Here's a video that Cigarbob recorded of some casual play in the Street Fighter HD Remix beta. You can see me play starting at 3:15. I play Ryu here and demonstrate the use of the fake fireball several times (it has other uses too, but this is just a sample).

I forgo several crossup oppertunities in this vid, partly because we were distracted with talking partly because CigarBob has crazy reversal abilities. In later matches I went for the crossups more, but whatever. At some point I did a crazy dragon punch vs his sweep and declared the maneuver "old-school only."
Enjoy.
--Sirlin

The fine folks at GameCyte did cut a second part of my interview after all. This one touches on the more abstract concepts of balancing games. Topics include symmetric vs. asymmetric games, hardcore vs casual balance, and depth vs. fairness.

Maybe I should have a weekly show or something?

--Sirlin

The fine folks at GameCyte interviewed me about Street Fighter HD Remix and a bit about my background. I discuss how difficult it was winning over hearts and minds on this project, but now we're going strong, I think.

GameCyte also asked a lot of questions about game balancing in general, what it actually means, how it's done, and how it differs in different types of games. Those didn't make it into the final cut, but maybe they'll create a part 2 out of all the footage. In any case, enjoy!
--Sirlin

I talked here about the strategy behind my matches at Evolution West 2007. Now you can see those matches for yourself and get a sense of the crowd excitement.

First up, it's me versus Viscant. I'm purple Bison (the dictator) versus his Vega (claw). I mostly flopped around, loosey goosey because I was pretty sure that would be enough to win. Bison has natural advantages in this match and Vega must know exactly what he's doing to win.

Next is me versus the evil Darkside Phill (DSP). DSP won the mindgame of our initial double-blind character selection by choosing Blanka versus my Vega (claw). Watch this whole match carefully because it's definitely the best of the three in this post. You can stop watching at around 4:50 into the vid when the match ends; I'm not sure why the rest wasn't edited out.

Finally, check out me vs. Afrolegends. I start with Vega (claw) versus his DeeJay. In case you get confused about the technicalities of the match, Afrolegends accidentally paused the game at one point, which is a foul that caused him to lose the round and consequently, the game (but not the whole match). Afrolegends played excellently during this match and all his other matches. He's a rising star.

Thanks to James Chen for recording all this and to Seth Killian for the announcing during the event. Seth, you did a great job, but please, please learn the difference between a "round," a "game" (2 out of 3 rounds), and a "match," (2 out of 3 games). It's actually a bit hard to follow what the score is during these videos because Seth uses these terms incorrectly throughout. But let's not be too hard on him because he did an A job overall. I especially liked when he joked about me being one of the developers of the game (referring to my role on Capcom Classics Collection 2, the version we were using in this tournament) and his jab about how I died to one of the most worthless supers in the game during my match against DSP's Blanka. What can I say, it's true!

Hope you enjoy!
--Sirlin

Ah, Guilty Gear. I few weeks ago I went to a gathering/tournament in Sacramento with about 25 people and three ggxx setups. This last weekend I went to another one in Redwood City with 35-40 people and *seven* tvs with ggxx. Above is a video of one of my tournament matches. I'm Faust (the guy with a giant scalpel and a bag on his head.)

Although I made a couple mistakes I cringe at (such as the accidental item super that lost me one round), you can see that I try to do the silly pogo-stick move as much as possible. After the first round, I could tell the opponent didn't know what to do against it. The last round is also pretty funny, since I managed to get two "mini-potemkin" items on the screen at once. Each of these (small red and brown guys) has only a 1 in 256 chance of appearing when I create an item, and I got two at once. The mini-potemkins take three hits for the enemy to kill, each. Notice that at the end, I hide inside them, lol. Also at the end, when my meteors are coming down at the enemy, I activate an item super. Activating a super at the moment another move (in this case the meteors) hits the enemy can make that thing (the meteors) unblockable. I'm not sure if I triggered that bug here, or if the enemy just randomly got hit or didn't know the meteors were coming, but either way, it's a pretty crazy match.

--Sirlin

Here are the Street Fighter tutorial videos I made for Capcom Classics Collection 2 (PlayStation 2 / Xbox). Big thanks to NKI for capturing most of the footage and doing most of the editing.

These videos are meant to help new players see the game in a way they might not have thought of (as a collection of rectangles dueling for control of space). They also demonstrate lots of the standard techniques in Street Fighter such as 2in1s, "meaty" attacks, and reversals. I also show some advanced stuff with "button up" special moves and safe jumps at the end. Basically, there's a little something for everyone from beginner to expert.

I hope you enjoy them.
--Sirlin

Beginner Tutorial (Part 1)

Beginner Tutorial (Part 2)

Intermediate Tutorial

Advanced Tutorial

Here's a music video about playing Dota on Ventrilo.

(Translation, if you need it: Here's a music video about playing Blizzard's Warcraft 3: Defense of the Ancients, a very popular player-created mod to the base game Warcraft 3. It also mentions Ventrilo, a program that lets several people voice chat over the internet together, often used by gamers.)

Anyway, this song is by Basshunter, and it's currently #2 on Sweden's Top 40 music chart. The song is cool and all, but the fact that the song could exist at all is what excites me. Can you imagine that song being #2 in America? Most Americans are probably too dumb to even install Dota, much less enjoy a song about it. Sounds like Sweden rocks.

--Sirlin

You know, when I play Dota, I never seem to attract the roomful of hot women that these guys do. I must be doing something wrong. (Maybe girls don't like Bone Clinkz?)

I said before that Nintendo's booth this year was the most popular booth ever at any E3. I don't think people realized that I meant that literally. This video should drive the point home.

I once read a review that said you could count the number of seconds of loading time on one hand in Sony's God of War (PS2). The PS2 has notoriously bad loading times, so I didn't see how this was possible...but after playign the entire game, I had to say it was true. The sum total off all my loading times probabaly added up to 5 seconds over 10 or 12 hours of playing the game. Wow! That definitely contributed to fun of that action-packed masterpiece.

Loading times ruin games. Check out this absurd video of the loading times in THQ's Smackdown vs. Raw 2006 (PSP). I hope this is a joke, but somehow I think it's real.