Upper-Cut Circuit Championships (UCC) – The Birth of a New SouthWest Major

What do you get when you incorporate the knowledge, experience, time, and passion from all the tournament organizers within the SouthWest, coupled with high caliber players scattered throughout the region? Why, the Upper-Cut Circuit! The Upper-Cut Circuit is a collaborative effort from tournament organizers from all over the SouthWest Region, with Texas as the focal point. For those of you who need a quick geography lesson, Texas is the second largest state in the United States and could be found between California and New York. You can Wikipedia the rest. Back to the show…

The Upper-Cut Circuit is a series of tournaments within the SouthWest that rewards top performers with points that go towards seeding. The plan is to develop a ranking system for the SouthWestern players and using that strategy, will help increase attendance at ALL tournaments in the Sout West Region. For each game involved in a UCC event, one battle point will awarded for every 8 players in the tournament. Example: SSFIV receives 64-71 entries; 1st would receive 8pts, 2nd 7pts, 3rd 6pts, etc. Keeping the ranking points closer really encourages travel as well.

The tournament directors responsible for developing this system are Jeff “pkrstdnt” Feig and Kent “focusflute” Summerour from Dallas, TX. These gentlemen run the Dallas/Ft Worth Fight Club and you can check out their facebook page here DFW Fight Club
Now what is a major without drama and hype? I call it a Magic the Gathering tournament (hey, I’m not knocking MtG because I use to play it back in the day, I’m just saying it isn’t as exciting to watch) Here are the partial results of UCC ’11 (May 6 – 7, 2011) at the Homestead Suites Ft Worth, TX. Don’t forget to check out the uploaded Finals and Grand Finals! Links after the results.

MvC3
1st Toan
2nd Ginga Bishounen
3rd GW Stone
4th DRS Nashfan

SSFIV
1st Toi504
2nd Viet
3rd Jan
4th Flash Metroid

MK9
1st JOP
2nd FunkPanda
3rd UFO furbarduck
4th Ranmasama

Blazblue CS
1st Ginga Bishounen
2nd Jan
3rd AnimeFreak
4th DRS Nashfan

Tekken 6
1st Raybonekilla
2nd Byakko
3rd Link
4th I.C.E.

Arcana Heart 3
UFO fubarduck

Pictures from the event can be viewed here.

Videos links from the event are listed below:

Direct Feed
MvC3 Winners Finals

MvC3 Losers Finals

MvC3 Grand Finals

SSFIV Winners Finals

SSFIV Losers Finals

SSFIV Grand Finals

MK9 Winners Finals

MK9 Losers Finals

MK9 Grand Finals

Tekken 6 Winners Finals

Tekken 6 Losers Finals

Tekken 6 Grand Finals


Blazblue CS Losers Finals

Blazblue CS Winners Finals


Blazblue CS Grand Finals

LIVE FOOTAGE W/CROWD NOISE

MvC3 Grand Finals Part 1

MvC3 Grand Finals Part 2

The Return of Mortal Kombat and... PDP's Mortal Kombat FightStick

What are you doing reading this? You should be playing the rehashed Mortal Kombat right now, but I'll just assume you're at work and stuck behind a monitor or two and if you're like me, three.

Mortal Kombat released yesterday, April 19th, 2011 for both the PlayStation® 3, and Xbox© 360 and brings with it the fatalities, blood, and gore that the series is known for. The game takes place throughout different periods of the Mortal Kombat series. The story unfolds when you play through the game in Story Mode. It starts off with the camera panning through a field of deceased combatants, finally reaching to Shao Khan and Raiden where Shao Khan is about to finish off Raiden... oh wait...***SPOILER*** then begins reciting some spell, then you hear him say, "He must win"... and boom! You begin back with MK1 you begin playing through the MK storyline with various characters. Very much like in MK vs DC.

If feels like MK vs DC and plays much like MKII and UMK3 (without the run button) coupled with some elements from Tekken and Street Fighter. It features 2v2 mode, ladder mode, challenge mode, and of course online mode. About the only thing I don't like is the way you have to configure your controller/arcade stick. During the game, when you select controller you only get the options for preset 1, 2, 3, or 4. Meaning configuration for preset 1-4 must be done at the main menu options. Another gripe I have is that you do not have all the fatalities at the start of the game. You must unlock everyone's second fatality and their stage fatalities. Playing through story and ladder modes earns you coins you can use to unlock items, content, fatalities, and etc at the Krypt. The good thing about that though is it give the game a higher replay value.

In MK9, added gameplay features includes combo breakers, x-ray moves, and enhanced specials utilizing the new super meter. A full super meter allows you to use the x-ray move dealing massive damage to your opponent. This was implemented as a way for you to comeback and to help balance different skill levels. There are different opinions about this, but that can discussed at various forums and message boards. Two bars filled allows you to use a combo breaker to interrupt your opponents combo. One bar allows you to use an enhanced version of any of your special moves.

There quite a bit more I can talk about, but I want to shift the focus to PDP's FightStick designed exclusively for Mortal Kombat 9 and sold in a Tournament Edition of MK9 but in limited quantities. Now I can really go into detail about the fighstick, but since I have already done some of that in another post regarding modding the stick, I'll just link PDP's video discussing their stick. In Depth with the Mortal Kombat Fight Stick (PDP)

With all that out of the way... lets more on to what you can do with your fightstick, like modding it! Actually. You know what? I'll just link the goodness, yet again. I modified my sticks shortly after picking up my Tournament Edition copy of the game, but not before I got to test it out and use it in a tournament (which I ended up getting 2nd place)
PDP's Mortal Kombat FighStick and Modding

So there you have it. Enjoy the video and modding tutorial (if you would call it that), now go get your fatality on!

-Rotendo