SNK has been pushing its upcoming fighter, the King of Fighters XIV, quite hard these past few months. As part of that effort, the game will be making its television debut this weekend.
The King of Fighters XIV is set to be featured on the July 2 episode of E-Sports MAX. The show, which focuses on competitive video games, will be showcasing the game with the help of KoF player Dune, who will be there to explain the fundamental gameplay and strategy behind the game as they go over some matches and replays.
This move represents possibly the first time that not just a KoF game, but an SNK fighting game has been on Japanese television since the late nineties, and seems to show SNK’s dedication to promoting their upcoming title.
E-Sports MAX airs on Saturdays on the Tokyo MX network.
UPDATE: If the announcement of Balrog’s early addition to the playable Street Fighter V cast wasn’t enough excitement for one evening, Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar took to Twitter just after the reveal to share some important information:
Both Ibuki and Balrog will be legal for play at Evo 2016.
Ibuki and Balrog will both be legal for Evo 2016! GET HYPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! #Evo2016
Directly following the Street Fighter V top 8 at Community Effort Orlando, those tuning in to the Capcom Fighters stream were treated to a special presentation: Haunts took the stage to share Balrog’s Street Fighter V reveal trailer.
As expected, the boxer threw some serious punches in the footage shown, but sometimes a trailer just isn’t enough; that in mind, Haunts was happy to announce that those interested in pursuing their Fight Money with the boxer will be able to do so sooner than expected. Balrog will be joining the cast as a playable character in the game’s upcoming update–alongside Ibuki–on Friday, July 1.
But hey, why not, there’s even more: the trailer revealed the first ever look at both Juri and Urien as they will appear in the title. It was brief, but they both look to be very much themselves in this iteration. You can check out the trailer for yourself below.
Keith Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs) outpointed fellow American Shawn Porter (26-2-1, 16 KOs) to retain his WBA welterweight title on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
In a fight of the year candidate, Thurman used his boxing skills and landed the cleaner shots as all three judges awarded him a unanimous decision by scores of 115-113.
The fight began with both fighters on the offensive. Thurman landed a clean right midway through the first round. Porter pinned Thurman…
IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (17-0, 17 KOs) knocked out previously unbeaten Dominic Breazeale (17-1, 15 KOs) to retain his title on Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London.
In his first world title defence, Joshua finished Breazeale with two knockdowns from big blows in the seventh round.
Joshua was landing several combinations from the start and staggered Breazeale in the second round with more hard shots.
Breazeale survived but in the third his right eye was almost swollen shut…
As some of you may already know, the annual Steam Summer Sale is now upon us. We’ve already covered the King of Fighters games that are part of the sale, however those aren’t the only fighting games that are on sale this year.
A good number of other fighting games are currently discounted as part of the Steam Summer Sale. This includes popular titles such as Street Fighter V (33% off, including the season pass), Skullgirls: Encore (70% off), and Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- (33% off), as well as smaller indie titles such as Yatagarasu (34% off), and Melty Blood (20% off).
You can check out the complete list below (click on the names to visit the game’s Steam store page).
Earlier this month, we reported on a summer update coming to the arcade release of Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st], which will be adding new character Mika Returna to the cast. Players will also see a number of system and character changes with this patch, and the full list has been translated into English by Sourenga for your viewing pleasure.
Some of the more significant changes involve the system alterations, particularly the way in which players earn Grind Grid, or GRD, Meter during the course of a round.
The normal speed of the Transfer State gauge has been increased slightly, while it will decrease depending on the amount of time a player is taking damage. You will also gain a maximum of two GRD blocks depending on the amount of time a player is taking damage, in order to make “reading an opponent’s actions in neutral to gain GRD blocks more interesting.” When a player’s health is low, EX specials will consume a smaller amount of CrossCast Veil Off gauge, with the goal of increasing neutral play and yomi. The length of GRD Break when using Guard Thrust was also adjusted to increase the importance of Blocking and Shielding your opponent.
In terms of character changes, all 16 fighters were given a variety of buffs to “increase the range in playing” them, with the goal of ensuring more variety in combos, as well as making characters more distinct.
Version 3.10 of UNIEL[st] will be released in Japanese arcades on June 27th.
Steam’s Summer Sale is upon us which means that, once again our wallets cry out in the face of great gaming deals. For any King of Fighters fans who were hoping to make it through this year unscathed, well you’re out of luck as the King of Fighters titles on Steam are part of the sale.
The King of Fighters XIII Steam Edition, arguably the best port of that game thanks to its improved online play, is on sale for $4.99, 75% off the regular price of $19.99. In addition to this, both the King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match and the King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition–updated versions of some of the greatest KoF titles ever–are on sale for $2.99 each, 80% off their regular retail price of $14.99.
For those looking to pick up all three titles, the King of Fighters Triple Pack is also on sale. Interested fans can pick this bundle up for only $10.49, 70% off the regular price of $34.99.
This year’s Steam Summer Sale runs until 10:00 AM PDT on July 4.
Last week, Super Smash Bros. Melee was already well on its way to joining its Wii U sequel in the Evo 2016 2K club; today, an official Tweet revealed that SSBM now indeed has reached that benchmark, with over 2000 registered competitors eager to Smash Las Vegas up.
