News and Review

Been hearing rumblings of this foolishness for a while. Well, here's another rumble, and it sounds more foolish than ever! ROFL

IGN: October 30, 2006 - A new Street Fighter movie is coming! Forget about the silliness of the 1994 film version that starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, Hyde Park Entertainment and Capcom are teaming up to produce a new flick based on the classic fighting videogame.

Variety scoops that screenwriter Justin Marks has been asked to pen the script for the movie which will reportedly center around the game's prolific female fighter, Chun Li. As you might expect, the other details of the story are being kept secret.

Marks recently finished writing the screenplay for another project that will likely get fanboys excited, a movie based on the popular 1980s toy line and cartoon series, Voltron: Defender of the Universe.

According to Variety, Street Fighter is set for a 2008 release; that happens to be the 20th anniversary of the videogame franchise.

Fans of the franchise may remember persistent rumors from recent years about a new Street Fighter film in development with Dolph Lundgren and Van Damme. There was some additional buzz that Australian actress Holly Valance (DOA) would star -- she might not make a bad Chun Li. However, this news appears unrelated to those rumors and should put them to rest once and for all.

Forget the silliness of 1994 he says... 1st of all, if it's gonna center around Chun Li, I'm already doubtful. She's VERY famous, yes, but that's not enough. Ronald McDonald is VERY famous too, but he's just an image like Chun Li. Neither one has the storyline or personality to carry a movie. And Holly Valance as might not make a bad Chun Li... HUH?! She's a blond-haired blue-eyed white girl... not a Chinese girl with super-fat thighs! Forget the silliness he says!!

Anyhow, I guess basing the story around 1 character is a good idea cuz you can't really do justice to all of 'em. But if you're gonna use Chun Li, she's gotta depend heavily on other characters to help out her lack of personality and storyline. Hope Cammy's one of 'em! Who knows, it might be good, but I'm extremely doubtful for now.

	This kinda came out of nowhere one day. I very vaguely remember something about it. It was released in September, but I didn't know until I saw the ad in the SF2 0 comic.
	Anyhow, it's a TCG (trading card game) that pits Street Fighter against Mortal Kombat. What's odd is that it's only available at Blockbuster stores. Starter packs are $12.99 and booster packs are $3.99. Expensive, huh? Yeah, it doesn't take long before you spend a lot of money!
	I'm buying 'em just to collect the Cammy stuff, so I really can't tell you anything about the gameplay. But from a collector's view, it's very disappointing to see that all the artwork is just taken from the comic books... nothing original at all. Speaking of disappointing, ONLY some characters from SF3 are available! WTF?! Not even the super-fat-thigh version of Chun Li from SF3 is available (calm down Chun Li fans LOL).
	Anyhow, Round 1 really isn't anything to get excited about, but hopefully there will be a Round 2 with some good characters and original artwork (but I'm not counting on it). One good thing I can say about it is that they've got an awesome website! Rules, boards, pictures, etc. Check out www.EpicBattlesTCG.com

KoF Neowave	Wow, it's been a long time since I've had a report from Arcadia! But one thing hasn't changed... an SNK/Playmore game is on the cover! KoF has been the fighting game king for a very long time in Japanese arcades, so there's a big buzz every year they get ready to release another one.
	The first big article is about Capcom's Fighting Jam, and like the discarded "All-Stars" game, this game look lame! It's more of the lame old graphics, lame old characters, and lame new characters. I can't believe that this game is gonna be anything besides the cheap & half-assed gimmick that it appears to be. (even with Delta Red Cammy, it wouldn't be all that special)
One of the most exciting things is news and pictures of Tekken 5! Tekken 4 didn't go over very well, so I'm hoping that this one will be another big step up for the series. It looks OK from what I see, but to be honest with you, I'm not blown away by the new characters or anything else I see. I'm sure it'll be an awesome game to play, but will it have much else? Go see for yourself... www.Tekken-official.jp
There's an article on Virtua Fighter 4: Final Tuned, but as good as the game is to play, the characters and storyline do absolutely nothing for me, so I can't get into it. Another article features a new Zoids game that should be out this month in Japan. Remember Zoids... those mech animals? Might be kinda cool!
A little while ago there was a BIG fighting game tournament called the Super Battle Opera, featuring just about every game there ever was, and this issue has a big article on all that, plus it profiles the winners. The pictures of this event are amazing because there are thousands of people in the crowd! It's a small arena. How fun that must have been?! But what I wish you could see, was the pictures of the winners... every last one of 'em is the goofiest, most unruly guy you've ever seen! PS - 11 of the 48 SNK vs Capcom teams included Cammy!
There's a 2D fighter in Japan called The Rumble Fish by Dimps & Sammy, but there's nothing about it that really excites me. The arcade prize section has absolutely nothing cool at all... (unless you like DBZ). The fanart section hasn't changed too much... lots of KoF and GGXX. Samurai Spirits has obviously become popular again, and then there's a buncha random stuff. There's no Cammy picture this month in the color section (there was last month), but Cammy does show up in the b&w section. The cosplay section features mostly KoF & GGXX, but there's also a picture of Fumiko, which is the Cosplay Picture of the Week here on CammyFan.com. It also has a detailed diagram of her outfit so you can try to make one of your own.
There was no poster with this month's issue... instead, there was a little booklet celebrating the 50th issue of Arcadia. The booklet shows all the covers and highlights some of the topics each issue covered. And that's pretty much it! As usual, the arcade scene in Japan looks like a ton of fun... I wish I was there!!

