As we previously reported, Team NINJA will be hosting their major Dead or Alive Festival exhibition tournament for Dead or Alive 5 Last Round this August in Japan. The developers recently held a vote to allow the community to decide which of the top eight ranked players in the Dead or Alive Battle Royal tour would be sent to compete in the exhibition.
While there were a lot of great choices, Team NINJA and Big E Gaming have announced that Kristian “MC Kwiggle” McLean and Ryane “XCaliburBladeZ” Jimenez will be representing North America at the main event.
MC Kwiggle is the brother of Dominique “Sonic Fox” McLean, but unlike his sibling, he’s focused solely on Dead or Alive, a decision that’s brought him quite a bit of success. He’s currently the top ranked player in the Dead or Alive Battle Royal tour as well the winner of last year’s Road to the Fall Classic. With this in mind, Japanese players looking to challenge the current status quo are sure to be gunning for him.
XCaliburBladeZ, on the other hand, was one of the earliest players to dominate the competitive Dead or Alive 5 scene. He’s brought those victories with him into Last Round, and is a favorite to win any tournament he enters. Though he uses multiple cast members, his main character, Alpha-152, is considered to be one of the weakest in the game by the Japanese, so it’ll be interesting to see how he’ll perform.
With this selection, all that remains is for the European representative to be chosen at Stun Academy 3 later this month.
Dead or Alive Festival takes place on August 1 at the Osaki Bright Core Hall in Tokyo, Japan.
The Evo Indie Showcase is back for 2015, with an awesome new lineup of competitive indie games curated and hosted by Evo and The MIX. Read on for a sneak peek at the games you’ll see on the show floor!
I’m an independent game developer from Vancouver, Canada! I really like FM music and tight platformers, my favorite games are 2D. I waited 2 hours for Game Maker to download when I was 12, and I’ve been making games ever since.
What is Duck Game?
[Duck Game] is a super fast paced multiplayer deathmatch game based around mastering a ton of different weapons. It’s super easy to play but has a million tricks to figure out, and one shot kills make it about as dangerous as a bunch of ducks with guns probably would be.
What’s the hypest thing you’ve seen happen in your game so far?
Duck was running toward a duck who had a shotgun, but slipped on a banana. She tripped into shotgun guy, who dropped his shotgun into the fire next to them. The shotgun heated up and fired, killing them both. The camera then zoomed into a duck stuck on a landmine in the corner and he won the match. The landmine blew up when he tried to get down and do the worm for a victory dance. I thought that was pretty funny. His ragdoll spun pretty fast.
klobit is a small studio from Austin, TX. Eric Wenske focuses on design, code, and art. Kat Wenske creates the music and sound. klobit specializes in video game experiences inspired by retro Japanese anime and games. We create compelling gameplay with impressive graphics equal to or greater than 240 lines of resolution!
What is Capsule Force?
Battle head-to-head for control of the galaxies in this frantic multiplayer action game straight out of a 1980s space anime! Blast shots, dodge energy beams, and deflect projectiles as you race your tram into the opposing team’s base! Grab the capsule to capture the galaxy before your enemy captures theirs!
What’s the hypest thing you’ve seen happen in your game so far?
There have been a lot of hype moments including huge comebacks, insane dodges, and a team grabbing the capsule, avoiding Sudden Death, with 0.01 seconds left on the clock. However, the hypest moment would probably be during PAX South. Tycho of Penny Arcade was playing in a 2v2 match with a huge crowd gathered to watch. Both teams were super pumped and shouting at each other the entire time. There was so much energy. Tycho’s team did wind up losing, but afterwards, he turned to me and shouted, “I LOVE THIS GAME!”
Hi! I’m Micah Betts, the lead developer of Combat Core. I’ve actually been developing games on my own since middle school back in the 90s. When most people were using MUGEN to sprite rip and remake characters, I used it to make my own original characters and worlds. Later, I got a degree in Computer Animation and learned how to (sort of) program, and started working on Combat Core about 2 years ago!
Later in development I got some awesome, talented people on board to help improve the game, including Rob Porter and Alex Ahad for character designs, Chris Niosi for voice casting, and Jordan Preston for helping with 3D art.
What is Combat Core?
