EVO 2017 LINE UP ANNOUNCED

EVO 2017 Lineup Announced

Robert Knuckles

    EVO just announced their lineup for this years event. Eight out of nine have been introduced. This years lineups are:

Street Fighter 5
- Guilty Gear Revelator 2
- Smash Bros. for Wii U
- Smash Bros. Melee
- Injustice 2
- BlazBlue: Central Fiction
- Tekken 7
- King of Fighters 14
- Players' choice based on community donation to charity

    The ninth game will be determined by a charity donation drive now through Feb. 8th. The ninth will be chosen between:

Mortal Kombat XL
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Skullgirls
Pokken Tournament
Killer Instinct
Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
ARMS
WindJammers
NidHogg

What are you most excited for at EVO? I’m looking forward to Guilty Gear, Blazblue, King of Fighters 14, Tekken 7 and Injustice 2. Be on the lookout for this year’s EVO on July 14th-16th

Tekken 7 Set For June 2nd

Robert Knuckles

Namco has finally gave us a release date for its most anticipated game this year. Tekken 7 is set for June 2nd. Now granted that’s not early 2017 but Tekken’s director  Katsuhiro Harada told Gamespot he didn’t want players to “bash the product” over the lack of content. Honestly that reason is good enough for me because I want a full game when I get Tekken 7. Nowadays we don’t get full fighting games and it’s great to see Namco is working hard to give us that.

Namco also gave more information that if you pre-order Tekken 7 players will get the bonus character Eliza the vampire beauty from Tekken Revolution. PS4 owners will get exclusive content like legacy costumes from Tekken 4 for Jin and Xiaoyu and Tekken 2 legacy costume for King. PS4 also gets a Jukebox Mode that lets players listen and create playlist from previous Tekken games. Xbox One Players will receive a digital code to download Tekken 6. Players that buy the Deluxe Edition get a season pass and access to for new characters, stages, new game mode and bonus 35-piece Metallic Costume Pack.

We get an awesome trailer for Tekken 7’s Story Mode. The trailer is very deep with amazing music. The trailer mainly focus on Kazuya and Heihachi as their conflict will come to an end. My biggest take away from the trailer is that Heihachi sheds a tear twice. That is a huge surprise because Heihachi has always been seen as a heartless villain in the Tekken series so I’m very curious to see why he’s crying. I’m really excited for this game. My only concern is that there are many important characters not announced yet like Julia, Lei, Anna or Christie. Hopefully they’ll be announced soon.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Mega Battle Review

It’s Morphin Time!!

It’s been quite the week for Power Ranger fans. We get Mega Battle, we get the trailer for the Power Rangers film that comes out in March and just recently the new show Power Rangers Ninja Steel premiered on Nickelodeon.

It’s been quite some time since the last time we got a new Power Rangers game and Mega Battle got me excited but does it deliver? Well we're about to find out.

Power Rangers Mega Battle is a beat em up game featuring the original power rangers. That’s right Zack (Black Ranger), Kimberly (Pink Ranger), Billy (Blue Ranger), Trini (Yellow Ranger), Jason (Red Ranger) and Tommy (Green Ranger and White Ranger) all return to save earth from the evil sorceress Rita and red monster Zedd.

The presentation is pretty fun to look at in my opinion. It’s really more of a cartoon presentation with some very funny animation especially when players are beating up putties.

The gameplay plays like any other beat em up game with a little bit more speed. You can have up to four players team up saving Angel Grove. Players can use the characters unmorphed but can’t perform special attacks. You can morph when your energy bar is filled. Players can perform their standard combo, air combo, and team specials. Players can unlock more moves by leveling up.

Now the Megazord battles are not that interesting if you’re playing by yourself. If you’re playing with your friends it can be a little bit more fun. Players shoot at the weak spot of the monster which is really easy and then they get into battle mode. Players will have to hit a sequence of buttons in order to give out damage but when you’re playing with friends it can be challenging because everyone has to be on point pressing the buttons.

Now there are some downsides with the game. There is no online which I believe this game truly needs online. I wish there were more sound effects from the characters but at the same time I understand that it’s hard to get the original voice actors together. I also wish this game was a bit longer.

In the end Power Rangers Mega Battle is a fun game. I would probably only prefer this game if you’re a Power Rangers fan especially if you grew up watching the original. It’s definitely a lot more fun playing with four people. It’s also cool to hear the original voices when the ranger morphs and hearing Rita saying “Magic wand make my monster grow!!.” This game definitely bought back some memories. Players also get to hear familiar music from the TV show remixed into this game. I give Mighty Morphin Power Rangers : Mega Battle a 7 out of 10.

We Might Want to Stay Away From Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite

Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite was shown at E3 not too long ago and so far people have had mixed feelings about the game while. Now there are a lot of people that are very excited for this game but we might want to away from this game. Just give me a chance to explain. We are going down a trip to memory lane or maybe it could be a bad memories for some.

