Category: News

Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-‘s console release may only be a month away (December 4 in Japan, December 16 in North America), but Arc System Works still has plenty of news coming. Similar to Arc System Works’ other recent releases, Xrd will be sporting a massive online lobby system that supports up to 64 players. You can find details on the mode and more from the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu below.

Network Mode’s Online Lobby System: Gather with Up to 64 Players in a Single Lobby!

In GGXrd’s Network Mode, a maximum of 64 players can gather in a massive lobby. In this lobby you can group up with friends, create a versus room, battle under various conditions, comment while spectating, chat using character voices and more. In addition, in Online Training Mode, two players can play and practice together.

When entering an online lobby, you’ll see tons of players, connected in real time! Within the lobby, you can send chat messages to all member of the lobby. Try sending a greeting to everyone.

Versus rooms have the same functionality as those of Player Match. You can customize the room to your liking. Not only can you battle with friends, but you can also create chat-only rooms. Find buddies with the same interest and have fun!

Versus replay data can be saved on the game system and on online severs. Save your notable matches with friends, make use of battle analysis and share with other players. Replay data also supports frame-by-frame playback.

The “Dual Sword Lion King” Leo Whitefang Joins the Battle!

In addition to Sin and Elphelt, another new character will be joining the cast in the console version! Leo Whitefang is one of the kings of the Allied Kingdom of Illyria. His fighting style and other details remain a mystery however, for the time being. Stay tuned for more information.

Voice: Tetsu Inada

Personality

He possesses outstanding fighting capabilities and leadership. His feats include bringing troops on the brink of crisis back home safety back during the Holy War. He may seem boorish, but he is surprisingly prudent. Kai and he are old buddies, both friends and rivals.

Support Online Battles with the Tournament Assistance App

A smartphone app that supports online tournament organizers will be launching as a PlayStation 4 service! You can produce a tournament by smartphone. The app is free and supports iPhone (4 or later) and Android (4.0 and later).

What you can do in the App

• Create a tournament (Schedule, rule settings)
• Confirm tournament content (Schedule, rule confirmation)
• Enter a tournament
• Check past tournament results
• (When entering) Receive a match start notification

What you can do on PS4

• Confirm tournament content (Schedule, rule confirmation)
• (When entering) Be guided to entry into the exclusive lobby
• Confirm match-ups
• Battle (Transfer to the exclusive room)
• Check tournament results

Make Battles Lively with DLC Character System Voices!

You can change the system voice you hear during character selection and matches to the voices of the GGXrd cast with DLC. Including the just announced Leo, there are a total of 17 character voices. The DLC will be available for download within 2014.

Source: Famitsu via Kurushii

If you’re planning to attend this year’s Capcom Cup in San Francisco, Capcom has just released some important details for the event, including the official schedule and a hotel deal for folks visiting from outside the area.

Aside from the main tournament, Capcom Cup 2014 will also feature a special Omega Mode exhibition. Additionally, some time is being set aside for special announcements–Capcom hasn’t given any hint as to what these announcements are, and they could be range from something as simple as Omega Mode’s release date or something more.

Capcom Cup attendees who book with The Hilton San Francisco, which is only a six-minute walk from the venue, will receive a special discount rate of $199 per night (excluding taxes). Those interested in taking advantage of this deal can book online here. Further details on other ways to secure a room can be found in Capcom’s original announcement.

Capcom Cup 2014 will take place on Saturday, December 13 at the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco, California.

Source: Capcom Pro Tour

While Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-‘s console port is still a month away, its predecessor Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R is already available on PlayStation 3. For those interested in checking out the earlier installment out in preparation for Xrd, it is currently available free of charge for PlayStation Plus subscribers in Japan.

The game is part of a batch of Japanese-developed games that Sony is making available through their premium service in November. Other games included are Earth Defense Force 2025 and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky The 3rd.

While the offer is only available for Japanese PlayStation Plus subscribers, the region-free nature of the platform means that anyone can create a an account for the region and subscribe to the premium service to avail themselves of this offer. Bear in mind that, unlike Microsoft’s Games with Gold program on Xbox One and Xbox 360, you will need to maintain your subscription to continue playing the game.

Source: Siliconera

Have you ever been stuck somewhere, maybe a work meeting or family gathering, and found yourself fiending for some fighting game action and without a personal electronic device to download GGPO or MAME to? Well, first off, you should really cherish time with your relatives, they won’t always be around. That said, there’s now an incredibly easy to to get in some Street Fighter II without using anything but a browser and an active internet connection.

At the beginning of the month, a team of developers released Internet Arcade to the world. By using JSMESS, a JavaScript program that functions as a port of the MESS emulator (which itself has ties to the aforementioned MAME), Scott’s group was able to make hundreds of classic arcade games playable within internet browsers.

While tons of classics are available, including titles like Bionic Commando, Burgertime, Dig Dug, Elevator Action, Out Run, and more, Street Fighter II is the sole fighting game to be included in the initial group of 900. With this technology now publicly available, however, it should only be a matter of time until more find their way online.

Keep in mind that not everything is working perfectly. First off, you will probably need to switch over to Firefox if you happen to use Chrome, Safari, or (gulp) Internet Explorer as your main browser, and certain JavaScript blockers may also interfere. Also, sound starts off muted, so you’ll need to hit the unmute button beneath the game window and then refresh the page to enable all the boops and beeps, crackly as they may be.

