Giant Bomb Video Game News

The tournaments offer a new take on classic SFIV competition. They are broken out into 5 different levels, which means everyone can participate and find a good challenge without getting blown out of the water or bored. You score Grade Points (GP) for tournament wins, and as your GP total grows, you’ll become eligible to enter into more exclusive tournaments. Winning tournaments will also net you Championship Points (CP). The CP work basically like “prize money” up for grabs in the tournament. The higher the GP skill of the players in a particular tournament, the bigger the CP prize!

In true tournament tradition, character selection is double-blind. With the CP purse on the line, you won't be able to see who your opponent has picked until you've both made your choices, and the battle is set to begin.

Replays are generated straight from the Championship Mode tournaments. The top 5000 Championship Point leaders will be given the option to upload a replay, which are then available for anyone to watch. On PS3, viewers can watch your replay and vote in real time according to characteristics like “beautiful” or “funny.” Replays will be ranked according to the user-submitted reviews, making it easy to find the flavor of replays you want to see. On X360, you can’t vote on the matches, but you can watch and then save a number of your favorites. While watching your saved matches, you’ll also have the option to turn on input commands (just like the Training Mode option), so you can see the gritty details of exactly what button and joystick inputs the top players are using to win.