BAM5 Wrap Up: Five Years of Salt, Sweat and the Return of the Bomb

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HOME (../../INDEX.HTM) » FEATURES (../INDEX.HTM) » BAM5 WRAP UP: FIVE YEARS OF SALT, SWEAT AND THE RETURN OF THE BOMB FEATURES REVIEWS BAM5 Wrap Up: Five years of salt, (../INDEX.HTM) (../../REVIEWS/INDEX.HTM) ROUND- PREVIEWS sweat and the return of the Bomb UPS (../../PREVIEWS/INDEX.HTM) 1 year ago (../../2013/05/index.htm) (P.O./D../CRAOSUTNSD- VIDEOS by Chee Seng Siow (../../author/chee/index.htm) 1 comment U(..P/S../IPNODDECXA.HSTMS/)IN(.D./E..X/V.HIDTEMO)S/INDEX.HTM) CULTURE INTERVIEWS (../../CULTURE/IND(E..X/...H/ITNMTE) RVIEWS/INDEX.HTM)

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“CAN YOU DO THE OVERHEAD?” roars the crowd at Daichi Akahoshi as he completes his disgusting Vergil comeback over his training partner ToXy. It is the Sunday of the BAM5 (Battle Arena Melbourne) weekend, it is finals day and it is MAHVEL, baby. Sitting in the crowd one can feel overwhelmed by the level of sound in the room; you have gasps, cheers, jeers, tribal chants and even pleading. It is loud and it is hype. Register Login Daichi is notorious in Melbourne for looking away from the screen inmatch to jive with (../../wp- (../../wp- the audience. He once famously dropped a combo when indulging in said login.php- login.php.htm showmanship, only to spin back and win the match with an ohsodirty Vergil swords registration=d ) instant overhead. Much to the amusement of the audience he quickly turned back isabled.htm) around jabbing an accusing finger at select audience members exclaiming: “Can you do the overhead? Can you do the overhead? Can YOU do the overhead? If not – shut the F*** up!” Who We Are

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Super Adventures Of Chad & Chris – Tony Hawk’s (../../videos/superadvenPturroe sSkcahtaedr 4 christonyhawksproska(.t.e/r../videos/su 4/index.htm) The tournament pools. peradventures chadchris tonyhawks The crowd takes great pleasure in chanting it back to Daichi as he hits an overhead on proskater ToXy and we’re only getting started with the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Top 8. This is the 4/index.htm) best thing about attending a fighting game major in person; you get to witness the raw 4 weeks ago culture of the scene and the organic backandforth between audience and player. Super Perhaps no other competitive video game lends itself to sheer spectacle and inmatch Adventures Of Chad & Chris – drama as much as fighting games do. And with a hyperactive game like Ultimate Street Fighter Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (UMVC3) with its explosions of light and sound and frenetic (../../videos/superadvenEtuXre3sstreet momentum swings, well this writer can attest to almost having a heart attack while fighterex3/index.htm) (../../videos/su watching the Marvel grand finals in the crowd. peradventures streetfighter ex3/index.htm) Early Festivities 1 month ago

BAM5 started on Friday night at 6PM, Street Fighter players being late and filtering into Why Delsin Needed A the venue in dribs and drabs. The chiptunes artist (../whydelsin Mask – The Pselodux (http://pselodux.bandcamp.com/) does his best to warm up the venue with an Failures Of intense set of electronic sound and there’s even an introduction to proceedings by neededamaskthefailurIensfaomfous: infamoussecondson/index.htm) Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono, but the night only truly gets started when the Second Son (../whydelsin exhibition matches begin. neededa maskthe Ono-san wishes Battle Arena Melbourne Happy 5th An... failuresof infamous second son/index.htm) 2 months ago

We start out with a comedy/grudge match between two of the biggest mouths in the Oz fighting game community: Ali “X” Abdo and Yousseff “Fayd” Faddoul. Ali is the head of the ShadowLogic crew in Melbourne, and Yousseff has been a big part of Sydney Tekken for years now. It might not be the highest level of Marvel play, but it is a good chance for the crowd to cheer for their homeboys. The loser (Yousseff) gets appropriately labelled “the King of Salt” with an actual crown and salt shaker. (Why salt? Because tears are salty. This is fighting game logic.)

Next up is a blockbuster match, a First to 5 in Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition 2012 (AE2012) between Melbourne’s Sol and BAM’s international guest from Hong Kong: Johnny “Humanbomb” Cheng. Johnny predictably comes out strong with a two game lead, but the local underdog Sol manages to claw his way back to an upset victory with his tenacious Cammy. The Melbourne crowd goes crazy as expected, and Sol’s victory makes the weekend that much more interesting could the returning champ be more vulnerable than we thought? Yousseff “Fayd” Faddoul crowned the king of salt.

What follows next is more misery for the local crowd as Sydney bodies Melbourne in the Virtua Fighter 5 vs. 5 and in the UMVC3 2 vs. 2 between Queensland’s Hai and Baxter and Melbourne’s Michael “ToXy” Guida and Daichi. Baxter in particular almost silences the crowd with some particularly strong play running over both Melbourne players in straight sets and putting a very, very strong foot forward to be the definitive favourite for the Marvel tournament on Sunday.

It Has Begun!

Saturday is pools day and is when the event is at its busiest. You have hundreds of players in the hall, intently staring at row upon row of BenQ monitors, hands sputtering with staccato violence over their sticks. The room is filled with the joyous, familiar smacks of Sanwa buttons and the usual decibel spikes of people having fun and getting hype.