You can also use external controllers, so feel free to plug those into your computer and start throwing some fireballs. We’ve included a link to the full range of games below, but you can also click here to check out Street Fighter II immediately.

Source: Internet Arcade via Geek

Canada Cup Gaming’s Lap Chi Duong recently released a breakdown of the prize pool for this weekend’s Ultra Street Fighter IV tournament at Canada Cup 2014.

While every tournament splits its pot among the top-placing competitors, Canada Cup 2014 is unique in that second through fifth place will find themselves in the money , while the winner of the tournament will instead get a slot for the Canada Cup Master Series early next year as well as any flight and hotel accommodations they may need.

The complete breakdown is as follows:

• 1st place – spot for Master Series + flight + hotel
• 2nd place – 40% of prize pool
• 3rd place – 25% of prize pool
• 4th place – 15% of prize pool
• 5th place (tie) – 10% of prize pool

At the Master Series, the Capcom Cup 2014 winner will take part in an eight-player round robin against previous Canada Cup champions like Mad Catz’ Daigo Umehara, Kazunoko, Xian of Razer, and Qanba’s Xiao Hai, special invite Luffy of Team Meltdown, and Wednesday Night Fights season three champion Snake Eyez, vying for a larger piece of the overall $20,000 CDN prize pool.

Canada Cup 2014 takes place November 7-9 at the Grey Eagle Resort and Casino in Calgary, Canada. Meanwhile, the Canada Cup Master Series is scheduled for January 11-15 at the same venue.

Source: Canada Cup Gaming

Those of you still holding a torch for Virtua Fighter, good news! Sega recently announced that the latest installment of their long-running Virtua Fighter franchise will be upgraded yet again early next year.

Few details were provided as to what this update will entail, but if previous revisions are any indication, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Version B may include balance tweaks for the existing cast in an effort to extend its competitive life.

Much of Sega’s original announcement has to do with Version B’s network services, mentioning that the upcoming title will not be compatible with their ALL.net infrastructure. Whether or not this means they will be rolling out something new remains to be seen.

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Version B is scheduled to appear in Japanese arcades sometime in March.

Source: Virtua Fighter

Newly-released scans of this week’s Famitsu magazine have revealed that Leo Whitefang, a character heavily featured in Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-‘s story on consoles, will become a part of the playable cast sometime after launch as downloadable content.

Due to the nature of this reveal, little information is known about how Leo will play in the game as of yet, but we do have some idea of how he will factor into the series canon when the game appears on consoles next month. As one of the three governing kings of the Allied Kingdom of Illyria, this beastly figure will certainly play a large role in the narrative moving forward.

This news comes after heavy speculation pegged Leo as a playable fighter due to the way he was displayed in a recent trailer as well as his appearance on Xrd’s cover.

We’ll have more details on President Whitefang after Famitsu is officially published in Japan later this week.

Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- is scheduled to launch on December 4 in Japan, with a North American release following shortly after on December 16.

Source: Famitsu via Dustloop

With online play quickly becoming a must for any game touting multiplayer options, these arenas can quickly become less than entertaining if folks choose to quit a game early due to losing, inappropriately modify their game, or otherwise ruin the experience of their fellow competitors. Developers are quickly inserting precautions that either keep these issues from coming up or punishing those that would abuse workarounds for petty or malicious reasons.

In Super Smash Bros. for 3DS (as well as its upcoming console sibling), Nintendo has implemented systems that lay down temporary bans from online play for a number of infractions, including going idle on a regular basis, targeting a single player repeatedly, and more. While certainly noble, issues have begun to rear their ugly heads and impact the service.

Reports began to appear over the weekend that players were heading online, only to find that they had been banned from netplay for 71,582,459 minutes, which rounds out to just over 136 years. Though obviously a bug, little information could be gleaned as to why this issue was occurring. One popular opinion has to do with the way the game processes the numbers associated with a ban in the first place, but nothing concrete has been established.

Fortunately, it appears as if this glitch is already being corrected. A fan on Twitter who was previously afflicted with this lengthy timeout has since found his account restored and able to play online, so it’s possible Nintendo has already figured out a way to fix this problem.

A similar banning bug, involving Princess Peach using her turnip special in online modes that don’t allow items, surfaced some time back and was fixed by Nintendo, who issued an apology soon after. Let’s hope this is corrected just as quickly.

Have you ran into this issue while playing online? Feel free to sound off in our comments.

Source: Reddit via Destructoid

Over the weekend, Sega made a surprise announcement that their spin-off fighter, Blade Arcus from Shining, will launch in Japan this week. When it reaches arcades, it will do so with one additional character that wasn’t in the previous location test versions.

Rick Elwood, pictured above, will be joining the cast when the game launches on November 5. Fans will recall Rick as being the main protagonist of Shining Hearts and third protagonist of Shining Blade. He joins an existing cast that consists of Shining characters Roselinde, Fenrir, Melty, Rage, Sakuya, Altina, and Xiao Mei, as well as original characters Ryuga and Pairon.

Source: Games Talk via Gematsu