I grew up playing multiplayer games with my friends and siblings like WWF No Mercy/Wrestlemania 2000, and a lot of 3D fighters like Soul Calibur, Dead or Alive, and Rival Schools. When I decided I wanted to make a new fighting game, I looked to Power Stone and Power Stone 2 as a formula that everyone loved but is rarely re-visited.
I tried putting a little of all of those games into Combat Core, and so far people seem to like it! This will be my first visit to Evo and I can’t wait to show the game to hardcore fighting game fans.
What’s the hypest thing you’ve seen happen in your game so far?
The biggest hype so far for Combat Core has definitely been all the awesome support from the successful Kickstarter earlier in June! Things did not look good for a while, but everyone showed up to rally and bring in over 20% of the goal in the final day. It was an amazing experience and I’m honored to have so many supporters on board with the project!
As for actually playing the game, getting multiple parries off in a comeback effort is always hype, and even better to have a fancy finish like the core uppercut attack!
I am a 23-year-old Korean-Canadian living in Brooklyn and the sole developer on the project. When I was a kid, nothing would make my heart beat as fast as a game of hide and seek, and I wanted to make a game about that thrill.
What is BADBLOOD?
BADBLOOD is a local split-screen hide & seek between two players, with a deadly consequence—a suspenseful game punctuated with frantic violence, where each player sees the arena from different orientations. As a vengeful character on a personal manhunt, you must use stealth, spatial awareness, and disorientation to find and kill your opponent before they find you.
What’s the hypest thing you’ve seen happen in your game so far?
One of the players managed to fool their opponent and spectators so perfectly as to where they were on the map, it was a collective, terrifying surprise to find they were in the same place as their opponent, killing them with the elusive standing execution.
I’m Ty Taylor (@IMakeIndieGames), and I’ve been compulsively designing games for almost my entire life. I’ve been creating video games for the past 12 years. In 2013 I created The Bridge, which was a single-player puzzle game that took place in an M. C. Escher-like world. For the past two years, Mario Castaneda, Alex Schearer, Justin Nafziger, and I have been working on Tumblestone, and we can’t wait to show it at Evo!
What is Tumblestone?
Tumblestone (@TumblestoneGame) is a complete reinvention of the Match-3 genre. I think most competitive gamers today would roll their eyes when they heard “Match-3″, but Tumblestone is not your grandma’s Candy Crush. It’s a distilled and purified competitive puzzle solving game where up to four players compete and attempt to solve a series of puzzles the fastest. Imagine old-school head-to-head competitive puzzle games like Tetris Attack, Super Puzzle Fighter, Dr. Mario, etc., but with more of a focus on the puzzle-solving element and with modern design and artistic polish. With the increasing depth of the puzzle complexity and the twitchy gameplay, rounds often come down to the last split-second, resulting in lots of yelling and potential loss of friends. See for yourself!
What’s the hypest thing you’ve seen happen in your game so far?
Personally I’ve found it to be the reception that Tumblestone has received at some of the various expos and conferences that we’ve brought it to. Sometimes we’ll bring Tumblestone to a business event and see very serious people in suits totally drop their personas and start laughing and yelling like a little kid. In Japan, people who didn’t speak a word of English were able to figure out the game and have a fantastic time without me saying anything to them. Sometimes people who have never met will happen to start playing Tumblestone together, play for over an hour, and become friends afterwords. A lot of people will keep coming back to Tumblestone, and especially if it’s a multi-day event, they’ll come running to Tumblestone at the start of the second day to get their fix. Several people have told us that Tumblestone was their favorite game of PAX/GDC/wherever. These little moments of seeing people connect to Tumblestone make the entire development process worthwhile.
I’m Tim Rogers, founder and director of Action Button Entertainment.
What is VIDEOBALL?
VIDEOBALL is a sport that requires a television. Players maneuver with an analog stick or directional buttons. Press any button to launch a triangle. Only triangles can displace balls. Triangles also stun players. Hold a button to charge a bigger triangle. Big triangles push harder. The biggest triangle slams the ball. Any size triangle will reverse a slammed ball on impact. High-level VIDEOBALL is a game of fast movement, precise attacks, big slams, and surgical reversals. With VIDEOBALL, we wanted to make the sharpest, hardest, coldest game possible.
