Month: August 2017

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– New Logo, Site & Big Q2 Profits in Latest Investor Report

Funcom has published its Q2 2017 investor’s report. Most notable on the aesthetic side is the new company logo sporting a decidedly Conan-esque figure. Of more practical matters for investors, Funcom has recorded record profits for the first half of the year. 2Q 17 revenues are up 79% vs 2Q 16.It is the most profitable six months in the company’s history. In addition to record profits, the company’s debt has been halved as well as equity increasing by almost 40%.

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Meet Elena’s family, Aprile’s brother, and the Mad Gear Gang’s Eliza in the latest CFN Portal profiles

After a hiatus of over a month, the Shadaloo Combat Research Institute has unearthed another batch of their Activity Reports, containing information on various characters throughout the Street Fighter universe. Private Nakagawa returns to provide narration for these documents.

First up, we have Elena’s family members.

Private Nakagawa: “Today we’re introducing Elena’s family. A proud family that inherited the blood of warriors, who lives in harmony with nature in a house in the Savannah. (Who knows if they can all do Healing!…)”

Jafari

Basic Info:

Name: Jafari [Swahili rendition of the Arabic male name جعفر Ja’far, “spring, rivulet.”]
Height: 190cm
Weight: 92kg
Blood type: Unknown
Birthday: January 2nd
Country of Origin: Kenya
Likes: The Spirit of Family
Dislikes: Alcohol (can’t hold it)

Amina

Basic Info:

Name: Amina [Swahili rendition of two female Arabic names: the first, آمنة Āmina (accent upon the first syllable) “safe, secure,” was also the name of Muhammad‘s mother. The second, أمينة Amīna (accent upon the second syllable) “faithful, trustworthy,” is the female version of the male name أمين Amīn.]
Height: 183cm
Weight: 62kg
Blood type: Unknown
Birthday: February 7th
Country of Origin: Kenya
Likes: Family, Sukuma wiki
Dislikes: Paved Roads

Marcus

Basic Info:

Name: Marcus [English version of the Latin name Marcus “related to Mars.” It’s curious this shift of names’ origin in the new generation: even Elena comes from the Ancient Greek Ἑλένη Helenē, maybe from ἑλάνη elane “torch” or a corruption of Σελήνη Selene, “Moon.” ]
Height: 184cm
Weight: 77kg
Blood type: Unknown
Birthday: September 7th
Country of Origin: Kenya
Likes: Capoeira
Dislikes: Sweets

Private Nakagawa: “The head of the family Jafari descends from a family of warrors. The mother Amina kindly watches over her family. Elena is only a few years apart from her older brother Marcus. Jafari went to study abroad in France and has a PhD in Pharmaceutics and Veterinary Medicine. He’s a good leader, and an extremely wise man. Amina is a loving mother. Her relatives live nearby. Marcus is a master capoeirista, raised under his father’s wing. He’s expected to succeed Jafari and establish his own family. He’s also secretly a fan of Dee Jay. The family gets along well, and spends the weekends going to the city, visiting museums and seeing theater.”

To refresh your memory, here’s a look at them from Elena’s Ultra Street Fighter IV Arcade Mode prologue.

Next up, we have Aprile’s brother, Maggio.

Private Nakagawa: “This time we introduce a kid with special issues. He doesn’t seem like someone able to fight, but he’s studying some power, apparently.”

Maggio

Basic Info:

Name: Maggio [Italian, “May.” Which doesn’t agree with his birth month… Anyway, Italy is now officially “the land of absurd hair” according to Capcom. Not even Guile’s family could compete (and I expect Guile’s wife to show up soon).]
Height: 167cm
Weight: 52kg
Blood type: 0
Birthday: August 5th
Country of Origin: Italy
Likes: His Sister, Yo-yo
Dislikes: Dark Places

Private Nakagawa: “He’s a young man who’s searching for his disappeared older sister. Just when his parents were about to accept the fate of his sister, he heard of a fortune teller who could see into the future. Maggio was only a boy back then, but all alone he kept walking for days up to Genoa, where the “Palace of Miracles” was. He’s currently learning fortune telling together with a senior apprentice [Come on, we all know it’s Menat. It would make sense for Menat to pester Ed even in her story mode: after all, Ed could know where Aprile went, or she could be a member of his Neo-Shadaloo. So Aprile is still missing months after Shadaloo’s fall, apparently…] under the mistress of the Palace, while continuing to search for his sister. He never lets go of his yo-yo, because it was a present from his sister. Sniff, what a sad story… …But pink hair and Italian origin just reminded me of someone I think I met somewhere. The infirmary… it was? I forgot.”

