Episode 2 of The Definitive, Absolutely 100% Petty Complaining and Pointless Digression-Free Guide to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: The Revengeance

Greetings, and welcome to the second chapter of our look at the fighters of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3! Joining me once again is my esteemed colleague, screenwriter of the popular-by-indie-video-game-parody-standards films Press Start and Press Start 2, man behind the monthly internet series Press Start Adventures, and guy I know because I went to elementary school with his cousin, Kevin Folliard.

In the groundbreaking inaugural edition of this feature, we delved into pressing issues like the suffocating omnipresence of Akuma, Albert Wesker’s deep emotional issues and unfortunate musical tastes, horrible 1990s comic book crossovers that may or may not have actually existed, and what the hell the deal with Tron Bonne being in the game is. Join us as we delve once more into the characters of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, beginning with perhaps the most colorful and flamboyant character of them all:

Sentinel

Yes, I know this isn't Sentinel. Tron Bonne's power to insert herself into places where the presence of someone else would make more sense is so mighty it extends beyond the games themselves.

Kevin: I’ve noticed that many gamers tend to gravitate towards incredibly cheap, unbalanced characters and then consider them to be especially badass, awesome, or important. Case in point, a freaking Sentinel! A mindless drone at the bottom of the barrel of the Marvel Universe has become one of the poster children of this franchise.

John: Mindless drone or not, at least he’s still got more personality than Ryu. There, I said it. “Fighter in a fighting game who fights a lot because he’s really into fighting” is not a personality, Capcom, even by fighting game standards.

Kevin: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is a game we’ll all remember fondly, but for literally a decade, gamers were playing Sentinel Vs. Sentinel and taking it waytoo seriously. As such the Sentinel and his rocket punches got a free pass onto the roster of MvC3.

John: Plus, unlike Marvel vs. Capcom 3, in the previous game you could have multiple palette-swapped iterations of the same character on your team, so a three-on-three all-Sentinel battle was entirely possible. The game, helpfully, actually was prepared with enough Sentinel palette swaps for this contingency, so you could have giant robots in a wide array of colors duking it out together. It was like watching a Mobile Suit Gundam spinoff series sponsored entirely by Skittles or a really violent, mechanized United Colors of Benetton ad.

Kevin: I do give Capcom some credit. He’s not as obscenely godly a character as he once was, and he’s a fun oddball fighter in a decently balanced game. I look forward to playing as “Dark Sentinel,” a totally separate and even more overpowered addition to be featured in UMvC3: Arcade Edition!

John: Oh, I do hope Capcom doesn’t stop with “Ultimate” and brings back the tradition of releasing tweaked versions of the same game with ever-larger mounds of adjectives piled on them. Ten years from now, I want to be able to do a revamped version of this article to celebrate the release of Xtreme Maximally Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: The Fate of Two Worlds: Super Transcendent Lorentz-Contracted Hyperspeed Special Platinum Edition when it comes out.

Finally pushed too far after years of ridicule and ostracism by his coworkers at Santa's workshop, Herbie the Misfit Elf turns to the dark side.

Super-Skrull

Kevin: While the Fantastic Four themselves remain ever the glaring omission from Capcom’s Marvel fighters, at least their powers made it into this game. While I’d rather have the courageous quartet themselves, Super-Skrull is pretty darned cool with his grabs, slams, pummels, and flames. I only wish I could understand what he’s saying. Prior to his Inferno special attack I’m absolutely convinced he exclaims “He Loves Me!” Perhaps on the Skrull world it is customary to burn those who love you to a nova crisp as a sign of dominance.

John: Super-Skrull clearly has a deep fear of intimacy, most likely as the result of self-esteem issues that cause him to feel unworthy of being loved and afraid that any close emotional relationship with another person will inevitably end in betrayal and abandonment, that drives him to repel people who try to get close to him. This is all too common, sadly, though Super-Skrull’s particular symptomology is somewhat atypical- most people suffering from fear of intimacy deal with it through avoidant or self-sabotaging behaviors intended to prevent the formation of close emotional ties with others, rather than by joining an interdimensional combat tournament and setting people on fire.

Frank West during his award-winning reporting from the Siege of Sevastopol, 1854. He's covered wars, you know.

Frank West

Kevin: Photojournalist Frank West is the protagonist of the popular Dead Rising, in which he fends off hordes of zombies with shopping carts, baseball bats, and Serve-bot Helmets. He actually first appeared as a fighting game character inTatsunoko Vs. Capcom, where he uses his merchandise-inspired weaponry to fell the likes of everyone’s favorite anime characters Yatterman II and Gold Lightan.