I promise you: VIDEOBALL’s graphics are simple geometric shapes because we wanted the game to run at 144 frames per second on PC, and also because legibility was one of our primary goals. VIDEOBALL isn’t about elves or wizards: in VIDEOBALL, the character is you. Want a new costume for your VIDEOBALL character? Buy a new shirt.
…I could type weird words like this literally forever, so I’ll end it here. Please play our game. It’s one of my favorite games ever.
What’s the hypest thing you’ve seen happen in your game so far?
Our tagline is “VIDEOBALL is simple enough for a party. VIDEOBALL is deep enough for the best party ever.”
Evo is my idea of “the best party ever”. I would love it if the fighting game community could appreciate the extreme depth of our game.
It’s hard to say what “the hypest thing” is in VIDEOBALL, because memories of VIDEOBALL tournaments are a wall of shrieking brain noise. I long for VIDEOBALL to be available to the public (soon!), because fifteen minutes later, hopefully, some high-level human will be even better than us.
We are Boneloaf, a small family company set up by three brothers (James Brown, Jon Brown, and Michael Brown) to make experimental multiplayer party games and silly drawings. Since mid-2014, the Browns have been working with two other Boneloaf members (Jason Pugh and Matt Thomas), and Sound and Music designers Adam “Doseone” Drucker and Robert Larder to make a silly mêlée fighting game. The name Boneloaf comes from the misnomer we use to name the hunks of collectable meat in Sega’s Golden Axe, Capcom’s Final Fight, and some of the other arcade fighting games we played as children, the name is frequently misspelt as “BoneLoaf”, “Bone Loaf”, “Boanloaf”, “Boan Loaf”, and “Boneleaf”.
The current list of Boneloaf members and collaborators is:
Adam Drucker, Music and Sound Design
James Brown (Boneloaf) Game Design, Character and Environment Assets, Level Design
Jason Pugh (Boneloaf), Game Design, Character and Environment Assets, Level Design
Jemma Pugh (Boneloaf), Education and Merchandising
Jon Brown (Boneloaf), Game Design, Character and Environment Assets, Music and Sound Design, Level Design
Michael Brown (Boneloaf), Game Design, Character and Environment Assets, Level Design
Matt Thomas (Boneloaf), Game Design, Character and Environment Assets, Level Design
Robert Larder, Music and Sound Design
What is Gang Beasts?
Gang Beasts is a silly local multiplayer party game with surly gelatinous characters, frantic mêlée fight sequences, and absurdly hazardous environments informed by the stupidity and abrupt cartoon brutality of the animated work of Chuck Jones, John Kricfalusi, Walt Disney, and William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Gang Beasts is influenced by the immediacy and urgency of seminal arcade fighting games such as Capcom’s Final Fight, Sega’s Streets of Rage and Golden Axe series, Konami’s Crime Fighters, and Technōs Japan’s Double Dragon and Renegade games. Gang Beasts is set in the fictional metropolis of Beef City, a city shaped like the side profile of a cow.
What’s the hypest thing you’ve seen happen in your game so far?
Surprising and unexpected events frequently occur in Gang Beasts as the game uses a custom animation system built exclusively from a series of physics simulations, the system supports per hand punching and grabbing, and stages dramatics scenes where players kick, grab, lift, push, pull, throw or otherwise force enemies into or from hazardous meat emulsifying machines, permanently suspended window cleaning scaffolds, flaming incinerator pits, commercial haulage trucks, and a poorly maintained ferris wheel. A standout fight for us watching a member of Boneloaf fighting against seven other players (that were working together to ruin him) in the Battle Royale ring stage and seeing him haphazardly force each opponent over the the top rope and on to the floor.
Switchblade Monkeys is an indie team made of a small group of a friends. We worked in the game industry a long time, and secretly started collaborating on Secret Ponchos together as a passion project. We worked from our homes, creating the game from the ground up in our basements in a true bootstrap style. Even though the genre of PVP online combat games would be incredibly challenging task for our first title, we were inspired to tackle this genre because they’re the games we love to play. For us, making Secret Ponchos was about creating something original and fresh, that adds some innovation in how combat games can work, and delivering it with a stylized and high polished execution.
