eSports

Big things are happening in the eSports community as Justin.tv has relaunched their gaming site as TwitchTV. TwitchTV is described as, "the largest competitive video gaming broadcast network in the world." If it works out, this represents a huge step forward in the competitive eSports community, as it aims to consolidate all of the highest quality video game streams in one place with the top gamers, biggest tournaments, and best commentary.

TwitchTV will use a partner program that allows gamers and tournaments to share in advertising revenue generated on their streams. Meaning, the more people you get to watch your stream, the more cash you can potentially earn from being a professional (or even popular) gamer. TwitchTV is also testing other revenue generators like pay-per-view and subscription based programs.

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All weekend you can catch Major League Gaming's Columbus Pro Circuit Tournament right here on G4TV.com where some of the best professional gamers will be competing in StarCraft 2, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Black Ops. The broadcast schedule is as follows:

Friday: 5PM EST - 1AM EST
Saturday: 11AM EST - 12 AM EST
Sunday:  10 AM EST -  9 PM EST

The stream defaults to StarCraft 2, to watch the other games use the dropdown menu within the stream! MLG is now offering the high quality stream for free all weekend. Just click the button within the stream to change it from low to high at no cost.

• Check out the open bracket here.
• Check out the pool play bracket here.

For the full schedule breakdown, you can click after the break. Let me know what you think of how the tournaments are going throughout the weekend via my Twitter!

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Major League Gaming is hitting Columbus this weekend, June 3-5, for its second Pro Circuit event of the season and once again we're going to be streaming all of the action live right here on G4TV.com starting Friday at 5 P.M. PST. MLG Columbus will feature top tier competitive play from StarCraft 2, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Black Ops, and today we've got the full schedule so you can plan your weekend accordingly.

• NEWS: MLG Partners With Korean GSL For StarCraft 2 Exchange Program

As for the stream itself, a few of you may be wary to watch again due to the technical difficulties that plagued the MLG Dallas stream. Rest assured that this time around MLG has gone through extensive changes to ensure that those problems don't happen again. The company has even gone so far as to partner with Streamworks (the company that streamed The Royal Wedding a few weeks ago) to put on the highest quality stream for all of us competitve gaming fans which can stream all the way up to 720p with no download required. If you're still on the fence about purchasing the HQ stream for $10, MLG is offering "Free HQ Friday" so you can check the quality for yourself.

For the full MLG Columbus Schedule be sure to check after the break.

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Brink's first DLC, "Agents of Change" is dropping this June and plans to bring players of the wall-jumping first person shooter a higher level cap, new maps, abilities, character customization options, and weapon attachements. Agents of Change is scheduled for a Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC release but the price point hasn't been made available yet.

RATING: Brink For PC Review

Bethesda Blog also mentioned that a new statistics site will be going live soon for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 players (the hardcore PC base will have to wait a bit longer). The site, brinkthegame.com, will be a hub for in-depth stats, data on matches, player info, and overall weekly progress.

For a full list of what's to come in Brink's first DLC pack Agents of Change, check after the break.

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PDP, designers of the new Mortal Kombat fight stick held a massive Mortal Kombat tournament in Las Vegas this past weekend with a huge $21,000 prize pool on the line. The entire tournament was streamed flawlessly on G4TV.com by the talented Team Spooky guys and you can watch the entire tournament via their Justin.tv channel if you missed any of it.

Some of the top fighting game competitors from all over the country flew in for the big event including the illustrious Justin Wong and his buddies Ari “Floe” Weintraub, Joe "Long Island Joe" Ciaramelli, and Carl “Perfect Legend” White, who are all are making quite the splash in the MK scene.

• NEWS: Mortal Kombat DLC Coming This Month -- Let Us Introduce You To Skarlett

The event started with pool play on Saturday afternoon and there wasn't too much drama or upset during pools. Everything went according to plan and those that practiced hardest with the PDP stick got to advance on to bracket play. What was interesting about this tournament was because the event was being sponsored by PDP, they enforced a rule where everyone, regardless of whether or not they preferred to play on an arcade stick or a pad/controller, had to play on the PDP stick. Not many tournaments enforce rules like this as you generally get a wider variety of applicants if everyone can play with their own personal weapon of choice .It was interesting to see everyone's talent on a somewhat equal playing field. 