At the front you have the main stage where players duke it out in front of the audience, and just next to it is the stream area where the matches are streamed live to fighting game communities around the world. You can see Justin “Bugsimus” Creed looking over his stream staff with a benign gaze and commentatorsinchief Anthony “Felix” Mallon and Mike “the TV” Skolnik doing their best to provide discourse and context for the matches on stream in a professional but yet personal manner.

*GASP* It’s not just players here; there’s Gaming Gear (http://www.gaminggear.com.au/) in the corner with their array of arcade sticks and components, the Fourth Player guys are in the corner recording a live podcast at BAM (http://thefourthplayer.com/thefourthplayerep15/), and there’s even New Game Plus (http://newgameplus.tv/) staff filming the festivities.

On the flanks are all the casual stations where intense money matches and a lot of side betting are going on all day. And in the middle, right in the guts of the room, are the tournament stations. This is where the competitor’s battle tooth and nail to stave off elimination and the bracket organiser’s flitter around busily with iPads clutched in hand.

At the back of the room you can see rows of bulky, good oldfashioned CRT TVs. Why CRTs, you might ask? Because BAM is also the home of the Super Smash Brothers community who will be brawling it out the whole weekend to crown a new champion.

Street Fighter II intro screen for the win.

Saturday provides some juicy surprises for Street Fighter IV, Melbourne’s own Guy specialist Duy “Phero” Pham knocks Humanbomb into the losers’ bracket! Now Johnny has to take the long and arduous road back to grand finals via the losers’ bracket (you have to play many more matches than in the winners’ bracket, and if you lose again you’re out for good). Perhaps Johnny is feeling the pressure to perform, being the international guest and returning back to his old stomping grounds.

More upsets: Sydney’s two strongest players; Haz “Shang Tsung” and Robert “Robsux” Riggio are knocked into losers’ bracket, and Robsux is even eliminated. Sydney gets its revenge however, as Crazy Freerider knocks OzHadou Nationals (OHN) champion Nicola “Genkibot” Fraser into losers’ where he is eventually eliminated by Hakan “Carnage” Dorter. Shang’s match with ToXy is particularly intense; ToXy was on the brink of defeat when he catches Shang Tsung’s Bison coming down from a devil’s reverse with a clutch, clutch Raging Demon, almost leaping out of his chair in exhilaration as the crowd goes crazy.

The Final Day

After a long and grueling day of pool play we finally have all the top eights for our finals on Sunday, save for Street Fighter x Tekken, taken out by Sydney’s BKsama and Injustice by Sam Baxter from Queensland. Tom Taylor (http://www.tomtaylormade.com/), the writer for Injustice also makes an appearance, and kindly spends a couple of hours at the venue signing autographs and taking pictures. We even have Dead or Alive cosplayers showing their support for their game! I don’t think anyone is going to complain about this cosplay.

But now we’re back in the thick of action on Sunday. Daichi’s just lost to Toxy and we’ve made it through almost all our games, crowning Queensland’s Colinov as the King of Fighters and Melbourne’s own AlexMD the Virtua Fighter 5 champ, beating out Sydney’s Chill and the legendary Mike “Iron Myke” Abdow. We’ve raffled off all our prizes and given out our community awards. Now all that is left is the two biggest games: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition.

Right away there’s a big upset as Xavier “DB_Somniac” Nardella knocks the prohibitive favourite Sam Baxter into the loser’s bracket. Their match is the ideal contrast of styles: Sam “the (going in) HAM” with his relentless Magneto/Spencer blitzkrieg, Xavier with his cerebral style and amazingly precise defensive counters. The local crowd goes nuts they sense that Marvel is now anyone’s game.

Baxter simply puts his head down and incredibly, ups his game to yet another level smashing his way through a gauntlet of top players all the way back to grand finals, dispatching Somniac along the way to face ToXy in the grand finals.

The grand finals are a nervewracking affair, and Baxter comes on very strong, but ToXy just squeaks the victory by the narrowest of margins. During the very last combo I could hear Carnage half pleading, half begging behind my ear the entire time: “Don’t drop it Mike, don’t drop it Mike…” All credit to Baxter who put on an incredible show, but all of Victoria bursts to their feet as they swarm ToXy in joy.

Johnny “Humanbomb” Cheng reclaiming his title. Finally, it’s the last game of the day, and it’s time to bring BAM home with SFIV. Johnny reaches deep, showing his trademark tenacity to also fight from losers’ bracket all the way back into grand finals. Awaiting him is ToXy’s Akuma in a classic rematch. A few years ago it was always Humanbomb vs. ToXy, Sydney vs. Melbourne in the finals, and who would’ve thought we would get this storybook final with Humanbomb’s return? Johnny shows everybody his new level however, conclusively shutting out ToXy’s dream of a brace with his explosive Sakura play.

Everybody rises to their feet clapping and cheering, BAM is finally over, trophies are awarded, farewells and hugs spread all around. It has been a communitywide collaboration of love and labour to put this event together, now five years strong.

As the CouchWarriors staff close the doors, and the venue darkens into slumber – is it all over now?

Not in the slightest.

Shadowloo Showdown is coming. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31yulaVevH0)

For more information on BAM, head over to the official website (http://www.couchwarriors.org/bam/) or check them out on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/couchwarriors). You can also catchup on the stream archive here (http://www.twitch.tv/shadowloohq/).

All photos used in this article were taken from CouchWarriors BAM5 album (https://www.facebook.com/couchwarriors) on Facebook.

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About Author View all posts by Chee Seng (../../author/chee/index.htm)

Chee Seng "Muttons" Siow is a writer and longtime competitor/tournament organiser in the Melbourne fighting game community. You can read his antiLaker rants on Twitter @muttonhead01 (http://twitter.com/muttonhead01) or laugh at his latest tournament mishaps at beingascrub.com

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