Go for Pro – 2015 Evo Special
For anyone not in the know, EVO is basically the Olympics of fighting games. It’s the Gold medal that everyone strives for in their game of choice and every year the event goes from strength to strength with the crowds getting bigger and louder as players develop grudge matches, bounties getting put on top seeders and at some times emotions running high.
And what an even EVO 2015 was! It seriously had it all and only left many viewers begging for more once its over. So without further ado, lets go on with some of the coverage.
Killer Instinct
The top 8 for KI was quite possibly one of the most exciting events at EVO this year, with many favourites making their way to the semi-finals and every single one of them doing anything it took to get the win.
One such example is Sleep NS vs. MY GOD. With a sizeable life lead and Sleep only needing one more point of damage to lose, MY GOD did the unthinkable and decided that turtling and simply blocking was the best way forward, daring Sleep throw everything he had at him … and that’s exactly what happened. Sleep threw everything he had plus the kitchen sink, including the drain pipes. And through the noise of the shout-casters losing their vocal cords, he found an opening and stole the win!
But the top prize of the day went towards long time KI player Rico Suave, taking out Guttermagic’s Thunder. Rico made great use of Fulgores mix ups and always seemed to have Guttermagic second guessing where he was going to take the fight next and due to his constant changing, it never seemed like Guttermagic could find his momentum. For coverage on the Saturdays main stage and including the entire top 8 of KI head on here: to take a look.
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
How much does it mean to win or lose at EVO? Well consider it’s your job to be good at a game that in insanely competitive, where you travel and compete all year round and train 6 days a week, only to put it all on the line in front of thousands of people where one slip up in a round can mean the difference between taking home Gold or taking the long walk home.
If you still can’t picture the immense amount of pressure then I can sum it up in a 2 minute video of Mr UMvC3 (ChrisG) getting taking out of the tournament by player RF. I could only imagine the pressure and fatigue simply got to ChrisG which resulted in his mental break down here. ChrisG still remains one of the best UMvC3 players in the world who consistently does well in tournaments and I know he’ll bounce back from this. Keep that chin up ChrisG, we’ll see you next time.
Some other surprises of the day go to seeing Justin Wong (EVO 2014 UMvC3 Winner) being taken out before he can make the top 8 and kicking that off was none other than the winner of the event, KaneBlueRiver using (much like Justin Wong last year) a lower tier character team consisting of – Hulk, Sentinel and Haggar. It was a pleasure watching his team get in time and time again and pulverise his opponents and proves, yet again, that this game is still a crowd pleaser that still manages to surprise us all.
Ultra Street Fighter 4
Considering Street Fighter 5 should be out by EVO 2016, many could consider this as SF4’s last hurrah … but let’s be honest, it’ll be back next year. 2300 competitors signed up this year and the pools held some surprise early knock outs for us!
Bonchan (Sagat Master), Mago (CEO 2015 winner) and Luffy (EVO 2014 winner) were all knocked out considerably earlier than expected. But for the real hype you can skip to the top 4 matches which were some of THE most competitive games we’ve seen in recent times. The match of the day easily goes to Gamerbee vs Infiltration in the losers bracket finals, with each player showing great diversity with their counter picks and playing them considerably well. Gamerbee took the high honours in this match up with some insanely close matches that you need to see to believe.
With this win Gamerbee went up against Momochi to see who would bring home the chicken dinner. It was tit for tat but Gamerbee managed to reset the bracket with Momochi, who is always well composed, actually showing something that resembles human emotion! With the bracket reset, both players went 2 for 2 and it came down to one last match, Momochi took the first round and whilst looking good in the opening seconds, the unthinkable happened … Momochi’s joystick disconnected. Now rules state if that happens, you give the other player the round win. So Gamerbee got a life lead and let the timer run out, during which the controller lost its connection again. If you pause the stream you can actually see a blur where Momochi’s heart is trying to escape his chest cavity, or at least that’s what we imagine was going through his mind at the time.
Another joystick was fetched and it came down to 1 last round between the two with Momochi taking what ended up being a decisive victory that felt a little fizzled by the time the last round was finally played.
This years EVO was fantastic, some insane matches that were incredibly entertaining to watch, the hype was real and sadly that wraps it up for another year. So until 2016, so long EVO and thanks for all the fists.
Adam Rorke
