In the world of competitive gaming, almost no title is rowdier and filled with more passionate characters than Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Eddie Mu, known by his tag ‘Too Much Damage’, was nice enough to stop by Battle and Brew (on his birthday, no less) and talk about his experiences in the UMvC3 community, what he’d love to see improve, and where he plans on seeing the game in the future. What follows is perhaps one of the most candid and bluntly honest interviews I’ve ever conducted.
Gunnar Ohberg: First off, when did you start playing video games?
Eddie Mu: Video games in general? It was probably when I was a little kid. My dad bought me a Super Nintendo and really I just got into games like that, just trying to play video games and have fun.
GO: What were some of your favorite titles early on?
EM: I really liked Super Mario World… I liked a lot of the Zelda games, like a Link to the Past, I played some of the RPGs that were on Super Nintendo. And then moving on I started playing Sega Genesis, and I think it was probably because I was a little kid and didn’t know very much about games, but I really liked this Arnold Schwarzeneggar game that was based on a movie. That game was terrible, but I was a little kid, so… (laughs)
GO: What got you into Ultimate Marvel then?
EM: Well I got into fighting games playing Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but when Street Fighter 4 came out it kind of killed the scene. I always liked the faster paced games, like the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom series, so when Marvel vs. Capcom came out it was very refreshing, because I had been forced to really play Street Fighter to stay active in the scene. When Marvel came out I was able to go back to my roots and play a faster paced game, so I got into [Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3] the second that it came out.
GO: Did you realize right away that this was something you might play competitively?
EM: I was already playing Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 competitively, so I figured trying to be active in our community for fighting games. I knew I would be going to tournaments, but I didn’t really know how far the extent of that would be. I didn’t know if I would be traveling out of state, or going to national tournaments, but I ended up doing that because I enjoy doing it.
GO: Tell us a little bit about your history in major tournaments.
EM: I first got into fighting games at an arcade. I was playing Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I started playing in that arcade, got used to meeting people, and from there people started telling me about tournaments. So I started going to tournaments around maybe 2008 or so. That was right after I got into the arcade scene. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was a very exciting game, and people always talked a lot of crap about each other. When I started going to tournaments around 2008 it was only for Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I only went to a lot of tournaments [in the Marietta area]. It wasn’t until maybe around 2009 when I picked up Street Fighter 4 that I started traveling out of state and started going to bigger tournaments, where people were flying all over the world to try to get there.
GO: Which title do you personally find more enjoyable, Super Street Fighter 4 or Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom?
EM: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom by far.
GO: How do you feel about the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom scene locally?
EM: I feel that our scene locally, especially around the Atlanta area, we can definitely improve in terms of helping each other out and in terms of skill level. I feel that our scene is very closed, when it should be a very open community, and we should be trying to help each other out to get better at the video game, since we all like playing the game with each other… at the end of the day it’s just a video game. I definitely think we can improve on the general social quality of the scene. But I definitely feel that all of our players are improving, and it’s great to see people getting to know each other over a game that we all mutually play.
GO: How do you feel about the scene nationally? Is there the same work that needs to be done?
EM: Overall throughout the country, there’s a couple of hotspots like New York and California, their scenes are very strong, they have a strong concentration of players that are dedicated to the game, and they are able to improve off of each other. I think that throughout the whole world the community could be better, but I think that areas [like New York and California] are definitely ahead of us…
GO: Where do you see yourself as far as competing in video games a year from now?
EM: I’m sure that I’ll still be a part of the community, and trying to go out to tournaments to be a part of it, but
especially in the past year I’ve definitely felt a slow-down in my motivation to be in that ‘killer mode’, to try to go
to every tournament and try to win every single thing with flying colors, that motivation’s really just not there
anymore. I definitely try to just have fun with the game now. I really enjoy being a part of the scene. So a year from now, I think I’ll still be a part of it, going to tournaments, but I’m not sure that I’ll still have that same drive that I had before.
GO: A lot of higher-level players talk about how tough it is to balance their video game lives with everything else they
have going on. What else is going on in your life?
EM: I like to think based on what I’ve seen from other people, and hearing what my friends say about how they try to participate in the community, I like to think I’m one of the people who spends a lesser amount of time than everybody else trying to practice the game and study the game. I go to school at Georgia State and I work with my parents at their Chinese restaurant. Nowadays that takes up a lot of my time. I never really was the type of person who tried to sit down and practice, so essentially nothing’s really different for me, because I never really practiced like that. But since I mentioned that the motivation isn’t there like it was before, I definitely do find myself going to tournaments less, so less time is spent driving out and flying out to different tournaments, because those types of tournaments take up your whole weekend, and sometimes your whole week.
GO: As far as personal goals, do you feel like you’ve accomplished what you want to accomplish in competitive gaming?
EM: I definitely feel if I put more quality time into trying to better myself in the game, or just the community in
general, I would probably be able to do better when it comes to placings in tournaments and how well I do when I go out [to compete]. I definitely feel like I can improve upon that. I do feel though that with the amount of time that I put in I’m pretty content with where I am, I just have fun playing the game with my friends. We always try to beat each other but at the end of the day we enjoy figuring stuff out together. So I’m pretty content with where I am, but I definitely know I could probably do better if I tried to devote more of my time to trying to actually learn the game and trying to better myself.
GO: Where do you see competitive gaming in the future?
EM: I definitely think it’s really cool how the gaming culture has become more and more mainstream… It’s definitely growing at an increasing rate. You see big tournaments like MLG offering big money now for different games and I think stuff like that definitely helps because it lets the more mainstream market know that the video game market is still growing. I definitely see it growing in the next year. I think that as long as we all keep it civil and we try to help each other to get better, then we can only grow from it, and the community can only get bigger.
GO: What’s your favorite beer?
EM: I really like Blue Moon.
GO: When I was looking up stuff about you, almost every time Google asked me ‘did you mean Eddie Murphy?’. What’s your favorite Eddie Murphy movie.
EM: I think I’m going to go with the Nutty Professor series.
GO: All of them?
EM: Yea…
