Yes, we love fighting games here at 2 Shots of Geek. We keep a close eye on all of them, and while we don’t play all of them consistently, we do have one common view: the community makes or breaks a game. Seriously. If the community doesn’t support the game, it will not do well. If we don’t play it, the hype won’t remain, if the hype doesn’t remain, new players won’t arrive, and the game dies a slow death. This weekend Fid3l and I visited AM2, and had the chance to talk to a lot of people who support the FGC. What was the most talked about topic? Dive Kick!So what is Dive Kick, and why should you care? Dive Kick is the love child of Shoryuken.com regular, Keits. Like lots of other genius ideas, it started from a joke, or better said, something the fighting game community loves to hate: dive kicks. Dive Kicks are an incredibly useful tool to almost any character who has one. Quick, crosses up, and almost unpunishable if blocked. Truly something lots of people have grown to hate, including myself. What if we had a game that had nothing but Dive Kicks though? Nothing else. Perfectly punishable, because one hit kills! What a novel idea! Well, it is being made right now…welcome to Dive Kick!
Who needs mechanics, complexity? Dive Kick makes things incredibly simple. You have two buttons: dive and kick. That’s it. One button dives to the air, the other one kicks. Each hit does 1 million damage. That’s round. Every match is first to five. It sounds incredibly simplistic, and in theory it is. That’s the beauty of it. Anybody can pick up the game and play it. How can you fight against a random? It’s almost like playing Texas Hold Em against someone who has no idea how to “properly” play, going all in on crappy hands and such. This gives everyone an opportunity to create hype matches!
There are some intricacies to the game. Hitting kick before dive makes you jump backward, then you can kick and go forward. If you can get a hit on the opponent’s head, he will receive a concussion. This means that in the next round, he’ll have trouble moving, and will not be able to really kick. You have a “kick meter”, which fills up as you…wait for it…dive kick! Once it’s full, you get increased diving and kicking speed. If you win four straight rounds, the “Fraud Detection Meter” kicks in, allowing you to expose your opponent for the fraud that he is. There is so much fan service to the FGC here.
It doesn’t end there though! The two main characters are called…Dive and Kick. Yes, just that. There are three different secret characters though. Kung Pao, Wolverine(a real wolverine with a cigar in his mouth), and Mr. N. That last one is definitely a jab towards fighting game community regular Marn…but no one will ever confirm it. Each character has different stats, the main thing, is how high they have to dive before they kick, how quick each dive or kick is, etc. Dive Kick has the potential to have the most hype in a long time. I guarantee having this game at Evo will create levels of hype not previously seen. Don’t just take my word for it though, take a look at this introductory video starring Ultra David. Keep talking about Dive Kick, make sure your friends know about Dive Kick! Follow @DiveKickGame for updates. Keep increasing the hype for Dive Kick!