John: I feel obliged to point out that, unlike Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom managed to incorporate Zero into the roster- and Mega Man’s distaff counterpart Roll, for that matter- and still find space for Mega Man. They didn’t feel the need to shoehorn a fourth-string character like Tron Bonne into things, heedless of who might have to pay the price for their folly, and her absence didn’t make the sky fall.

Just thought I’d throw that out there.

Kevin: Frank was actually cut from the original MvC3 late in development, but he makes his Ultimate debut in the upgrade sequel. What this means is that now, not only can we deliver the final blow to the game’s boss, the omnipotent Galactus, with a steel pipe as Mike Haggar… we can now use Frank to crack him in his cosmic groin with a Louisville Slugger. Somewhere the Silver Surfer is shedding a glinting gray tear, running down his aloof visage. It never used to be this easy, eh Norrin?

John: Actually, what most people outside the sporting goods manufacturing industry don’t realize is that all Louisville Sluggers have been imbued with the Power Cosmic since 1905, when their inventor Bud Hillerich secretly agreed to become a Herald of Galactus as part of his company’s endorsement deal with Honus Wagner. The Hillerich & Bradsby company doesn’t really talk about it much in their promotional materials, though.

With the undead in hot pursuit, Frank West must call upon his extensive running training at the Lupin the 3rd Track and Field Academy to make his escape.

Dante

Kevin: Dante, the red-coated protagonist from the Devil May Cry games has long been requested by Capcom fighter fans to make it into a crossover fighter. Fun fact: Dante has more special moves than any other character in any fighting game ever at a whopping forty-plus distinct special attacks! Those of us who have been playing the game are mostly familiar with Dante teleporting up over our heads, slamming us with his sword, levitating us into the air with gunfire and entering into a cycle of incredibly repetitive and obnoxious attacks that may or may not end with him performing his hypercombo twice in a row.

John: So he basically subjects you to the last century of the Chicago Cubs condensed into a few seconds, then.

Kevin: What many do not realize is that in spite of his show of bravado and arrogance, Dante is actually deeply insecure. Frequently seeking validation with that nagging question “I’m good, aren’t I?!? I’m good, aren’t I?!? I’m good, aren’t I?!?” It is thought that much of Dante’s insecurity derives from his being the only fighting game character to wear a “bro,” or “mansierre” if you will. But this is highly speculative.

John: Your lack of insight into the human heart continues to disappoint me, Kevin. Or half-human half-demon heart, or whatever.

The damage continues to mount as Dante's hypercombo enters its third hour.

Dante’s parents died when he was very young- his mother when he was 8, and his father even earlier. Clearly, he’s desperately reaching out for the love and approval that he was deprived of as a child. He had no strong adult male role model to provide him with encouragement and instill self-confidence as he grew up.

This lack of paternal validation as he came of age, combined with the effects of hegemonic mainstream gender narratives identifying manhood with aggression and violence- which, in the absence of personal experiences with protective or nurturing male figures in his own life, he is unable to imagine any alternative to- has left him with a deeply insecure sense of his own masculinity that he tries to compensate for by constantly seeking reassurance from others about his fighting prowess.

Duh.

That band he’s got wrapped around his chest underneath his jacket is sort of weird-looking, though. I have no idea what the deal with that thing is. If I hadn’t already reached my Saturday Night Live reference quota in my comments about Albert Wesker last time and the sketch was less than three decades old, I’d be tempted to make some sort of joke about Dan Akroyd and his “elaborate network of trusses.”

Flames with the power to consume whole worlds rage as the power of the Dark Phoenix...DAMN IT! Forget it, I'm not finding and uploading ANOTHER damned JPEG file. I doubt anybody will even notice.

Phoenix

Kevin: The fiery Jean Grey is one of my all-time favorite superheroes, so I was stoked when I first heard she was going to make the cut of MVC3. My excitement has since cooled a bit as I learned that she essentially dies in three hits.

John: I figured they were just trying to be true to her characterization in the X-Men comics.

Kevin: Granted, this is a balancing technique to counter her ultra-powerful Dark Phoenix form which is activated when she gets K.O.ed at combo level 5. Unfortunately, it turns her into something of a gimmick. A back pocket character, who is never on point and tends to just sort of sit in reserve until you’re ready to send her off to slaughter. But nevertheless she can be quite a force to be reckoned with. Personally, I like to use her when I’m pissed off at the game’s aptly named “Very Hard” Mode. As sophisticated as the game’s AI is, it does not understand the term “Dodge this!” Even if Dark Phoenix says it forty-five times in a row as she pins poor souls in the corner with double fireballs until they’re dead.

