With Mortal Kombat is now in its tenth iteration — with rumors still stirring of an eleventh — Mortal Kombat 3 is still remembered as one of the strongest titles in the franchise. Gone are those days of motion-captured sprites, with later titles being done with 3D rendered animation. However, we now get a look into some of the processes used in the game’s creation.
Recently released is this compilation video of behind-the-scenes footage of actors capturing moves, animations, and even Vs. screen portraits. We also get a chance to see some of the process used in hair, makeup, and even the masks used for characters such as Kano.
The Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Tournament Series continues its tour in support of its recently-released retro fighter collection; at SoCal Regionals 2018, the game in the spotlight was Street Fighter Alpha 3 — and with $7000 on the line, this was one of the largest prize pools the game has ever seen.
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that SoCal drew in the greatest players from around the world in the Street Fighter scene — Version, Kindevu, Justin Wong, Bas, and more all battled out in the exciting top 8 in the video above.
Zamasu is a bit of a touchy subject for Dragon Ball FighterZ players — he’s a bad character… right…? A wide-open float stance and easily-punishable neutral doesn’t exactly spell out “good,” but hey, Echo Fox|SonicFox can make him work! No matter how you see Zamasu’s capabilities in combat, there’s no denying that he has some powerful tools in his arsenal — such as this compilation of combos and setups from YouTube user Mynus:
It should be noted that many of the setups in the video above make use of a relatively unknown technique: the sparking reflect-punish. As noted in the description of Mynus’ video, moves with a “stationary property” can easily punish an attempted reflection, busting through the pushblock-esque maneuver with a sparking blast. PG|Nakkiel has also taken notice of this technique, having uploaded a video of it to Twitter half a year ago:
— PG | Nakkiel @ Thunderstruck (@NakkielPNW) March 28, 2018
Despite being heavily afflicted by scaling, the possibility of punishment that easy is scary to say the least. Whether or not that piece of tech suits your fancy, there’s still much to be learned from Mynus’ powerful Zamasu combo game.
Thanks to the nerfs on Crush Counters in Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, your optimal punishes in some situations might not be the same anymore. This is true in particular on punishes on blocked EX Dragon Punches, where you might be able to get more damage with jump-ins.
This is particularly true for Ken and Ryu, as demonstrated in the latest combo tutorial video of World Warrior FGC. Since the damage nerf on the scaling Crush Counters, you’ll want to take one of the routes above for most punishment situations — even if it’s slightly more demanding in terms of awareness.
Finnish YouTube channel Checkpoint TV showed off Inferno gameplay in SoulCalibur VI. Why we already knew the Big Bad Skull Head would be back, we weren’t sure of his playability — and since leaks claimed he was a mimic, we apparently didn’t know what his style was like, either.
Unfortunately, this video — and its description — just adds more mystery. The YouTube channel in question claims this is “two-player versus mode”, but if you find that tough to believe, it’s understandable: there’s no evidence of the character select screen, it’s unclear why this Finnish channel would be given access to this character when no one else was, and, if I may be so bold: have you ever seen anyone playing SoulCalibur do nothing for long periods of time the way this “player” does in Round 2? The only possible giveaway that this is actually versus mode is the “Total Wins” screen at the beginning of the video, which just begs the question of what means Checkpoint TV used to get to this in the first place.
In the above video he’s only shown using a modified version of Nightmare’s movelist,with his own original teleport, command grabs, and other unique options we haven’t seen from Nightmare yet. If he can mimic other characters like the previous leaks mentioned, this video did not illustrate it. Even if this ends up not being in a two-player mode (and with the damage on that command grab, that may be for the best!), this form of Inferno’s movelist calls back to his boss form from the original SoulCalibur, and is probably the best he has visually looked in any game to date.
The past decade has had a rocky juxtaposition between fighting games and the internet. Sometimes netplay can be handled beautifully — such as the fast matchmaking and customizable latency of the Skullgirlsseries — and other times it doesn’t quite work out. Though, despite connection quality being a “make it or break it” for online play, sometimes an interconnected game mode just needs a good streak of design. Capcom recently took a shot at this angle, implementing an all new “Dojo” mode in Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition;below is VesperArcade‘s own review of the system, checking over Capcom’s attempt at macro-netplay.
Bandai Namco gave PlayStation 4 and Xbox One users a great opportunity this past weekend: a free, downloadable client of SoulCalibur VI for Network Mode testing. Though there was no opportunity to practice in Training Mode, for many players around the world it was the first opportunity to get their hands on the game. Furthermore, certain characters like Talim and Voldo made it later to the roster, so there haven’t been as many impressions on them. The video footage below focuses on those two as well as Tira, who debuted with the limited beta.
Aris on his Avoiding the Puddle channel has been streaming the game nearly non-stop. Check him out using Voldo below (7:30 was especially funny):
These clips also show him using Talim a lot:
Speaking of Talim, she hasn’t been available much at events, so even those who attended certain tournaments didn’t have a chance to try the Wind Priestess. Well, don’t underestimate her, as she can pack quite a punch right now. Kayane shows off what she has picked up so far in this segment.
For some shorter impressions, check out Uri’s clips of using Tira, who is a DLC-only character, but she was available in the Network Test.
If it’s about SoulCalibur, you have to hear from Maximilian Dood. If you’d like to listen a little to find out how good the online play has been rather than just watch more footage, hear his thoughts below.
How have you enjoyed the Network Test? Share your impressions with us by commenting below.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. 2, the latest installment in Bandai Namco’s series of 2-on-2 arena fighters based on the Gundam franchise finally has a release date for arcades. The official Gundam Vs. Twitter account has announced that the game will hit arcades in Japan on October 30.
Alongside the announcement comes a couple of new videos of the game from Bandai Namco. The first is this new trailer showing off some of the characters and mobile suits coming to the game, as well as some features.
Next up, they’ve also released the opening animation for the game.
With the release of new characters, players from all over scramble to find combos for them; such is the case with Dragon Ball FighterZ which has just gotten a couple of new fighters in the form of Android 17 and Cooler. Below, you can find some videos of these characters from various creators.
First up, we have one of the most influential creators in the game, Final Showdown, who’s put up a short video for Android 17. The video below showcases some combos and links that he notes he isn’t seeing most people doing.
For something more for people learning how to use Android 17, rooflemonger comes in with this combo guide for him.
He also has one for Cooler as well:
TrueUnderDawgGaming does something similar, showing off various combos for both Android 17 and Cooler, ranging from simple ones to more advanced ones. Each combo in the videos below comes with notation as well as a slow motion replay.
Finally, we have desk, who has shared this Android 17 combo video showing of interesting situations and unique choreography to set up the combos.
RockStar Games has released a second gameplay trailer from Red Dead Redemption 2 that is coming to XBox One and PlayStation 4 on October 16th. In this video, you’ll get a good look at Arthur and the Van der Linde gang and all the trouble that they manage to get into during their journey through the game world.
(@UriFGC) 