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Over the weekend PDP held a $21,000 Mortal Kombat tournament in Las Vegas where over 200 competitors showed up to fill out the brackets including fighting game legend Evil Geniuses' Justin Wong who was able to defeat everyone and walk away with the huge $10,000 grand prize. The Grand Finals came down to Justin playing with Kung Lao vs. Ari "Floe" Weintraub playing with Ermac. In a best of seven, Justin continuously chipped away at Floe again and again with the somewhat overpowered Kung Lao and took advantage of all of Floe's weak spots. Check out the entire championship below.

NOTE: As Mortal Kombat is an M-Rated Game this video may have M-Rated commentary.

Over the course of the next few days we'll have tons of tournament coverage of the event including a full wrap-up, an entire episode of Fighting Words that was shot at the event, videos of all of the best matches, an interview with Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon and famous players like Justin Wong, Floe, Long Island Joe, and Perfect Legend, plus an in depth feature surrounding the eSports implications of MK9.

Be sure to check back and let me know what you thought of the tournament stream over the weekend, and yes, I gave Marn my number. We'll have that video, too. 

Have something to share? You can find me on Twitter!

Ready for a Mortal Kombat tournament? The game, aka "Mortal Kombat 9" will is at Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas this weekend for the PDP sponsored $21,000 Mortal Kombat tournament. But don't worry if you can't make the trip because we have a live stream of the entire event right here on the site so you can follow along at home! We'll have a lot of coverage to keep you up to date, so be sure to keep your browser pointed here throughout the weekend.

Note: As this is an M-rated game, expect M-rated language and graphics during the stream.

• TODAY'S TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE: Sunday from 12 PM PST to 5 PM PST
  

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In what is surely one of the most groundbreaking events in recent eSports history, two of the premiere StarCraft 2 leagues, Major League Gaming (MLG), and the Korean Global StarCraft 2 League (GSL)  are parterning up for an unheard of exchange program.

Starting with MLG's next live competition in Columbus on June 3-5 and continuing through the rest of the 2011 season, the top three finishing players per MLG event will be sent, all expenses paid, to South Korea to compete in GOMTV's GSL for a whole month. Then in exchange, the GSL will send four Korean pro players to participate in each MLG event all expenses paid by MLG.

• DETAILS: Complete MLG Dallas Tournament Videos Now Available

It's not often that you see two leagues working together in eSports as they're often competing for viewership and sponsors. To see two of the best leagues partner up is pretty spectacular for the StarCraft 2 scene, especially from a viewer perspective. Read on to see all of the details surrounding the partnership.

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Heroes of Newerth, the multiplayer action RPG from S2 Games is celebrating its one year anniversary this week and kicking off a few fesitities to commemorate the happy occassion. First off, the game will feature a free-to-play week long session from May 12 at 9 PM EST through May 22 at 12 am EST. Players will also receive free goblin coins, shop changes, and a revamped set of tool tips to enhance their gameplay experience. To get into the action you can head over to the Heroes of Newerth website to sign up for the FTP week.

S2 Games CEO and co-founder Marc Deforest is thrilled about the success of HoN and let us in on just how successful the game has become in only one year, “In just the last month, our players enjoyed over 650 million minutes of HoN! We have an average of 30,000 people playing at any given time and daily concurrent peaks of over 50,000 players."

• VIDEO:  Heroes of Newerth Tutorial: How To Effectively Use Tremble

Aside from the freebies and giveaways, HoN will also be getting a content patch featuring the following:

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Major League Gaming has confirmed the Pro Circuit schedule for the rest of the 2011 season, starting with their next event on June 3-5 in Columbus which you can purchase your passes for starting today. Major League Gaming describes itself as the premiere North American professional video game league, this year focusing on StarCraft 2, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Player pass prices are $280 per Halo: Reach team, $70 per StarCraft 2 player, and $240 per Call of Duty: Black Ops team. Spectators can buy a pass for $20 to see the tournament live in person, and it truly is an awesome experience (stream pricing is not available yet).