Congrats Melee players! You have also topped 2,000 entries, making Evo 2016 the biggest smash tournament ever! #Evo2016
The hype for SSBM and SSB4 is strong, and evidently growing stronger: Evo 2016 has already become the biggest Smash Tournament ever, even before Melee broke the 2K mark. Super Smash Bros. Melee has a place of honor in the Sunday Finals at Mandalay Bay Events Center, so it’s probably not a coincidence that Mr. Wizard followed Evo’s announcement with this:
Some additional floor seats for Evo 2016 Sunday’s Finale have been released! Head on over to https://t.co/RprKx3sU5s to pick them up!
Directly following the Evo grand finals on Sunday, July 17, the folks at Red Bull will be hosting an after party to send off the year’s largest fighting game event in style. This celebration, set to take place at the Luxor’s LAX Nightclub, will feature setups for Street Fighter V, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U so guests can battle against each other, as well as the top players in attendance.
The evening’s matches will be streamed throughout the party courtesy of Red Bull eSports to make sure hype levels remain high well into the night.
VIP and standard tickets for the party are currently available for purchase.
Evo 2016 takes place July 15-17 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
During E3, NRS commentators and content providers, Ketchup and Mustard, managed to get a few hours of time in with the initial build of Injustice 2. Feeling that there was a lack of information about two of the game’s new villainous additions, Flash nemesis Gorilla Grodd, and Atrocitus, the leader of the Red Lantern Corps, they recorded a video detailing their early findings and impressions with the characters.
They preface this episode of “K & M Talk” by noting that this an extremely early build of the game, so much of what they’ve found is subject to change. Their goal was to answer some of the questions that are “kind of in limbo–things that people may wonder, but there is no conclusive answer on.”
First, the duo talk about some of the sequel’s new mechanics, noting that the game feels “more responsive and sped up, compared to the first Injustice,” which was known for its character’s extremely slow walk speed. There is also the new ability to Meter Burn your forward dash into a roll, similar to MKXL’s run, which allows you to cover distances quickly, cross up your opponents for mixup opportunities, as well as providing another method around projectiles beyond the standard dash blocking from Injustice 1.
There is also an Air Tech mechanic, that will allow you to break a combo without spending your Clash, by pressing Up+Meter Burn, in exchange for being punished on landing from a new falling animation, similar to a Burst from Arc System Works games.
Ketchup begins the character breakdown portion of the video by talking about Atrocitus, who’s game he feels revolves a lot around his Trait. Atrocitus’ ability is to summon his cat and fellow Red Lantern, Dex-Starr, who can shoot a fireball, attack the opponent with a lunge, or place a shield around Atrocitus that acts as a physical projectile that can both reflect attacks and also hit the opponent. This is comparable to Sinestro’s Beware Your Fears from Injustice 1, or Summoner Quan Chi’s Demon Spawn from MKXL. Atrocitus has a full-screen projectile in his Blood Lift, and a full-screen, tracking low, which seems to function similarly to D’Vorah’s Spawning Puddle. He has a breath attack that is safe on block and aimable, as well as a rush move similar to Goro’s Punch Walk. His final special move is a life drain where he goes into a stance that will drain the opponent’s health if they are standing near him, which can be Meter Burned to create an explosion that OTGs the opponent for a juggle or Trait extension.
Ketchup closed this portion of the video by claiming that the character has a lot of mixup potential, by using his mid hitting strings and Dex-Starr to set up jailing pressure, along with full-screen zoning and conversions, combined with knockdown situations when Trait is available. He also felt that the Red Lantern was the strongest character in the E3 6-character build, with lots of safety and high damage output.
In the third and final portion of the video, Mustard talks about Gorilla Grodd, a character who does not have much footage or descriptive information available at the moment, leaving many to wonder about this new character’s playstyle and abilities.
Mustard felt that he was unfinished, with the damage on his special moves being quite low. In terms of specials, his BF3 is similar to Bane’s Raging Charge, that has no startup, gives knockdown on hit, and is safe on block. However, its most interesting property is that you can press Back, Back or Forward, Forward to stop him from running mid-charge, which allows him to cancel it for combo extensions, or to punish opponents jumping back. His Gorilla Leap allows him to jump into the air, with air punch and kick follow-ups, as well as a Meter Burnable grab for a launchert. Though the telekinetic simian seems to be light on mixup potential, due to lacking any overheads, he can Meter Burn many of his strings to launch opponents. With grabs universally doing 16% damage now, he can condition blocking opponents to fear his command grabs, and score large punishes when they attempt to avoid them.
His Trait–for anyone familiar with him from DC comics–is his signature Telekinesis. This allows Grodd to access a myriad of new moves and strings, one of which makes him fully immune to projectiles. Lastly, he can levitate while in Trait, and gains access to an Ermac-style Ground Pound, a forward air dash, or an aerial explosion, which has large range and large hitstun–enough for Grodd to land, dash in and get a full combo.
Mustard believes he’ll be a heavy read-based character with an extremely powerful D2, though most of his specials seemed to be unsafe on block, with large amounts of whiff recovery.
Injustice 2 will be released in 2017 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
