Rain or shine, tourneys happening this weekend!

Even though the weather has been rainy, none of the gaming action in the Valley has been dampened down. There’s a good lot of events this week, starting off with the fine folks at the Phoenix Art Museum.

AZHP Gaming tournaments abound for the end of August

After a bit of a lighter week, competitive action is going full force in Arizona for the last of August.

AZHP Gaming will host their fifth tournament at the Microsoft Store in Scottsdale this Saturday for Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The tournament will start at 2 p.m. and be free to enter.

AZHP Gaming releases schedule for Phoenix Comicon

With Phoenix Comicon less than two weeks away, AZHP Gaming is preparing to hold its gaming room  for the 8th year running at the event. The group released their competition schedule late Monday night and are featuring over ten tournaments and plenty more.

The group will be running casual stations for the Thursday preview night from 4 p.m. until 9 p.m. The action really kicks off on Friday. Their tournament schedule is as follows:

 

Friday-

All these tournaments is making Bob sweat!

Gears of War Judgment (360) – 11 a.m.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (PS3) – 1:30 p.m.

Halo 4 [2v2] (360) – 4 p.m.

Injustice: Gods Among Us (PS3) – 6:30 p.m.

Mortal Kombat (PS3) – 9 p.m.

Saturday-

King of Fighters XIII (PS3) – 11 a.m.

Persona 4: Arena (PS3) – 1:30 p.m.

Street Fighter x Tekken (PS3) – 4 p.m.

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (PS3) – 6:30 p.m.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (PS3) – 9 p.m.

Sunday-

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) – 11 a.m.

Call of Duty Black Ops II [2v2] (360) – 2 p.m.

The group will give away slews of prizes which include NoS energy drink packs, Aqua Red t-shirts, $20 giftcards to The Game Zone, Evil Controller controllers, comic books, prints and much more.

Along with regular tournaments, AZHP will be hosting casual game stations throughout the weekend for attendees to freely play. All the competitive action will be streamed by Team Hazmat and Team Mailorder. Tickets for Phoenix Comicon are currently on sale at their website.

DEVASTATION: A Few Words With Jedirobb

DEVASTATION is only a few days away and the event is loaded and ready to go. The Pause Button got the chance to talk to the event coordinator Robb Chiarini (aka Jedirobb), and get some details, as well as thoughts on the upcoming tournament.

Courtesy of DEVASTATION.

The event is set to officially begin on Friday October 7th and continue through Sunday at the Phoenix Convention Center. A multitude of competitions will be held for numerous first-person shooter, fighting, sports, rhythm, and strategy games throughout the weekend.

DEVASTATION recently suffered the loss of Team Sp00ky due to the alleged confiscation of their equipment by Homeland Security. Chiarini confirmed that there are three other stream broadcasters lined up for the convention including LevelUp and local boys Team Haz-mat to run the fighting game shows, with Beyond Gaming to cover the PC side of the competitions. They will broadcast on three separate channels through Twitch.tv: TwitchTV/DEVEVENT, TwitchTV/DEVASTATIONEVENT, and TwitchTV/BeyondGaming. according to the official event website.

Late-Night Button Mashing This Week in AZ

This week’s events seem a bit more in tune for night owls (perfect for escaping the blistering heat of the day) and comes in the form of cinema, conventions, and pulling all-nighters.

Seriously, how do you say no to flying pandas in 3D?

Running very early in the week is the Tuesday world premiere of the CGI animated film, Tekken: Blood Vengeance. Perhaps coincidentally arranged to debut right after the U.S. release of the live action film of the same game, Blood Vengeance promises fans an action-packed, 3D-ified adventure that follows the backstory of several Tekken characters and their motivations for joining the Iron Fist tournament.

Insight: The Importance of a Gamer Handshake

With more tournaments on the horizon, The Pause Button’s own IncreaseBlue has a few words to her fellow gamers as they enter into different competitions. She offers her thoughts below:

IncreaseBlue-

As tournament season is starting to get into full swing I’ve noticed a rather troubling trend. With more and more harrowing matches between extremely skilled AZ players, no one is shaking hands after the match.

This seems trivial and merely a measure of politeness, but it means much more than that. A handshake in and of itself signifies a feeling of mutual respect between two people, and in video game tournaments (as well as any kind of competition) it means even more.