We are going to start with Street Fighter IV. This game came out in February 2009 the game was $59.99. Reviews for this game were good despite the fact that Sagat was a god. A year later in 2010 Super Street Fighter IV was released adding 10 new characters a couple of brand new game modes and patches for returning characters for $39.99. Granted this was a brand new game not a DLC update. (These next updates are DLC.) In 2011 we get Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition adding four new characters and patches for $19.99. A few years in 2014 we get Ultra Street Fighter IV adding four new characters and a few patches for $19.99. Now here’s the thing if you got every version you pretty much spent at least $139.96. There always seemed to be a new version every year with Street Fighter IV. With so many DLC I keep wondering could all of this just be on one disc? I could be wrong but I feel as though all these versions were unnecessary. You buy one version then all of a sudden oh wait here’s another version.

Now we get to Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Now this was probably the most hyped game for Capcom or at least one of the most hyped. I believe it was more hyped than Street Fighter IV. The trailers were amazing and it also added more towards the hype. Marvel vs Capcom 3 was released in February 2011 and man it was a disappointed to a lot of players. The roster was small compared to Marvel vs Capcom 2. Veterans players like myself didn’t like the easy combos because it kind of showed that anyone can play the game not much skill. X-Factor is another feature that wasn’t well liked it definitely made comebacks beyond simple. A lot of characters were broken such as Wesker, Phoenix, Wolverine and adding X-Factor made it a lot worse. Lack of features were also a problem. There wasn’t enough offline modes you had an arcade mode. The endings stinked it didn’t even match the trailers. There wasn’t a story, mission mode wasn’t really played much, online wasn’t great because of the lag and there was no spectator mode which I really don’t understand. In that same year in the fall we get Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 which added 12 new characters, patches on veteran characters and we get spectator mode which should've been in the first game. Now Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 should’ve been made first. If you bought Marvel vs. Capcom 3 you paid $59.99 or the deluxe edition for $99.99 and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was $39.99. You practically paid at least $100. This was unnecessary.

In 2012 Street Fighter x Tekken was released now prior before the release the trailers were great gameplay looked pretty good but the biggest issue was the on disc DLC. The 12 DLC characters were found on the disc. That was probably the biggest issue with Street x Tekken. There were some issues online but the DLC was on another level. You can’t blame people for being mad at Capcom. That’s a huge deal because when you buy a game you want the full game and the on disc DLC is just a HUGE rip off

Last year in 2016 Street Fighter V was released in February. Now I’ll admit I did get Street Fighter V believing that Capcom had learned their lesson and boy was I wrong because when we got Street Fighter V for $59.99 we didn’t much content. There’s still no Arcade mode, there was character story which was short, confusing and not much fun, online had some issues not having a room up to eight people at the time, there is survival mode but not a whole lot of people play that. It was mainly played to get Fight Money but it was frustrating. There wasn’t a whole lot of single player content when the game was released. A lot of people weren’t fans of the gameplay as some were saying it’s pretty slow and I kind of have to agree. There were 16 characters at the start but in my opinion that’s a low number to start with especially in this generation where we expect a lot more characters at the start. Now more characters were added as DLC. Now you didn’t have to use actual money you could also use fight money earned in the game and I’ll give Capcom credit for the fight money but it takes some time to get to the amount that you want. Still to this day I can’t call Street Fighter V a complete fighting game. I mean how does a fighting game not have an arcade mode? Just like Marvel vs Capcom 3 we bought an incomplete game.

In the end if you see where I’m getting at is that every time a new capcom fighting game has been released there has always been an issue whether it’s different versions of Street Fighter IV, an incomplete game of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and having an updated version the same year, on disc DLC with Street Fighter X Tekken and once again releasing another incomplete game in Street Fighter V. We already heard that Marvel vs Capcom Infinite is going to welcome new comers so that can be on the same level with veteran players but that can be a problem because once again it seems like everyone can play and that there’s no skill. Now People might read this and think I’m a Capcom hater but can we really trust them? How do we know they won’t do the same thing with Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite? I don’t want gamers to get ripped off. If Capcom can prove me wrong I’ll admit it but right now I just can’t. Gamers really need to think about all of this if you buy Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite.

Fighting Games in 2017

2016 has come to an end and there were a bunch of good fighting games but now it's time to look forward to 2017. So let’s take a at the upcoming games. I’m just focusing on new games and not upcoming DLC like Naruto Shippuden road to Boruto or Season 2 of Street Fighter V.

Tekken 7

It’s been eight years since we got a brand new Tekken game. Now Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Revolution came out between those years but I’m focused on the main titles that connect to the story.

Tekken 7 was announced at EVO 2014 with a trailer introducing new character to the series and boss Kazumi Mishima. Kazumi is Heihachi's wife and Kazuya’s mother. She’ll play a huge role in the story which is actually the conclusion of the Mishima story line which is a bit sad but all good things come to an end. Now I did get to play the demo at New York Comic Con so I’ll give you guys my impressions of the game.

