Finally we're at the SC2 world championships, a 5 day long tournament, with a $1mil prize pool; $400,000 for first place!

(I suggest you sort the comments here by New)

Main Twitch Stream | Youtube Streams | Twitch Stream B

Youtube VODs Playlist

Liquipedia results | TL discussion thread

(Liquipedia says they start at 5am CDT, but Youtube is saying 4:15am, so there may be a long intro segment/ceremony)

18 Players

Serral, Clem, Oliveira, Cure, Dark, Maru, HeRoMaRinE, Reynor, ByuN, GuMiho, Astrea, Coffee, Classic, Spirit, Solar, herO, ShoWTimE, and SHIN.

(ShoWTimE and SHIN both got in through the last chance qualifier, so they will start in the Knockout Bracket played on August 17th.)

Format

• Main Stage (played August 14th to 16th)

  • 16 players split into Group A and B
    • Double-elimination brackets, and losing again in the Lower Bracket means you go to the first round of the Knockout Bracket.
    • All matches are Bo5.
    • The winner of each group advances to the Final Four.
    • The 2nd place of Group A faces the 2nd place of Group B
      • Winner advances to the Final Four.
      • Loser drops down to the Quarterfinals of the Knockout Bracket

• Knockout Bracket (August 17th)

  • 16 Players
    • 6 players who lost in Group A Lower Bracket
    • 6 players who lost in Group B Lower Bracket
    • The player who lost the 2nd places match
    • ShoWTimE and SHIN, who won the qualifier back in July
  • Single-elimination bracket.
  • All matches are Bo3.
  • Finals are Bo5.
  • The winner advances to the Final Four.

(ShoWTimE and SHIN are starting in the Round of 16 of this bracket, but we don't yet know who will be top of the bracket or who will be at the bottom side)

• Final Four (August 18th)

  • The winner of Group A, the winner of Group B, the winner of the 2nd places match from the Main Stage, and the winner of the Knockout Bracket.
  • Single-elimination bracket.
  • Semifinals (first matches) are Bo7.
  • Grand Finals are Bo9.

Happy 25th anniversary to System Shock 2 (I'm actually a day late, oops!). One of the original Immersive Sims, and precursor to the BioShock series. This has much more RPG elements than BioShock does, and an inventory grid.

Wikipeda Synopsis

System Shock 2 is a 1999 action role-playing survival horror video game designed by Ken Levine and co-developed by Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios. Originally intended to be a standalone title, its story was changed during production into a sequel to the 1994 game System Shock. The alterations were made when Electronic Arts—who owned the System Shock franchise rights—signed on as publisher.

The game takes place on board a starship in a cyberpunk depiction of 2114. The player assumes the role of a soldier trying to stem the outbreak of a genetic infection that has devastated the ship. Like System Shock, gameplay consists of first-person combat and exploration. It incorporates role-playing elements, in which the player can develop skills and traits, such as hacking and psionic abilities.

System Shock 2 was originally released in August 1999 for Microsoft Windows. The game received critical acclaim but failed to meet commercial sales expectations. Many critics later determined that the game was highly influential in subsequent game design, particularly on first-person shooters, and considered it far ahead of its time. It has been included in several "greatest games of all time" lists. In 2007, Irrational Games released a spiritual successor to the System Shock series, titled BioShock, to critical acclaim and strong sales.

System Shock 2 had been in intellectual property limbo following the closure of Looking Glass Studios. Nightdive Studios were able to secure the rights to the game and the System Shock franchise in 2013 to release an updated version of System Shock 2 for modern operating systems, including for OS X and Linux, and announced plans to release an Enhanced Edition of the game. OtherSide Entertainment announced in 2015 that they had acquired the rights from Nightdive Studios to produce a sequel, System Shock 3, but as of 2020 the rights have since been transferred to Tencent.

Videos

MandaloreGaming - System Shock 2 Review

Finntrovert - System Shock 2 - Retrospective / Review

Ramsker - System Shock 2 is Still A Masterpiece

Boulder Punch - System Shock 2 Review | An Immersive Sim Classic

Links

IGDB Page

MobyGames Page

About !retrostatus@retrolemmy.com

This community is for big milestone anniversaries of retro games (15 years or older, every multiple of 5 years). See our sidebar for more info and resources for making your own posts here.

Post #1: [Retro Platinum] King's Quest: Quest for the Crown (1984-05-10)

Post #2: [Retro Platinum] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989-05-12)

Post #3: [Retro Silver] Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (1999-05-12)

Post #4: [Retro] Doom 3 (2004-08-03)

Cylobian Sunday! This time with Squarepusher making a guest appearance! Couldn't find all the songs separate this time so just use this video of the full EP, this song starts at 13:37 in the video.

A fun remix from the Flexing Habitual album

Throwback Thursday! Here's another Rephlex classic from the 90s, in honor of Squarepusher being our community's new icon and banner image.

A 1 second improvement over the previous record by Connor Fitzgerald.

