seem to face the same problems I did. The Twins went early to sleep, but Jeneric and I stayed up until 07:00 in the morning crushing each other at Virtua Fighter.

Tournament Day 1, 14th of April 2006

By having only slept for two hours, our heads were trying to persuade us to jump out of the window. At 09:00, Finnish Shun player Tommy, also going by Ring Name THR, came to pick us up for some breakfast shopping. Manjimaru had to use his car to pick up the Swedes who were coming at around 12:00 by ferry. Tommy, who immediately greeted us, was one super cool guy! He bothered driving us around the centre of Helsinki for some heavy grocery shopping. Since it was Easter, normal shops were to be closed during the weekend. Together with Jeneric, I got my first experience shopping in Finland. The Twins, like mentioned above, are half Finnish, so they have been Finland more than a trillion times before. Also, a lot better at the Finnish language than I expected. Was well impressed! Basically, they had no problems at all. At the supermarket, we were able to get our hands on some warm food. The Twins had been smart to withdraw some EURO currency prior to arrival, so I had to let them pay for shopping on day 1. After we had bought the food, we tried to look for a place where we could eat. Connected to the supermarket was a McDonalds. Though, since it would have been rude to steal a table to eat some brought-along food, we decided to search elsewhere. After some time, we returned to the underground parking lot. Being super hungry, we decided to just have our nice little picnic there and then. With healthy food, and energetic drinks courtesy of Power Cow, we were well fit for the day. After eating, though, we went to look for a bathroom. Funnily enough, McDonalds did NOT seem to have a toilet at disposal. We bumped into some Finnish kids at McDonalds who told us that the lift was broken and that we had to take the stairs to get out of there. It was so cool to hear the Twins speaking Finnish. Man, was I impressed. After about ten minutes of searching, we found a bathroom at the main train station. On our way back, we bumped into the Finnish kids again. From across the street they shouted “Hey, man. How’s it going?!”, and according to the Twins, this usually happens in Finland. People who barley know each other, or who have just met, show friendliness without hesitation. They also told me, though, that if you’re not Finnish, some people might be a little racist. To the Finnish people reading this, correct me if I’m wrong on that one.
When we got back the parking lot, Tommy and Jeneric had been wondering if we got totally lost or something. We had been away for at least twenty minutes, or so.

Anyway, it was time to head over to the venue where the tournaments were taking place. Rautanyrkki had rented two sections of a school to accommodate the tournament. A kitchen with two huge refrigerators, a microwave and an oven, was ready to be used by over hundreds of fighting game maniacs. On the first day, we had only one of the rooms at disposal. In the beginning, some people would fight a little over which games to be used on the available TVs. It was still early, so only a small amount of equipment had arrived. The first day was hosting a tournament in Namco’s Soul Caliber 3 and Capcom’s Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, both on the PS2. All tournaments in the major games, like Tekken 5, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, Guilty Gear XX #Reload, Soul Caliber 3 and Super Smash Brothers Melee, had for the first time in Rautanyrkki history, prize money for the winners. Every contestant had, therefore, to register for each tournament and pay the appropriate entrance fee.

Due to the lack of Virtua Fighter enthusiasts, as well as the lack of equipment early that day, the Twins and I decided grab some fresh air by taking a stroll around the area. Being huge fans of the Finnish Heavy Metal band Children of Bodom, we pretended the lake around the venue to be Lake Bodom, and we also joked about the fact of creating another Bodom incident. According to the Twins, Lake Bodom is one of Finland’s biggest incidents in murder crime history. Some 50 years ago, 4 children went on a trip to this lake, but only 1 kid came back alive. The murder remained unsolved until half a century later. The investigation later found out that, the kid who came back alive, was, in fact, the actual murderer. I was not informed on why he killed his friends, but it is because of this incident that the Finnish Heavy Metal band found an appropriate name for the band. We enjoyed the sunny weather that Finland had to offer, and continued walking around checking the sights, as well as visited the Nokia HQ. We also discovered a supermarket area which had an ATM machine, a corner shop, and also, the obvious Kebab shop.

When returning to the venue, the Soul Calibur 3 tournament had already started. To decide who would place in the Knock-out stage of the tournament, a group battle took place. With the top two players from each group advancing, an 8 Men Single Elimination Knock-out tournament was ready to commence. Our very own Norwegian gamer, Wallace, managed to qualify for this stage, but lost in his first match against one of the Swedes, Keijan, who also came 3rd in the tournament. In the final, we got to see some excellent play by Sweden’s Steph and Finland’s Starfire. Steph, famous for his Guilty Gear XX#Reload play, shows he has skills in multiple games, and takes home victory to Sweden.

Beginning shortly after, was Street Fighter III 3rd Strike (3S). Norway had three representatives in this tournament, but had no knowledge up front at what level the Norwegians were at compared to the Swedes and Finns. With Robbie3s and Wallace, as well as I, owning our own set of 3S PCBs (Print Circuit Board, also the term for an arcade set-up including the motherboard, ROM and ROM player), we were already familiar with the 3S gaming engine. Wallace and Robbie3s were both put in two difficult groups, where Wallace even beat Sweden’s Cyrox, a Yun player who is thought to be the top of Sweden players. I was rather lucky, and ended up in a group where most players had only recently picked up 3S. All three of us managed to qualify for the final stage, an 8 Men Double Elimination tournament. We all used our sub-characters this tournament, with Wallace using Chun Li, Robbie3s Ken, and I with Ibuki. In our first matches, Wallace does his job by beating Jizho, a Swedish Ken player. Robbie3s faces little difficulties against Finland’s Das_Lynx, a Yun player. However, in my first match against Sweden’s Hugo, I get completely crushed by Urien’s corner traps. Since it was a double elimination tournament, I was still in the game. I just barely beat Das_Lynx with virtually no health left on my life bar, but had to face Wallace soon after, after Wallace lost against Sweden’s BlixtBob. Robbie3s continues to play a strong game, and overpowers Hugo AND BlixtBob, before he is totally outmatched by Wallace in the ultimate final, between the winner of the winner bracket, versus the winner of the loser bracket. Coming from the loser bracket, Wallace needed to win 2 sets of first-to-three matches, and amazingly surprises the crowd by winning 6 matches to 1, all together.
Norway had done its job and placed at the top in the Scandinavian Street Fighter community.

Preparing themselves towards tomorrow’s climax, the Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution tournament, Raider and Netrom received challenges from all the Finns and Swedes. Finland’s Pexi, who we had seen play through some match videos through the Internet, was way beyond the level we had witnessed earlier. He could play many different characters, and posed a huge challenge in the beginning using Sarah. Raider, with little Sarah versus experience, had some difficulties in coping with the properties of Sarah’s moves, and it could seem as if Sarah would the right choice for Pexi to make when he plays in the tournament the following day. That Friday, I was the only one of us who was afraid of Jeneric’s Vanessa. I could cope with Pexi’s Sarah and Aoi due to my gaming experience from Japan, but in a tournament, if I was unlucky with my guesses, Jeneric’s play could really outmanoeuvre me. I was determined to remember to play defensively when facing Jeneric, as well as exploiting his lack of throw-escape abilities.

At around 03:00 at night, we were ready to go home. We needed to be fully fit for the next day, as the Virtua Fighter tournament was the first one to start. Manjimaru’s set of 4 house cats prayed for our victory in the tournament, and I must admit, I’ve never actually liked cats, but these ones were the coolest cats I’ve ever seen. Friendly, not being bastards, plus extremely beautiful. I was told by Manjimaru later, that these cats had won various trophies on beauty and behaviour in Cat Show Off events earlier.

Check back for Tournament Day 2 updates later this week.

Norway representing well

2006-04-21T03:57:00.000+02:00

Norway winning Nordic Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution Tournament

Sorry for the late update on the scores of the Finnish fighting game get-together, but we're finally back from Moomin Valley and are happy to announce some good results! Being specially invited to represent Norway in the Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution tournament was a great honour, and it was very exciting to witness that our prior practice preparations had huge effects, leading is to, still, maintaining our status of being the top Virtua Junkies within the Nordic region. Despite the fact that we have only been playing Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned throughout 2005 and until now, we quickly managed to adapt to the Evolution speed and frame system after a day of practice. Our greatest achievement during the weekend, was our ability to gaining 50 consecutive wins in a mini Kumite (A lenghty battle consisting of a specified amount of matches, where the goal being to winning as many as possible).
While being challenged by top players from both Sweden and Finland, Raider, Netrom and I, Chief Gutti, played 5 matches each before swapping places.
Our Virtua game just got better and better from every match, and the longer we played, the harder it was to beat us. After a whole day of play, the Norwegian Trio only lost 14 matches all together.

If you look closely at the tournament brackets, you can see that Norway managed to place 1st AND 2nd in the tournament. Had it not been for the fact that Raider and Netrom had to meet each other in the Loser Bracket semi-finals, the chances of the Trio taking all top spots would have been highly likely. Finnish Virtua God Pexi (standing right at the top-most picture) gave us heavy challenge, and extraordinarily enough beat Raider's Kage using his overnatural yomi (Yomi means reading your opponent). To qualify for the Double Elimination tournament, all registered participants had to play through a set of group stages. Two top contestants from each group were granted their spot in the Kesshou Taikai (Final stage of Tournament). All matches were directly recorded onto a PC, and you can access these files by copy and pasting the following link:

http://www.arctic-charge.com/temp/rn6/vf4evo/
http://www.divx.com (You need a divx codec to view the footage)

We had also brought with us a Professional HD Video Camera to film the event for a local TV station. The tapes are currently handed over to the TV Game show producers, but as soon as we get them back we will upload them to the site. Hearing the cheering and booing during play is much more exciting than direct feed, so look forward to that:)

Netrom, Dead Alchemist and Raider outside a local supermarket. Since it was Easter, most shops were closed during the weekend. However, we did managed to fit in some time for some local area reconnaissance, and luckily found the above-mentioned supermarket. There were times during that weekend where we nearly ate the couch. We were dead hungry, but survived on a couple of bananas and Finnish mountain water :)

A picture of all the top Nordic Virtua Fighter gamers who were present at the tournament. From back-left, you have Netrom who is famous for his aggressive Akira play. Next to him, on his right, is Jeneric from Sweden. He is part of the New Generation who only recently started picking of the game. His Vanessa, however, is brutal. His attacking knowledge was top notch, and we experienced delay and frame traps constantly. Due to the fact that he is rather new to the game, his defence knowledge was temporarily limited. Like many Shun players (The character which uses the Drunken Master style), Jeneric had a tendency of abusing the defence properties of the character's moves, instead of relying on Virtua Fighter defence knowledge. This sometimes led Jeneric to doing gyaku nitaku (Reverse nitaku, a technique which revolves around attacking back at the opponent even though himself is at a disadvantage situation), and in many cases nagenuke without guard (throw escape without guard, something which results in being counter hitted). Give him a couple of months, and I am sure he will improve in this department drastically.