John: This seems like as good a time as any to bring up one of my complaints with the game. Like many fighting games, characters have some word or phrase that they’ll shout when they unleash their projectile attack. The problem is that in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 many characters can do their projectile attacks in quite rapid succession, and in many situations it can be a good idea to do just that, in which case your character will call out his single stock phrase for that move every single time, endlessly. It get’s very repetitive after a while- if a projectile-focused character takes the field, the fight can end up sounding like a skipping CD or a really Urkel-heavy episode of Family Matters.

Forget the unimaginably advanced super-technology in Dr. Doom’s armor, or the literally godly might of Thor, or the power of the Dark Phoenix to incinerate entire worlds- the most astonishing superhuman power on display here is the sheer lung capacity some of these characters have.

Thus ends this episode. Join us again next time as we dig-still deeper into Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3! Will we somehow unravel the mystery of forgettable Lovecraft pastiche Shuma-Gorath’s repeated appearances in this series without resorting to lazy Japanese stereotypes about tentacles? Will anything be able to slake my thirst for vengeance against Tron Bonne? Will we finally overcome our insecurity in the face of Mike Haggar’s overwhelming masculinity and actually finish the entry for him that we previously implied would be included this this time? There’s only one way to find out!

The Definitive, Absolutely 100% Petty Complaining and Pointless Digression-Free Guide to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3

With the recent release of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the Marvel vs. Capcom roster is now bigger than ever before. (Provided one defines “ever” to exclude Marvel Vs Capcom 2.) With 48 characters to choose from and no ability to select multiple iterations of the same character so that you can just pick three Sentinels and crush everybody like in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, selecting your team of three can be a daunting task. Fortunately, my friend and guest co-author Kevin Folliard- screenwriter of the Press Start Adventures online animated series and the two Press Start live-action films from Illinois-based independent film company Dark Maze Studios and an innovator in the field of video game parodies that have actual jokes instead of nostalgic references standing in for jokes- and I are here to provide guidance with this piercingly insightful look at some of the characters, both new and old, who will be doing battle in Ultimate Marvel v. Capcom 3: The Fate of Two Worlds. So, without further delay, let us begin, starting with perhaps the only character renowned and fearsome enough to march in the vanguard of so mighty a host:

Tron Bonne


John: A returning character from Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Tron Bonne appeared in the Mega Man Legends games and her own spin-off, The Misadventures of Tron Bonne. Tron Bonne was one of four Mega Man characters to appear in MvC 2, along with Servbot, Roll, and Mega Man himself. In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the developers had a great idea- make Mega Man's red-armored, sword-wielding, and still-reasonably-masculine-despite-that huge-blond-ponytail comrade-in-arms Zero playable. Alas, this time they could only dedicate two playable character slots to characters from the Mega Man universe.

So, they did the obvious thing: Ditched the central character of the franchise and one of the most iconic characters in the history of video games so that they'd have space to keep one of the secondary antagonists from a short-lived Mega Man spin-off series that last had a game released over a decade ago. Which makes sense, because... because... Kevin, help me out here.

Kevin: I think that.... Well it makes sense due to her…. Mega Man has always been loathed and….. I’m afraid I’m of no help to you. Not only is Tron’s inclusion over Mega Mann a bonafide headscratcher, it has also opened a Pandora’s Box of outrage from scores of pissy Mega Man fanboys throughout the internet. The level of self-importance and immaturity from the E-outcry has been growing exponentially since the Blue Bomber was snubbed yet again in Ultimate MvC 3, and a growing cesspool of childish pouting and image spam has begun to suck out what little shreds of dignity might have existed in the fan community. For God's sake, Capcom, please give us Mega Man. It’s not about his iconic status at this point. We need to quell this embittered mass of negative emotion before it becomes sentient.

Wesker

Kevin: Albert Wesker, the main antagonist of the Resident Evil series, has finally made it into the Marvel vs. Capcom universe. But like some other characters, he has something of a complex. Wesker seems concerned with maintaining an image of intimidation. With every teleport and counter he implores: “Do I frighten you?! Do I frighten you?! Do I frighten you?! Do I frighten you?! Do I—Do I—Do I frighten you?”

“Yes, Mr. Wesker,” I want to reply, “you frighten me very much. It’s going to be okay.” My current theory is that the machines of Wesker's Tricell Genetics Laboratory are somehow fueled by fear, like the society from the movie Monsters Inc.

John: Insert lazy political joke about the politician, political party, or socioeconomic system of your choice here.

Kevin: In any case, however, at this point the motivation behind his obsession with frightening his opponents remains unclear.

John:Well, I'm not ashamed to admit he frightens ME. The combined effect of Wesker's all-black clothing, coldly disdainful expression, and pale ultra-Nordic blondness always makes him look like he ought to be in some sort of creepy German electronic band that Dieter from Mike Myers' old “Sprockets” sketches would listen to. I half-expected his victory quote to be, “Ve believe in nothing, Redfield! NOTHING!”


