Welcome back to Levelling Up, the one stop shop for finding some knowledge diamonds in amongst the rough journey to being a better player. This week we take a look at something near and dear to me, Hypespotting 2013.
Hypespotting started last year in the Thistle hotel in Glasgow. It was Scotland’s biggest and best fighting games tournament ever. Set up by none other than Versus Scotland, Hypespotting saw the best Scotland had to offer in Marvel Versus Capcom 3, Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition, Virtua Fighter 5, King of Fighters 13 and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. Kof 13, SSF4:AE, VF5 and MvC3 were all singles tournaments and Third Strike was a 3v3 team tournament. It was genuinely one of the greatest events I have ever attended. The room was electric and whatever internal rivalries existed were cast aside to support Scotland and its fighters. Needless to say the event was hype. Then they announced Hypespotting would return again in 2013.
Hypespotting 2013 blew last year out the water. In a change to the lineup VF5 was replaced with my personal favourite, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 as a 3v3 team tournament alongside Third Strike and there was also the addition of Ready Up’s own Persona 4 Arena set-up and a Ready Up pub quiz. Just like the roster of games and events, the attendance also saw a good few new additions as well as Evo points being offered to the winners of the singles tournaments. To be acknowledged as a “Road to Evo” event after just one previous tournament really speaks volumes for the organisers and event. It means it is the best of the best, only one other tournament in Europe (Milan) had Evo points on offer for those good enough.
Those lucky enough to bag those cherished points in first place are as follows are as follows: UMvC3 – Zak Bennet, SSF4AE – Problem X, TTT2 – Pish Punishers, 3rd Strike – How Do I Spell Q?, KoF 13 – Fox. That’s not to mention the local players who did exceedingly well across multiple games; Milligano, Ragequit, Bigfool, Criptic and Samurai Pizza Ken to name but a few. If you didn’t manage to attend Versus Scotland they have all the archives and run several weekly gaming streams on the page too if you want to check out some of Scotland’s best players.
There was a great showing from everyone in Scotland at Hypespotting, I even managed to place 3rd in the TTT2 team tournament with my team “FrameTramps” but there were far greater players than I at UMvC3 unfortunately and I struggled to make it out of pools. For me Hypespotting was more than just a competition, it was a massive social affair with booze and banter. There is rarely a chance to see the full Scottish scene band together and support their own in one venue but when they do, they do it in style. I was able to commentate some of the most exciting matches in both Marvel and Tekken that I have ever had the pleasure to see in person. It might have been that I was a little more invested in Tekken due to commentating my own teams and peers’ matches but it was enthralling nonetheless. Even when I didn’t manage to qualify for Marvel I was still able to play a great deal of players from all around the UK and one or two from further afield. It’s great for learning match-ups and seeing how you fare against people who either aren’t familiar with your play style or don’t know you inside out. Going to a local tournament or even travelling is something I would encourage anyone to do who want to take fighting games a bit more seriously. Especially if there is a pub quiz.
Hypespotting was unbelievably fun and if you are a big fighting game fan it’s something you can’t afford to miss.
And for those looking to travel, Versus Scotland’s very own Walter Fraser had a massive announcement for Hypespotting. Hypespotting will now be run twice a year as opposed to annually. This really is great news for the Scottish scene. The largest major we have is now going to be more frequent and hopefully more hype. I hope to see a lot of people travel to at least one of the events because I know so long as there is breath in my lungs and money in my wallet I’ll be there. It’s a truly amazing experience.
I loved Hypespotting and if you managed to attend I hope you enjoyed it just as much. It’s great to be in a hall full of like minded and occasionally hyper competitive players and share the same experience; to see it grow so much in such a short time is inspiring. It proved to me that this blog was worth it, analysing how I play and what I should be doing really helped out. Sure I didn’t win but I’d like to think I struck fear in those who had to run up against my fully levelled Frank West in UMvC3 or scared those that had to deal with some unrelenting Law/Bruce pressure in TTT2. I know where I need to improve and where to do it. So until next time I’ll be sure to level up.
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