This is pretty big news for anyone who's into fighting games, in July next year 2 of the best players from the USA's Empire Arcadia team are coming to Sydney to play Australia's best in a variety of games.

Justin Wong is probably the world's most versatile gamer, excelling in just about any game he plays. He is without doubt the world's best Marvel vs Capcom 2 player, and consistently places top 5 in games such as 3rd strike, capcom vs snk 2 and super street fighter 2 turbo.

Ricky Ortiz is considered the 2nd best all around fighting game player after Justin Wong. He placed 5th in 3rd Strike at this year's EVO2K5 tournament, 2nd in CvS2 at last year's EVO2K4, and is also an awesome 3D game competitor coming 2nd in Tekken at TX showdown 5.

Details are still yet to be finalised, but what we know is these 2 guys plus the president/founder of empire arcadia and his wife will be making the trip, and we may have even more of the world's best gamers in sydney for the event.

The games being played so far include 3rd Strike, Tekken 5 and Soul Calibur 3, and there will also likely be MvC2, CvS2, GGXX# and probably a few more.

The guys at Ozhadou are trying to make this the biggest Australian tournament ever, so if you visit any other forums where people are into these games, or if you know anyone who might be interested from where-ever get the word out.

One more thing, if any of you would like to lend your graphic art talents to the Oz fighting game community by making a trailer, banners, flash or video art, post here and let us know. This is by no means just a ploy to get some great artists on board, but if you guys want to help make this reach its potential it would be much appreciated

Why didn't we get your edit from Hyperactive? :P

I'd like to come to this kind of thing, espessially if Soul Calibur III (I own number II however) and Super Smash Bros. Melee make an appearance. We'll see how it goes.

Ah yeah, you can run your own tournament if you want, but they prefer fighting games over stuff like... sports, shooters etc. Work out all the rules, prizes (you can charge a small fee for entering and slpit the money among the top 2 or 3, as an example). Best thing to do would be to name the game, and I can help you get in touch with other people who have run tourneys for that game in the past, and can give you advice about standard rules and so on.

JJJames7, Soul Calibur 3 will definately be there, I know the guy who is running it and he ran SC2 last year, so he's experienced enough to get it all running. SC3 is a fair bit different to 2, no matter who you use, so I'd advise picking up a copy if you want to go alright. Some people enter tourneys for games they've never played before for some reason :S so don't be worried that you'll come last or anything liek that, its an awesome weekend even if you forget about being all competitive.

Smash Bros will probably make it in, it hasn't been confirmed just yet but there's a lot of people who want to see it there, and a lot of the electronics gamer's guild (yeah yeah, cheezy name) play it a fair bit. I'll let you know if it happens.

I wish it weren't in Sydney, and they had a KOF tourney because I'd enter for that.

So, is Joey playing?

Damn Sydney, if it was held in Melbourne I'd go for sure. Been playing a bit of 3rd Strike lately and I'm forming some kind of skill, if you can call it that :P

Hell yeah. He's one of our best at Marvel, so if we're gonna have a good team he's got to be on it. He'll also enter 3S and probably a few others.

The only thing is... Australia has real good Tekken and 3S players, but a few people are saying that there's no way to beat the US at Marvel. We shall see...

OMFG! Joey won tonight's RANBAT at chinatown! First time he's won one of these so this is fucking awesome. Props to joo primary skool buddy Manny :D

Also check out combovideos.com for some matches between J wong and Sanford, 2 of the guys from empire arcadia who will be in Sydney in July. Top Shit!

Sounds very interesting, not sure if I have the skills at the moment to actually compete in anything yet though. Might just have to look on (which I don't mind doing).