Phoenix Wright

Kevin: The heroic Capcom Lawyer Phoenix Wright is perhaps the most controversial addition to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. It seemed like half the fans were psyched to see what form his play style will take, while others feel slighted that a legal professional has been invited to go toe to toe with some of the most powerful fighters in fiction. I say, lighten up! Marvel characters have been getting beaten up by lawyers for decades. There’s She Hulk, there’s Daredevil. There’s that little-known story in which the Carnage Symbiote got on Johnnie Cochran. And who can forget when Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor got her hands on the Ultimate Nullifier?

John: I was never a big fan of that issue, to be honest. Sandra Day O'Connor was so overexposed in the early 90- she had her own series, she was a member of the Avengers, she was in what seemed like half of the X-books, she kept popping up in The Punisher for reasons that never really made sense, the whole Sandra Day O'Connor/2000 AD/Stormwatch crossover... Just got tired of it after a while.

Phoenix Wright makes his closing argument before the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals during the historic case of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms v. von Doom.

Kevin: Honestly, they can make Phoenix as goofy as they want for all I care. This is a game that asks questions like “Who would win in a fight: Tron Bonne or Dormammu?” At this point, adding a clumsy lawyer to the mix can only make it more serious.

John: I mostly just enjoy the fact that there's a character in the game with a “projectile “attack- for lack of a better term- that consists of some girl running in from offscreen while flailing her arms like a 5-year old. I also like the move where she rushes out in front of you to create a defensive energy barrier; “hero who uses a woman as a human shield” had always been an underutilized design niche until now.

Akuma

Kevin: You can’t have a Capcom Fighting game without Akuma! Why… why can’t we please have ONE god- forsaken game without him?

Akuma was introduced in Super Street Fighter II Turbo as an overpowered hidden fighter who throws fireballs down from the air, growls at everyone, and performs the highly questionable “Raging Demon Attack” which is censored for some reason by those little exploding flicks that happen when Street Fighter characters punch one another. Since then, he has continued to be both “hidden” and overpowered in nearly every appearance he makes. For almost two decades, he has caused the expression “Here Comes a New Challenger” to grow and swell exponentially in its irony.
In MvC 3, they’ve tweaked him quite a bit to distinguish him from the already-included Ryu. Akuma now has a fireball, a hurricane kick, and a shoryuken uppercut. Which makes him a worthwhile inclusion because....

Son of a bitch!

John: Agreed, Akuma was a very poor choice for inclusion. The Tron Bonne of contemporary East Asia, if you will.

Strider Hiryu

John: My all-time favorite 1980s action game character named after a mode of ambulation makes his return in Ultimate Edition. My favorite thing about Strider has always been his weapon. It's basically a tonfa, an old Okinawan weapon with a short handle perpendicular to a long wooden shaft- already inherently cool because the hero in Suikoden II used them- except instead of a long wooden shaft there's a giant sword blade. Because, well, why not?

More weapons need to take a cue from Strider and incorporate swords. Flail? Sword on a chain. Handgun? Swordgun, even though I have no idea how the hell that would even work, or whether it would be a sword that can fire bullets or a gun that fires swords, or what. Nerve gas? Cloud of microscopic swords that enter the bloodstream and dismember the enzymes in people's neurons on the molecular level. Plasma cannon? Fires blasts of highly energized copper ions produced from vaporized bronze swords. And so forth.

Kevin: You're forgetting Strider's best weapons of all: his army of robotic birds and sabretoothed tigers! What is not to like about this guy?

John: Those robotic birds need to be replaced with motorized winged swords immediately. The sabretoothed tiger is fine as-is.

That's all for now. Join us next week- that's right, you're not getting off that easy- as we delve deeper into Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: The Fate of Two Worlds. Will Mike Hagar's ability to hit people over the head with a pipe be enough to fell the all-powerful Galactus, devourer of worlds? Will I resist the temptation to go for the obvious joke about Dr. Doom's “hidden missile” attack? Will Kevin's loathing of Akuma fill him with so much rage that he succumbs to the dark power of the Satsui no Hado and becomes the very thing he hates most? Will either of us ever say anything with any sort of actual gameplay relevance? Join us next week to find out!

Mega Man finally speaks out about his troubled career: “Tron Bonne? Seriously?”

(Note: The original version of this article appeared at Kuribo's Shoes, the wordl's greatest gaming-related fake news site, so if you like it be sure to check them out. ) 

In the aftermath of Capcom’s cancellation of  the long-awaited third game in the Mega Man Legends series, the reclusive star of the long-running franchise has finally emerged to give his side of the story.