Next in line is Raider. Using Kage as his main, he scares the living hell out of you no matter what part of the stages you are at. His yomi (explained above) is at top in Scandinavia, and one of his top characteristics is his naturalism.
Then, again to the right, is Pexi from Finland. Oh my god, he surprised us. By far the best Virtua Player we have played in our community. Although Aoi was his main, he gave us just the same amount of challenge in the beginning when he used characters such as Sarah, Kage, Gou, Jacky and Wolf. I, personally, was lucky to have had some anti-character knowledge-experience from my time in Tokyo, but Pexi's Sarah gave Raider a hell of a challenge until he was informed of Sarah's move properties.

At the bottom, starting left, is BlixtBob. He, also, only recently picked up the game, but is already famous for being among the top three Tekken players in Sweden. BlixtBob chose to play Jacky during this tournament, but already had an early upset when he was knocked out in the group stage, losing to our very own Wallace.
In the middle, with the black leather jacket, is Finland's Akira player Manjimaru. His movement speed even surpasses that of Norway's Netrom, and his input accuracy is superb. However, Manjimaru had a habit of using sakenagenuke (evade throw escape) in almost every disadvantage situation. To take complete advantage of this, we delayed or most powerful launches so that we would either hit Manjimaru during his unsuccesful dodge animations, or get a counter hit after he tried to attack after an evade.

THR, in green T-shirt, played a very strong Shun. Being fortunate to having played Mr. David during my time in Tokyo, I had the proper knowledge to deal with most of Shun's moves. However, when Tommy switched to Lau during his matches against Raider and Netrom, the Twins were given a much harder time. In fact, Raider even has mentioned that, if Tommy played Lau as his main in the tournament, he would have had a bigger chance in beating the Norwegians. At the far right is NeoChu. I thought he was originally a Kage player, but picked Brad when he faced me in the group stages. Although I managed to handle the match well, NeoChu did his job against the remaining players in our group. He qualified for the Kesshou Taikai (again, see above description). To the left of NeoChu, the guy with the glasses, is Shinta. I never got the chance to see any of his matches, so I cannot comment on his play, unfortunately.

Norwegian 3rd Strike players Wallace and Robbie3s, ALSO placing 1st and 2nd, in that order. Using Chun Li, Wallace managed to beat a range of tough players in all stages of the tournament. In the group stages, Wallace knocked out Sweden's famous Yun player Cyrox. Among his other struggles on his way to the final, were Finnish player Das_Lynx, Norway's Chief Gutti and Robbie3s, as well as Sweden's Hugo and BlixtBob. Robbie3s, however, ran smoothly all the way to the tournament final where he only needed to win one set of first to three matches to claim victory. This time, amazingly enough, Wallace was back in business with hitting combos correctly. Miss inputs and hit-confirmation mistakes were finally put aside, and Wallace miraculously turns the table around by winning 6 matches straight against Robbie3s' Ken. BlixtBob, mostly famous for his speedy Kazuya fuujin-step and fuujinken inputs, places third by first beating Wallace in the winner bracket semi-finals. He then loses to Robbie3s in the finals, and is forced to face Wallace yet again in the loser bracket finals. Like stated above, Wallace gets his revenge.

Robbie3s - Ken
Wallace - Chun Li
BlixtBob - Ken
Hugo - Urien
Chief Gutti - Ibuki
Das_Lynx - Yun
Unknown
Unknown

Tekken 5 winners.
1st - Sakishiro
2nd - BlixtBob
3rd - Entomo

Norway had three Norwegians in the Kesshou Taikai. Chief Gutti, using Kazuya, was knocked out by Elektrofil's Asuka in the first match. Wallace and Rising Uppercut had to face each other in their first match, and with only a fraction left on his life bar, Wallace's Devil Jin takes victory over Rising Uppercut's Feng. In the next stage, Wallace faces Sweden's Hugo. Hugo plays Lee, and although there was only a fraction left on the life bar, yet again, this time it's Hugo who proceeds.

Second from left, is Jelo. Scandinavia's top Jin Kasama player. Also forced into facing a fellow country man, and losing in his first match against Sakishiro. Next to him again, is Maxi Milian. Perhaps Europe's strongest Tekken Tag Tournament player together with England's Ryan Hart (Top Western Virtua Fighter gamer). He plays Bryan as his main in Tekken 5, and got knocked out by his regular training partner BlixtBob. His Bryan, however, amazed the Norwegians to the extent were our pad player Dead Alchemist immediately converted to arcade stick use. Maxi Milian also beat other Norwegians multiple times in a row.

In the middle, though, with the red cap, is Sakishiro. The overall strongest Tekken player in Europe, again, together with the Brits. This time, with no injuries (Sakishiro had received severe hand injuries prior to the official Nordic Tekken 5 tournament held in October 2005, and unfortunately lost to his friend in the final), Sakishiro plays strong and, as predicted, wins this year's Finnish Rautanyrkki. Rumours has it that Sakishiro is taking time off work during the summer holiday to visit South Korea for some extensive Tekken practising.

Behind him again, is BlixtBob. Playing mostly Xaioyuu in the tournament, but switches between her, Kazuya and Law in the final against Sakishiro. Again, extreme close play, but as stated above, Sakishiro beats the defending champion.

At front-right, is Arctic Charge.com Webmaster Entomo. Playing the strongest Hwoarang we|'ve seen in Europe, does a great job by placing third in this competition. Thanks to his editing skills, all tournament match videos will be uploaded onto his site within a very short time. Behind Entomo, is Iron Fart. Never witnessed any of his play either, but I got a very good impression of him when he came to pick us up at the airport. If I'm not mistaken, Tekken 5 was his main game.

Maxi Milian HomePage - Ligh Dash: http://maximi.mine.nu/
Arctic Charge Video footage archives: http://www.arctic-charge.com/index.php?p=2

Anyway, that's all we've got time for now. Look forward to a more extensive report this weekend.

Norway's invading Moomin Valley

2006-04-10T23:48:00.000+02:00

Nordic "Tougeki" in Finland - Easter Holiday

As a huge contributor to the Nordic fighting game community, website "Arctic Charge" is, once again, arranging the biggest multi-fighting game get-together to be ever experienced on Nordic turf. Hosting large tournaments in big-hit games like Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter, Guilty Gear and Soul Calibur, has led to attracting die hard fighting games fans from all over Scandinavia. Rautanyrkki - Iron Fist in English - has grown bigger and better every year, and for the first time introducing prize money for the winners of the big competitions.

Accompanied by famous European Virtua Fighter junkies Raider and Netrom, I, Chief Gutti, are invited to represent Norway in the Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution tournament. Top players BlixtBob and Jeneric from Sweden, as well as Finnish Virtua Gods Pexi and Manjimaru, forces Rautanurkki's level of competition sky-high. The twins and I will, therefore, make sure we spend the remaining days, until departure, wisely, to prepare properly by revising on anti-character strats, guaranteed damage and defence techniques.

If everything goes as planned, we will be able to capture video footage of some of the most important matches. We will do our best to edit these, and upload them as fast as possible.

Above picture is of ArcticCharge.com Webmaster Entomo, who faced above-mentioned Swedish player BlixtBob, in last year's final in the Tekken 5 tournament. Video footage and pictures can be accessed by copy and pasting the following link:

Official Homepage of Arctic Charge - http://www.arctic-charge.com/

You can also download a trailer from the event to get a glimpse at the excitement it has to offer.

Rautanyrkki 6 Promotional Trailer:
http://www.arctic-charge.com/index.php?p=2&i=28&l=en

Norwegian SFIII 3rd Strike & Guilty Gear XX # Reload representatives Wallace and Robbie3s. Both players have at earlier occasions experienced International competition during last month's Tougeki qualifications in France. The trip proved to be a huge key to improving their game, and we can expect these two hardcore 2D gamers to do well in the Finnish tournament. Wallace is also the former Norwegian Tekken Tag Tournament champion, so it will be very interesting to see how far he is able to reach, despite the tough competition.

Tekken 5 Team Tournament winners MAD K.O, together with Christie player Justin Case, are going as Norway's Tekken representatives. MAD K.O team members, Dead Alchemist and Rising Uppercut, are still unsure of which characters to emphasize on in the tournament, but sources say that a Bryan/Kazuya combo is very likely to appear. Rising Uppercut is also determined to do his best at the Soul Calibur 3 tournament.

Look forward to checking out the tournament results when we all return from Finland on Monday 17th.

Super Street Fighter II X Tournament

2006-04-08T18:10:00.000+02:00

Hyper Street Fighter II - 15th Anniversary

It's finally Easter, and to boost our holiday spirits, we started off by arranging this year's very first Super Street Fighter II X (SSFIIX) tournament. SSFIIX - Grand Master Challenge, which launched in the arcades in March 94, is the 6th installment in the series, implementing a Super Gauge to introduce the new concept of Super Moves. No new characters were added from the predecessor, but other elements like overhead attacks, throw escape, and new and modified moves, made SSFIIX the King of fighting games. SSFIIX is also thought to be the most accuracy-demanding title among the whole series.

