During last week’s Injustice Watchtower live stream, NetherRealm Studios Community Specialist Tyler Lansdown mentioned that he would be going on the road for a special broadcast this week. We now know that there will be the official unveiling of the single-player Multiverse Mode that was discovered at the Insomnia Gaming Festival. The event, which will take place in Los Angeles, California, will feature appearances by Ed Boon, Lansdown, and Ray McCaffery from NRS, Beyond The Trailer’s Grace Randolph, Maximilian, and more–as they’re interviewed by Chloe Dykstra. There are slated to be giveaways and perhaps some unannounced surprises in store, so be sure to tune in.
Earlier this week, the nearly five months of silence regarding Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite was broken, as we now have a release date and pre-order details. Though we caught a glimpse of some leaked gameplay footage yesterday, we now also have an official gameplay trailer, formally introducing us to seven new characters with their pre-match introductions.
Though some of the action is similar to the leaked footage, we get a more detailed look at character’s Hypers, some of the possible setups of the new Active Tag system, and the Infinity Stones–as well as a very dirty sequence with newcomer Ultron trapping Hawkeye in a box generated by the Space Stone, for some mixups with his drones that definitely bring back that signature “Mahvel” feel.
Catch the full video and immerse yourself in the hype, below!
Stay tuned to Shoryuken as MvC:I news items continue to arise. Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite releases for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam on September 19th.
As Injustice 2‘s release draws ever nearer, more bits of information continue to trickle out. Yesterday, a video of 68 of the game’s character-specific intros–a feature retained from Mortal Kombat X–was released. In it, we get to see a variety of Gear-equipped alternate costumes, as well as gleaning a few more details about the game’s story and character relationships.
Most importantly though, we get our first in-game look at pre-order bonus fighter Darkseid. Though he was only a stage transition in the original game–and playable only in the mobile version–the ruler of Apokolips brings his Omega Beams full-force into the sequel. In his intro with Harley Quinn, we can see two loyal Parademons (essentially shock troops that aid Darkseid in maintaining order over the planet) accompanying him. Perhaps he will be able to summon them as his Trait, similar to the Minions of Killer Instinct’s Gargos? Harley also notes in the exchange that she “ain’t popped no one’s head off since Lobo,” perhaps referencing the recent demise of the “Main Man” in the Injustice universe?
We also have a clip of the God of Evil’s super, which involves him turning his back to his opponent, blasting them into space with an Omega Beam, before grabbing them through a portal with an enlarged hand to toss them back onto the stage for continued battle. A stylish attack certain befitting the power of the character.
You can see both videos below, with the Darkseid/Harley Quinn intro taking place at 4:43 mark.
After debuting a new “Top 5 Plays of the Week” series last week, YogaFlame24 is back with the second episode, featuring another week’s worth of great Street Fighter V highlights, and some slick new production values. This week’s sophomoric offerings include Chris Hu coming back from the brink of defeat with a Raging Demon option select; PIE|Smug has one of the most hilarious victory celebrations I’ve ever seen; ChinX’s M. Bison vs. LordJimmyBones’ Balrog at Montréal’s Tatsumaki Tuesdays; and the Zhi-proclaimed “Daigod,” Twitch.Hx.CYG BST|Daigo Umehara’s amazing comeback against GameWork’s Eita from ELEAGUE’s Group B regular season. You can see the full video below, which contains additional clips, but be warned some of the language is briefly NSFW.
Feel free to send any clips you’d like featured to YogaFlame’s Twitter or MrDustKicka, who will be featuring episode 3 on his channel next Monday.
After looking at ways to improve your offense in the last episode, Frabisaur now focuses on ways for players to improve their defense in the latest edition of The Fighter’s Dojo. Today’s episode answers the questions, “How do I get better at defense?” and “Where can I press a button?” Above all else, Frabisaur insists that players simply cannot panic when put on the defensive, as looking for a breakout point in an adversary’s pressure and being cognizant of when to use specific tools and resources at your disposal to escape bad situations is imperative to survival.
One of the keys Frabisaur demonstrates is knowing your character’s positioning when you get knocked down, as this spacing will determine whether an opponent can follow-up that knockdown with continued pressure or not, which comes with studying and experience. Though Frabisaur does outline a handy six-step process to help players make these decisions:
Assess the situation
Make your initial guess
Weather the offensive sequence
Be patient!!!
Find your breakout point
Look for patterns
With these tools in mind, players should effectively be able to reset the situation back to neutral or force their enemy to overextend themselves, allowing you to turn the tables.
You can see the full video below, and don’t forget to tune into Frabisaur’s stream on Thursday nights at https://www.twitch.tv/frabisaur, or follow him on Twitter at Frabisaur, for more on these concepts. We at Shoryuken would also like to congratulate Frabisaur on his recently being picked up as a content creator for Genex eSports, which will allow to continue providing more great content for the fighting game community.
Earlier this month, the Insomnia LAN Gaming Festival took place in Birmingham, England. The event featured a playable build of the upcoming Injustice 2, as many of the UK’s finest NRS players had been invited to compete in a variety of exhibitions. During his four days with the game, PND|Ketchup spent a large amount of time with Deadshot, who was recently broken down on the Injustice Watchtower, and has compiled a thread of his impressions with the mercenary after four days of play on Test Your Might.
