Nerd Olympics 2010 Games Preview: Part I

This week, sulci takes a look at the first 4 events taking place at Nerd Olympics this year: SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos, Call of Duty 4, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2, and R-type Leo.

SNK vs Capcon: SVC Chaos
Starting out the events this year at Nerd Olympics is an old school, button-jamming arcade fighter. SNK vs Capcon: SVC Chaos is based on the play style of King of Fighters, and features 24 initial characters from KOF, Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, Samurai Showdown. and more. You can perform special moves by filling up your “groove” gauge to level 2 or maxing it out at level 3. You also get a special “Exceed” move when your health is less than half.

At the NO (Nerd Olympics) event this year, the game will be played best as a best-of-3, single elimination tournament, with stock characters only. You can practice this game on a Neo Geo arcade or X-Box.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
The Call of Duty franchise is a critically acclaimed  series of first person shooters for the PC. Modern Warfare breaks away from the previous focus on WWII of past games, and is set in the near future in various locations such as the Middle East, Russia, the Ukraine and Azerbaijan. You can carry up to two weapons, in addition to  grenades.

This year’s NO event will be a 4 person free-for-all in the Killhouse, a downloadable multiplayer expansion map. You can practice on your PC, Mac, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, or even NDS. The event will allow only stock characters, and no modifications or custom hotkeys in an attempt to keep an even playing field. The top two players in each heat will move on.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
Dawn of War II is this year’s Non-Blizzard real time strategy game. You control your own army, managing gear and Diablo-like skill sets. The game is noted for its new cover system, destructible terrain and de-emphasis on base building, setting it apart from other RTS titles. It is heavily influenced by Company of Heroes, one of the highest rated RTS games.

The INOC has decided to divide players into two skill levels for this event, and create teams by pairing Pros and Noobs randomly. Each team will compete against another team in a single elimination tournament. Dawn of War II is exclusively for PC.

R-Type Leo
R-Type Leo is another classic arcade game, this one being a horizontal side scrolling shooter. This fourth installment in the R-Type game series allows you to navigate your space ship through a variety of enemies and obstacles, destroying everything that comes into your path and picking up ship upgrades along the way. At the start of the game you pick from one of three different ship weapons called Force Bits which vary slightly in how they are fired. In this particular R-Type game you can also shoot forwards or backwards.

The NO event will be a single coin run-through, with the highest score winning. You can practice this game on a M-92 arcade machine. Other R-Type games in the series can be practiced on the SuperNES, PlayStation, PSP, Xbox, and Gameboy Advance.

Hopefully this has given you a helpful overview of a few of the games you can anticipate seeing at Nerd Olympics 2010. You must start training now if you want to have any hope of competing in the grueling struggle for victory. I expect most of you will put in at least an hour of game play, per day, per game to compete with likes of Nerd Olympics 2009 champions Psycho limey, MerrGe, DMUSER, and Brentor, who dominated these games last year. If you know of any additional means of practicing, please comment with your suggestions.