“I knew they were getting ready to fuck me,” Mega Man said in an interview conducted at his home in Santa Clarita, California. “I knew after Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I mean, they decided to have two playable characters from my games in it. They included Zero for the first time. And hey, he deserves it. He’s a good kid. And then for the second slot, they decided to use Tron Bonne? Seriously?

“I’m the most iconic character in the company’s history. They’ve got Viewtiful Joe in the game. They’ve got three Resident Evil characters in there. They’ve got Akuma, because Lord knows Capcom won’t be satisfied unless they've shoehorned that glorified palette-swap into every fighting game they ever make. They’ve got some one-armed has-been, they’ve got a Japanese dog that doesn’t even talk, they’ve got Zero and  freakin’ Tron Bonne, and I hear that for the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom expansion they apparently have some damn lawyer fighting in it. How the hell did that happen? Did he win a contest, or something? Was Capcom running some sort of  ‘Send in five hundred cereal box tops for a chance to appear in Marvel vs. Capcom 3′ promotional bullshit that I never heard about?”

Inside sources at Capcom say the decision was motivated by Mega Man’s increasingly erratic and unprofessional behavior, which had started making him a liability to the developer. Mega Man has been involved in several high-profile conflicts with other characters in the Mega Man series over the years. Well-known examples including his tumultuous marriage, divorce, remarriage, and second divorce with co-star Roll, an acrimonious offscreen relationship with Dr. Light that reportedly culminated in a drunken, cocaine-fueled fistfight in Light’s dressing room on the set of Mega Man 10, and a long-running media feud with Proto Man for allegations made against Mega Man in Proto Man’s controversial tell-all book Sex, Drugs, and Steel: A Shocking Look Behind the Scenes of Capcom’s Most Beloved Series.

In 2009, Capcom reached an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed sum after a sexual harassment lawsuit was filed by Splash Woman, the Mega Man series’ first- and to date, only- female Robot Master, due to what Splash Woman’s attorneys described as Mega Man’s “lewd, offensive, and unprofessional conduct” on the set of Mega Man 9.

The last straw was apparently during the production of Mega Man Legends 3: Prototype Version, a prologue for Mega Man Legends three proper. Planned for a release on the 3DS eShop as a teaser for the main game, MML3: Prototype Version suffered repeated production delays while Mega Man attended a series of court-ordered rehabilitation sessions after being arrested for driving while intoxicated and misdemeanor narcotics possession in April 2011, which violated the terms of his probation for several similar previous offenses during the previous year. This ultimately led to Capcom’s decision to pull the plug on the beleaguered project.

Mega Man says he is considering a number of offers from other companies, which are rumored to include roles such as ED-209 in the video game adaptation of a possible reboot of the Robocop franchise, one of the Reapers in Mass Effect 3, and the title role in future Bomberman games. He is also in negotiations to star in a planned remake of 1994 fighting game Rise of the Robots, tentatively entitled  Rise of the Robots: Not the Most Godawful Game Ever Crapped Out Edition.

Though he insists that he has already put his acrimonious split with Capcom behind him, it’s clear that some resentment still lingers. “The first time I even heard there was going to be a Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was when Zero called to give me the news that he was in it,” he said. “They never even asked me if I wanted to be involved! You’d think they’d want Marvel vs. Capcom 3 to include the man who made Capcom what it is, but apparently they couldn’t be bothered with me because they had to make sure that there was enough space for TRON FUCKING BONNE to be included.”

Its Hour Come Round at Last: New Releases for the Week of 02-13-11

As foretold in cryptic and ancient texts- given the speed at which the media moves nowadays, I think a blog post from two days ago more or less counts as ancient, and my grotesquely Baroque clauses-upon-clauses-upon-parenthetical-asides-upon-semicolons-upon-still-more-clauses writing certainly counts as cryptic- the time has come for Pointless Side Quest's first weekly round-up of new releases.

Hyperdimension Neptunia (PlayStation 3)

Fantasy RPG published by Nippon Ichi. Apparently, the plot is based on the game industry itself, set in a world divided between between rival goddesses who are allegorical representations of this generation's competing consoles and inhabited by characters who are stand-ins for different developers.

I've been know to stretch the truth on this blog occasionally, so I can't really blame you if you think I'm just making that up. That arguably rivals Kingdom Hearts for the title of Game Premise Most Likely to Have Been Originally Conceived at 3:00 AM By People Sitting In a Huge Cloud of Marijuana Smoke. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, by any means. And Nippon Ichi usually doesn't disappoint, so this has piqued my interest.



