If you were watching my Salty Battles #08 stream yesterday, you may have witnessed that sometime during the event I was informed of a new "hot topic" within the fighting game community (FGC). Admittedly, I have done zero research on this topic; but the facts on the issue are not nearly as important as the public perception and what they believe to be true.

My knowledge of the topic in question is directly related to discussions (or should I say, arguments) with the stream monsters on the twitch.tv/8wayrun channel. Readers may say "but thats not true", or "he/she never said that"; but as stated before, its all about perception. This article is my entry into the ongoing and current debate known as "eSports VS FGC"... Don't want to hear what I have to say? Well I have a website, so I have a voice.

It’s time once again to fire up the Hate Speech Wayback Machine for another field trip back in time. Today we’ll be going back into the hazy, primordial era known as “oh, the last couple of weeks or so.” It was a simpler time. A better time, back when men were men, women were men, and all children were manly children.

Though records from this dark age are few and fragmented, some bits of its knowledge have been passed down to our modern age in the forms of myths, legends, and hushed whispers around our campfires. One such tale is that of the beast known as “Clean Hit,” and that is where our journey will begin.

After the conclusion of Saturday’s events at NEC XII, Soulcalibur V director Daishi Odashima and Yoshi Utoh we able to take some time out of their day for a sit down interview conducted by BrewtusBibulus to answer various questions from the Soulcalibur community.

You can check out the interview along with keyframes after the break, or you can view the video by clicking on the icon to the right of this post if you are reading this from the front page.

As I write this, the tail end of the NEC-XII Soulcalibur V exhibition is streaming on my computer. My initial plan was to be there in the thick of things, but I’ve been sick enough that I’ve barely managed to stagger out of bed for the last few days. So it goes…

In any case, the war report I’d hoped to give you guys ain’t happening. On the plus side, we got to see plenty of SC5 action and we’re going to have lots of information coming our way thanks to Bibulus’ interview with Daishi, but where does that leave an intrepid columnist who wants to talk about something topical? Well, in the spirit of making the best of a bad situation, I present the following eclectic series of thoughts for your reading pleasure.

The final major tournament for Soulcalibur IV is now in the books here at NEC XII in Philadelphia, PA. Competitors from across North America and Europe participated in one of the toughest tournaments that I have seen during the life of this game, along with those who came to try out the demo build of Soulcalibur V.

I would like to thank everyone who came through to NEC, to the European players for flying over to compete, to the staff who helped keep things going, and to Namco Bandai for their support of NEC XII. Everyone had a hand in making NEC an amazing success.

Recently, Kayane was invited by Namco Bandai Games to come to Italy for an interview by an Italian newspaper and to play Soulcalibur V, where she recorded videos of her gameplay against CPU opponents. The videos should give you a better idea of what the characters are capable of as well as to demonstrate the improvements that were made to the AI.

I also asked Kayane a few questions about her recent trip and about Soulcalibur V. I would also like to congratulate Kayane for becoming a member of the eLive pro team. You can click here for more details about that announcement.

Gnouz Corp has produced another amazing episode of Gnouz TV. In this second episode, the video covers the two tournaments that were held in partnership with Namco Bandai Games for the demo build of Soulcalibur V at Paris Games Week 2011.

The video includes an interview with SC2 legend DTN (Dan The Nightmare) who gives his thoughts on Siegfried and on his performance in the tournament. The video also contains interviews with Furzy, Chiyo, Hayate, Saitoh, Keev, Akire, Malek, Keysona (who wouldn't even let a 9 year old boy beat him in tournament), and many others.