Oh boy, 2010

Welcome to the new year, Smashers.  2009 was an interesting year for Smash, and I'm looking forward to what happens in 2010.

To start, a moment of respect for NES N00b; it's bad enough the Smash community lost a rising Falcon, but a family lots a loving son and the world lost somebody with a bright future ahead of him.  This kind of tragedy happens all the time, all over the world, to the point where we forget it's a tragedy; it's not until it strikes close to us in some way that we get reminded of it.  I felt it and I never even met him.  He was somebody behind a controller in a bunch of YouTube videos, and hiding behind a wall of text on SWF, and I felt it.  I will never get the privilege of playing his Falcon, or get the privilege of meeting somebody with a reputation for being a very cool guy.  So... farewell, NES n00b.

What does 2010 have in store for us?  Pound 4 is almost here, for starters.  I wish I could be there, instead of not there (which is where I'll be instead).  But I will be cheering from the sidelines for nobody in particular, hoping only that every interesting match gets recorded and I get to watch them all.  If there's a livestream, I'll try and tune in as well.

2010 may also yield the finishing of Bipolar, my video, which will shake the very foundations of all you believe to be true about this world and the universe.  If I can get my recording equipment back, that is.  On the bright side, I've actually pulled off enough cool stuff in tournament that I may just cobble it together from footage out of tourney videos.

Some insight into how I am determining what goes in the video.  After a recording session, I go back and comb through the footage, taking notes of combo times.  Then I rate each combo from 1-5.  1s and 2s aren't going in the video unless I absolutely NEED them.  They're either little or boring, or an otherwise decent string of gameplay that takes too long to do.  Not very entertaining, only to be included out of necessity.  3s aren't half-bad, but I'd prefer not to have them in.  The majority of the combo video will be 4s, hopefully; these are solid combos that would provoke a decent reaction from a crowd if I pulled them off in tourney.

A 5 is pure gold.  Zero to death, unbelievable, audacious, never before seen gold.  As you can imagine, this rating is given sparingly.  It's not THAT hard to zero to death somebody with ICs, but it's hard to do it in a way that looks interesting.  So there may be one or two classics in there, but I'm trying to be creative and do stuff most people haven't seen, including other IC players.

Some combos have a .5 appended to them as an afterthought.  "This is like a four, but just a bit better."  (Why didn't I just rate the combos from 1-10 then?  Because shut up, that's why.)  If I ever land something that deserves a 5.5, I'll probably quit Smash right there and devote my life to God or something.  After finishing the video, obviously.  Additionally, certain clips are rated based on how funny or catastrophic they are.  These will go in the credits or worm their way into the video proper.

This is one of the songs that has a 90% chance of being in the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRnZtn1a9bM

If it doesn't sound very... icey, that's because it's not supposed to.  The video will be segmented based on combos that are mostly out of grabs and combos that are mostly out of ordinary hits.  This song is intended to be in the faster-paced, non-grab section.  The slower, more grab oriented stuff with consequently have a slower, more relaxed song.

So apart from Pound 4 and my video, there will be tons of tournaments and lots of Melee and probably some Brawl too.  And, of course, I'll be writing stuff down.  Check back tomorrow for something new.

Peace, and welcome to the new year.