On Saturday 8th of April, 15 of the regular fighting gamers met up at Spiderman to battle it out. A 16 player Double Elimination tournament went smoothly, with few upsets, and after 2 1/2 hours a play, Chief Gutti was the one to come out on top. Although Ryu was heavily represented in this tournament, we still had the chance to witness some interesting play from characters such as Dee Jay, Chun Li, Guile, Sagat, Ken and Zangief. Before the tournament started, everyone got the chance to listen to some Remix Tracks of the background music, courtesy of the "Insanity DVD" series featuring "The Starting Over - Hyper Street Fighter II" Tournament DVD.

Top picture: On the right, Red Hawk coming 3rd using Ryu. On the left, you have Robbie3s with Guile, who also won the 3rd Strike tournament earlier this year. In the middle, winning his first tournament in 2006, is Chief Gutti.

Amazingly enough, 15 out of the 16 registered contestants met up in time for everything. Even though we were playing the PS2 version of Hyper Street Fighter II, no joypads were allowed. One match would consist of a first-to-three-rounds battle, and the CPII BMG was selected to maintain the nostalgic feeling from back in the days.

Dead Alchemist, being rather new to the series. A Master in Tekken using Bryan, but becoming better and better everyday at games like King of Fighters, Street Fighter II and Capcom VS SNK. Due to the non-existence of arcades in Norway, Dead Alchemist is among the unfortunates who missed out of the start of the Street Fighter era.

Street Fighter release date list:

Street Fighter - August 1987
Street Fighter II World Warriors - March 1991
Street Fighter II Dash - April 1992
Street Fighter II Dash Turbo - December 1992
Super Street Fighter II The New Challengers - October 1993
Super Street Fighter II Tournament Edition - October 1993
Super Street Fighter II X Grand Master Challenge - April 1994

Rising Uppercut, sitting left, showed a nice set of cross-over combos and corner traps, but came short when he had to face "The King of Fighting Games" JINsama, who has placed on top in many tournaments in a wide selection of games. JINsama has earlier won Virtua Fighter 4 tournaments, Nationals in Tekken 4, as well as gotten to the semi-finals in the EURO Tekken 4 competition in London in 2003. He has later won the Nationals in Tekken 5, something which led him to winning the Official Nordic Tekken 5 Tournament held in Stockholm, Sweden, a month later.

In the middle of the picture, wearing the white beenie/woolie hat, is L.O.T.S (Lord of the Strings). He was the top Norwegian Tekken Tag Tournament player together with Wallace, standing left of him.

L.O.T.S is also the lead guitarist in the Norwegian Progressive Metal band Circus Maximus. The band released the first album "The First Chapter" during Summer time last year, and are currently working on an album said to be made much heavier, apparantly to cater more towards the Asian metal market. I personally play some guitar myself, and I am not bullshitting when I am saying that L.O.T.S is, without a doubt, going to be world famous for his individual guitar skills as the years pass by.

Circus Maximus Official Homepage: http://www.circusmaximussite.com/

Double Elimination chart

List of participants:

01. Gilgamesh - Dee Jay
02. Walk Over
03. RAT - Chun Li
04. Shin Akuma - Sagat
05. Shuugyou ga tarin - Ryu
06. L.O.T.S - Sagat
07. Dead Alchemist - Ken
08. Red Hawk - Ryu
09. Mr. Random - Ryu
10. Wallace - Sagat
11. Chief Gutti - Ryu
12. Robbie3s - Guile
13. EagleJin - Zangief
14. Rising Uppercut - Ryu
15. JINsama - Ken
16. Lord Pringles - Ryu

We were not able to offer any prizes to the tournament this time, but look forward to some exciting Street Fighter stuffed animals/plush dolls in a couple of months, when we once again are ready to test our skills in a new Street Fighter III 3rd Strike tournament.

Tekken 5 - 2 on 2 Team Tournament

2006-03-14T00:36:00.000+01:00

Champion Team - MAD K.O

After hours of intense battling, Team MAD K.O surprised everyone by taking victory at this year's very first PS2 Tekken 5 Tournament held in Oslo. In a 2 on 2 Double Elimination Team Tournament, Team MAD K.O, consisting of members Dead Alchemist and Rising Uppercut (see picture), managed to show amazing playing capabilities by adapting to the opponent's style of play, leading the team to some astonishing comebacks. Many of Norway's most famous Tekken players were present in this Tournament, including the Nordic Tekken 5 Champion JINsama, the Nordic Tekken Tag Tournament Champion Wallace, as well as Atilla Jinov, the Runner Up to the Norwegian Tekken 5 Championships.

To best suit the conditions of a Team Tournament, two arcade monitors were hooked up so each team could concentrate fully on the screen without being distracted by the nearby player. We used a 2 Port VGA Splitter to achieve this.

Some of the players testing the arcade sticks before the tournament started. However, to also cater towards the pad players, people had the opportunity to connect their brought-along pads to available extension chords.

If you look closely at the picture, you'll notice Tekken 4 being displayed on the projector screen. This is footage from the Tekken 5 Skill Edge DVD produced by Enterbrain. The DVD follows the history between the Tekken rivalry of Japan and Korea, and starts by giving information on how it all started when Tekken Tag Tournament was launched in the Arcades in 1999. The polularity rate of the game in Korea even surpassed the Japanese, and the two countries officially met for the first time during the Tekken Tag Tournament World Championships held in San Jose, California later that year. By having top representives from the US, Mexico, Korea and Japan, Korea's Sok Donmin took 1st place followed up by MIC from the US.
This first encounter, later evolved into the two countries meeting yet again to battle it out. This time in Korea, under the 99 Pro Gamer Korea Open, were 3 of the best players from each country engaged in a 3 on 3 Team Tournament. Japan lost the challenge 1-2.

In March 2000, World Champion Sok Donmin and Chan Iksu, with the title Strongest of Korea, were invited to Japan. Their visit lasted for three days and left many scares on the pride of Japanese Tekken gamers. The first day, ends in 30-0 in matches. Second day, out of 50 matches, Sok Donmin only loses twice. On the third, at a former existing Tekken home-arcade hall called Shinjuku Playmax, the Japanese were ready for revenge. Out of 35 challengers, 5 people managed to win. However, during the Tag Battle together with Chan Iksu, out of 33 matches, NOBODY wins a single time. Chan Iksu himself, after spending three days in Tokyo, having played beyond a 100 matches, returns home without having lost a single match.

Later that year, on the 20th of August, 3 of the best Korea Tekken players, including above-mentioned Sok Donmin and Chan Iksu, are invited to Japan to attend the Tekken Tag Tournament Far East Championships. Despite the amount of Japanese spots in the tournament, ALL three top spots are taken by the Koreans, by Pak (Jin & Heihachi), Chan Iksu (Jin & Kazuya) and Sok Donmin (Lei & Heihachi) in that order.

Then, in August 2001, Tekken 4 was released. Emphasizing too much on realism, the game lost the fun and exciting gameplay elements which the series had always offered in the past. This led the game to being boicotted, and many top players, world over, retired from the game.

Though, in November 2004, the long-awaited sequel to the series was finally in operational state in the arcades. The game had returned to many of its hardcore elements, as well as including new features like the Card System and Tekken.Net. This great feature won many new gamers, and a great majority of the retired Tekken experts, once again, returned to the scene.

After this introduction, the DVD introduces the Japanese top player, Tarechichi Ganryuu (Tare). He is followed on a trip to Korea where he challenges three of the current top Korean Tekken 5 players, including Leedy (Kazuya), Holeman (Raven) and NIN (Steve), where NIN being the Tougeki Super Battle Opera 2005 Winner held in Japan in May 2005. Without having the possibility to bring along a set of Japanese sticks, Tare is having difficulties in adapting to the Korean baseball bat-looking counterparts. Although he gets close at winning, he loses 3 straight matches to Leedy, another 3 matches to Holeman, and only manages to win 1 match against NIN.

It is going to be interesting in seeing how the two countries will evolve during the current release of Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, an update with two brand new characters.

Participants waiting for their Team Members to arrive. People who showed up without a team member, were put together with other people who also came single-handedly. This has even created new full-time Teams, and we hope to be seeing these same teams during our next Tekken 5 tournament on the 25th of March.

Considering the fact that we had a Double Elimination Tournament, we only had space for 16 teams. Due to as much as 18 teams arrived, we had to play a 4 team qualifiers tournament prior to the start of the main event. The two best teams were then granted their spots.

Many faces who we recognise from the start of the Tekken tournament era.

Our most anticipated match of the day was between Team UTH (JINsama & Wallace) and Team Nightmare (Attila Jinov & Omer Supo). All members from each team are at the top of the skills list within the Norwegian Tekken community. JINsama (Christie) starts the match facing Supo (Wang), and takes the first two rounds quickly. Supo adapts to JINsama's playing style and forces JINsama to initiate the attacks. Supo takes full advantage of this and turns the match around by winning 3-2. Wallace steps in as the last guardan for Team UTH. Again, a very close match, but Wallace is the one staying cool. Atilla (Paul) loses the first round, but takes the second round perfect. Both players suffer from one or two command-miss inputs, and they both take another round each. In the final round, however, Wallace takes advantage of a wall combo opportunity and delivers heavy damage. Atilla fights back, but guesses wrong in a okiseme situation (attacking opportunity while the opponent is on the ground) and is swept of his feet. Wallace takes the match and heads further down the road to victory.

Team Nightmare is, therefore, pushed into the Loser Bracket. In the Winner Bracket Final, Team MAD.KO face Team UTH. By only a fraction left on the life meter, Team UTH is again announced victorious. Team MAD K.O does an amazing job by beating Team Nightmare in the Loser Bracket Final, leading them into having a second chance to battle Team UTH. Having the necessity of winning two matches straight, Team MAD K.O had little hope among the spectators. Though, to everyone's surprise, both team members manage to play EXTREMELY well, guessing correct in many situations, something which led them into the near impossible, beating famous players JINsama and Wallace twice in a row! Again, this created huge excitement among the audience, and one thing is for sure, this win is going to be talked about for a long time to follow! MAD K.O will have to defend their title in two weeks, when they, once again, will face tough competition from Norwegian Tekken players who will do anything to, for once, place top at a big tournament in Norway.