Though this information comes from an unfinished build, it is still a great read for anyone looking to enlist the powerful zoner, as Ketchup covers detailed uses for all of Deadshot’s normals, notable strings, special moves and setups for his Trait. He even provides a list of some basic combos he found for Lawton. To view the thread in its entirety, head over to Test Your Might.
Injustice 2 will be released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on May 16th.
The latest episode of Did You Know Gaming? takes a look at the original Super Smash Bros., released for the Nintendo 64 in January 1999. Narrated by ItsaDogandGame, the video reveals some extremely interesting secrets about the fist iteration of the Nintendo brawler. From early development struggles–such as originally being unable to use Nintendo characters–unused stage concepts, and audio for what would become Brawl’s Final Smashes, lots of interesting trivia is documented. There’s even an Easter egg in the game’s character select screen order that may have only by noticed by some of the most hardcore of Nintendo fans. You can see the full video below.
Did you find out anything particularly new or interesting about the original Smash from this video? Tell us your favorite facts and pieces of trivia in the comments below!
VesperArcade continues his series of videos breaking down the upcoming balance changes for various cast members in Street Fighter V’s recently-delayed balance update. This time, he moves on to Chun-Li, a character who’s seen a massive decline in both the competitive and online communities–despite getting even more Premium Costumes— since her myriad of nerfs in Season 2. Though some characters who may felt were over nerfed in Capcom’s first attempt at rebalancing are seeing a decent amount of reversions and improvements, the only change Chun-Li has received is that her Lightning Legs now requires five presses of any kick button, rather than four.
As Vesper explains, this quality of life change puts the move in line with other specials that can be alternatively executed with both a motion and rapid button presses, such as Kolin’s Parabellum.
Some players actually prefer this style of input, especially if you use joystick, because you can use the old-school Piano method to quickly execute the move. Capcom also recently gave Chun-Li a buff that allows her Crouching Light Kick to be canceled into Lighting Legs, making her more similar to her Street Fighter IV version, and allowing her to do combos that work well with this classic input. The problem with only making it four inputs, when it should be five, is that players would accidently do Lighting Legs when they didn’t intend to. At the same time, it’s awkward for players doing the Piano method, because you would overshoot with five inputs, since the last input should be the strength of Legs you want.
Vesper then moves on to the bug fixes that Chun received in the Kolin patch, such as EX Kikoken no longer building meter on hit or block, as well as her crouching hurtbox being slightly expanded to make her more susceptible to combos and blockstrings.
As always, Vesper closes with his final verdict on Chun’s changes.
Overall, she’s exactly the same. No direct nerfs or buffs, just a quality of life change. So if you think Chun-Li is weak now, you’ll probably think she’s weak after this patch. Let’s see how the universal changes, such as Jump Back OS leaving and the other character’s changes effect her, but these won’t really change her at all.
You can see the full video below. You can find Vesper’s tutorial on Pianoing here.
Eagle-eyed viewers of the ELEAGUE regular season matches, that have recently aired on TBS, may have noticed a quickly-scrolling crawler at the bottom of the screen advertising the “ELEAGUE SFV Celebrity Showdown,” scheduled to air next Friday, April 28th. Thanks to The Hollywood Reporter, we now have more information on the event, including which charities the celebs will be battling in the streets for.
The first celebrity charity tournament in ELEAGUE’s history will be a single-elimination Street Fighter V event, that will air exclusively on TBS on Friday, April 28th, at 10:00 PM ET (7:00 PM PDT, 9:00 PM CST) You can also see a tweet from ELEAGUE about the affair below.
Top NRS player and notable lab rat REO has posted a shocking–and seemingly quite useful–discovery in Mortal Kombat XL, that even reaches back all the way back to 2008’s Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It utilizes the Flip Stance button (L2 on PlayStation 4, LT on Xbox One), a function many players have felt is a superfluous or outright useless mechanic in NetherRealm’s more recent titles, aside from some situational uses involving the execution of X-Rays and certain Fatalities. However, with this new tech, players can more easily evade command grabs from characters like Kotal Kahn and Jason Voorhees by doing a neutral jump and immediately tapping Flip Stance. Due to a bug, your character will cancel the first or second frame of their neutral jump startup, before transitioning into the Flip Stance animation. REO explains the specifics of this technique.
What this does is it actually tricks the game into thinking that your character is jumping for the first two frames. Now your character won’t be considered airborne, they’ll still be hit by any ground attacks or unblockables. But because the game reads that I input a neutral jump, it will give me instant immunity to throws and command grabs for that 1 or 2 frames.
In the video, he shows Kobu Jutsu Tanya being able to punish a whiffed command grab from Relentless Jason, using this tech after making a correct read. REO notes that this bug has been around in the last four games produced by NRS/Midway, as Flip Stance was first introduced in MKvDCU, but had little usage there or in Mortal Kombat 9 due to those games’ general lack of command grabs. Perhaps this could prove useful in the upcoming Injustice 2 as well, since MK’s sister series also possesses this function?
Lastly, REO notes three important things to keep in mind about this tech in his TYM discussion thread:
Still a hard read, like jumping out of command grabs.
Makes you look like a hacker/swag god when you pull it off in a KOTH with a bunch of people (LOL)
Gives some characters better punishes/optimal combos that they normally wouldn’t get off their NJP vs. some command grabs.
You can see the full video below, and head over to REO’s discussion thread on Test Your Might for more details.