Marvel Vs. Capcom: Fate of Two Worlds (PlayStation 3 and Xbox360)

The long-awaited continuation of the popular crossover fighting game series. Finally, a way to answer the question of who would win in a fight between Mike Haggar, Galactus, and Tron Bonne. (Though it leaves unresolved the far greater mystery of why a game with two characters from the Mega Man series doesn't  include Mega Man but apparently did have enough space for Tron Bonne.)

Hard Corps: Uprising (PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade)

Konami's new shooter, inspired by classic run-and-gun games like Contra. Has what is arguably the most unintentionally dirty-sounding title for a video game since the 1995 Sega CD classic Wild Woody.


LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (PlayStation 3, Xbox360, and Nintendo Wii)

 

The newest entry in the popular series of Lego-inspired action games. Insert joke about the relative acting abilities displayed by Hayden Christensen in the prequels versus those of an  inanimate plastic block here.

 Gears of War Triple Pack (Xbox360)


Collection that includes Gears of War, Gears of War 2, and the Gears of War 2: All Fronts expansion. Not bad for $30, especially if you're a newcomer to the series and wan to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the Gears of War universe without the commitment and expense of the more hardcore “injecting massive amounts of anabolic steroids directly into your eyeballs until your head connects directly to your torso” method.

Here comes an angry mob of new challengers, part 2: The Quickening

We now return for the second half of our guest post by Kevin Folliard, screenwriter for the movie Press Start, the forthcoming Press Start 2, and the ongoing Press Start Adventures, owner of the largest collection of horrible direct-to-video shark movies in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, and the urbane, charismatic, Manhattan-sipping yin to my glowering, vaguely disquieting Wild Turkey-gulping yang.  

When last we left our protagonist, his journey into the mouth of madness in search of a chance to play Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds had led him deep into the bowels of Capcom's Chicago Fight Club. Surrounded on all sides by a ravening horde of fanboys and barred from the object of his quest by the pitiless, inscrutable will of the guy handing out ID armbands, his journey's darkest hour has arrived...


I don't want to place blame solely on the antsy overgrown junior high kids who can't control the volume of their voices.  I'm not sure exactly who was in charge of planning this event, but a little crowd control would have gone a long way.  Blockades, red-ribboned stations, and competent security would have ensured some semblance of order.  Again, for as loud as the people screaming in your ear were, the actual instructions from Capcom's goons were as inaudible as a whispering breeze.

And front and center was the lead villain in this farce:  a stocky, bald white bouncer with a diamond earring and indeterminable tattoos being swallowed up by his neck rolls.  I guess Capcom saved money by bringing him to life from a bad 80s action movie with a magic ticket, and then granted him complete control over the entire event.

Once again, after the initial volley of wristband folks funneled in like bottlenecked traffic, my friends and I found ourselves about seven feet from the actual door.  Considering that we had arrived hours ago and had been herded by the angry masses, it seemed reasonable that gradually, as they let new batches of people in, we would inch forward to the entrance.  This was too much to hope for, and again I point to the timeless wisdom of my fictional role model Dr. Malcolm.

Admittance to "Fight Club" was apparently on random select, with our bouncer "Diamond Joe" calling out to those around him.  Tantalizing them.  Teasing them.  Forcing them to meet inane qualifications to be let in.  Enjoying his power over the obsessed.  Each time he emerged and made eye contact, scores of people lurched forward shooting their hands up in the air.  Desperate to be chosen by Diamond Joe.  One particularly short, particularly loud person directly to my left waved his cap in the air every time, calling out repeatedly:


"The guy with the hat!  The guy with the hat!  The guy with the hat!  The guy with the hat!  The guy with the hat!  The guy with the hat!  The guy with the hat!  The guy with the hat! The guy with the hat! The guy with the hat!" 

I think you can imagine the obnoxiousness… no… not quite yet…

"The guy with the hat! The guy with the hat! The guy with the hat!"

There you go.

Diamond Joe's utter randomness was overshadowed only by his sense of smug satisfaction.  If you had a pink shirt you could get in.  Then if you owned a pitbull.  Then if your car was in your grandmother's name.  If you were wearing a thong.  Things that could either not be proven, or that nobody would want proven in public.  Any asswipe could have claimed to have met Joe's demands with a simple lie.  Which is almost certainly what was going on.

Tension mounted as we grew weary of Diamond Joe's antics, and bitterness grew over the fact that one could not play the game they had been waiting to play for five hours unless they were an uncircumcised Jehovah's Witness (Okay, I made that one up, but it's the only embellishment in this story.  And it's not much of one).  Around 9:45PM, all couples were admitted and I suddenly wondered if I had been waiting to enter a goddamned roller rink.  Needless to say, over the course of two and a half hours it didn't matter how close you were to the door or how early in the evening you had arrived.   The crowd steadily thinned for reasons understood only by this bumbling jackass.  Suddenly Diamond Joe announced, coming across like a faux drill sergeant who had just polished off a bucket of KFC, that if any of us lowly maggots expect to be let in we would have to start picking up trash in the lot.