I finally put the theorised "grenadejump off the ogre" strat to the test, and it worked wonders. I did have some issues with the slope in the zombie room, so I decided to find a better alternative - a sliding grenadeboost off the zombie - that turned out to be quicker as well. I also found the last room to be slow in Connor's demo, and figured out quickly that you can bounce a grenade off the pillar, so when the main button gets hit the grenade explodes in front of the zombie just as the wall lowers. A bit rough in some spots, but unless new strats are found this is staying at 29.

Here's a Quake Speedruns Explained video about this record: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekUscpJbIak "RIP My Last Golden-Age Quake Run..."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/20418581

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/20418581

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/20418581

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/20418581

Cylobian Sunday! This playlist is Previously Unavailable On Compact Disc (1998), but this track is from Kinesthesia Volume 1 (1993)

https://www.discogs.com/release/990-Kinesthesia-Kinesthesia-Volume-1

I used the original longer version "Triachus (Aphex Twin Mix)" instead of the version from 26 Mixes For Cash, unfortunately the audio quality is a little lower here.

Normally "Previously Unavailable On Compact Disc" ends with "Durftal" as track 13, but I added more tracks from the source releases that weren't part of the CD release for the sake of completeness. These tracks are pretty rough though lol. I used Discogs for the info:

Compilation of tracks previously released on following only-vinyl records:

Tracks: 1/9/10/11 taken from Kinesthesia Empathy Box (Remixes)[CAT 022].

Tracks: 2/7/8 taken from Kinesthesia Volume 2 [CAT 014].

Tracks: 3/5/6 taken from Kinesthesia Volume 1 [CAT 011].

Tracks: 4/13 taken from Cylob Industrial Folk Songs [CAT 015].

Track: 12 taken from Mururoa Project [STOP 1 T].

All tracks written and produced between 1993 and 1995.

https://www.discogs.com/release/13964-Cylob-Previously-Unavailable-On-Compact-Disc

And since it includes tracks from Empathy Box (Remixes), it seems relevant to also mention the original Empathy Box release

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT-OycUpo74&list=PLZBQ5U70ekuHjclewtPaI7an1fsbyQ8DX&index=1

I actually haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but maybe I'll post one of these tracks for next week's Cylobian Sunday.

Happy 20th anniversary to Doom 3! Everyone remembers this game for the tech (programmable shaders, render-to-texture'd normal maps, realtime stencil shadows), but this was also a great horror game! And the story was written by Matthew Costello, who also wrote the stories for The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour!

(IMO the BFG edition makes the game worse by removing the tension of using the flashlight, the levels were designed for the original flashlight switching mechanic. Use a source port like dhewm3 for playing on modern computers.)

Wikipeda Synopsis

Doom 3 is a 2004 survival horror first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. Doom 3 was originally released for Microsoft Windows on August 3, 2004, adapted for Linux later that year, and ported by Aspyr Media for Mac OS X in 2005. Developer Vicarious Visions ported the game to the Xbox, releasing it worldwide on April 4, 2005.

Doom 3 is set on Mars in 2145, where a military-industrial conglomerate has set up a scientific research facility into fields such as teleportation, biological research, and advanced weapons design. The teleportation experiments open a gateway to Hell, resulting in a catastrophic invasion of the Mars base by demons. The player controls a space marine who fights through the base to stop the demons attacking Mars and reaching Earth.

Doom 3 is the first reboot of the Doom series, ignoring the events of the previous games. Doom 3 utilizes the id Tech 4 game engine, which has since been licensed out to other developers, and later released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later in November 2011.

Doom 3 was a critical and commercial success; with more than 3.5 million copies of the game sold, it was the most successful game by developer id Software up to that date. Critics praised the game's graphics, presentation, and atmosphere, although reviewers were divided by how close the gameplay was to that of the original Doom, focusing primarily on simply fighting through large numbers of enemy characters. The game was followed by Resurrection of Evil, an expansion pack developed by Nerve Software, in April 2005. A series of novelizations of Doom 3, written by Matthew J. Costello, debuted in February 2008. An expanded and remastered edition titled Doom 3: BFG Edition was released in the fourth quarter of 2012. It has been ported to various platforms, including some which enable portable and virtual reality gameplay.

Videos

John Carmack Announcing Doom 3 at MacWorld 2001 - "The final unification of lighting and shadowing across all surfaces in a game."

Doom 3 - 16 Years Later: An LGR Retrospective

The Making of Doom 3 and the History of id Software

Links

IGDB Page

MobyGames Page

About !retrostatus@retrolemmy.com

This community is for big milestone anniversaries of retro games (15 years or older, every multiple of 5 years). See our sidebar for more info and resources for making your own posts here.

Post #1: [Retro Platinum] King's Quest: Quest for the Crown (1984-05-10)

Post #2: [Retro Platinum] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989-05-12)

Post #3: [Retro Silver] Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (1999-05-12)