Seems a shame that the fighting game competition community doesn't get much coverage outside its niche - and the Evo East regional qualifiers just happened, so Empire Arcadia was there with an in-depth report on the event that's worth checking out to get an idea of the scene nowadays.

As they note: "Fighting game enthusiasts from all over the east coast came together and competed for qualifying seeds to Evolution World 2007 Fighting Game Championship Series. This time the roster had two new additions in Virtua Fighter 5 and Super Smash Brothers Melee." The normal titles are Capcom Vs. SNK 2, Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, Guilty Gear XX Slash, and Tekken 5 - here are the qualifiers, actually.

Anyhow, there's a few event videos of Evo East up on YouTube - though some are from last year, when Dead Or Alive 4 was apparently included - but there's a shakycam of the Super Smash Bros Melee final which makes the game look like a hardcore fighter, when I always played it like a button masher - pretty insane. And here's some Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 action which shows that the high-level players move at speeds which make my nose bleed. Oh, and they have the Daigo full-parry vid on the Evo about page, too. Fun. [Via Shoryuken.]