In the middle, you have Team MAD K.O (Dead Alchemist & Rising Uppercut). On the left there, you have Team UTH (JINsama & Wallace). And, in third place, on the right, you have Team Nightmare (Omer Supo & Atilla Jinov)

To make the Team Tournament community more exciting, we will engrave the team names of each winning team on a trophy, so that shop goers and other Tekken fans can get the chance to see which teams have won the most tournaments. We will have some small prizes in our next Tekken 5 Team Tournament on the 25th of March. Although nothing big value wise, the prizes will at least be fun to have, considering they are not attainable on the Norwegian market.

EDIT: 17th of March, 2006

Some really nice prizes will be sponsored by the Norwegian Playstation Dealer, Nordic Film. 1st Place, can expect a nice value item, so make sure you pick a strong set of players for your team.

Thanks to our good friend MadCow, a few of the matches from this tournament can be downloaded from his homepage by accessing the following link:

http://blindern.mine.nu/tekken/spider2/

New Shop Show-Off Material

2006-03-08T23:05:00.000+01:00

NES Shop Display Unit & Nintendo 64DD Unit

We have added some more show-off material to our videogames shop by managing to get our hands on a NES Game Selector and a Nintendo 64DD unit. There is a high chance that you recognise the NES Display Unit. This device was stationed at various gameshops so that customers could get the chance to try out a wide selection of games, without the clerk having to swap titles, so often. By pressing the red button on the display, customers could toggle between 12 different NES games and get an impression of a desired title before a purchase. The unit would automatically switch between the games every two hours, probably to prevent people from playing through the entire games. The 64DD was a disc system device for the Nintendo 64. A variety of games were scheduled to be released for this add-on system, including Zelda: Ocarina of Time. However, due to various reasons, only around 5 or 6 titles ever hit the market, and the unit was cancelled for release in the West.

Thanks to my friend, Shou the Sith Lord, the package arrived safe and in good condition. More great stuff will be sent within the next few weeks. Boss is waiting eagerly.

Boss, being careful when opening the package. Being the Number One Star Wars collector in the whole of Norway, Boss takes extreme care when handling goods and merchandise of proposed value.

Goods arriving in official Nintendo sealed cardboard boxes. These boxes on their own, even present value to collectors. Games that came with were: Mario Point, Sim City, Doujin the Giant and F-Zero Expansion Kit. The Doujin the Giant Expansion Pack is the rarest of the games, and according to collectors, priced at around 30 000 yen (Approx 300 USD) per copy. I am sure our friend Shou will be on the look-out for this :)

The 64DD set-up from up close. The F-Zero Expansion Kit has to be used with a copy of the Nintendo 64 version of F-Zero. The disc features the ability to create your own cars, tracks, etc.

Dumme Nordmann in Japan part III

2006-02-16T00:49:00.000+01:00

Nagoya Castle at evening time

It has been a long time, but I'm finally continuing the report from our Japan trip we went out on in Summer 2004. After spending a week in Tokyo, we decided to head over to Nagoya and Kyoto for a week before we returned back to Tokyo again. Nagoya is in fact, the 4th largest city in Japan (2.2 million citizens), mainly famous for its car and shipping industry. My first real experience with Japan came from having lived a year in Nagoya as an exchange student. From mid 1997 to 1998, I stayed with a host family in a city called Toyota City. Yes, you're right, this is the city of the world famous car developer. Except for the Islands of Okinawa, Nagoya is also the hottest area within Japan. I have only experienced snow once or twice while in Nagoya. Compare that to Tokyo and you're in for a shock :) Anyway, as always, enjoy some pictures from our trip, below.

On the train from Nagoya station to Toyota City station. To get from Tokyo to Nagoya however, we took the Shinkansen bullet train. Even though it is sometimes cheaper to buy a flight ticket to Nagoya, you ultimately save money by riding the Shinkansen. The reason for this, is mainly due to the extra costs of travelling back and forth to the airport. From Tokyo Narita Airport to down-town Tokyo, you can expect travel-times beyond 1 1/2 hour. As stupid as it gets, I remember walking around with a suitcase that I had had since 1994! The wheels were practically damaged beyond recognition, making it the biggest project in the world when pulling it along. I even had to ask help from Morten, several times, cause the suitcase was basically too heavy to carry.

Rat eating Japanese candy. Luckily, there were few people riding the train that day, so getting on and off with all the extra luggage we had was no problem. All Japanese trains are drenched with advertisment. In Japan, you will see just as many CMs (Commercials) for videogames as you would for movies.

Due to limits of space, underground Shopping Centres can be found in all big cities of Japan. At first, I really wondered how these Malls would look like in real life, but when experiencing them, you get to realize that there are practically identical to any other Shopping Centre out there. Cool thing about these underground facilities is the size and length. One shopping centre can in some cases, be the host of two stops on the underground subway network.

Morten, totally dead from warm temperatures. This photo was taken at the home of my host parents which I stayed at many years ago. We were allowed to crash at their place for two days while we were enjoying the sights of Nagoya. Of course, at evening times, we would head down to the local arcade to check out the level of challenge at Toyota. To our amazement, the top ranked Virtua Fighter player we witnessed was in a fact a female gamer. When returning to this arcade alone a year later, I learnt that she was actually one of the arcade hall staff members. She even crushed me completely at another fighting game like Tekken, too.

On our second day, we went to Nagoya-ko (Nagoya Harbour) and visitted the Nagoya Suizokukan (Nagoya Aquarium). This was particulary exciting for the twins, Rat and Morten, since they had never been to other similar venues like Sea World, etc. The Aquarium has all kinds of fish, and even mammals like the Killer Whale (Shachi in Japanese), Dolphin (Iruka) and Beluga (White Whale). Information about all species can be enjoyed in both Japanese and English.

At the top of the aquarium. Three dolphins launching high into the air. An impressive performance. Unfortunately for Killer Whale fans such as I, Shachi had just moved in to the aquarium and wasn't ready for any stunt show this early in his training phase. Hopefully, I'm hoping to meet Shachi during my next visit to Nagoya :)

Four idiotic-looking foreigners who more than twice appeared on the main screen of the venue. Probably, they were just as fun to look at as the crazy jumping dolphins :)

Dolphins going mental in trying to focus the attention away from the foreigners.

Nagoya Port seen from the Aquarium.

Nagoya Public Aquarium Homepage:
http://www.nagoyaaqua.jp/

Later that evening, we took some time to visit Nagoya-jou (Nagoya Castle). This castle was constructed to host the Owari family branch, one of three branches within the Tokugawa family. The castle received severe damage after the World War 2 bombings, and has, therefore, been completely rebuilt. Many believe that, if it were not for the bombings, Nagoya Castle would be the most prestigious-looking castle to date, surpassing the beauty of even the Himeiji Castle. Nagoya Castle is also famous for its two golden Killer whale statues that are standing at the top of the castle roof. These mythical creatures guard the castle from evil entry, and has given the castle an alternative name - Kinshachi-jou - where "Kin" means gold and "shachi", Killer whale.

Although we just have to apologise for not having a close-up picture, the golden Killer whales can be spotted at the top of the castle.

The Onimusha warriors of the Nagoya Castle. Due to lack of money lately, I still haven't been able to buy a copy of the newest Onimusha game, Shin-Onimusha. It is said to be slightly different from the earlier episodes in the series, but as long as the game features both an excellent variety of defence and attack techniques, I'm bound to be mesmerized no matter how bad the review scores might be.

Information on Tokugawa history can be read at the following page:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2128.html

Well, that was that from Nagoya. The next day we decided to take the bus to Kyoto rather than the Shinkansen. Even though the bus ride took 5 hours, it was well worth it considering we paid 2500 yen for the ticket compared to the alternative 9000 yen.
Being as lanky legged as we are, we constantly had to hit our fists to our legs making sure they wouldn't fall asleep. Good thing the bus stopped for a 15 minute break twice on the ride :)

We will have plenty of more nice looking pictures from our Kyoto trip, so please check for updates to the blog if you have some spare time.

Shou at the top of the lists in VF5 in Japan

2006-02-10T00:31:00.000+01:00

Second stage of Virtua Fighter 5 location testing have started in three arcades in Tokyo, Japan. In combination with this year's Beat Tribe Tournament (a 5 on 5 team tournament in VF), SEGA will have test versions of VF5 for a whole consecutive week.

To our amazement, Shou, the top US player, is currently at the top of the official SEGA lists at the beta stage of this game. By checking the picture, you can see that Shou is at top above all the famous people.

NO.1, you have Shou The Chou Amerikajin (Shou the Super American)
2nd Muscle Sarah - 4th Neo Tower - 5th Chibita - 6th Mukki Akira - 8th Nishi-Daru

Check the point difference between Shou and Muscle Sarah. Pretty amazing!

The new character, Eileen, has finally been introduced. Although she is said to be a mixture of Pai and Aoi (an evil combination), she will also be the most light weight character in the whole game, leaving the opportunity for combos which will only work against her. According to Shou, there are a set of combos which work on Eileen and do not work on Aoi (the former lightest character).

Check the link on the right to access Shou's VF5 site Wanna Fight Us?

STREET FIGHTER III 3RD STRIKE TOURNAMENT

2006-01-22T00:19:00.000+01:00

As some might have guessed, the first tournament we held this year was in Streetfighter III 3rd Strike. 3rd Strike, is the latest game in the critically acclaimed Streetfighter series which revolutionized "versus" gaming when it launched in arcades in 1991. Unfortunately for the fans, Capcom decided 3rd Strike to be the very final game to the stand-alone series, and after it's launch in 1999, we have been bombarded with less astonishing titles like Capcom VS SNK, SNK VS Capcom, Capcom Fighting Jam, among others. Despite the fact that the game launched all the way back in 1999, 3rd Strike is still believed to be the deepest, most entertaining 2D game to ever hit the arcades. Even today, the game produces a decent share of revenue along side top titles like Tekken, Virtua Fighter and the Guilty Gear series. In the meantime, we can all just hope that Capcom will reconsider their decision about the series, and hopefully enough, announce a continuation some time in the future.