What is Secret Ponchos?
Secret Ponchos is a multiplayer PVP combat game, set stage in a stylish spaghetti Western setting. Players choose one of the eight (and growing) Outlaw archetypes, each equipped with its own Wild West weapons, gameplay strengths, and set of attacks. Matches support 1vs1 shootouts to 3v3 gang fights/team play. The gameplay takes place from an overhead Isometric view, giving a 360 degree view around your Outlaw of the environment, and enemies around you. The game is all PVP, and the catch here is, unlike a MOBA, actions are all quick twitch…everything is a skill shot. Gameplay mechancis play like a fighting game using fast paced game play as you dive in and out of range, launching different types of Wild West attacks, and relying on the players range control, precision aiming, and timing.
What’s the hypest thing you’ve seen happen in your game so far?
Secret Ponchos is a very ambitious project for an indie team of our size to be taking on, because it’s such a competitive genre dominated by larger studios. Often in the project we were in deep waters, but we never quit even when things got really rough. One of the most exciting moments for us was at PAX 2013, we were showing the game to the public for the first time. We did not know how people would react to the game, it was such a scary moment. It was a huge relief that moment when we saw the crowd playing it and having a great time, with total strangers getting competitive with each other, and lining up to play again. The most exciting moment was Sony (we had no idea they were even at our booth) asked us if we could show the game on stage at the E3 press conference for the PlayStation 4. This was a huge honor for us and we could not believe that happened; it was a great experience and gave the game team a tremendous boost.
If you like PVP fighting games and want to see something new, check out Secret Ponchos. It’s is hardcore, fast paced, and mercilessly competitive.
All of these games will be available to play at Evo 2015’s Indie Showcase, so make a point to stop by and check them out.
In anticipation of Street Fighter V’s beta rollout later this month, Capcom’s Peter “Combofiend” Rosas has provided an extensive breakdown of the content and features included in the early test build.
First off, the beta will include every fighter shown off thus far, though a delay has been planned for the two most recent reveals. Ryu, Chun-Li, Nash, and M. Bison will be playable immediately, while Cammy and Birdie are scheduled to join a day later so that Capcom can test their new content delivery system.
As the primary purpose of this beta is to test online play, there will be no local multiplayer. Upon starting Street Fighter V, participants will be taken to the character select screen. As there is no character change option between matches, you’ll want to pick someone you plan to play multiple games with. After that, players will be placed in training mode, where they can mess around with their character of choice while an opponent is selected.
Players will be returned to this stage between every match; expect to get a lot of practice in.
In terms of new content, Street Fighter V’s beta includes an as of yet unseen stage inspired by the beautiful locales of New Zealand.
And finally, while the developers are looking into PlayStation 3 controller compatibility in Street Fighter V’s final release, the beta will not include this functionality.
Street Fighter V’s beta opens up on July 23 and is scheduled to run for five days. It is currently open to numerous regions around the world, so be sure to visit the official hub for more details on your neck of the woods. This round is open to PlayStation 4 users only, but fans on PC can expect to take part in another beta test this fall.
Floyd Mayweather (48-0, 26 KOs) has officially been stripped of the WBO welterweight title.
Mayweather, who also holds the WBC and WBA titles in both the welterweight and light middleweight divisions, claimed the first WBO title of his career when he outpointed Manny Pacquiao on May 2 in a 147-pound unification fight.
The WBO gave Mayweather a deadline to meet its criteria for a champion, including making a payment of $200,000 from his Pacquiao purse and giving up his WBC and WBA…
After arguably ruling competitive gaming in Europe since their arrival in 2010, DreamHack has announced their intentions to make landfall on another continent: North America. The Swedish organization’s reveal was accompanied by a quick teaser video (included below) and a brand new website.
As of now, there’s little information here apart from the region. DreamHack plans to release more details this Wednesday, July 8.
Though earlier installments focused on mainstays of the “eSports” scene like StarCraft and Counter-Strike, fighters broke into the event in the later part of 2012 with Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition ver. 2012. Since then, the series has played a major part in DreamHack’s competitive gaming draw, most recently at the Summer 2015 event that saw MeltDown’s Olivier “Luffy” Hay take home the gold.
