Capcom-themed Halloween Fest Musters Scarce Attendance for Fifth Straight Year

Though it sports a sizeable contingency of international students more than capable of portraying whatever characters necessary, the MBAA was nonetheless yet again unable to field the requisite number of in-costume personas needed to make its Halloween party a success. This year's Street Fighter motif seemed promising, as plenty of both foreign-born and native first- and second year's volunteered to don the signature garbs made famous by the game's icons. While most agreed that Yun (Wayne the Master of Pain) Huang's self-appointment to star as Vegas boxer Balrog was a tad hasty and that the option to ask Karen Curry to star as Brazilian-based mutant Blanka was "nothing short of nonsensical," the air of optimism surrounding the get-together remained. That was all before economics professor Faik Koray drew many commitments away with his WWF "spook-a-thon," which featured plenty of ghoulish chair-smashing and a special appearance from the instructor himself as the Undertaker. Further distraction came whenever Brandon Carter split the MBAA loyalists by throwing a Golden Girls revue on the same night. Fans of Dorothy, Blanche, Sophia, and Rose crowded the lanky second-year's apartment dressed in typical South Floridian, retiree fashion. Everyone there thanked him for "being a friend."

A disappointing number of no-shows, though, is no novelty for this half-decade-old would-be extravaganza. After having weathered the first two years without any serious breach in enthusiasm, the event suffered a setback in 2005 when it was cancelled after the Captain Commando theme made interclass mischief in the words of the administration "just too accessible." Still, many had hoped that the contemporary surge in video-game play and the abundance of global enrollees would avail the "SF party" to an unavoidable success. Program pundits blame the actual staged fighting that, while inherent to the integrity of the pugnacious milieu, took several attendees to the hospital on the morning of November 1, 2007 for the reduced advent. Moreover, plenty of critics point to last year's verbal acrimony as the source of the poor showing last Friday. Virtually everyone can recall that a recently married Chris Dean thought that Jason "Guile" Rawls' battle cry of "Go home and be a family man" was "below the belt," or the accusations that Prasant's "yoga flame" was some kind of slander against gays, or even the voiced suspicions that Ryan Outlaw had worn the Vega mask solely for the purposes of hiding a zit. Perhaps even more damning was the decision to "go all rhyme time" on Andy Cifreo when he came dressed as Siamese kick boxer Sagat or the claim that "Haduken" was a Dutch ethnic slur. All in all, however, organizers are hopeful in the face of these recent flops. Next year's Mortal Kombat bash, regardless of the inevitably gruesome repercussions, looks to be--according to social chair Casey Boudreaux--a flawless victory.