Finally, we close out this set of profiles with one of Retsu’s underlings from the Mad Gear Gang, seen in 1993’s Final Fight 2, Eliza.

Private Nakagawa: “She can kill her enemies with her agility and her proficiency with the knife! It seems her knife attack pattern is so irregular that it’s extremely hard to dodge.

Eliza-FF2

Basic Info:

Name: Eliza
Height: 160cm
Weight: 48kg
Blood type: A
Birthday: August 5th [Suspiciously identical to Maggio…]
Country of Origin: USA
Likes: NWOBHM
Dislikes: Dirty people

Private Nakagawa: “She’s fickle and prone to pursue every new fad. She had some experience in a band, when she wanted to become a vocalist, but soon she got tired and quit. It seems she has a twin brother named Robert. She’s currently searching for a lover!”

And with that, we’re at 235 CFN Portal profiles. From the looks of things, they’ll be covering the remaining goons of Final Fight 2 for the next few weeks, before possibly moving on to the mooks of Final Fight 3, or perhaps something else entirely. If you’re interested in more recent CFN Portal profiles, you can check out the Activity Reports of Demon Machami & Shin, as well as Meterorito Jr. & Antler Inoki.

Sources: CFN Portal; RajmanGaming HD

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Shoryuken preview: Pages from “Undisputed Street Fighter: A 30th Anniversary Retrospective”

Feast your eyes on this sneak peek into a sumptuous visual history of Street Fighter.

To celebrate thirty years of the game that started the very genre we love, Dynamite Entertainment is bringing us Undisputed Street Fighter: A 30th Anniversary Retrospective, a 304-page artbook detailing any and all elements of the Street Fighter franchise over the last three decades. The book covers the rich history of the games, the merchandise, and the players.

[regular edition]
[deluxe edition]

To whet your appetite, here are some preview pages from the upcoming artbook’s first chapter, “King of the Arcade,” (provided by art designer Jason Ullmeyer) which focuses on the Street Fighter II series’ impact on video arcades. Commentary on these selected pages has been provided by author Steven Hendershot.

Undisputed Street Fighter preview page 1

One of the revelations in the “Final Fight as First Step” section is the fact that Charles Bronson’s movie The Streetfighter was an influence on the development of both Final Fight and Street Fighter II. It sounds like a fairly obvious connection, but American audiences have mostly overlooked it, and the reason is that the movie was released here as Hard Times. I didn’t even put it together during my interview with Akira Yasuda in Tokyo — I heard him say “Charles Bronson” and “Street Fighter” but didn’t understand what he was saying until I was back in Chicago reading an actual translated transcript of the interview. Then I headed online and found the Japanese movie poster that’s on page 23, and got pretty excited.

Undisputed Street Fighter preview page 2

Undisputed Street Fighter preview page 3

The section on early Southern California players features some big FGC names in Tomo Ohira, Mike Watson, and Alex Valle. But early on in the reporting process, I fixated on John Bailon, the arcade manager who created this amazing culture that nurtured the development of so many top players. Considering that John still lives in the neighborhood where Southern Hills Golfland once stood, you’d think he would have been easy to track down, yet something it took like two months. Still, it was completely worth it because I loved hearing how he built Southern Hills scene, and thus the role he played in the creation of the FGC. He told me a story about going to Evo a few years ago, and how it was cool to be recognized by a few people, and to pose for pictures.

Undisputed Street Fighter preview page 4

I hope this book does something similar for him and for all the other arcade managers who took special care to cater to serious players. They were instrumental. (Side note: I loved hearing John talk about what it was like to be Alex Valle’s boss when Alex worked at Southern Hills as a Street Fighter star slash regular arcade employee. A lot of that stuff didn’t make the book, but was fun to hear, like John saying “I had to reprimand people for staying too late after work, playing until the wee hours of the morning.” How many bosses have that problem, where they can’t get their employees to leave at the end of the day?

Undisputed Street Fighter preview page 5

Undisputed Street Fighter: A 30th Anniversary Retrospective is available to pre-order right now from Amazon; you can get the regular edition (releases November 14, 2017) for $27.49 USD, or the deluxe slipcased edition (releases December 19, 2017) for $89.10 USD. It will also be available for Kindle, and via comiXology.

Sources: Seen All Over Media; Amazon

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– The Hand Grenade and the Hiding Place

This is family meeting time. No, you’re not in trouble – we all are. I’m not going to yell at you, but this going to be like eating your green beans: you may not like it, but it’s good for you and might make you a wee bit gassy.