At first blush, the job listings on the Blizzard site for both a Lead Software Engineer and a Lead Tools Engineer on a “robust first-person engine” might seem to indicate that the Overwatch team is expanding. However, the next piece of the advertisements say “for an unannounced project”. The ads further seek applicants with the expertise to take the engine across multiple platforms and with “previous experience working on first-person or other action-oriented” games.
Snake Eyez Talks with Red Bull about His Career and History
Red Bull’s Darryl “Snake Eyez” Lewis has been known as the Zangief player premier across three version of Street Fighter this decade. But his life may not have hinted at his future success in esports. Growing up in South Central Los Angeles during the 90s, Lewis had to deal with violence and gang activity outside during his daily life. He took to video games to stay inside and away from trouble.
On the Red Bulletin Podcast, Snake Eyez opens up about his life before gaming, his choice of character, and his career in esports today. As someone who always likes to hear the stories of why people play, it’s amazing to hear his life story and how it translates into why he is the player he is today.
Source: Red Bulletin
Spinal Players, Rejoice: Iron Galaxy Releases Combat Changes for Patch 3.5 of Killer Instinct
It’s a good time to be a Spinal player, as Iron Galaxy have just released the combat changes for patch 3.5 of Killer Instinct. Along with a whole host changes to Shadow Lords mode and the addition of Shadow Skins, the system changes in this patch mainly focus on fixing the reverse dash issue following a cross-up, as well as problems with blocking certain meaty cross-ups.
Sabrewulf received increased damage on several linkers, Omen had a flat 30% meter gain reduction on all of his special and normals, while Maya’s Dagger Assault activates 50 frames quicker than before, so she can start her pressure quicker. Besides various bug fixes and the addition to missing counterhit windows for a number of characters, the fighter to receive the most substantial change was the skeleton warrior Spinal.
He now has a new Shadow move named Shadow Skull Summon, which is performed with down, down and three punches. For one bar of Shadow meter, Spinal can summon three Skulls. While this move is slow, it allows Spinal to regain momentum by turning meter back into Skulls, closing the gap and limiting your opponent’s resource gain so they cannot snowball and flatten the poor skeleton. The other major Spinal change is upping the meter gain from Searing Skull by 100%, actually giving Spinal meter to play with when combined with his bouncing Instinct Skulls.
Make sure to double-check any character bug fixes over on Ultra Combo and sound off about the changes and the recent balance survey on the Ultra Combo forums.
Source: Ultra Combo
SKD Shares His Thoughts on BlazBlue: Central Fiction’s Balance and Tier List
Over at the Team Stickbug’s website, SKD published an analysis of the current metagame in BlazBlue: Central Fiction. He provides his own tier list in addition to explaining what pushes certain characters in front of others, and what the low tiers lack to be more relevant in highly competitive gameplay.
His tier list is as follows:
Top(S+/S/S-): Izayoi > Nine, Rachel > Carl, Arakune, Izanami
Great(A+/A): Tsubaki Jin > Valk, Azrael, Mu, Litchi
Good(A-,B): Amane, Makoto, Celica, Naoto, Relius > Ragna, Hibiki, Platinum, Hakumen, Kokonoe, Mai
OK(B-): Lambda, Nu, Terumi, Es, Tager, Hazama, Tao
Bad(C,C-): Bullet, Bang, Noel > Kagura, Susanoo
(Not ordered within “>”.)
As a disclaimer, SKD explains that tiers matter mostly at high level, competitive gameplay. Something that players view as “broken” may just appear so until someone figures out how to deal with it–this tier list came up by knowing well what the cast members’ constraints are.
What defines the more flawed (B- and below, approximately) characters? An inability to maintain pressure and pull stable rewards in neutral. That’s easy to see from characters like Kagura, Bang, and Bullet, who have not only have trouble approaching but staying in on their opponents, and they don’t have enough in their toolset to surprise the high-tier echelon. SKD puts Hibiki as a marginally tournament-viable character, who lacks a little bit in the mix-up and rush-down departments, but it’s solid enough, and he can also score some good conversions while remaining relatively safe.
SKD continues to explain why he placed certain top tier characters (slightly) above others and explains how their neutral and pressure makes them powerful. The article is still a work in progress, but definitely a worthwhile read over at the Team Stickbug website.
Sources: Team Stickbug; @SuperKawaiiDesu
GCC Majors Brings the Fighting Game Communities of the Arab Gulf Together in Bahrain from December 23rd-24th
The fighting games communities of the Middle East are really starting to make their mark on the global stage, with big tournaments in Kuwait and Dubai bringing players from across the world to see this growth of this burgeoning scene. In that vein, the Gulf Cooperation Council–which represents the countries of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman–is coming together to finish 2016 with one last massive tournament.
Hosted at the Ramee Grand Hotel and Spa in Bahrain, GCC Majors 2016 will bring players from all across the Arab Gulf and hopefully, the world, to compete in a variety of fighting games. GCC Majors will be running Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, The King of Fighters XIV, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Street Fighter V as its main games, with side events for both BlazBlue: Central Fiction and Super Smash Bros. Melee. The first day, December 23rd, will see Street Fighter and Guilty Gear combatants go at it on the main stage, while the second day will have The King of Fighters XIV and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U players seal out this event.
If you are looking for some fighting game viewing as you are wrapping those final presents ahead of Christmas Day, the GCC Majors could help you soldier through that last bit of tricky ribbon-tying. All the action will be streamed on the GCC Major Twitch channels, and if you are looking to find information about tickets and hotels to attend the event, more information can be found on the GCC Majors website. If you want a glimpse of what a GCC event usually looks like, check out the video below, which teases GCC Dubai from December last year.
