The Power of the Community

Skullgirls!

Today we're going to talk about one of my favorite indie fighters.

Legend tells of a mysterious artifact known as the “Skull Heart” that has the power to grant a young woman’s wishes. Of course, there’s a catch. If she has an impure heart, even a selfless wish will be twisted in the most vile of ways: peace brought through brutality, eternal life through perpetual childhood, or a lost love returned as an undead monster.

Hundreds have sought the Skull Heart, but so far none have been deemed worthy and spared its cruel power. Those judged impure are transformed into the fearful instrument of their twisted wish… a pale and lovely tempest, a beautiful nightmare – the Skullgirl!

Skullgirls is an awesome fighter available for Xbox360 and the PS3. It is 2 dimensional as an homage to the earlier fighters such as Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom. The fast paced feel and three character tag-team mechanic makes Skullgirls an incredibly well designed fighter. Created from a very low budget, LabZero is slowly making this game on of the more popular modern fighters. The intent is to make the game tournament worthy while still being perfect for beginners. Skullgirls contains what is considered by most to be one of the best tutorials for fighting game beginners. 

The Girls

As of right now, there are only 8 playable characters, but there are up to 32 additional potential characters. The 9th character is in production right now, while the 10th expected character will be the first male to join the Skullgirls lineup.

On February 25th, they launched a campaign via IndieGoGo to raise money to help release more characters, and a story mode. The main drive of the fundraiser is to help fund the production of the newest DLC character Squigly! If you're interested in helping fund Skullgirls, here's the link to the fundraiser. http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keep-skullgirls-growing

Thanks for stopping by!

Injustice!

Injustice: Gods Among Us

There's nothing I love more than when two of my favorite nerd-gasms combine. In 2008 when WB dropped Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe I was super stoked. Now Netherrealm Studios is working on a DC Comics exclusive fighting game titled Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Netherrealm Studios put out Mortal Kombat durring 2011 making it the 9th installment of a Mortal Kombat Game. Come April they'll be doing it again only this time, with our favorite DC superheroes and villains. The storyline hasn't been divulged, but I'm okay with that. Let it come on it's own I say. I've seen some gameplay mechanics previews showing new gameplay techniques that haven't been used in other fighters. Most notably is the evolving stage mid-fight tactic that was brought into play during the MK vs DC days. It seems as if they've refined the concept to make it more immersive. Speaking of immersive, they've added interactive environments as well. Being able to beat up Aquaman with a car is way better than just your fists. I'm excited to see what else they have in store.

The Cast
Kicking off the hype, we have a star studded cast consisting of 19 released characters. More are sure to come.

Heroes
Batman
Superman
Wonder Woman
The Flash
Green Lantern
Green Arrow
Hawkgirl
Shazam
Nightwing
Cyborg
Oh... and Aquaman

Villains
Joker
Harley Quinn
Bane
Lex Luthor
Deathstroke
Sinestro
Solomon Grundy
Catwoman

Leading up to the release, there is a "Who Would Win" tournament going on at the official website. If you're fairly loyal to certain heroes and villains, then cast you vote!
https://injustice.dccomics.com/tournaments/

April 16th can't come soon enough.

Best Bout Beatdown and EVO

Today I'm going to talk about 2 fighting game communities. One is a local community of people who meet twice a week and hold small tournaments. The other is a once a year tournament held in Las Vegas, consisting of more than 1000 people.

Best Bout Beatdown

A subset of Best Bout Gaming, B.B.B.was created to grow the local fighting game community in Portland. The headquarters is located on the East side of Portland where they hold weekly tournaments and practices.
Once a month they host a tournament where people can pay to play or watch for free. The games are usually Street Fighter 4, Marvel vs Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat 9, King of Fighters, and Persona 4. Each game requires a fee to play, but the winners get a portion of the final pool.



EVO Championship Series

I'm doing it for the shirt.... 

Short for Evolution, EVO is a yearly tournament with 8 different games to play in. Hosted in Las Vegas and bringing in over 1000 players and spectators, it is the largest fighting game tournament to date. It consists of 2 halls, one for competition and one for free play and community events. It is initially free to attend, but to participate it requires a $50 pass that allows access to any tourney, any hall friday-sunday, and you get a free shirt.