A gaggle of desperate nerds scrambled onto their hands and knees grasping for aluminum cans as if they were gold coins.  I am proud that my companions and I maintained our composure.  Having eaten and disposed of our garbage responsibly hours ago, it didn't seem fitting that those who had littered be rewarded for their prior carelessness.  But that's life.  In the end, all we have is our quiet dignity.

By the end of the night we were finally granted admittance to the Promised Land: a filthy hollowed out warehouse splattered with neon lights and plasma screens.  Empty pizza boxes and aluminum cans were piled up on a folding table in the center.  Apparently, there had been food at one point.  Throughout the entire evening, you could have counted the number of people on two hands that actually emerged from the warehouse.  Clearly, nobody was being asked to leave.  The gameplay time was never rationed, and player rotation was not enforced by anyone.  The long arduous wait became even more confounding.

But at last access to the legendary sequel was upon us.  There were no short lines on any of the sixteen or so consoles, so we headed for whatever random one we could find.  People were not lined up in an orderly two-by-two fashion, which would make far too much sense.  Rather, much like the warehouse courtyard, the preferred strategy was to crowd up as best you can and hope to wedge yourselves in.  By eleven o'clock, we had each gotten ourselves a minute's worth of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.  And then everyone was asked to leave.

Was it worth it?  Hell no.  Does the game rock?  Yes it does.  When I was thirteen the giddy thrill would have carried me through the evening and playing as Super Skrull, Thor, and Chris Redfield would have left me with an endorphin high lasting for weeks.  I'd have doodled the characters in the margins of my biology notebook wishing for the opportunity to wait in a stinky crowd of loudmouths to do it again.  But I know better now.  Come spring I will use my hard earned money to buy the game, and my friends and I will enjoy it comfortably in our homes while sipping Manhattans.  I may be counting down the days and feverishly waiting for the character announcements.  But I'm officially, and proudly, not a fanatic.

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Kevin Folliard is a writer in the Chicagoland area, having written several screenplays for Dark Maze Studios in Champaign which are available worldwide on DVD, including the acclaimed video game parody “Press Start.” He is also the creator and head writer for the companion monthly web series to the film “Press Start: Adventures.”  His short fiction has appeared in the literary E-zine “Burst”.  Kevin is currently an academic writing advisor for the Effective Writing Center at the University of Maryland.

Here comes an angry mob of new challengers: Part 1

Thanks to my highly-placed game industry contacts and arduous journalistic efforts- a description I like to think captures the intrepid spirit of Pointless Side Quest better than the more literally accurate "we're friends because I went to elementary school with his cousin, and I asked him if he was interested in writing something on my blog when I was at his apartment watching Kingdom of the Spiders"-  we at Pointless Side Quest are proud to feature  a two-part guest post by Kevin Folliard. Kevin is the writer of the popular video game movie spoof Press Start from Dark Maze Studios, its forthcoming sequel, and the ongoing online animated series Press Start Adventures. Today, we join him on his recent, ill-fated expedition into the very heart of darkness, otherwise known as Capcom's Chicago Fight Club, in search of an early close-in look at the newest entry in the Marvel Vs. Capcom series.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 3:  Fate of Two Worlds.  Imagine my enthusiasm when I learned of Capcom's Chicago Fight Club event, showcasing the latest build of the game right in my hometown!

Growing up as an introspective gaming nerd, a good part of what got me through the doldrums of high school was looking forward to the next blockbuster fighting game.  As a comic book geek and a Street Fighter junkie, there was no series throughout the late nineties that brought me greater joy than the Marvel Vs. Capcom franchise.  All the mechanics and conventions of my favorite games,  bright vibrant animation, and my favorite American superheroes.  That's why, ten years later, I've become giddy with anticipation over the revival with youth and exuberance, free Capcom merchandise, and a good time for all, right?  Not so much.

Allow me to take you on a journey, my friends.  A journey that reveals the depths to which obsessive anticipation can bring you.  The spectacle of five hundred whiney, greedy, impatient fan boys and a complete and utter disregard for the words "organization" and "crowd control" have proven to me once again that I am officially, unequivocally, a mature functioning adult.

On the afternoon of September 21st my cousin and I set out for a shady warehouse on Wolcott Avenue. (Interesting choice, Capcom.  You do realize this wasn't a real fight club right?)  There we meet up with a good friend who had generously purchased us fast food.  A wise strategy, as we would need sustenance to last the night.  The event was to run from 8-11PM, and the first one-hundred receive special "swag".  So arriving at 6PM seemed reasonable, right?

