Author: Corey "Missing Person" Lanier

After a week hiatus, SpoTV will return this Saturday night (in the west) with the latest installment of Street Fighter Crash, and it aims to be a big one. Three of the four seeded teams have ultimately made it through to the Top 4 of the event, with Team Topanga (Tokido, Momochi, and Mago), Team Razer (Infiltration, Fuudo, and Xian), and Team Southeast (Poongko, HumanBomb, and Gamerbee) all still in the hunt. However, there is one Korean team still poised for competition, with IsaCenter (Sandbag, 200won, and Sazabi) proving to be a formidable force going up against the minefield that has been the Crash bracket so far.

With Team Topanga and Team Razer already having squared off in the Top 8 with one of the most impressive upsets in Momochi handily dispatching Infiltration before he could even face his chief rival, Tokido, Poongko and Gamerbee wanting to prove that they are of the highest caliber in this game, and a relatively unknown team from Korea wanting to prove that they’re not a fluke, this episode is shaping up to be quite dramatic. Who will make it to the Grand Finals in the season finale next week? Who will go home salty? You owe it to yourselves to tune in and find out live on Twitch. Be sure to tune in for the broadcast at 1 AM EDT Sunday, May 29th (10 PM PDT Saturday, May 28th)!

Source: SpoTV Games

Drakefang, owner of ArcadeStream, the primary gaming center in Seoul that houses Street Fighter V events, has announced a special tournament for all players in Korea and nearby regions. At stake for this event is a round trip ticket to Evolution 2016.

For a 10,000 KRW entry fee (roughly $10), players will square off in a 128-player, double-elimination bracket, for the winner-takes-all prize. While SpiritZero already held one such event in Anyang, South Korea earlier in the month, there is a slight difference in this event. While foreign players could compete in the SpiritZero event, they could not earn the trip to Evo even if they won; only Koreans could. ArcadeStream, on the other hand, has opened their tournament to anyone within the region who wants to try to earn passage to the Las Vegas-based tournament.

Already confirmed to be showing up to this event is a smattering of players from the US, such as RagingStormX, as well as a plethora of players who cut their teeth on other games, such as Verna, MadKOF, and Lacid of King of Fighters fame, M. Lizard of Street Fighter IV fame, and 200won, who is famous from his play in Tekken Crash last year.

For those in Seoul and surrounding regions, this may be your chance to get to Evo. For everyone else, the event will be streamed live starting at 1:00 PM KST, Saturday, May 28th (12 AM EDT Saturday/9 PM PDT Friday, May 27th) on ArcadeStream’s Twitch channel.

Source: ArcadeStream

Drakefang, owner of ArcadeStream, the primary gaming center in Seoul that houses Street Fighter V events, has announced a special tournament for all players in Korea and nearby regions. At stake for this event is a round trip ticket to Evolution 2016.

For a 10,000 KRW entry fee (roughly $10), players will square off in a 128-player, double-elimination bracket, for the winner-takes-all prize. While SpiritZero already held one such event in Anyang, South Korea earlier in the month, there is a slight difference in this event. While foreign players could compete in the SpiritZero event, they could not earn the trip to Evo even if they won; only Koreans could. ArcadeStream, on the other hand, has opened their tournament to anyone within the region who wants to try to earn passage to the Las Vegas-based tournament.

Already confirmed to be showing up to this event is a smattering of players from the US, such as RagingStormX, as well as a plethora of players who cut their teeth on other games, such as Verna, MadKOF, and Lacid of King of Fighters fame, M. Lizard of Street Fighter IV fame, and 200won, who is famous from his play in Tekken Crash last year.

For those in Seoul and surrounding regions, this may be your chance to get to Evo. For everyone else, the event will be streamed live starting at 1:00 PM KST, Saturday, May 28th (12 AM EDT Saturday/9 PM PDT Friday, May 27th) on ArcadeStream’s Twitch channel.

Source: ArcadeStream

NBC News affiliates are now reporting that the Governor of Nevada, as well as the gambling commission of the state, are considering the possibility of allowing casino bookmakers to accept bets on professional gaming events. The casinos are interested in the prospect in order to keep the sports books fresh and maintain a competitive and progressive improvement to the gambling systems already in place in Nevada.

