I don’t want to say anymore.  Just go look.

The US prelims for the World Cyber Games open for registration on April 28th. The shot below is from their 2005 muffin bake-off. What’s with the aprons?

Next Generation has a nice preview on Capcom’s E3 titles. Oh wait, the fine print at the bottom says this is just what they guess Capcom’s E3 lineup will be. Anyway, it’s a bunch of action adventure games. Now mind you, we’re talking about some incredibly hot action adventure games here, but is there really room for another zombie adventure game next to Resident Evil 5?

If you love EVO, great fighting game footage, or are just into hot man-on-man action, click HERE. We’re offering the complete set of EVO2K5 DVDs for download. If you appreciate the event or this footage, please make a donation. If this experiment goes well, we’ll continue working to make more from our large catalog of footage available on a regular basis!

Summer’s just around the corner, which means the 2006 tourney season is here! Over the past couple of years Evo has grown up to quite an event, but this year we’re doing something special. First, I’m thrilled to introduce our title sponsor this year, Toyota Yaris.

Second, this year we’re expanding the scope of Evo to a full season of events. We’ll start out with regional qualifiers on the east and west coasts, and wrap things up with our world final event, which returns to Las Vegas in August. We’ve got plenty of other surprises in store over the next few weeks, including the official game roster, prizes, and more. For now, head on over to the Evo2006 site for more information.

By now you’ve probably seen the news that MLG is ratcheting things up a notch in their 2006 season, with two nice phat sponsors and a TV deal. The fallout on the SRK forums isn’t pretty, but it is pretty-wrongheaded. This is great news, not only for MLG but for all competitive gaming. This is one big step toward solving the Pro-Gaming image problem.

The cliche is that games today are a nascent sport, just like skateboarding on the 70’s. I don’t know if this is true, but it sure sounds true, which is almost as good. If you believe it, then the thing holding back pro-gaming is its image. Not enough people really believe that gaming competitions are sport, just like your dad in the 70’s didn’t believe skating around in an empty swimming pool was sport. The bet is that as the Nintendo generation grows up this perception will change, and boom, we’ll see the ESPN V-Games in 2012.

And just like there are dozens of sports in the X-Games, there will be all kinds of games in a mature pro-gaming environment. This will be led by the FPS games because they are the most popular, though ironically not the most exciting to watch nor the best suited for live broadcast. And just like snowboarding, motocross, and inline-skating followed snowboarding, we will see pro-competitions in racing, strategy, and yes fighting games.

But first we have to get over the hump, and that’s why this MLG deal is good news for both me and you. Check out this mocked up concept; MLG will cover Halo like a sport, not like an oddity or a crazy nerd convention. This is an important shift in the style of coverage of these events, and a necessary one. Will it work? Who knows, but finding a workable TV format is crucial in establishing a real pro league, so I’m glad to see they’re experimenting. What works for traditional sports did not work for extreme sports, but when they eventually found the right format, X-games took off and haven’t looked back. The same will probably hold true for video games.

There are some interesting Guilty Gear videos up showing the new features of the characters in Guilty Gear XX Slash. Check out Faust’s crazy bag-head combo or Zappa’s infinite (probably totally impractical). Slayer’s fake dashing punch into bite looks sexy. Chipp’s gets some teleport tricks and Bridget gets some yoyo tricks. Holy Order Sol and ABA join the cast as well.

Guilty Gear is the best fighting game series that you aren’t playing. Even though the US versions of GGXX PS2 and GGXX#Reload Xbox only sold about 80K units each, it remains the best designed fighting game series, in my opinion. The characters have a far greater variety of mechanics than other fighting games. One guy can summon pool balls and bounce them around the playfield. Another can place invisible webs and trees as traps. Another can do alpha counters (aka “guard reversals” aka “dead angle attacks”) as much as she wants. Eddie players get to control two characters at once (ridiculous!). And Faust has a frickin’ bag over his head and a giant scalpel. Seriously, it’s good stuff, and it has rock solid tournament play.

This game deserves our support. When a beatifully drawn 480p 2D fighter comes along and combines all the best design ideas from other fighters over the last 10 years, it’s just silly that we’d play CvS2 or 3s instead. Vote with your dollar that you want game developers to make fighting games of this quality.
Check out the vids linked above, and then buy the import here.

–Sirlin

So it looks like Microsoft is dipping their mammoth toe in the competitive gaming waters with their new Project Gotham Racing tournament. Microsoft also just announced a new content pack for PGR: for 400 Marketplace Points (5 bucks) you get 12 new cars and some gameplay tweaks. Coincidence? Probably, but Xbox Live combined with micropayments via the Live Marketplace presents a possible opportunity for sustained leagues and tournaments.

Essentially, virtual tickets offered over Live Marketplace could fund regular tournaments for your game. The ticket could double as the actual tournament environment: a track in a racing game or a level in an FPS. So for 500 or so points, I download the tournament arena and practice with my buddies online. Come tournament day, anyone who’s purchased the tournament content competes.

Now Microsoft hardly needs financial assistance to run their PGR tournament (which has some fairly crappy prizes by the way), but for a small company with a hot competitive title, this could be a way to add regular, self-sustaining tournaments, which as we all know is a great way to build customer loyalty for your brand.