While it’s pretty likely our favorite genre will receive a nod when DreamHack heads west, nothing is concrete without word from the organization themselves. Stay tuned for more news later this week.
As we get closer and closer to this year’s installment of the Evolution Championship Series, major details continue to fall into place. The latest is the event’s official schedule, which should help attendees plan their weekend in Las Vegas around the competition.
Without further ado, here’s the Evo 2015 schedule, provided to us by the tournament organizers.
Click to enlarge
As you can see, this fills in a few blanks. We’ve known for a bit which games would comprise Sunday’s lineup, but now we see that Persona 4 Arena Ultimax will start and end on Friday, followed by finals for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Tekken 7, and Killer Instinct on Saturday.
A stream schedule should be provided later this week.
Furthermore, Evo 2015’s pool assignments have entered the second round of their reviewing process, so be sure to see what’s been updated and provide any further corrections you may have before they are locked in. If you aren’t seeing any adjustments, you may need to clear your browser’s cache. Final brackets may arrive as early as tonight.
Evo 2015 is scheduled for July 17-19. Additional details can be found their the event’s official website.
In addition to Predator and the slew of skins based around its source material, Mortal Kombat X players will also be able to mess around with a package of classic fatalities when the update drops tomorrow.
According to IGN, these old-school finishers will be available free of charge, allowing veterans Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Sonya Blade, and Johnny Cage to unleash fatalities from past Mortal Kombat appearances. Additionally, NetherRealm Studios is set to pass out the Kold War Scorpion skin to users as well, an outfit that was exclusive to GameStop upon the game’s release.
Predator is scheduled to release tomorrow for Kombat Pack subscribers, and will be available separately on July 14 for everyone else. A quick teaser trailer can be found below.
After releasing numerous patches to address Ultra Street Fighter IV’s launch issues on PlayStation 4, the developers behind this port have returned with even more corrections.
Much like before, this update adjusts various sound bugs and heightens visual fidelity, but also includes some smaller changes regarding syntax and font.
All in all, Ultra Street Fighter IV on PlayStation 4 continues to improve after the dreadful effort that first arrived in May, and hopefully the platform’s community finds the game playable after these post-launch patches are applied.
Full details on what’s included in ver.1.04 can be found below.
Ultra Street Fighter IV PlayStation 4 ver.1.04 Patch
“PRESS START” replaced with “PRESS OPTIONS”
‘Skip’ function mapped to Cross Button during cinematics
Default character costume colors 11 & 12 are now unlocked
Anisotropic Filtering improved on all stages and characters
About a week ago, we reported on a pretty cool Easter egg NetherRealm Studios included in Mortal Kombat X’s upcoming Predator release, but it appears as if there’s at least one more homage to the classic movie we missed. While the previous nod to source material is easy to miss, this one is pretty brazen and only relies on selecting specific outfits for Jax Briggs and Johnny Cage.
See, in addition to the new character, the next Mortal Kombat X update will include a group of costumes inspired by the original film, two of which dress the aforementioned teammates up like protagonists George Dillon (Carl Weathers) and Alan “Dutch” Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), respectively. Over the course of the movie, these two characters share a rather…interesting handshake that’s come to be known as one of the defining moments of a film that’s filled with them.
By choosing these outfits, Jax and Johnny recreate this scene before their fight, mirroring the camaraderie they share throughout the Mortal Kombat story.
Sure, this is a pretty small detail in the grand scheme of things, but it proves yet again the dedication NetherRealm has to making each release special. Let us know what you think in the comments.
Mortal Kombat X will be officially updated with this content tomorrow, July 7, for Kombat Pack owners. Those who did not purchase the season pass will be able to purchase it separately on July 14.
World heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (64-3, 54 KOs) will fight Britain’s Tyson Fury (24-0, 18 KOs) on October 24 in Dusseldorf, Germany.
“We’re very happy to reach an agreement with Hennessy Sports for this great heavyweight title matchup,” said Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions, promoter of Klitschko.
WBA, IBF and WBO champion Klitschko, 39, has not lost for 11 years and will make his 19th defence against the unbeaten challenger.
The 26-year-old Fury has looked in dominant form in his…