Here is a picture of the tournament set-up. We used a Naomi Universal Cabinet as the main monitor for the players. The control panel - or stick section - is modified to be able to be used as a controller for the PS2 system. In order for the picture to be displayed on a 31 KHz monitor, we used a MicomSoft XRGB-Plus 2 Up Scan Unit to convert the signal from 15 KHz to 31 KHz. The picture was then split so that spectators could watch the matches by viewing the projector screen.

While waiting for the tournament to start, footage from the "STREET FIGHTER SAGA BUSHINDEN" DVD was running on the projector. An absolute must-have for fighting game fans. It's a box featuring 2 DVDs and 2 booklets on the series, and it takes you from the very beginning to the very end packed with tons of information on the game, including interviews with the developers. I am surprised they haven't tried to release this DVD in the West. Unfortunately for the non-Japanese speaker, you will miss out on a lot of details during the conversations with the producers, character designers, etc., but I still consider it a great watch no matter the language barriers.

Although it was early in the morning, people showed up in time to register for the event. With 14 participants and 2 walk-overs, we were able to host a 16 Player Double Elimination tournament. The players were, therefore, given "2 Lives" when fighting for the top spot. If you were unlucky to lose in your first match, you still had the opportunity to win the rest of the matches in the loser bracket, consequently leading you to the final and play the winner of the winner bracket.

Chief Gutti as the host and commentator of the tournament. Each player was introduced to the crowd, and some comments from the players were more memorable than others :)

The shop was packed with customers, of many who enjoyed the event. Sales were also positively high, making the day well worth. Next week, will be a 2 on 2 tournament in Tekken 5. Lets hope this one, too, produces positive results.

All the participants, excluding Chief Gutti. The guy one the very left, with the woolly hat/beanie covering his eyes, was Pichala from Chile. He was totally new to the scene, but had grown up with arcades as a child, and showed, therefore, great skills using Alex. He will certainly be back for more tournaments in other games in the future.

After 2 1/2 hours of play, we confirmed a winner. The guy in the middle, Robbie3s, took victory and showed tremendous skills controlling character Dudley at its best. 2nd place, or runner up, went to Wallace (left) using Nekro. The well known JINsama - the Nordic Champion at Tekken 5 - took 3rd place with Gouki/Akuma, and managed to show gamers that he could place high in whatever fighting game there is. Among other characters played were Ken, Alex and Ibuki.

The Double Elimination brackets. Although unclear on this picture, left lists the ringnames of all the participants: Red Hawk, EagleJin, Nukleuz, Wallace, Robbie3s, JINsama, MadCow, MadSkills, Pichala, Chief Gutti, Gilgamesh, Shin-Akuma, Dead Alchemist and Rising Uppercut.

Again, I would like to thank everybody who showed up for the event. Although there will not be any grand prizes at present, we appreciate the fact that you are all still willing to participate. As the months pass by, and after showing our dealers the positive aspects of this gaming environment, we are sure to receive some really nice give-aways for future tournaments.

As for now, keep practising them skills!!

Arcades/Game Centers

2006-01-18T21:58:00.000+01:00

Club Sega Akihabara, Tokyo

Some of you might remember the golden days of arcade gaming during the '90s when it was perfectly normal, to daily, spend a couple of credits on the newest arcade game out. The arcades (Gamecenter in Japanese) were a common ground for gaming fans to meet. No matter how far away you lived, or how little your flat or house might have been, the arcade would be a big enough place, neutral to everyone, as well as being conveniently located for all arcade goers. Unfortunately for Oslo, the capital of Norway, such arcades do no longer exist. Certain laws forbid citizens to establish arcade halls. In fact, you are only allowed to have 3 arcade machines in operation at a time. The Government believes that, unless there is a quota for this, arcade operators would take advantage of the situation and use this business for money laundry. Also, operators are forced into paying high taxes for profit on this kind of venture.

I remember the times, when I would save some lunch money to afford one or two credits at my favourite fighting game that was just released in the arcades. On my way to the arcade, I would pray that there were new people to scene, all there to give great challenge at whatever fighting game I would play. Hey, I would even speed up the closer I got! That is how excited I was about those times. I could never be bored. If there was absolutely nothing to do at home, I would just go by the arcade for an hour or two. Here I would meet tons of new people, many who I still keep in contact with up until this day. Being fortunate enough to having lived abroad for many years, I have been in a situation were going to the arcade is still a possibility. However, for fighting game fans in Norway, heading over to a local friend for an evening of gaming is your only choice. Sadly enough, playing your four best buddies constantly at the same game tends to get very monotonous, and worst of all, makes it a lot tougher to improve efficiently.

To try and maintain and improve the fighting game community in Norway, the game shop I work at will host a wide varity of gaming tournaments throughout the year. Hopefully, this will give the gamers something to look forward to every once in a while, and by having a tournament, the gamers can finally show the skills they have been gaining after practising endlessly at home. Our first tournament was already held last Saturday (14th of January). Although there are still very few 2D fans left, a 16 men Double Elimination tournament was still feasible. Luckily, we remembered to take a couple of pictures. Please have a look at these in my next post.

Watch out for Mr. Chuck "Roundhouse" Norris

2005-12-08T23:43:00.000+01:00

"The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain"

"If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death"

Carlos Ray Norris, aka Chuck Norris, is the number one crime fighter to date. He is world widely known for putting well deservingly criminals behind bars, and his famous roundhouse kick, has left every-day-reminding scars on millions of fools who have tried to stand up against him. Having won the World Professional MiddleWeight Karate Championships 6 times in row, as well as being inducted into the Martial Arts Hall of Fame, gave him credibility to producing his very own crime fighting TV-series.
Walker, Taxes Ranger, as the series was called, ran on television non-stop for 8 years (1993-2001) and proved to be a tremendous role model for Rangers all over Texas. The series has given Chuck Norris numerous awards, including the 1998 Epiphany award for best Christian program and the BMI music award for his phenomenal voice on the Walker, Texas Ranger theme song "Eyes of the Ranger".

Chuck Norris has starred in a variety of films, leaving a long lasting impression behind. His sturdy beard and deadly roundhouse kick is continuing in keeping people on the right side of the law, and will undoubtedly be remembered for his effort and courage for decades to follow.

"Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants"

"Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits"

"After much debate, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima rather than the alternative of sending Chuck Norris. His reasoning? It was more "humane"."

"A blind man once stepped on Chuck Norris' shoe. Chuck replied, "Don't you know who I am? I'm Chuck Norris!" The mere mention of his name cured this man blindness. Sadly the first, last, and only thing this man ever saw, was a fatal roundhouse delivered by Chuck Norris"

Fore more excellent facts about Chuck Norris, check the following link:
http://www.4q.cc/chuck/index.php?topthirty

Dumme Nordmann in Japan part II

2005-12-07T01:03:00.000+01:00

Roppongi Hills as tall as it gets

I'll continue the report on our visit to Japan by adding some more pictures from various places in Tokyo. First of all, I would like to show you more photos from Roppongi Hills. Roppongi Hills, hosts a wide variety of facilities, all from office spaces and residental areas, to cinemas, restaurants, library, art museums and exhibition floors. Big companies such as Lehman Brothers and Konami Entertainment Japan have their offices here. From month to month, a range of different exhibitions can be appreciated. The most attractive aspect of Roppongi Hills, is in my mind, the ability to view Tokyo city from the top floors of the building. During summer time, you also get the chance to exit to the roof top. Here you can enjoy fresh air while viewing breathtaking scenery from 270 meter above sea level.

At the left there, you can see Tokyo Tower. Although it might seem as Roppongi Hills would be at a higher height, Tokyo Tower beats Roppongi Hills by standing tall at 333 metres. However, the view deck which is open to visitors, is only at 250 metres. Although this is lower than Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Tower is a great place to bring your girlfriend or boyfriend, and if you're afraid of heights, have some fun standing on a section made out of glass. Looking down at the crowd below from 250 metres up in the sky, can give you some heavy chills down your spine :) At the right of the picture though, you can finally see some of Bay Area Tokyo.

Meet the one and only, Shacho, the Manager of Roppongi Hills. He is the mascot, and welcomes happy visitors from all over the world. Since it might be hard to read what it says on the picture, I will post the message below.

Shacho

Uh, I am Shacho.
Uh, I wonder since when I have been here...
Uh, I like to be useful for everyone.
Uh, somehow I am able to communicate with our spaceship Pi-chan,
and uh, I have abilities to do this and that.

Due to the happy, smily face of this character, tons of plush animal Shachos are sold every day. Hey, I even bought one for this girl back in Norway once :) The silhouette of Pi-chan is slightly in the way of the poster :)

If I'm not mistaken, this is the view of a road leading up to Shinjuku. Shinjuku, is the absolute most busy street in Japan, and during night time on Fridays and Saturdays, Shinjuku becomes more crowded than ANY other city in the world (even New York). A huge amount of well known shopping centers and night clubs are concentrated here. Although this is where our favourite arcade for VF is situated, this has nothing to do with the fact that this area also hosts Japan's red light district. All the rumours you've heard about Japan when it comes to this sort of entertainment, can be experienced here as long as you have the money :)

Raider spotting a nice looking lady from afar. Though Raider might not have realized this at times, he was quite the popular guy while we were in Japan. Too bad the Japanese ladies didn't speak a word of English :)

Would you believe it? There are actually trees in Tokyo :) I am not sure whether or not I took the right picture, but the forestry area at the top there might be of the Emperor's Palace. Roppongi Hills gardens and parks can be spotted at the bottom of the picture.

