It Pays to Play
I had the pleasure of attending a local IT industry shmooze event yesterday with my friends dmorg and Firewalk at a local sports bar. The theme of the event was the convergence of the entertainment industry with the IT industry, so we just had to go check it out.
As most of these things usually are, it was lame. There was a short keynote speech that we couldn't hear, and there was a painfully small appetizer table that was quickly wiped clean, leaving us to drown our hungry sorrows at the cash bar. Bah.
But it did have one really cool event. Microsoft sponsored a Halo tournament. :)
They took 16 contestants and broke them into 4 games of Slayer. The winners of each of those would go on to a finals round to see who would win the grand prize, a Special Edition Halo Xbox. The thing isn't available for purchase anymore, and it typically fetches between $250 and $300 on eBay. I didn't think I had much of a chance considering I typically suck at playing shooters with a gamepad, but I was definitely up for giving it a shot. D'morg jumped into the fray as well, while Firewalk abstained because he had to bail early.
My first round match went pretty smoothly. I won by 15-to-6-to-3-to-1, or something like that. I was starting to feel a bit cocky. D'morg barely lost his round by 2 frags, but I know he could have done a lot better if he was allowed to customize the controls. We watched the rest of the first round matches, and I started to get a little bit worried. There were people here that definitely knew how to play.
There was a break after the first round, so we had to wait around for the finals. But when it did start off, I thought I was doomed from the get-go. The Microsoft reps had configured the systems to have a profile name of "PghTechX," where "X" was replaced with a number based on the system you were on. Well, when the final match started, everyone else in the game had a customized profile. "Whisp" was the first person to kill me. I was a bit ticked, since I had been told by one rep that I wasn't allowed to change settings, but I kept my mouth shut and played.
I was losing for the entire match. It seemed like as soon as I would pick up some weapons and armor, Whisp would take me out in a heartbeat. The other guys offered some challenge, but Whisp was definitely my main competitor. I made a concious effort to avoid conflict for a brief amount of time while I collected armor, grenades, and shields. After finally getting all powered up, I went on a run. A good solid killing-spree run. And I won...by a single frag.
I am now the proud owner of a transparent green Xbox. It's going to make a nice addition to my gameroom. :)
As most of these things usually are, it was lame. There was a short keynote speech that we couldn't hear, and there was a painfully small appetizer table that was quickly wiped clean, leaving us to drown our hungry sorrows at the cash bar. Bah.
But it did have one really cool event. Microsoft sponsored a Halo tournament. :)
They took 16 contestants and broke them into 4 games of Slayer. The winners of each of those would go on to a finals round to see who would win the grand prize, a Special Edition Halo Xbox. The thing isn't available for purchase anymore, and it typically fetches between $250 and $300 on eBay. I didn't think I had much of a chance considering I typically suck at playing shooters with a gamepad, but I was definitely up for giving it a shot. D'morg jumped into the fray as well, while Firewalk abstained because he had to bail early.
My first round match went pretty smoothly. I won by 15-to-6-to-3-to-1, or something like that. I was starting to feel a bit cocky. D'morg barely lost his round by 2 frags, but I know he could have done a lot better if he was allowed to customize the controls. We watched the rest of the first round matches, and I started to get a little bit worried. There were people here that definitely knew how to play.
There was a break after the first round, so we had to wait around for the finals. But when it did start off, I thought I was doomed from the get-go. The Microsoft reps had configured the systems to have a profile name of "PghTechX," where "X" was replaced with a number based on the system you were on. Well, when the final match started, everyone else in the game had a customized profile. "Whisp" was the first person to kill me. I was a bit ticked, since I had been told by one rep that I wasn't allowed to change settings, but I kept my mouth shut and played.
I was losing for the entire match. It seemed like as soon as I would pick up some weapons and armor, Whisp would take me out in a heartbeat. The other guys offered some challenge, but Whisp was definitely my main competitor. I made a concious effort to avoid conflict for a brief amount of time while I collected armor, grenades, and shields. After finally getting all powered up, I went on a run. A good solid killing-spree run. And I won...by a single frag.
I am now the proud owner of a transparent green Xbox. It's going to make a nice addition to my gameroom. :)