Category: Fighting Games

This week’s installment of Next Level Battle Circuit is now streaming live courtesy of Team Spooky. As always, the event is being broadcast from its namesake, Next Level Arcade, in New York City. Tonight, they’ll be running Ultra Street Fighter IV and newcomer Mortal Kombat X, featuring some of the best players on the east coast.

Mortal Kombat in particular should see some great competition thanks to a special $200 pot bonus, so don’t miss out.

If you would like to check out these weekly tournaments, be sure to head on over to Next Level Arcade and take part every Wednesday. The address has been included below.

4013 8th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11232

The stream is currently live below, but you can also visit Twitch to join the chat. Full brackets will be made available through Challonge.

Watch live video from TeamSp00ky on www.twitch.tv

Sources: Team Spooky

While she saw some use in the game’s early life, Kitana hasn’t had much of a presence in tournaments for Mortal Kombat X as of late. Her lack of any sort of safe mixup or setplay potential has turned more than a few players off, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still folks dedicated to figuring out stuff for the Edenian princess.

One of these people is Hey Ge0rge, who demonstrates several high damage combos for Kitana’s Royal Storm and Assassin variations in a brand new video. Aside from being quite meter efficient, a good number of them are also unbreakable, using Kitana’s fans to keep her opponent in the air and unable to use a breaker to get out.

Give the video below a spin and see what you can pick up for your own gameplay.

Source: Hey Ge0rge

Brant “Pig of the Hut” McCaskill is back with the third episode of The Armory, a video podcast dedicated to bringing fans of Mortal Kombat X the most important information surrounding the game.

In this episode, Pig of the Hut discusses a broad spectrum of important tech that every player who takes Mortal Kombat X seriously should look at incorporating into their game plan. This includes a lengthy section that breaks down the option selects discovered and popularized by David “UltraDavid” Graham, a segment about properly punishing (or even interrupting) all sorts of strings, and a fun corner option for newcomer Jason Voorhees.

The rest of the episode is filled with contest announcements, more contact information for various Mortal Kombat scenes around the globe, tournament recaps, and more, so be sure to give it a watch.

If you missed the first or second episodes, you can check those out by following their respective links.

Source: Pig of the Hut via Test Your Might

A can has never been scarier than the one that Super Smash Bros. for Wii U’s Duck Hunt brings to the fight. Whether its waiting patiently near the edge for the perfect moment to strike or spinning wildly through the air followed by a trail of smoke, all who oppose this animal duo would be smart to leave it alone, which is easier said than done.

In Alpharad’s newest How to Play 101 video, he takes Duck Hunt up against the online masses and shows how a well-placed explosive can make for some stylish and hilarious kills. Of course, he also takes full advantage of the rest of Duck Hunt’s zone-heavy toolkit, so look forward to plenty of clay pigeons.

Source: Alpharad

Bafael and Cross Counter TV are back with the final episode of their Mortal Kombat X tutorial series, which covers how to handle mixups. The most obvious and important thing to have when fishing for an opening is a variety of strings and other attacks that hit as overheads and lows.

This knowledge extends to the defensive game as well, and helps to drive home just how important knowing matchups can be in a game so heavily-influenced by strings with overhead and low options that come at the same place every time.

Though it may sound grim for those fighting against a knowledgeable opponent, mixup opportunities do exist outside of these mid-string options as well. Bafael discusses these at length and mentions canceling early hits into overhead or low attacks in order to gain small chunks of damage as an option–though this isn’t always the best idea depending on the safety of these attacks. He also stresses the importance of adding throws to the mix thanks to the fact that a throw tech cannot be performed while holding the block button.

If you’re having trouble landing hits, be sure to check out this video as well as one of their previous videos dedicated to pressure.

Source: Bafael and Cross Counter TV

This week’s Olympic Gaming player spotlight is dedicated to ISM|Osiris242’s Gouken. Gouken is one of those characters that can play an up close game or an annoying ranged game successfully depending on the character that he’s facing. He’s also equipped with some of the most explosive combo damage out there if he can get the right sort of hits going, and Osiris shows competence in all of these areas, making his Gouken an exciting one to watch.

In the footage below, you’ll see Osiris face off against a handful of high-ranking online warriors including a special appearance by the crowd-pleasing PIE|Smug. If you only watch a single fight from this reel, be sure to check out how Osiris handles what Dudley throws at him.

As with all Olympic Gaming spotlights, you can also check out the video’s description to learn more about the player.

Source: Olympic Gaming

UltraChen TV is back with yet another broadcast of their Tuesday show. Tonight, UltraDavid and James Chen will be discussing a variety of topics, including results from Texas Showdown 2015 this past weekend, the theft of Panda X Gaming’s streaming equipment, upcoming events, and more.

The stream will be live in this article, but you can also visit Twitch to join the chat.

Watch live video from ultrachentv on www.twitch.tv

Source: UltraChen TV, featured image courtesy of Kara “Karaface” Leung

Proper directional influence can help keep characters alive a little longer than normal in the Smash series, but the way in which this life-saving technique works in the Wii U iteration has been the subject of much debate. Thanks to the inclusion of “vectoring” in the 3DS version, followed by its supposed removal from the game and various patches affecting gameplay in rather vague ways, it’s easy to see why there has been so much confusion about exactly which way to hold the stick in the event of being knocked away from the stage.

To help folks out, VaBengal has set out to clear up how to properly use directional influence in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. The video covers how to properly use directional influence to avoid blast zones as well as what not to do, as certain inputs can cause characters to die earlier than they would have if no direction had been pressed.

Source: VaBengal via Smash Boards