eSports Rocket League - Like football, but with an extra kick
Friday 12 August 2016 15:59, UK
Imagine football with rocket-powered remote control cars and you’ll already be some of the way towards explaining Rocket League’s appeal as an eSport.
It’s simple to understand - two teams of three seek opportunities to slot the ball into the back of the opposing team’s goal - but exhilarating to watch.
Thanks to the engines strapped to the backs of these cars, pro players can pull off impressive displays of skill as they hurtle through the air, subtly adjusting their rotation mid-air to achieve that perfect angle to tap (or strike) that ball into the net.
This last weekend saw the finals for the Rocket League Championship Series, the annual tournament organised by ESL and the developer of the game, Psyonix.
This was a huge event for Rocket League, bringing the very best teams from North America and Europe together after a series of regional qualifying rounds that were hosted over the previous few weekends.
It was an intense series of finals, that saw many of the game’s very best teams, favourites to win - such as Northern Gaming or Mock-It EU - knocked out from the tournament even before the grand finals.
It was iBuyPower Cosmic that took the title as the first winner of the annual RLCS, with a performance throughout the tournament that really proved their position as number one Rocket League team.
But they weren’t the only team with some impressive goals, so here’s a collection of some of the very best clips from the finals to highlight just how thrilling Rocket League can be as an eSport.
This was the opening goal for the finals of the Rocket League Championship Series as the quarter-finals kicked off with Northern Gaming - one of the the competition’s favourites to win - taking on Genesis.
It was Northern Gaming’s Greazy that scored this glorious opener, spotting the opportunity from a distance before bursting into the foray and striking a beautiful shot into an open goal.
This clip focuses on Jessie, one of the players for The Flying Dutchmen. It might not have the range or aerial skill of Greazy’s goal, but it still an impressive display all the same.
Here Jessie manages to take the ball from his own side and single-handedly dribble it past the defenders, using a last-second burst of speed to sidestep what would have otherwise been an easy block from the opposition.
Lastly, here’s a clip from the finals of the tournament that saw iBuyPower - who had been dominating in the earlier stages of the knockout phase - taking on another favourite of Rocket League, Flipsid3 Tactics.
There were many great goals available through this series of games (Rocket League has matches played as best of five or best of seven), but this one standouts out as iBuyPower makes a sudden counter push with its star player Kronovi squeezing a goal out of the tightest of angles - making it 3-2 with just seven seconds left on the clock.
Ginx eSports TV has an even bigger list of some of the very best moments from Rocket League’s Championship Series finals, as well as an explanation of how the matches played out.
https://ginx.tv/esports/best-goals-rocket-league-championship-series-finals/