The full 2011 Pro Circuit schedule is as follows:

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Sometimes it's just plain fun to stay up all night and play video games. Whether you're going after a super tough trophy or just learning a new character's strategy, it's great to stay awake playing Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. In MvC3 more than a few characters have combos that are super hard to learn, but amazing to master, and it has a bunch of ridiculously hard trophies to earn. So get ready to read on for our list of characters that we deem have the hardest combos to learn, and the trophies that are no small feat to achieve.

It's a generally accepted notion that in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 the larger heroes are stronger and do more damage per hit than super fast agile ones. So pulling off a character like Taskmaster's combos is generally harder than say, pulling of Spiderman's combos since for Spiderman you just mash buttons whereas Taskmaster actually requires quite a bit of skill. Let's take a look at a few characters that have slower combos, but sick results if pulled off correctly.

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Performance Designed Products (PDP) is sponsoring the first ever Mortal Kombat tournament in Las Vegas on May 14-15 where competitors will duke it out for $21,000 in prizes. If you're not going to be able to make it out to Vegas, don't worry, as G4TV.com will be providing you with all the coverage from the event including a live stream of the tournament.

PDP developed the Mortal Kombat Fight Stick which they describe as "the ultimate arcade-style joystick controller for the Mortal Kombat video game" and the tournament will be played exclusively using the high-end stick which will be provided by PDP.

• DETAILS: Mortal Kombat 9 Endings: Choose Your Destiny

Up to 2048 players are supported by the tournament's double elimination format and slots are based on a first come first served basis, so be sure to register today if you want to compete. With such a huge prize pool, the best fighting game names in the business from all over the country are sure to attend.

To see all of the rules and sign up to take part in PDP’s Mortal Kombat national tournament visit http://www.pdp.com/mortalkombat

It's not often that professional gaming teams nail high end sponsorship deals, but Team Evil Geniuses has just secured one with Monster Energy drink. This is the first time that Monster has aligned with a pro gaming team and for the eSports industry this is a pretty big deal.

Joe Hagofsky, Monster Energy's Gaming Marketing Manager said, "Monster Energy is supportive of and enthusiastic about the growth of professional gaming on a global scale."

• VIDEO: MLG Dallas StarCraft 2 Wrap Up

Team Evil Geniuses began in 1999 and describes itself as the premiere professional gaming team of North America supporting pro gamers in titles like Counter-Strike, Quake, StarCraft 2, Super Street Fighter 4, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and World of Warcraft.

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Major League Gaming has released the full tournament recap videos from their first Pro Circuit event of 2011 in Dallas. Not only has MLG posted all of the commentated recap videos, but G4 also featured a whole slew of content from the event as well. We've counted down our five favorite moments from the whole tournament and have also created video wrap ups from all of the featured Pro Circuit games: StarCraft 2, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

• Complete StarCraft 2 Rebroadcast and Individual Games
• Complete Halo: Reach Rebroadcast and Individual Games
• Complete Call of Duty: Black Ops Rebroadcast and Individual Games

To check out our wrap up videos from all of the featured tournaments, check after the break.

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The fine folks over at Nerdstomper have started a new high quality tutorial video series featuring StarCraft 2, World of Warcraft, and Heroes of Newerth. TheFeed will be featuring one of their videos from all three titles over the next few days and today we've got a Heroes of Newerth video from professional HoN players "Yoda" and "Bdiz". In the video, the guys teach players how to effectively play the hero Tremble and talk about to lane early with him, which items are best with him, and how to use his skills in the best ways possible.

Let us know if this video was helpful to you, and check out the Nerdstomper StarCraft 2 tutorial video on how to effectively play as a Protoss and the World of Warcraft tutorial on how to effectively play as an offensive Shadow Priest. If you're interested in learning about even more pro tips from professional gamers, you can head on over to Nerdstomper's site.

Have something to share? You can find me on Twitter!