Source: GCC Majors
American Street Fighter V Players Weigh In on Their Chances in Red Bull eSports’s “State of the Street Fighter Union”
While initially hopeful about their chances at launch, American players had something of a rough start with Street Fighter V. It seems that it was only during the later stages of this year’s Capcom Pro Tour that they seemed to hit their stride.
In a new article called “State of the Union,” Red Bull eSports takes a look at the performance of some of the top American players, talking with them as they share their thoughts on the game and their standing compared to Asia.
On a whole, they seem very optimistic. Evil Geniuses’ Justin Wong states “”I think America’s chances in SFV is way higher than Street Fighter IV.” He continues by explaining that the lack of an arcade version giving Japan a head start has helped them–and other regions–out a lot. “Street Fighter IV was super hard because Japan had arcades for it, they had the game a year in advance, and it was really hard for America to catch up. Since Street Fighter V came out at the same time, it doesn’t look as dominant. Even now, when Asia wins, before it was always Japan winning, and now Japan doesn’t win all the time.” It should be noted that Justin was the first American player to win a Capcom Pro Tour ranking event in Asia, at Manila Cup.
The other thing discussed was the break out performance of Team Liquid’s Du “NuckleDu” Dang. Du recently posted back-to-back wins at Canada Cup and Red Bull Battle Grounds. According to Evil Geniuses’ Ricky Ortiz, Du was able to unlock his potential as a top player during the latter part of the tour allowing him to take these events. “I think when you’re a player and getting better, it’s really hard to know when you’re good or not, but NuckleDu unlocked that potential of actually becoming a great player”
That sad, Du states that he surprised even himself with his performances. “It didn’t kick in until, like, the third day I came back home. I was like, ‘Holy crap, I just won Canada Cup.’ It felt good, because no American had won a Premier event this year, and America is generally seen as the weaker region.”
Despite this progress however, they’re still looking to how Japan trains as a way to catch up. Control Gaming’s Raynel “RayRay” Hidalgo notes their work ethic, and how he feels they work harder than Americans. “I personally think we’re not too far behind, I just think their most talented players are way harder workers than our most talented players,” RayRay states. ” I feel like we have Justin, Ricki and NuckleDu, to me they’re the best players in America and only Du is trying his hardest. I don’t think they’re trying as hard as they could be.”
Meanwhile, Justin Wong states that the fact that America is a much larger country and players are spread much further apart is a problem they need to face. “NuckleDu is all the way in Florida, we’re from California, there’s strong New York players, strong Texas players. It’s really hard to get together unless we go to an event. When I spent time in Japan for two weeks, I noticed that every top player that comes to America or that is a household name, they all live in Tokyo, and they all play against each other.”
Of course, that’s just part of what they talk about in the article. You can read the rest over at Red Bull.
Source: Red Bull eSports
Yoshinori Ono All But Confirms a Street Fighter V Announcement for Capcom Cup
With Capcom Cup almost upon us, one of the things many fans are looking forward to–aside from the all the high-level Street Fighter V action–is the possibility of new announcements from Capcom. Now, it seems that we may be getting one, according to Capcom’s Yoshinori Ono.
In a tweet thanking all those involved in 2016’s Capcom Pro Tour season, Ono mentioned having something in “Blanka’s pocket” at Capcom Cup.
Thanks for joining to #CPT 2016season and watching these tournament! See you next time at Capcom Cup! Blanka's pocket will have something! https://t.co/nGOMmg1XaL
— Yoshinori Ono (@Yoshi_OnoChin) November 19, 2016
Now, while this isn’t outright confirmation of an announcement, it’s likely the closest we’ll get to one from a producer who’s become known for his love of hinting, teasing, and outright trolling at times.
Capcom Cup 2016 will take place at the Esports Arena on December 2, before moving to the Anaheim Convention Center on December 3. With Akuma playable at the PlayStation Experience already, it would not be surprising if another character was announced alongside him–but we’ll have to wait until Anaheim to know for sure!
Source: Yoshinori Ono (Twitter)
– Black Friday’s Coming! Be Prepared!
It’s that time of year, and rather than inundate you with tons of news posts about all the gaming sales we find, we thought it might be good to just have one ongoing forum thread that we’ll add to. Additionally, you guys can post deals and discusss what you find here too. Sound like a plan?
– Amazon Announces 100k Casual Mobile Games Tournament
Amazon is diving into eSports in a big way with today’s announcement of a casual mobile games tournament called the “Champions of Fire Invitational”. Participants will be fighting it out for a share of the $100,000 prize pool in games such as Pac-Man 256, Fruit Ninja Tournament Edition, Disney Crossy Road, Bloons TD Battles and 8 Ball Pool.
Embrace Your Inner Shadow with Killer Instinct Patch 3.5
Killer Instinct players will soon be able to unlock new Shadow Skins as a part of the 3.5 update on November 22nd. The 3.5 update also marks 3 years since the game initially launched on Xbox One. The costumes can be unlocked in-game through the use of Shadow Points or purchased with KI Gold.
Players can rack up Shadow Points by battling Shadows in the recently added Shadow Lords mode as well as by utilizing the Shadow Lab and competing against your own Shadow replays.
Killer Instinct is currently playable on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. Those playing on PC will need to update their operating systems to the most recent Anniversary Update in order to receive the upcoming November Update. Iron Galaxy plans to release all the competitive patch notes for patch 3.5 tomorrow, so stay tuned to Shoryuken for all the changes.
Check out two of the new Shadow Skins in action in a Glacius vs Rash matchup below!
Source: Ultra-Combo