CCGA - July 2004 Review

This LAN…. Simply put… WHEW!!! Two days of controlled tournament chaos!!

But still in my opinion... the best multi-day LAN we have yet to put together! To start off, I would like to thank everyone that was able to make it out to the LAN… because if it weren't for you guys it would just be 6 guys playing either Ground Control II or Soldier of Fortune 2 all night long..! And winning trophies would be kind of pointless… so... THANK YOU ALL FOR ATTENDING!!!!...

The party started up pretty much as planned. Not too much craziness. The network was SOLID the whole weekend… The power was SOLID … the whole weekend... and the servers were... well, SOLID too. So, what wasn't too SOLID ?? It did get kind of hot … Not having the 2 main hotel air conditioners (they broke down, but the hotel got one fixed Saturday afternoon) to cool the room made it a bit toasty, but with our 2 trusty mobile AC units (thanks again Xavior), and 4 fans it seemed to be tolerable. Just remember… this is the hottest month for most LAN parties... it is only cooler from here on!!

Now… let's get this party started!

What was the big surprise at this party? Ryan from Vivendi Universal Games came out to celebrate the release of Ground Control 2 with “leasing” 20 copies of the game to allow gamers the opportunity to play one of the most unique RTS games on the market today. Now having 20 copies floating around, what to do now?? Why, have an RTS tournament of course! We had all night to learn our techniques... Ground Control 2 tourney on Saturday!

Plus, he supplied us with Half-Life 2 demo from E3 that left us with our jaws on the floor and wiping drool off our collective chins. Can you say Striders? There, I knew you could! Now RUN!!!

Right from the start...during the opening announcements ... we give out some prizes!!

$10 Food certificate from Palooza's goes to: TDA-Shrug

Big Box of Peanut M&Ms from Fred of Vendtek goes to: pork smuggler

Plus some T-shirts from Corsair Memory to a few coordinated fraggers that can catch (Note to self, CCGA needs a t-shirt cannon).

We now get a little warmed up… checking out some friends rigs... and tweak those controller settings for those first tournament matchups… The UT 2004 Death Match Points Race... 7 heats of pure mayhem! And in the middle of the beginning in there some where...

The Soldier of Fortune II 4 vs. 4 Infiltration!! Sponsored by NETPLAY.

Congrats to team Glockenrock that consisted of Glockenrock, [CCGA] Umpa, [CCGA] Freebeak, and ]SP[Vanquish

A couple of UT death matches later… and wow!! Its 2 am already!!! Hey! Where did everybody go?? Bed?? Wimps Who needs sleep anyway?? Ground Control 2 and UT 2k4 seemed to control the pcs until the wee hours of the morning.

Roosters' crow and the sun rises... back to gaming!!!

Heat #5 for the UT deathmatch… and then the beginning of the Ground Control 2 tourney... This is a really sweet game… and it was apparent that the learning curve was a very quick one. Players that started off saying, “I haven't an idea what I'm doing” ended up winning into the latter rounds. Unofficial awards should go to [CCGA]Spectrallight , [CCGA] FreeBeak , [CCGA]MeatShield and NuclearWinter who endured warfare matches of 2 hours for the first.. and 1hr 45 min for the second.. Whew! What gameplay that was. (Editors note: upgrade your dropships!)

Congratulations to |RoC| Cero who dominated the other 20 contestants... winning a copy of Ground Control 2, Warcraft 3, Simpsons Hit-and-Run and his own Half-Life 2 Demo CD

(Ed. Question, Why is [CCGA]Vinnie in that position? Is that some kind of protest?)

A couple more heats of UT finally finishing up the craziest UT tournament in memory…

Congratulations to ]SP[Vanquish!! With 607 frags!! Wow!! That's a lot of shootin!!

]SP[Vanquish and his groupies!

WHEW!! Had enough yet??!! Well it ain't over and the overly corpulent madam hasn't started her vocal ministrations.

Time for the UltraGIB Tournament featuring Battlefield Vietnam 8 vs. 8 round robin...

Ohh… sooo much BFV… and what good matches!! The random player shuffling made teams pretty even and created a very competitive tournament.

Team 2 consisting of [GremLAN]Smokey, tda.robber, [CCGA]MeatShield, [MAD]Storm1in, oddone, TAG-Whiteking, way2ez4u and [CCGA]Spectrallight , winning $50 gift cards to EBGames.. But don't think there wasn't controversy…. Sorry team 1..

Whew!!! It looks like things are just about to wrap up a bit… oh… I can't forget our friends over at News14!!! Stopping by and giving Lefty his 5 famous minutes on TV... be sure to watch our main page for that wonderful LAN footage, News14 style!..

End of the night!! Time for the prizes!!!

Vivendi Universal Games... gave away a 2nd copy of Ground Control 2 to: NuclearWinter

Vivendi Universal Games also gave away copies of Diablo 2 and Tribes 2 to: Glockenrock

UltraGIB sponsored an FTP Fileplanet membership prize to: Agronot

Vitality Computers donated a sweet Robot faced case to: [CCGA]Spectere

[CCGA] sponsored another case... specially painted by South Side Street Designs to: Agronot

Bawls: a case of BAWLS to: way2ez4u

Vitality Computers seny a Thermaltake keyboard and optical mouse to: [CCGA]MeatShield

Design My PC , pc window kit to: TAG-Whiteking

ATD sponsored two Logitech Cyberman 2 controllers to: [CCGA]Lefty and porksmuggler

NIC sponsored an Xview to: -TAG-AgentSmith

Slayton Computers provided a pc light kit with some EL Wire and a case light to: [TOGA]Garabaldi

HackerThreads gave away a T-shirt to: Joey

Other ATD items..

Aluminum 80mm fan covers to: [CCGA]Spectrallight and Glockenrock

Red led case fan to: [CCGA]Vinny

El Wire to: -TAG-GokuXP

AMD T-shirt to: Skitzomike

CCGA free pass to the September 18 Lan party to: -TAG-Warning

A Nextel Thermos to: Sorrow

Slayton Computer supplied Belkin CD cases to: …well anybody who wanted one!!! Mousepads too.

Whoo!! You think that is it?? I think not!!!!

The MAD Hatters were oh so gracious to give away a copy of Windows Office Professional 2003 to: Xavior

And for the verrrry last item of the night… the Bitter End prizes!!! 4 copies of FarCry supplied by ATD.

Ohhhh….. What a time!!! What's next??? Clean up?? Nooooo!! How about a final caffeine drinking contest?? Ok maybe not... I could do without the trip to the emergency room this evening…

Well... that's a wrap folks!!! Another Carolina ARMAGEDDON! multi-day LAN party in the books… Thanks again to all who helped to make this party one of the best in the Southeast!!!

Be sure to sign up for another super fun time taking place on September 18 th !!

Carolina ARMAGEDDON!!! Are you ready???