Northern California’s premier fighting game tournament returns to the scene in style as the final major for 2009. This year’s NorCal Regionals tournament will be held on November 21-22 at the beautiful Domain Hotel in Sunnyvale CA, just down the street from the historic Sunnyvale Golfland Arcade. 

This year’s revamped lineup of titles features fresh and familiar faces, like the highly anticipated Tekken 6 and fan favorite Street Fighter 4, as well as old friends like MvC2 and NorCal favorite CvS2. Duke it out in any or all of our tournaments, or cheer on your favorite players in our special exhibition SF4 team grudge match: NorCal vs. SoCal.

The highest level of elite players from all over the country including EVO top 8 finalists Alex Valle, Ed Ma, Ricky Ortiz, ShadyK, Combofiend, Chunkstah, and West Coast Warzone SF4 champion Marneto, are confirmed to attend to stake their claim as “The Best In 2009.”

NCR will be utilizing official tournament-grade EVO equipment, and Shoryuken staff members Seth Killian, Ponder, James Chen, and Mr. Wizard will be present to oversee the tournament. Spectating is free and there will be plenty of  giveaways from sponsors including Namco, Madcatz, and Sugar Betty.

Can’t make it this year? All of the action will be livestreamed courtesy of the folks at iplaywinner.com and additional coverage will be provided by Kineda and Get Your Tournament. Pre-register by November 13 to save. To register, visit the official NCR website or browse the SRK thread for additional information.

At Evolution 2009 this past summer, a very special LIVE Dogface Show took place with some very special guests: Tom “inkblot” Cannon and Tony “Ponder” Cannon, creators of many Fighting Game Community standards such as Shoryuken.com itself, the Evolution Fighting Game Championships, GGPO, and more!

Part 1 of this interview was posted up here on SRK earlier. You can try to catch part 2 before watching this final part 3 of the Live Dogface Show. And this episode is noteworthy because or a special award given at the end, so stick around until the end of the interview to see a very special award introduced at Evo 2009.

Get ready for some uppercuts! The third episode features none other than Ken, setting everyone on fire with punches.

If you’re confused or curious about any of these combos, here’s a complete transcript explaining each one in detail.

The response for our first two combo challenges has been overwhelming awesome! Seriously, thank you guys! I’ve noticed some people have been asking for an oldschool game headline and others have been asking for more difficult trials. This should take care of both.

You know the drill: Video quality doesn’t matter so record with whatever you’ve got and post it as a video response. Every game has a solution, but some are more elaborate than others.

Good luck to everyone attending NorCal Regionals and the ActiveGamersLA tournaments this weekend!

ACTivegamerS LA & UFRAGTV present…

Two Days of Gaming Euphoria: Hollywood Massacre & Triple Threat!

Join us on November 13-14 for the biggest gaming event to hit Southern California thus far!  ACTivegamerS LA is putting together two amazing events to cater to the fighting game community!  A weekend of fierce gaming competition, good company, and passion for fighting games!

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Ready for round two?

Again, video quality isn’t important for this so record using whatever equipment you have available (capture card, camcorder, PVR, DVD recorder, etc.) and post it as a video response. There are already several answers posted, including some difficult ones and some very clever easy ones.

Think you’ve seen everything in Street Fighter IV? We’ve got a few surprises in store for you:

This is actually the second episode in a series of SF4 combo videos released every other Tuesday. Check out the first episode here: SF4 Biweekly TACV 01: Ryu

How much do you know about Street Fighter IV’s combo engine? Want to test your Training Mode Ryu skills? Then this is just the challenge for you:

Video quality isn’t important here, so record your solution using whatever equipment you have on hand (PC capture card, camcorder, PVR, DVD recorder, etc.) and post it as a video response. There’s more than one answer so get as creative as you want.

TEKKEN 6 LAUNCH EVENT

Presented by ACTivegamerS LA
In cooperation with SDTEKKEN, SHORYUKEN.COM, and the fighting game community!

Sponsored by Namco Bandai Games, Mad Catz, & Starbucks.

Southern California fighting game fans!  Get ready for the next battle!  Celebrate the launch of TEKKEN 6 in style with ACTivegamerS and the rest of the fighting game community as we party the night away on Saturday, Oct. 24 in Hawthorne, California.

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Community members Fugee and Ghaleon are back, once again, to bring you their annual gift to fighting game players everywhere;  Seasons Beatings 4!   Running at MoMo2 KTV in Columbus Ohio starting tomorrow and going all weekend long, Seasons Beatings is in its fourth year and has become the tournament hot-spot for the cold winter season.

This year’s main event will be a rematch of the Evo2k9 Street Fighter 4 finals, in which Daigo “The Beast” Umehara will face off against Justin Wong in a first-to-ten-wins battle for worldwide supremacy.    On top of that, tournaments for the hottest fighting games will be running all weekend with a live stream showing off the best and brightest matches from the USA’s greatest competitors.    While the Daigo v. Justin event will not be streaming, the finals will be streamed all weekend, with the hottest games finishing up on Sunday.   And as the icing on the delicious cake, Seth Killian himself will be in attendance to lend his commentary to the proceedings.  Rumor has it that he is bringing the latest build of the US version of Tatsunoko vs Capcom with him to show off as well!

You can live it through the live video stream this weekend, or buy that last minute flight and come join us in Ohio for a holiday bash like you’ve never seen.  Stay tuned to Shoryuken.com for a link to the live streaming site, or just keep an eye on the thread in our forums.