The demo that they had a pretty decent amount of characters. The character that I tried out was my favorite Lili. I wanted to see if she still plays the same from the previous titles and she does. Now they did change some of her moves but overall still the same.

Now the gameplay in Tekken 7 plays a bit the same as Tekken Revolution but with a tweaks. I’m glad they got rid of the bound system that was introduced in Tekken 6. Players can almost die in one combo with the bound system causing a juggle after juggle after juggle. Bound system is replaced by the Screw Attack. The player's opponent's spin sideways when they are hit in the air and players can add more damage when they hit the ground. So players do have a chance to come back. The bound system is what turned me away from Tekken 6 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 for quite some time.

Now the Rage Art and Rage Drive I’m not the biggest fan of due to the fact I kind of see it like a comeback mechanic but I do feel that they added these features to respond to Akuma being in the game. I also feel as though with the Rage Art players have to be careful because you’re close to finishing an opponent but they can use their Rage Art which is basically your super move and turn the tables sometimes resulting in a knockout so players really have to be smart and play a little defensive. Certain Rage Arts are done differently. When I used Lili I would launch my opponent into the air then I would activate my Rage Art. Some characters like Lucky Chloe Rage Art involves a sweep, Lili’s Rage Art is also an overhead so players have to be careful with how certain Rage Art perform. Now I didn’t use the Rage Drive much. Those are actually pretty difficult to do for some characters.

I definitely had to try out the new characters after I used Lili. I’m going to start off with Akuma and he pretty much breaks all the mechanics in a Tekken game. I’m not complaining about that. He pretty much plays like he does in Street Fighter with some Tekken Swag.

Lucky Chloe kind of remind of Eddy Gordo and Christie. Now it’s not to say Chloe plays exactly like Eddy and Christie but she has a dancing fighting style and pretty easy to play in my opinion. I also liked playing Katarina she’s a beginner friendly character to use but I still need more time to play as her.

Overall I had a lot of fun playing Tekken 7 and I’m really excited for this game to come out. The graphics are beautiful and it probably has to be the best looking fighting I’ve seen. The fights can be very climatic. When both players are one hit away from each other to deliver the final blow the camera will zoom in showing slo-motion to see who will get the final hit. It definitely gets fans hyped and have their hearts beating. I’m hoping story mode isn’t flop like Tekken 6 but I’m pretty sure it won’t. We will probably see a lot more characters in the future. I will definitely say this is one of top video games coming out in 2017. There’s no release date for it yet so far we only heard first or second quarter of 2017.

Injustice 2

Now we definitely saw this coming for a number of reasons. At last year's E3 Injustice 2 was announced. Now there hasn’t been any huge new game play news. The biggest thing so far that I know is the meter burn dash so players can put pressure on their opponent. I believe this feature was added to make Injustice 2 less zoning since the first Injustice was all about zoning. Another new feature is the gear system. This allows armor equipment players can add on characters. We also know that the story takes place after the first Injustice and that there’s a bigger threat than Superman’s Regime.

The character roster looks pretty interesting so far. We got veterans returning such as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Harley Quinn. We have new characters joining the fray. Super-girl, Gorilla Grodd, Atrocitus, Blue Beetle and more will be announced in the future.

Now there has been a recent change with the lighting and faces for example Super-girl and Wonder Woman faces look different and for the better too in my opinion.

The release date for Injustice 2 was just announced. We are expected to get Injustice 2 on May 16, 2017.

Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite

Now this might be the biggest hypest fighting game to come out in 2017. Marvel vs. Capcom was announced last month at the PlayStation Experience. The trailer featured new character Mega-Man X who fans have been wanting for a long time. You see returning characters Ryu and Iron Man. Another character Captain Marvel joins the franchise.

They also showed a gameplay trailer and what's interesting is that it’s 2 vs. 2 so the gameplay will be similar to Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes. Players are able to tag in their partner during a combo to continue it. Almost like Street Fighter X Tekken. No more 3 vs. 3 which is kind of a disappointment. Now of course the gameplay is fast pace and now players are able to use Infinity Stones similar to Marvel Super Heroes where players can use the power stone to increase their strength and use the time stone to increase their maneuverability. Now they’ve only showed the Power and Time Stone. The other four stones are yet to be seen. Now I’m pretty sure Capcom are adding these stones because of the upcoming Marvel film Avengers Infinity War.

Capcom did say that story mode is going to a huge factor in this game. This was a feature missing from Marvel vs. Capcom 3. There are still a bunch of features that are yet to be shown. Capcom announced that Infinite will be release in the 4th quarter of 2017 but should we be worried about this game? I’ll be sure to have an article about this game.

If there are any games that I missed please let me know because I want to give people notice. Just make sure they are games and not features.