Gundam	Wow, it's been a long time since I've written up a report from Arcadia. Anyhow, this month's issue has all kinds of good stuff in it, so let's get to it...
	The first exciting thing I see in the magazine are full-page ads for Metal Slug Advance and KoF 2001 for the PS2. Despite the SvC Chaos debacle, I still love seeing SNK Playmore doing well. And then the first big article is the cover story about a new Gundam game. I'm not much into Gundam, so I pretty much skipped over that part.
Remember Outrun, the Ferrari racing game from a long, long time ago? Well, Outrun 2 is finally here. Whoopee, huh? The heck with that, because next is Samurai Spirits Zero! Hallelujah!!!! It's looking just like all the great games of old. Unfortunately, it's still got the old graphics, but I love it nonetheless. There are 4 new characters profiled... 1) Yun Fei, a wu-shu type swordsman who looks like the old Haomaru from the 3D PS SS game. 2) Youkai Kusaregedou, some strange devil/demon/monster character. 3) Majikina Mina, a cute girl with long white hair, a bow, and some little fuzzy animals. 4) Tokugawa Yoshitora, a swordsman that I can't tell much about, but I'm guessing he's from the famous Tokugawa Shogun family. And along with the article is a Samurai Spirits fanart section which features a ton of Cham Cham pictures... I wonder if they're ever gonna bring her back? I bet the fans would love to see her again.
The #1 arcade game in Japan is SvC Chaos, but that's only because it seems to be the only new game! #2 (not by much) is GGXX:#Reload, and all the same games that were popular when I was over there in May/April. There's also an article on SvC Chaos, but I'm so embarrassed by the lineup of the game that I don't even care. Hump...Rockman Zero, Violent Ken, Mars People, Mr. Karate, Kasumi Todoh, Tabasa, and Bison?! You've gotta be kidding me!! Give me Cammy, Felicia, & Blue Mary!
There's a small report from the Wonder Fest 2003, and one of the featured models is the Cammy from Yukishiro. He also made an especially cool Blue Mary too. And next to that stuff is the Guilty Gear fanart page... it's still going strong! And just a few pages later is the arcade prize section where there's a small picture of the Capcom Gals cheerleader set. Cammy looks great! The cosplay section doesn't have much worth mentioning (just a lot of the same old stuff). The general fanart section has lots of good stuff, but nothing blows me away.
And well, that's pretty much it for October. With winter coming, I expect to see a lot more new stuff in the next few issues.

Image comics will soon be publishing a new Street Fighter comic. It's all headed up by Udon, who has recently been working on Agent X. I'm a big fan of his group, so that's cool! For all the official details, click here.

And now on to my opinion... the first picture shown doesn't have Cammy. WTF?! If this is gonna be another shotoclone and Chun Li fest, it's gonna suck (and that's what all previews show). Those characters have done pretty much all they can do. I really hope some of the lesser characters with more potential get the chance to play a big role. Like Cammy! This comic could either suck REALLY bad, or if it's done right, it could be VERY cool. I'm skeptical, but I'm also excited. I know most of the people working on the comic, and I love their work. But I'm still keeping my fingers crossed...

BTW, a few months ago a friend of mine who works in comics mentioned that this project might be in the works. I
REALLY hope Udon's gang knows about, or finds out about CammyFan.com because there's so much good information here. And of course Cammy is SF's greatest character. All bias aside, she's got more personality and storyline than any 10 other SF characters combined! Anyhow, maybe I can get in contact with the guys on the project and help them out with everything that I've learned. With all the half-assed SF storylines out there, it's easy to get confused. If I can help any of them with what I know about Cammy and SF, I'd be more than happy to do whatever I can. And I'd especially wanna make sure that Cammy was done right.

