For those of you who weren't there, here's a quick description of the Omegathon II.
The opening rounds were OK - pretty standard fare. The first 'big' event, spectator wise, was the karaoke competition. This was amusing, mostly because the crowd really got into it - certainly not because the participants were very good.
The Coreside vs. LeRoy final, however, was excellent. One of my friends commented to me immediately afterwards that "when we try to explain how insane this was afterwards, nobody will understand unless they were here," and I believe he's right. Still - worth a shot! 'Combat' is an ancient tank game with lots of bugs - some of which you need to use to win. In any case, the first round was a blowout, 15-0 for Coreside. The second round was a tie, and the third round LeRoy took by maybe a point. The entirety of the second and third round, the score was alternating up and down, with giant mistakes and huge shots by both of 'em. A tiebreaking round began, and at around 2-2 the machine started to overheat, spazzing out badly to the point of occasionally having unintelligible video output. LeRoy was up by a few points, they tied, Coreside was up, LeRoy was up - the whole time the crowd is going insane, especially when the machine is fritzing and we don't know what's going on. Finally, with the 5 minute time almost up, Core gets up a point - and the time ends. Around two thousand people were screaming and yelling in the crowd, it was amazingly intense... and as you can see, my friend was right: anyone who wasn't there doesn't stand a chance of understanding. If it's on the PAX05 dvd, maybe that'll convey it a bit better, but it was truly a powerful and strange (and extraordinarily geeky) event.
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For those of you who weren't there, here's a quick description of the Omegathon II.
The opening rounds were OK - pretty standard fare. The first 'big' event, spectator wise, was the karaoke competition. This was amusing, mostly because the crowd really got into it - certainly not because the participants were very good.
The Coreside vs. LeRoy final, however, was excellent. One of my friends commented to me immediately afterwards that "when we try to explain how insane this was afterwards, nobody will understand unless they were here," and I believe he's right. Still - worth a shot! 'Combat' is an ancient tank game with lots of bugs - some of which you need to use to win. In any case, the first round was a blowout, 15-0 for Coreside. The second round was a tie, and the third round LeRoy took by maybe a point. The entirety of the second and third round, the score was alternating up and down, with giant mistakes and huge shots by both of 'em. A tiebreaking round began, and at around 2-2 the machine started to overheat, spazzing out badly to the point of occasionally having unintelligible video output. LeRoy was up by a few points, they tied, Coreside was up, LeRoy was up - the whole time the crowd is going insane, especially when the machine is fritzing and we don't know what's going on. Finally, with the 5 minute time almost up, Core gets up a point - and the time ends. Around two thousand people were screaming and yelling in the crowd, it was amazingly intense... and as you can see, my friend was right: anyone who wasn't there doesn't stand a chance of understanding. If it's on the PAX05 dvd, maybe that'll convey it a bit better, but it was truly a powerful and strange (and extraordinarily geeky) event.