Hello Kitty 30th Anniversary. Roppongi Hills was selected to exhibit photos, merchandise and information on the very popular Hello Kitty figure. Even though this character happens to be very annoying in my opinion, girls from all over the world worship this pink and blue cat. Toyota even launched one of their car models with a Hello Kitty theme! Could you ever imagine seeing a small, pink car passing by you with Hello Kitty stickers all over it? Well, if you're in Japan, you can :)

A happy Japanese family enjoying the warm, sunny day at Roppongi Hills. If you look closely, you can see the little girl walking around with her Hello Kitty fan. This picture is taken from the bottom section at the site.

Netrom, RAT, Raider and Morten being satisfied of their time spent at Roppongi Hills. Sadly enough, the roof top section was closed off this time, but we are all looking forward to experiencing it the next time we head off to Japan. We also had a nice set of Japanese food before the Tokyo City View attraction opened in the morning, so we were well prepared for the day :)

A photo taken later on the day. It was very hot that day, so we had to stop by convenient stores (combini in Japanese) frequently to get enough cans of soda. Anyone recognize those Moomin figures in the background there? Well, the Moomins happen to be popular in Japan as well! And I who thought the Moomins only existed in the Nordic part of Europe :) Due to the fact that Netrom and Raider both happen to be half Finnish, we often call them the Moomin Twins. Every time we are invited to Moomin Valley, Moomin Mommy cooks some of the best food we've ever tasted. Moomin Mommy does a great job in promoting the valley, and we all envy the Twins for having such a fun and kind mom.

Please check out the following links if you wish to read some more information about Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Tower

http://www.roppongihills.com/en/facilities/
http://www.tokyotower.co.jp/2005/web/eng/index.html

Virtua Fighter 5 Location Testing!

2005-11-27T22:44:00.000+01:00

That's right! SEGA has started the first phase of location testing (Beta-testing) of Virtua Fighter 5 at the famous Shinjuku Club Sega West in Tokyo. The location testing is only being held for two days, on the 26th and 27th of November, but despite the short time, it will definitely answer some cruel questions to the new elements of the game.

Both Shou and Mr. David have spent time at the location testing site, and can probably pass us some nice details that yet haven't been announced on western gaming forums already. There are many Japanese pages out there reporting on the changes, but for those who will have to rely on information in English, check out the boards at www.virtuafighter.com

Please check SEGA's official VF5 homepage for pictures as the days go by.
http://www.virtuafighter.jp/

Enjoy two pictures of the VF5 Cabinet setup. Pictures taken by Mr. David.

A set of new SEGA cabinets. No new title has been given these cabinet models yet, but SEGA has had a history of calling their models something, something City until now. Although not officially announced, sources say the screen happens to be manufactured by Eizo. Model number is Eizo-LCD26, a 26" LCD Wide-Screen with XWGA (1360 x 768) resolution.

My only worry is whether the game cannot be played on a 31khz monitor or not. If that is so, then I guess I would need a high quality projector or HDTV to be able to play this game when it is released in the arcades in April, 2006. The game is also played in wide screen like mentioned above.

Although the picture is dark, the game still works under its 3 button system. Characters move at different speeds according to size. The card readers have shifted towards a more ATM machine-looking style. Very similar to the Tekken 5 card reader system. You put the card in the reader and the card cannot be removed until you're game over. This prevents people from pulling out their cards during battle. Although this had no major effects, it was still done to show anger to your opponent.

I will put out some more details of the game tomorrow. Have to get in contact with Shou and Mr. David first, hehe.

Dumme Nordmann in Japan

2005-11-23T19:39:00.000+01:00

As far as the eye can see, Roppongi Hills, Tokyo, Japan

Have a look at a range of pictures from our Japan trip in July/August, 2004. If you've had time to view some of my older posts, you can see images taken from the two week long Thailand trip that Morten and I went out on before we met up with the rest of the Norwegians in Tokyo. We had planned to meet up at Narita Airport in Tokyo on the same day actually, but due to the fact that I ended up getting food poisened on the last day in Thailand, our flight from Bangkok to Tokyo was postponed for a day. Morten was, therefore, forced into helping me into a hospital, forced to sleep on the shittiest couch ever, as well as coping with being ordered around fixing new flight tickets and food. One thing's for sure, whatever you do, DON'T end up in a hospital in Thailand if it's outside of Bangkok. That's exactly what happened to us, and having absolutely NO doctors properly speaking English combined with everyone laughing at you when you're in pain, is something I REALLY hope none of you ever experience when you're on holiday. The smiling and laughing part is no joke, in Thai customs this shows friendliness. I am just very lucky that my friend Morten was kind enough to put up with all the crap he experienced at the hospital, and even though I was the one with the food poisoning, I wouldn't trade my spot for his even if I got a buck or two.

Anyway, the eWil Twins (Netrom and Raider) had absolutely no problems in finding the hotel on their own. I am very impressed by that, considering you'd basically had to change three times on the train to get to the business hotel. The Twins have had experiences with travelling to Shanghai and New York on their own before, plus when trying out something new, they become instant masters at the game. The picture above is of Netrom, Raider, Chief Gutti and RAT. Morten took this picture as soon as we got off at Shinjuku station in Tokyo.

As most of you could have guessed, it didn't take us long until we found an arcade (Gamecenter in Japanese, ge-sen in short) with Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned. We had been looking forward to playing this game a lot, and had spent a lot of time watching match videos and reading articles and moves lists prior to our arrival in Japan. The game supports card readers which identify your characters ring name, team name, items and rank, and I had my VF Evolution card from last year when I was in Japan, while the Twins had theirs from their gaming moments in Shanghai. You can only imagine how much money we spent on playing this game this trip. We battled constantly against better players in hope to raise our ranks. If I remember correctly, Netrom and I were at 7th Dan, while Raider was at 8th Dan from our VF Evolution stats.

RAT having his underground ticket lost. There are only two ways this can happen. You either forget to pick up your ticket when you cross the ticket barriers, or you lose it while holding it on the train etc. I've done this twice before as well, but never since. I've finally learnt to put it in my wallet as soon as I pass the ticket barriers. The shitty thing about losing your ticket when you're in Japan has to do with the fact that you have to give proof of WHERE you got on. The ticket fare changes according to distance you travel, so even though you got on a stop which was only 4 stops away, you might be punished by having to pay the fare from the very beginning station. Considering the size of the Tokyo underground network, you can imagine the fare ranges. Anyway, RAT hasn't been the only foreigner losing his ticket, so after a little talk with the Station Chief, he let him pass without paying.

A picture taken from Asakusa Shrine. Some of the gamers reading my blog might have played a game called Metropolis Street Racer on the Sega Dreamcast console. There is a stage in that game where you can drive around in the Asakusa area. This might also be true for the Project Gotham Racing series. As for the real thing, and on the way to the shrine, you will pass a lot of mini shops selling all kinds of merchandise. Mostly souvenirs and goods for tourists, but definitely something that would interest you. If you like them Karate Kid bandanas (Hachimaki in Japanese) with all the different Japanese kanji characters, or fake versions of Katanas or Ninja Stars (Shuriken in Japanese), then this is definitely a place for you :)

If you're into English stuffs rather than Japanese stuff, I'd highly recommend this shop. For more great stuffs, check www.engrish.com.

Outside Sony Building at Ginza, Tokyo. You might recognise the cartoon figures you see there from your younger days. I think the figures were called Barbapapa or something. Sony Building are having all kinds of campaigns (Not the political or military ones) throughout the year, and I've seen times where they have had a huge aquarium with spectacular looking fish, and a time when they displayed their Playstation 2 European Automobile Colour Collection units, when celebrating the fact that Sony had exceeded in shipping 20 million PS2 units to stores world wide (October, 2001). If you ever get the chance to visit Tokyo, I would really recommend you stopping by Ginza if you have time. Ginza hosts the country's most fashionable and exclusive shops, and if you like toy stores, enjoy a 6 storey building with tons of nice stuff for kids (Not as good as Hamley's in London though, hehe).

Evening time in Shinjuku. We passed by a Japanese street band playing crazy rock music. The guitarist actually had some pretty good soloing skills, and if language would never be a barrier to success, I am sure that a handful of Japanese rock and metal bands would make it really well in the west too.

On our way back from Shinjuku. On our left there, you can see the famous vending machines. You'll find these wherever you go in Japan. If you're thirsty and lost in the woods, no worries, around the next corner you'll probably bump into one of these machines (called Jidou hanbaiki in Japanese) offering a wide variety of beverages. One can of soda is usually at 120 yen, but some have both hot and cold brands including corn soup and health drinks.

Anyhow, that's all of part 1. I will put up more pictures within the following days.

Blood Type issue

2005-11-23T17:01:00.000+01:00

I posted about this in one of my earlier posts actually, and I was mentioning that I would finally obtain my blood type info during my next visit to the GP. Crappy enough, this info was not stated in my records at that hospital, and I was told I had to contact the hospital where I was operated on to get this info. God damn, this is more troublesome than expected.

Enjoy a picture of me consulting with the Blood Demon

Lion Croft - Office Raider!

2005-11-21T18:06:00.000+01:00

And you might have thought Eidos, the developer of the formely popular Tomb Raider games on the Playstation 1/2 plattform, had given up on the series after the overrated, disappointing Lara Croft - Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness that hit the PS2 some years ago. Insanely enough, to our amazement, Eidos have hired a Swedish crew to help restore the reputation of the series, and to all that are interested a movie teaser of the company's final shot at glory can be downloaded from the following site:

Fragile Fist Productions
http://ff.dumpen.serveftp.com/

Please click on the movies link at the bottom, followed by the download button at the Lion Croft - Office Raider section.

A DivX coded is needed to view this movie. Please download the newest codec available from this site:

http://www.divx.com/

Thanks to the Swedish crew, we can expect to see various gaming elements from two of SEGA's flagship titles, Virtua Fighter and Shenmue in the upcoming Eidos production, Lion Croft - Office Raider. There are even parts of the game that will borrow slightly from the movie series of Star Wars. Two of the cast are known Virtua Fighter players within the Nordic community.

AN ABSOLUTE MUST-DOWNLOAD! EXCELLENTLY MADE!