Hey, on the 20th Playmore put up something VERY interesting on their website... a graphic for SNK vs Capcom Chaos. It says "Coming Soon" and shows the shotoclones and grandma Chun Li for the Capcom side, and Iori, Kyo, and Mai for the SNK side. Hey, this is awesome news! I'm guessing it's the 3rd SNK vs Capcom game, and this time SNK will be making it! That's awesome because we all know how half-assed Capcom has gotten, and SNK (now known as Playmore) had the #1 arcade game of 2002... King of Fighters 2002. I fully expect Cammy to be there, and I'm praying that Blue Mary will finally get to participate.
To see for yourself, check out www.Playmore.co.jp.

Matrimelee	The game I mentioned last month, Matrimelee, is this this month's cover game. It's from Playmore (the new SNK), so you can expect something pretty good. BTW, at first glance the cover of the 'red' girl pinching the 'white' girl is kinda strange, but if you click on the picture and look at the bigger version, you'll understand what's really going on! Anyhow, the characters and graphics don't look all that spectacular, but I'm suspecting that it's gonna have some interesting gameplay ideas and storylines.
	The first ad, which covers the first 2 pages, is for Crazy Taxi High Roller. I'm not sure if it's all-new or not. Matrimelee and Metal Slug get the next 2 pages with full-page ads (same as last month).
The first big article this month is about Guilty Gear XX #Reload. It's just a minor upgrade, but it's sure to keep the GGXX fan-frenzy going strong in Japan. The next big article is all about the Super Battle Opera, which was a giant fighting game tournament. In Capcom vs SNK, it lists Cammy as the 4th most played character! Chun Li and the shotoclones are somewhere behind that. Sagat was #1!
The Key to Avalon is a giant 4 person arcade game. It's got 4 personal arcade units gathered around a big-screen. It's described as a mix between the board game Monopoly and Magic the Gathering. Interesting! There's also more news on Time Crisis 3, and it still looking good... I can't wait to play!
The top 10 games in Japan are... 1) Virtua Fighter Evo Ver. B 2) KoF 2002 3) Virtua Striker 2002 4) ??? 5) GGXX 6) Gundam DX 7) World Soccer 8) Power Smash 2 9) G-Taste 10) Tetris the Grandmaster 2 I can't believe VF4 is #!
Road of the Sword looks like a D&D version of Streets of Rage. Cool, but something you'd have expected about 8 years ago. Anyhow, in the arcade prize section, there's a great new Morrigan statue that stands 10 inches tall (25 cm) , and a set of GGXX character busts. The cosplay section is 100% boring this month. The various fanart sections are good, and it's all highlighted be a great picture of Shadowloo Cammy! There's also an amazing Morrigan picture. The game design sketches is for Colorful High School, and it's just a buncha schoolgirls. And finally... this month's poster is for Soul Calibur 2, and it looks like a portrait painting of Raphael and some girl.

Pop'n Music 9	I thought I got sent last month's magazine again... it's almost the same cover! Anyhow, the first few pages are full-page ads, with the most interesting being a new 2D fighter from Sun (an SNK spin-off) and Metal Slug 3 for the PS2! The fighter is called something Matrimelee, and it looks okay, but nothing that's gonna blow you away.
	There's a bigger article on Time Crisis 3 this month, and it looks like more of the same great stuff that we've all come to love over the years. The one big gameplay twist seems to be the inclusion of different guns... hand guns, machine guns, shotguns, & grenade launchers.
Another interesting advertisement is for the All About SNK set. It's 2 DVDs for 14000 yen (about $125). I love SNK, but I could never pay that much for 3 hours of video. Japan is expensive!
There's another big article on VF4E. That game is HUGE in Japan, but I just can't get interested in the characters or storylines. And speaking of long-running games, there's a new Dance Dance Revolution Extreme game out.
Taito has been making news with its Battle Gear 3 game, and it looks very cool. It's a racing game, and you can see more at http://www.battlegear.net.
Another game that looks really cool is called Tougenkyo (Road of the Sword). It's a 2D action game kinda like a mix between Final Fight and Dungeons & Dragons.
There's a game in Japan called Dog Station Deluxe, and it's absolutely Japanese. I think it's some kinda virtual pet arcade game. You can save your dog on a card and play wherever you find a machine. This is one of those things that it's best if you see for yourself, so check out the official Dogstation homepage.
The arcade prizes section has nothing interesting besides some Ah! My Goddess figures. The cosplay section has a buncha average stuff. The KoF fanart section has a lot of Angel pictures. The GGX section has some really good pictures. The general fanart section has a VERY cool picture of Yuki Sakazaki with a punching bag out in the forest. The design sketches section & poster insert features Monster Gate 3 from Konami, and it looks great! And that's it for this month.