These are both great opportunities to experience the community. There are seriously all sorts of people from all walks of life who all share the same passion.

Online Community
In terms of the online community there are a few quality websites for news and information ranging from all fighters, to specific games. If you're interested in joining the online community I've suggested some websites below (links included free of charge)

Shoryuken - General hub of knowledge for fighting games. Strong forum community, lots of information
EVO - Home page for the Evo Championship Series.
Test Your Might - Mortal Kombat specific forums.
/r/fighters - Subreddit dedicated to fighting games. On the sidebar there are other subreddits dedicated to specific games.

Once again ask away if you have any questions and keep on practicing.

Shoryuken!

So I left a funny little note at the end of my last post. For those of you who aren't familiar, it's the term used for an uppercut in Street Fighter. After a couple of shots and a horrible segway, let's play!

Street Fighter

Cast of Street Fighter

Street Fighter paved the way for fighting games back in the late 80's/early 90's. Street Fighter I was released in 1987, originally for arcades but was ported (rereleased for other consoles) for multiple consoles in 1988. As the first installment of the series, it set the standard for fighting games without receiving much promise for "lasting appeal". It was received well by critics regardless of their low hopes for the future. When Street Fighter II came out in 1991, it introduced special moves and multiple characters with alternative fight styles. It also incorporated the (now traditional) 6-button configuration, which is the basic design for many fighting games today. Street Fighter II is considered by many to be the best version of the game, due to its popularity over its predecessor, as well as the golden standard for many fighters today.

I'm going to lay out a few basic terms and techniques so my future posts aren't a huge pile of gibberish dropped from the mouth of a video-game-nerd-monster.

The Basics

The layout for Street Fighter is all 2 dimensional, consists of only one character per player who each has a light, medium, and hard punch (referred to as lP, mP, hP respectively) as well as a light, medium and hard kick (lK, mK, hK).

Each player has a life bar at the top and the goal is to deplete it. Later games incorporated a 'meter' or 'special' bar that allowed for more powerful attacks to be used. As you learn more and play more, you'll learn techniques such as blocking, punishing, and what the fighting game community likes to call "footsies". Without nerding out too much, I'll talk a bit about each of these techniques.

Blocking: Blocking is the act of preventing an opponents attack from hitting your character. This is done by holding back when they attack.

Punishing: When successfully blocking an attack, there is a small time frame where the attacker is in a state referred to as 'block-stun'. Using these few seconds when the opponent is in block-stun to your advantage is key to winning matches. When successfully attacking after a block, this term is considered "punishing".

Footsies: Best described as testing the waters. The general idea is that you move in and out of attack range to test your opponents reaction. There is a large article explaining footsies that I will link to later if anyone is interested.

Special: The term used to describe a special attack done after successfully timed controller inputs. Each character has their own unique specials and inputs.

Ryu using Hadouken special

Super: A cooler looking version of a special. Does slightly more damage to the life bar.

Ultra: A really cool version of a special. Does significant damage and requires a full special meter.

I think that's enough for today, but I'll be back tomorrow talking about the fighting game community in Portland as well as the Evolution Fighting Tournament in Las Vegas.

First Post!

I'm really excited to kick off my new blog dedicated to competitive fighting games! This is part of a class project, but I'm intending to continue it once school has ended. If you're unfamiliar with the term, they're usually 2 dimensional video games where two players face off against each other. Each player is controlling a character that can perform kicks and punches, as well as special moves when the proper inputs are made. The goal is to deplete the life bar of the opposing character.

Here is an example of the basic layout of a fighter.

Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix Edition

As an intro, I've always loved fighting games. I grew up playing Street Fighter 2 (Pictured) and Mortal Kombat with my friends on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. Figuring out how to do the special moves and finishers was a load of fun, even though we never could perform them very consistently. I recently began playing them more once I discovered the existence of EVO, a competitive fighting game tournament held every year in Las Vegas. Reviving my love for fighters, I grabbed the latest versions of all my childhood favorites; Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighter, Soul Calibur and, of course, Mortal Kombat.

Now that you know a bit about my history, let's learn about some fighters! We'll journey through the history of fighters up to modern installments, learn basic techniques, and experience the highly addicting, competitive fun that are fighting games. Thanks for following and stick around for future posts.
Shoryuken!