Oh me of little faith.  The truly obsessed and devoted had arrived at 3PM, and received special wrist bands indicating their placement in line.  Fair is fair.  Furthermore the line in the small warehouse courtyard winded from the entrance and snaked back and forth at least eight times.  It would be a long wait, but at least my fellow gamers  had formed a neat and manageable line.  Slowly but surely, we'd all make it in and play the game in a calm,

efficient, and respectable manner.  After all, people who are obsessed with video games are often social outcasts, but ones with mutual respect for one another, an intellectual and progressive brotherhood of upstanding citizens, right?  But as Jurassic Park's Ian Malcolm taught me long ago…

Chaos is inevitable.

Enter Capcom USA:  master planner.  An inaudible set of directions indicated for the chosen first one-hundred to step forward and receive their coveted promotional crap, and it begins.  Four or five gamers, sweaty with anticipation, decided that with this new development they could no longer stand to be in the neat and organized line that had formed throughout the courtyard, and so they bum-rushed the entrance, prompting a lemming-like stampede in almost everybody.

When it was over, we had all been compressed like sardines.  Fronts had become backs.   Left had become right.  Yet some strange compact semblance of the line remained.  Apparently we were all respectable citizens until some guy says something we don't fully understand.  (In the future Capcom, invest in a megaphone.)  It wasn't clear what the coveted swag actually was from our vantage point.  But I conjecture had it that it involved some kind of eco-friendly Capcom shopping bag.  Ah well… I guess I won't be browsing the aisles at Trader Joe's with a Servbot tote-bag anytime soon.

Already it was clear that it would be a long, uncomfortable night.  After a drawn out-process, the chosen one hundred were beckoned forth, and the line dissipated completely into a crowd of seething, rabid fanatics.  My rational-minded companions and I shuffled forward to accommodate a frenzy far more brutal than a mob of Resident Evil zombies.  Somewhere to the right a Capcom grunt held fistfuls of special wristbands, intended originally for the second and third batches of hundred to arrive in order but now doled out at random to any screaming nutjob with the ability to push and shove like a preschooler.

When the frenzy settled and the wristbanded chosen were slowly but surely shuffled into the promised land, my compatriots and I found ourselves a good seven feet from the entrance.  Surrounded by my hardcore gaming "brethren," I suddenly felt about as alien as the Silver Surfer.  There was:

The gentleman in front of me with the "I *heart* vaginas" hat.

His pal with the "I love boobies" wristband (apparently not the kind of wristband that Capcom acknowledges).

The sweaty vein-busting loud mouth demanding that he be let in next because he is wearing a Marvel t-shirt and an official Street Fighter IV Ryu headband.

The terrified and dejected youngster who had collapsed on the ground behind me, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth, forcing me to balance on an angle to avoid falling on him and crushing his neck.

 A self-righteous fighting game fanatic behind me snapped and suddenly lost faith: "This is EXPLETIVE DELETED ridiculous!  What the EXPLETIVE DELETED are they doing?! EXPLETIVE DELETED, EXPLETIVE DELETED morons!  Don't they EXPLETIVE DELETED realize that I have to get some EXPLETIVE DELETED sleep tonight?!"  Apparently he was so forlorn that he forgot that nobody was forcing him to stay.  From inside the club a techno remix of Ken's theme from Street Fighter II drifts out and he becomes even more incensed, "Why the EXPLETIVE DELETED are they playing Ken's theme?!  This makes no EXPLETIVE DELETED sense?!"

While I too am hot, and tired of standing as the hours creep by.  I also can't help but smile at the displays of childishness, impatience, and irrational entitlement that surround me.  And all over a game that, a year from now, we'll all be tired of playing.  Which I point out, to the amusement of some of the more level headed folks around me.  It made me feel safe to see such rational acknowledgement.  These were my kind.  Accepting of their quirks, but able to function in the real world respectably.  You can see it in their eyes.  And suddenly I no longer felt so alone, and I had the courage to withstand the nonsense that tormented me… for a little while longer.

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Kevin Folliard is a writer in the Chicagoland area, having written several screenplays for Dark Maze Studios in Champaign which are available worldwide on DVD, including the acclaimed video game parody “Press Start.” He is also the creator and head writer for the companion monthly web series to the film “Press Start: Adventures.”  His short fiction has appeared in the literary E-zine “Burst”.  Kevin is currently an academic writing advisor for the Effective Writing Center at the University of Maryland University College.

Will Kevin ever penetrate Capcom's inner sanctum, where the object of his quest awaits? Will Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 fulfill the lofty promise of its lineage?  Will the guy with the "I *heart* vaginas" hat ever actually get any? Stay tuned for Part 2!