While the report expresses concerns about cheating, whether it be via devices or through match-fixing as would be expected in professional physical sports, the committee did hear feedback from Jonathan “FATAL1TY” Wendel, who was able to give his feedback in what could be set into place.

One casino in Las Vegas has already been reported to have an application finished to take bets on eSports events, and it is believed to be an inevitability to be allowed.

Will we one day be hopping across the strip to take bets on Evo Top 8s? Time will tell, but just make sure you gamble responsibly if you do.

Source: KSNV Reno

After a thrilling week 5 episode of Street Fighter Crash, featuring the seemingly unbeatable Infiltration on Team Razer fall to Team Topanga’s Momochi, SpoTV returns again this week for the second episode of Top 8.  While last week had heavy hitters such as Team Razer (Infiltration, Fuudo, Xian), Team Topanga (Tokido, Momochi, Mago), and a Chinese team featuring Xiaohai and Dakou, this week also promises to be no slouch, as Team Southeast–featuring Poongko, Humanbomb, and Gamerbee–will look to dominate three of Korea’s top teams.  While Team Southeast is expected to outshine the competition in the B block, they must go through players like Sandbag, one of the most recognizable and famous Street Fighter V players on the peninsula, 200won, a strong Tekken player who has made the transition to Street Fighter and was able to beat Infiltration during group play, and WeirdoNeo, the Korean-American player who previously defeated Poongko in the Top 8 of SpiritZero’s Magic Stick Cup.

If anything has been learned from Street Fighter Crash, it is to expect the unexpected.  Will Team Southeast survive the minefield ahead of them?  Tune in at 2PM Korea Standard Time on Sunday, May 15th (1AM EST Sunday/10PM PST Saturday, May 14th) to find out.  English commentary will be available on Twitch at http://twitch.tv/crash_en.

(Note: While Missing Person is currently employed at SpoTV for English Commentary for Street Fighter Crash, he is taking this week off to focus on other things.  Therefore, he is not involved in the production of this episode of the event.)

 

Ask any Super Street Fighter II Turbo enthusiast and they will tell you the ideal way to play the game at a competitive level is on native arcade hardware. While formats such as FightCade, GGPO, and even the classic modes of HD Remix can provide some practice in the interim, nothing can replace playing at full speed on CPS2 hardware.

However, one of the hangups of that very hardware was the fact that the battery and security chip on CPS2 game boards could fail without warning, rendering the entire board inoperable. With no support from Capcom in repairing archaic boards that they no longer have the means or the financial need to repair–doubly so with the addition of CPS2 games on the NESICA arcade distribution method–hobbyists and arcade enthusiasts had to rely on a risky hardware-based method of resurrecting these boards, which could still result in the board never being operable again if incorrectly performed.

However, a recent announcement by the Arcade Hacker Project has presented some amazing news. The group has successfully reverse-engineered the security protocol on CPS2 boards. While to the everyman fighting game player this may seem inconsequential, this means that boards that were already dead can be resurrected through a software process, which implies far less risk in regards to destroying the board.

While details are currently not available on the how, they are preparing to not only release the details, but make their findings open source and free so that anyone can use their code to resurrect any dead CPS2 board they might have.

With a dwindling supply of ST and even Vampire Savior boards–two of the most famous titles on the arcade platform–a need for these boards to keep the passionate communities they have, and means such as Superguns and undamned’s UD-CPS2 consolized player to make them readily usable by the masses, this is great and exciting news for not only all arcade enthusiasts, but fans of older fighters.

Source: Arcade Hacker Project, via Dragonfave723

While in town for DreamHack Austin, K-Brad stopped by the Daily Dot studio to sit in for a special episode of Best of III. While usual K-Brad antics are to be expected–and he definitely delivers them–the Evil Genius also gives a great breakdown of Cammy’s Street Fighter V appearance and why many people currently consider her weak in the game. K-Brad offers up his take on the Capcom Pro Tour, too, paying special attention to the goals of Evil Geniuses with said circuit.

Since K-Brad was able to make the trip out to the studio, the episode closes with matches against host Mike “Danke” Schiller.

Source: Daily Dot Esports