Gutti and Morten's Thailand trip

2005-11-14T22:37:00.000+01:00

Probably not very exciting to read about, but I'm putting up some pictures from our Thailand/Japan trip we went on last summer. I'll be introducing another good friend of mine Morten, who I funny enough first met at a Video Games Shop in Norway after I came back from England in 96. I remember the gameshop had Killer Instinct on SNES on display, and having played it plenty of times in the arcades up front I was sure to show of my skills at the game with viewing customers in the background. Then just before I hit Riptor stage (The fearsome Raptor looking dinosaur) I hear this dude in the background telling people that I was going to get slaughtered. Cause of my pride at that time, I turned around telling the guy off. This conversation led us into discussing our video game preferences in general, and due to the fact that both of us were really into fighting and RPG games at the time, we swapped phone numbers, which at least I very much benefitted from, lol. The reason for that was cause of one thing: Morten bought Chrono Trigger on SNES that day, and I was totally broke at the time, LOL!

A picture taken from our hotel. Down below us were tons of crazy Thai workers on a mission to build a shopping center. I mean, I don't mind the fact that a lot of shopping centers are being built in Thailand lately, but when you plan to fit a whole fucking WHALE inside a tub in the main hall, then I begin to get scared of what people get into these days. I can't exactly remember when they are going to complete this mall, but I bet there will be a lot of GreenPeace watchers protesting against this idea :)

Morten at the Emerald Buddha temple, known as Wat Prah Keow. I bet a lot of you who have been Thailand have probably visited this place already. Quite nice and relaxing, but remember, no sandals or shorts. If you're unaware of this before you head out, you can borrow a set of shoes and trousers from the entry area if you leave 100 bath in deposit and your I.D behind. Be aware of this though, it's going to be hot, I mean very hot, so make sure you don't wear any black clothing. If you would want to learn some historical facts about the place, you can get a guide to accompany you around the site.

Gutti doing Muay Thai pose in front of miniature Angkor Wat. Although this monument (the real thing) is situated in Cambodia, the Thai believe that the temple itself actually belongs to them. I'll ask a friend of mine why that is the case. Probably formely owned by Thailand or something. Some of you might have played a very popular fighting game called Tekken 1 some time in your life, and if you remember correctly there is a stage in that game which features Angkor Wat. There is another temple ruins you also might know of. If anyone of you have seen the film "Kickboxer" featuring Jean Claude Van Damme, you might have noticed the temple in the background used as a training ground for the main character. This place is situated in the olden capital of Thailand, Ayutthaya. Being a huge fan of the film made the family trip I went on in 1995 a lot better.

Dr. Morten disagreeing with the Thai monks on the interpretation of the wall painting. This painting is endlessly covering the wall that is surrounding the Emerald Buddha site. The painting tells the story of Buddhism.

Gutti and Morten at some islands in Krabhi. Although the weather wasn't exactly sunny, the water temperature was above anything I've ever experienced. Seriously, it was like swimming in a Jacuzzi! We got to do some really cool snorkel diving in super clear water, swimming amongst a wide variety of fish, both dull and colourful. And to the girls reading this, we'll make sure the guy on the left will lose some weight till next time, lol! Nah, hopefully we can get the guy on the right to start doing some weights for once as well :)

I'll begin putting up some pictures from the Japan trip in my next post. We met up with the formely introduced Netrom, Raider and RAT in Japan, so I hope you'll see some nice looking pictures we took there within the next few days (^o^)/

Scandinavian Virtua Fighter 4 EVO Tournament

2005-11-09T21:06:00.000+01:00

Last summer, between the 9th of July till the 11th, our biggest Scandinavian VF4 Tournament to date took place in Oslo, Norway. As many as eight Swedes and one Danish took their time to visit us for the ultimate VF experience possible on Nordic grounds. By a little help from our friends, the Bird Brothers (Known as the FugleBros in Norway), we were able to rent a flat which was mainly used as an Atelier, for a weekend. We started off playing mostly casual games to warm up, but the main event of the weekend was the Norway VS Sweden Team Tournament. Due to the fact that the Swedish team only consisted of 9 players, their best representative was given two chances to even the matches up. After intense playing, our Norwegian top player Netrom, was the one to kill off the Swedes' Taishou (A rank within the Japanese army, but still used as the term for the final team guardian in team fighting game tournaments). Although the loss must have been hard to swallow for the Swedes, we all had an excellent time and hope to be able to create our second tournament this christmas.

Enjoy some pictures taken from the tournament

Team Sweden with a little help from the Dane. From back left to right you have Fluddyflee (Sarah), KiwE (Brad), Must (Wolf), MiniSPUD (Akira), Shmolz (Lion), Lion (Pai) and Nybec (Aoi). At the front you have the Danish player 3of19 (Lion/Gou), and on his left is the host and creator of the Scandinavian Virtua Fighter Homepage (Check link on right section), Lau.VF (Lau). Lau.VF, also known as Oggy, is a full blood Japanese who lives in Sweden. He has played VF since the very beginning days, but due to his age (LOL) and whereabouts in Sweden, it is very expensive and far for him to travel to be able to experience some versus training. The only Scandinavian who can pull of a speedy back-dash technique known as Baiagu-stepping.

Norwegian team. From back left you have RAT (Pai), Wallace (Akira), JINsama (Lion), Duke (Lei Fei), Raider (Kage) and EagleJin (Gou). At the bottom you have Chief Gutti (Wolf), Netrom (Akira), Red Hawk (Jacky) and PKG (Vanessa). PKG was our biggest surprise to the tourney. Most of us had never heard of him until that day, but despite playing only less stronger players where he lives, he had some really strong fundamentals of the game. Under these circumstances, he knew more VF tech than anyone of us could ever have imagined. Would be cool to see how much he has progressed since our last get-together. EagleJin and Red Hawk used to be dead sworn Tekken players who even once refused to aknowledge the fact that Tekken 4 wasn't as good as they hoped it would be. Even though Tekken 5 have corrected A FEW of the mistakes, the Bird Brothers have at present understood the genius aspect of the VF series and shown tremendous improvement in their VF game.

Various players having some casual matches before the main event. As you can see on the picture, nobody of us play Virtua Fighter using a regular PS2 controller. In VF, a joystick is of absolute necessity, and this is due to the complicated and speedy commands that are required when doing defence techniques. Many people may be able to fight aggressively with a joypad, but when it's time to play defensively, a lot of speedy and precise input is an outright must.

Taking a little break from Virtua Fighter and having a couple of games of Streetfighter III 3rd Strike on our home arcade system. Some of you might not know this, but an arcade cabinet is not necessary for you to be able to play good old arcade games at home. All that is needed is a so called "Controller Box". This device is a joystick with a built in power supply and an output for a harness which you use to connect the "box" to the arcade board. Picture is hooked up from the box and onto a regular TV. Some games require a TV with higher resolution, but 3rd Strike can both be played on a 15 khz screen as well as on a 31 khz screen.

The Jeffry Team. These are the two winners of the 2 on 2 Character Tournament we held. You have Duke on the left and Netrom on the right. Even though Jeffry is not their main character, they managed to crush the Vanessa team (PKG and Chief Gutti) in the semi-finals, and pretty much humiliate the Wolf team (Must and Raider) in the finals. Duke is also a strong Tekken player, but he is mostly known for his skills within strategy games like the Command & Conquer series, Starcraft and Ludo. After heavy addiction to the MMORPG game World of Warcraft, we no longer have any faith in Duke being able to return as a competitive gamer within the VF community, LOL!

The Norwegian Virtua Fighter gamers

2005-11-09T17:52:00.000+01:00

I gather that most of the people who are kind enough to visit my blog every now and then have some interest or connection with gaming, so I take it I do not have to explain what kind of game Virtua Fighter is in much detail. It is however the video game which I probably have spent the most time on compared to other titles, and in return, I must say that it has given me more positive experiences than I could ever wish for, something which you really could not believe a past-time like video games could ever offer :)

I have met some of the absolute coolest people through this Virtua Fighter community, and it has also given me great contacts within the Japanese video game industry. In many cases, I really wonder if all is just fate, that I was meant to meet these people and contacts, all there to help me pursue my interest in working in the Japanese video game industry if my passion for it still remains as I grow older.

Anyway, enough of too much info about myself. Firstly, I would like to introduce some pictures of the few other Virtua Fighter fans that exist here in Norway. The fan base in Europe is unfortunately very slim. In Scandinavia on a whole, there are only about 20 true hardcore fans to the series. In Norway alone, I can only come up with 5 people who would rather play Virtua Fighter rather than any other fighting game. The rest would be the Swedish along with ONE Danish. Virtua Fighter is currently on its 4th stage in the series, and if we are lucky, maybe the series will bring forth more fans once the 5th installment arrives in the arcade some time in April, 2006.

Raider and Netrom. The eWil Twins as they are called here in Norway. Did not start playing VF until the PS2 version of VF4 came out in March, 2002. Without a doubt the strongest Norwegian players we have. Spent countless hours practising by themselves quickly catching up with the rest of the Norwegian crew, but once they headed off to Shanghai for 6 months of studying, they came back having increased their VF skills TEN FOLDS. They were absolutely unbeatable at Scandinavian grounds, and even went on to take 3rd place at a VF gathering in Boston, USA. They both play a set of sub-characters, but at an International level they are known for their high-end skills using Kage and Akira respectively. This picture is taken at Asakusa, Tokyo during our summer trip to Japan in summer 2004.

The Twins back from Shanghai being met at the airport by three other VF enthusiasts. Standing middle-left is JINsama, who also was introduced by an earlier post I made about the Nordic Tekken 5 Champion. His first experience with VF was like most of the rest of us, at an arcade. After trying it more extensively at Tokyo Game Show 2001, JINsama became properly interested in the series and practised at the PS2 version of the game leading him to winning the first ever VF4 competition held in Norway. JINsama enjoys playing a lot of characters, but despite the fact that Lion, the Praying Mantis fighter, is not amongst the strongest characters, JINsama swears to emphasize his time and effort on Lion making him as competitive as possible.

