Hello. This is my second blog this month detailing my experience on going to an event for the first time. (I hope my writing is better this entry, my Otakon blog ended up being really messy.) This weekend, I attended my first fighting game tournament, Summer Jam 7, held at the Sheraton Suites Hotel in Philadelphia, PA on Saturday, August 17. Summer Jam was a two-day affair, but after a few circumstances fell through, my brother and I decided to not attend the second day of the event. Unlike my time at Otakon last weekend, I felt much more underwhelmed with the experience I had at Summer Jam, which was disappointing as this was my first attendance at a fighting game tournament. I do blame myself for failing to bring some items that would alleviate some of the mundane-ness that I had at the event, but there simply wasn't a lot to do to keep me interested at Summer Jam 7.

[Sorry, this is the only picture I have for Summer Jam. I didn't want to bother anyone else with pictures at the event.]

Summer Jam 7 Day 1 Impressions

I attended Summer Jam with my brother and one of his friends, who goes by the nickname "Mr. Foo". My brother and I were only spectating the event, while Foo had pre-registered to play Injustice. Foo was hoping to go pretty far in Injustice, as he finished first at a tournament held at small anime event about a month ago and finished second at a bar battle held at Copabanana this past Tuesday, August 13. I was expecting to see a large line for pre-registrants to confirm their attendance, but by the time we got there at around noon, it looked like they already got most of the folks who pre-registered checked out. So at least on this point, that was good.

I first entered the main room after receiving my wristband, where they were already running SFIV AE 2012 and UMvC3 team tournaments. The first thing I noticed when I entered the room was Spooky with his set up hugged toward the back center of the main room. I was very tempted to take a picture of him, but refrained. It was kind of surreal going into the room and some of the biggest fighting game tournament players in person. At one time, ChrisG and KnuckleDu were standing right beside me, discussing the recent team tournament match they completed and some other non-sense. I didn't spend too much time in the main room, as I only went there to see a little bit of the team tournaments as well as watch one of Foo's friend play his Marvel pool match.

I next went into the MK/Injustice room. I wasn't sure if this was the best room the organizers could get for MK/Injustice, but the room was small and constantly packed the times I visited the room. I missed out on watching Foo play his first pool match in Injustice. Unfortunately, his first match came against KDZ, the EVO Injustice champion. He said that he only took a round from the EVO champ, and was quickly knocked down to the losers. He was eliminated in his next match against a Killer Frost player, where he admitted he had little match-up experience against. Foo was disappointed that he got knocked out so quickly, after he found some success in recent locals. Foo also played a team Injustice tournament with SonicFox (young MK/Injustice player who's won some tournaments himself) and another player. He was approached by SonicFox on needing one more person to fill out their team and he agreed. They won one match before they got eliminated.

I only visited the 3D room twice, where they held DOA5, TTT2, SCV, and VF5FS. There weren't a lot of folks in the room playing the 3D games.

I spent a majority of my time in the anime room. There were three organizers crammed into the anime room running various games there. One group was running KOF XIII only, another group had Arcana Heart 3 and Chaos Code, while the third group ran P4A, GGXXAC+R, and BBCSE. The room wasn't too packed and I was able to make my way through the room. I watched some P4A pool play, the entire BBCSE tournament, and a little bit of GGXXAC+R. While watching some of the BB matches, I struck a conversation with Jonathon, who went by the name "Steel Coil." I told him about my troubles of staying dedicated and getting better at fighting games, playing netplay casuals with some of the Giant Bomb folks, and a few other things. Jon came in from New Jersey and participated in P4A and BBCSE. He's befriended a few other participants playing some locals at the 8 on the Break Arcade held in Dunellen, NJ. I asked him if he met one of my brother's friends the times he was there, and he said no. He also stated that I should've played in the tournament just for the experience despite my nervousness of not being in the same level as the folks in the room. I believe he might make it to the next Philadelphia major tournament coming in December and that I would participate in P4A if I was up for it by then.

Unfortunately, P4A didn't have a great turnout. Only 28 folks signed up for P4A. The tournament did not have the benefit of the sudden announcement of P4A: Climax just a few days ago. Whether or not this will help increase numbers for P4A for upcoming tournaments remains to be seen. There were a few heavy hitters that were in the P4A tournament at Summer Jam: Matt Coma, Colpevole, Grover, and Lord Knight. I left before they ran the Top 8 of P4A (Colpevole defeated Lord Knight to win). Jonathon said that this was a drastic change from last year, where P4A just came out and had 96 entrants. BBCSE got 14 entrants and GGXXAC+R got 19. The organizers were running a tight schedule, so there wasn't a lot of time for casuals in the afternoon. There was a small window for casuals when they wrapped up P4A pools and I was kicking myself for not bringing in my fight pad/fight stick to Summer Jam.

I think the biggest issue I had with Summer Jam is that there wasn't anything else to do aside from playing fighting games. Although it's nice that everyone can play numerous fighting games as much as they want, that's all you'll be doing at an event like this. I should have brought my 3DS to help occupy the downtime I was away from the rooms. The hotel's location was also a negative, as it's located OUTSIDE of Philadelphia. So you can't exit the hotel and wander off to experience Philadelphia. All of the visitors I saw who left the hotel grounds just drove off to the closest Wawa to fetch food there. There were only a few vendors selling a few items: Summer Jam 7 t-shirts, Brokentier t-shirts, and two folks constructing and selling 8-bit sprites beads of fighting game characters. (Foo is friends with one of them, and had a Potemkin made for him.) There were also two people willing to modify fight sticks for a fee.

I'm hoping that Northeast Championships will be a much better fighting game tournament experience, as it should be back at the Holiday Inn with the big ballroom and spacier rooms, and actually located in Philadelphia. I'm hoping to see a bump in participants for P4A after the P4A: Climax announcement, and BBCP will probably be there as a side tournament. Maybe I'll actually compete in P4A at NEC just for the hell out it, though I'm not sure how much time I'll be putting into P4A as I'm doing my best to deal with the stress from working so much (waking up 5AM, working some weekends) and wanting to complete other games from my backlog.

Thanks for reading my blog nonetheless.

Other Items

There was another player who went with the name "Mr. Foo" at Summer Jam, causing a bunch of confusion with Foo's friends at Summer Jam. Apparently, Foo's friends was giving the other Foo a bit of a hard time. They did meet each other briefly before we left the venue.

You can see me briefly on Bibiquadium's stream during the BlazBlue tournament. I am shown at the 1:57 mark of the stream archive, the guy on the far right with the long hair. LINK

Notable FGC Players I Saw at Summer Jam

• Arturo
• Sanford Kelly
• ChrisG
• KnuckleDu
• Diminion
• IFC Yipes
• K-Brad
• Tom Brady
• Lord Knight
• Colpevole
• Grover
• Matt Coma
• DJ Houshen
• MarlinPie