Special Report:
TriXie Does the World Cyber Games
Forget Athens; the real action went down October 6-10 in San Francisco, California. That's right, it was the Olympics of video games, the World Cyber Games. This was the fourth annual WCG Grand Final, and the first to be held outside of Korea. If you missed it—tough crap, it's in Singapore next year. There was a buncha PC action at WCG (hooray for the US's Team3D that brought home first place in Counter-Strike™: Condition Zero!), but the best part was that the mighty mighty Xbox® was the only console represented! There were two Xbox tourneys going on: Halo®: Combat Evolved and Project Gotham Racing® 2.
I was there for a couple of days—the boss couldn't bear to part with me for longer—and I talked to the players and took some pictures. Check it out … it's almost like being there …
Ah, it all looks so official, don't it? This big daddy is set up in the plaza area, in between the skateboarders, the climbing wall, the trapeze, and the tents. The opening and closing ceremonies were held here, and throughout the day various bands performed. I managed to catch the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, and I gotta say they were pretty great.
These chicks are the girlz Of destructiOn, one of the world's top all female gaming clans. They're hanging at the Razer booth at the WCG Exhibition. The Razer Diamondback 1600 dpi gaming mouse is very, very cool. Razer provided all the mice for WCG, and all the gaming computers were from Shuttle.
This is KatScratch of Frag Doll fame. When I proposed a rumble between the Frag Dolls and the girlz Of destructiOn, she said "Bring it on."
When I attempted to get Eekers on board the Frag Dolls/girlz Of destructiOn chickfight, she revealed that she used to be a girl Of destruction! Then she told me to piss off so she could play Far Cry: Instincts.
In the Nvidia tent, I spied some interesting things: Have you noticed that the Nvidia fairy doesn't fly? It's because she has a huge ass. Seriously, that pixie's got some major back … not aerodynamic in the least.
Ah, me beauties ... This darling little YP-T5V MP3 player from Samsung has 256MB of flash memory and an FM tuner, and, at 2.5 inches long and less than an inch wide, it's the smallest MP3 player on the market. It makes my beloved baby blue iPod mini look like a big, fat cow!
Gamespot was at WCG, hosting the Button Mashing Throw Down. The Gamespot-mobile was rigged with an Xbox console and a coupla' crappy other consoles which I won't mention.
Luckily, I happened to be in the area to document the Halo Challenge!
These dudes are intent on winning some Gamespot swag. So intent they don't even notice the chick with the camera …
Hot on the trail of a story, I high-tailed it up to the Press Room in the Bill Graham Auditorium. Ain't it glamorous? I was hoping to score some Red Bull, but those selfish bastards from G4 guzzled it all! I did, however, run into some dudes from Team USA:
This is Walshy, a.k.a. David Walsh. He's from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was representing Old Glory in the Halo tournament. He made it to the second day of play, but was done in by Canadian Nelson Triana. Of course Walshy was hopin' to take home the $20K prize, but he's cool with the bronze medal.
Meet Ryan Erickson (left) and Joseph Anthony, more members of Team USA, here to play Project Gotham Racing 2. Ryan's 'tag is GameClucks and Joseph's is GameClucks2. Joseph was knocked out ofPGR2 competition on the first day, while Ryan hung in until the final round. He was hoping for a medal, but everyone knew the legendary KingTuur from the Netherlands had a lock on the PGR2 gold.
Here's my conversation with the cab driver who took me from the delightful Clift hotel to the Civic Auditorium on Saturday …
Taximan: What is an Xbox?
TriXie: It's like a (insert other console name), only better.
Taximan: What's a (name it again)?
TriXie: Uh, it's a video game console.
Taximan: What's a video game console?
TriXie: So, how 'bout that debate last night, huh?
Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines! The Military Challenge featured top players from the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. Halo was the game, and single-elimination was the order of the day. Oddly, the Marines were knocked out in the first round. Jarheads … go figure.
The winners of the HaloMilitary Challenge, with the Samsung digital cameras they scored. From left to right: Chris Vann is from Jasper, Alabama and is studying Chinese at the Defense Language Institute; Chris Haigh studies Korean and is from Marshalltown, Iowa; and fellow student of Korean, Joe King, is from White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Not shown is the Air Force's Chris Brunning, from Jacksonville, Tennessee, who is—you guessed it—studying Korean. You can find Chris B and Joe on Xbox Live™ as Angelofdeath323 andchronopoint, respectively.
Mmm … sailors. I don't think they chose the best Halo players for the WCG Military Challenge; I think they picked the cute ones. Something about clean-cut guys in white suits just makes me want to dirty them up.
And, in case you hadn't heard, Matthew Leto (on the left) from Allen, Texas, took the Halo gold for the second year in a row, beating Canadian Nelson Triana 15 to 1 on the Wizard map, and scoring 20,000 bucks. You can find him on Xbox Live as zyos … although he's probably out spending his money.
That's my report from the World Cyber Games 2004. Expect more details on some Team USA and Military Challenge guys soon.