On the far left there you can see me, Chief Gutti, who also did not properly start learning the game until VF4 came out. I had enjoyed the game since the very beginning of the series in 1993, and remember playing it whenever I could in the arcades in London during VF2 (94-95), and in Japan while VF3 was at its peak (97-98). Due to my low level Japanese skills at the time, I had difficulties understanding the Gamest guide books (A magazine purely dedicated to Arcade Games), something which resulted in me having to learn the game based on pure experiences. A had therefore no understanding of why certain things happened in the game, and how the pros were pulling off "secret" commands remained a mystery to me until the game hit the PS2 in 2002. Being fortunate enough to study in Japan for 6 months during my final term of Bachelor studies, gave me the ability to learn from the pros of the game. I was lucky to become Shou's apprentice (Shou's among the three strongest players in the US, and managed to represent his country at its best when taking 2nd place at the World VF4 Evo tourney at the US Evolution Tournament in summer 2004), and received hints on my gameplay daily which ultimately led me into achieving the rank I always hoped for, Tsuwamono, the rank above 10th Dan. I owe Shou and Mr. David (one of top ten western players. Uses Shun, the drunk) a HUGE THANKS for putting up with my constant complains about how shit I was at the game, and if it weren't for them instructing me on how to change my game style for the better, I would have dropped playing Wolf for sure. Both of them also let me stay at their place in Tokyo for 2 1/2 months after my studies were finished in May. Again, thanks man.

At far right (also in pics above) you have RAT. Known for his unpredictable play, RAT has the ability to beat anyone. Even though it might look like he is just pressing some random buttons at times, RAT manages to pull off some of the most insanly smart moves in ANY fighting game there is. Play him at either Streetfighter, KOF, Tekken, Soul Calibur or Dead or Alive, no matter how good you might be, getting a 10-0 streak is going to be REALLY difficult, if not imposible, lol! Rat has also been to Japan twice (Tokyo Game Show 2001, Japan trip summer 2004) succeeding in beating famous players at both Tekken and VF. Like JINsama, RAT also owns a huge collection of video games, and if I remember correctly, there isn't a single game he owns he hasn't made time to finish. RAT has two main characters, although totally different in playing style, he plays them equally well. His Pai and Jeffry will give you a hell of a challenge, that's for sure :)

Do you know your blood type?

2005-11-08T09:30:00.000+01:00

After having lived in Japan for a couple of years, I have always wondered what my blood type actually was. I'm not exactly sure about other countries within the South East Asian region, but meeting up with a Japanese citizen that does NOT know his/her blood type is absolutely unheard of (I might be mistaken of course. Will edit this later if that is the case). Of what I can remember, every student handbook requires a picture of the bearer as well as a specification of their blood type. I have also noticed in Japan how much girls are into fortune telling (Uranai in Japanese). Many strongly believe that there is huge amounts of beneficial information that can be extracted from fortune telling, all to better the compatibility rate between one another. I cannot recall how many times I've been asked by a girl in Japan what my blood type was, but as a Norwegian (maybe this is true for other westerners as well), the chances of me knowing this are very slim. Was at the hospital just now taking some blood tests to check my condition after an earlier operation I have been through, and thinking about my experiences in Japan I for once asked the nurse what my blood type was. I was then told that she was not aware of my blood type and that you had to have had an operation to have been checked for this. Apparently it is very expensive to take such blood tests, so unless it is absolutely necessary, no such practises are committed. You might wonder why it wouldn't be important in knowing your blood type if you got into an unfortunate accident etc., but before a blood transplant is needed the doctors mare sure of your correct blood type by taking a test there and then. This is to make sure that no mistakes are made, and if you would pick up a guy or girl that was deaf for instance, you could never be sure that the note (with the blood type) that the person was carrying actually belonged to him/her. Now, I would not understand why someone would carry a note with someone else's blood type though :) Anyhow, I happen to have a friend who's at the last stage of medical studying, and when I bump into him next time I will try and get him to clarify this to me.

Due to the fact that my operation took place at another hospital I am still walking around unaware of my blood type, but at my next visit to my GP (General Practician) I am definitely finding out.

Update (9th of November, 2005 - 04:33 PM)

A Swedish Virtua Fighter friend of mine nick named Shmolz just sent me a message on MSN suggesting a blood donation would quickly inform me of my blood type. In order to take such donations, a mandatory blood test is required. When completing such a test, you will be given a card stating your name and blood type. Maybe this would be a swift way to finally obtain my blood type info, hehe.

New Shop Interior

2005-11-02T23:56:00.000+01:00

The cash register has been moved to the middle section of the shop. Both customers and clerks at same height. Electronic cash registers have been introduced, something which has helped a lot during inventory checking as well as given us the ability to receive emails, check Internet for release updates, and to strengthen communication between each Spiderman shop.

The old cash register section has been totally levelled to the ground. The red coloured passageway has also been taken down, given us much better space to ulilize, easier to clean and given a much brighter setting and atmoshpere. Look at the ceiling, huge differences!

The back section of the shop. There used to be tons of low budget CDs, VHS movies and PC games displayed here. Due to the old lift shaft and a wall covering the staircase, this section was kind of cut off from the rest of the shop. Although there was a small passageway leading in there, it really felt like you were in a dodgy looking place where you could get jumped by a mugger any time soon, :) At the far end, next to the zombie on the wall there, we have a projector we use for all kinds of gaming tournaments. All else that is needed is the screen, gaming system and sofa combo.

The staircase leading to the basement is finally behind the counter. We also have a greater view of things from this section. Before the fix-up you had to constantly watch the stairs to make sure no people were dodgy enough to be sneaky :)

A picture taken from the back section. You can see through the whole hallway here. The lift shaft is no longer to be seen. No more need for obstacle dodging when shopping at Spiderman :) Except for the PC games on the left shelf, all other games that are placed in this section are usually second hand/used games.

Old Shop Interior

2005-11-02T00:00:00.000+01:00

Here are some pics of how our Video Games shop looked like before we did a complete renovation. TV-Spill Spesialisten Spiderman was first established in 1993, mainly focusing on comic books, cds and videos, but as the shop grew bigger and better it naturally shifted towards the sales of Video Games. Up to this day, Spiderman is the only shop in Norway offering games for absolutely all systems, both new and used.

The passageway from the entrance into the shop. As you can see, it used to be very narrow, and this was due to the fact that there once was a clothing shop here before Spiderman took over. A lot of space gone to waste, but although the shop looked a lot more colourful before the fix-up, it got very tiring after a while working cause of the overload of intense vibrant colours.

The old GameCube section. The PSOne games were located on the opposite shelves. As you can see on the picture, there is a wall (an old lift shaft) behind the GameCube demo-unit. This wall is completely taken down at present which the shop has very much benefit from space wise.

Looking at the cash register from this view, it is very hard to see that this whole section was actually on a higher platform which resulted in the customers being at a lower height in comparison with the clerks. This might unconsciencely give impressions of status differences between the two equally dependent parties.

Behind the tiller. As you can see, the old shelves of the shop were not exactly made for video games, but fair enough, they still did their job.

The man behind it all, Bjørn Thomas Høen. Went straight out of Lower Secondary School and started his very own "corner" shop selling as mentioned above as well as you can see on the picture, comic books. Today, the man himself has built a 6 storey house together with a garage hosting a nice collection of real vintage cars. For the fans of pin-ball machines, you'd love to check his top section of this garage. Name whatever pin-ball machine there is, he's got it.

Our available collections of games and goods

2005-11-01T04:03:00.001+01:00

Game & Watch Collection

Currently on a quest to collect all the available Game&Watch games in good conditioned boxes

Final Fantasy Collection

Except for the PC versions, this display boasts all the FF games for every region. This is only 1/3 of what we really have

Megaman Collection

A collection of Megaman games very close to completion. Temporarily missing games within the NTSC regions

My Boss' game collection consisting of all the quality games that were ever released on the market. See anything nice?

The Official Norwegian MacGyver FanClub!

2005-11-01T01:51:00.000+01:00

Angus MacG FanClub Owner

It's finally up and running! At last, the very first Norwegian Official MacGyver fanclub is hereby announced! Most of you are well aware of the positively critically acclaimed "MacGyver" series that aired on Television for 7 consecutive years between 1985 and 1992. Even today, the old series are is still being broadcasted on Norwegian Television, and MacGyver is enjoying popularity like never before. The owner of the Norwegian fanclub, Gunner Shell, believes that due to the increasing fan base of the series, we can expect to see Richard Dean Anderson returning, making a comeback for all to enjoy. The interview was ended by this final comment from the fanclub owner -

"Always be prepared"

Angus MacG fan

Richie Sambora's in town!

2005-10-31T05:12:00.000+01:00

About a month ago, Richie Sambora, guitar legend and lead guitarist of Bon Jovi, who also worked with the Japanese actor and singer Takashi Sorimachi, visited Norway for inspiration to the band's new album. He was spotted at Gudvangen, a popular area hosting the finest fjords known to mankind, wailing his guitar while singing the lyrics from the song "Always".

It was a beautiful sight and we hope to be seeing more of Richie after his return to the band.

The Nordic Tekken 5 Champion - JINsama (Norway)

2005-10-31T03:24:00.000+01:00

Not only did he win the Norwegian Tekken5 tourney, but as a representative from Norway, JINsama went on to win the mighty Nordic Tekken5 Tournament held in Stockholm on the 13th of October, 2005. Using the Capoeira fighter Christie, JINsama crushed through the defense of both the Swede and the Danish and was officially announced as the TOP Tekken player in Scandinavia.

In January 2006, JINsama will once more head off to International grounds to test his might in the most popular fighting game to date. Together with the champions of each country in Europe, JINsama will get the chance to compete and meet with the absolute strongest players in the world.

Again, good luck to JINsama!

Struggling like a maniac at 8th Dan

2005-05-05T18:52:00.000+02:00

Fucking hell, if I don't get to Tsuwamono before I go back to
Norway then I really do not deserve to even play this game anymore. These last two months left, I better practise like a crazy motherfucker if I am ever going to be able to beat the eWil Twins back home.