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Photos for this event: http://lansmash.com/v/album/2009/OzHadou2009/

Youtube clips here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=80389EA68EEB356A

I’m not much of a fighting game competitor. Truth be told I’m terrible at fighting games, but I love them so, so much. With our new partnership with OzHadou and the introduction of competitive fighting tournaments such as Street Fighter 4 at our events I thought it would be a good chance to meet up face to face with our mates in Sydney!

Meeting up with Slapper Joe in Sydney CBD early Saturday morning we took a Bus to the University where OHN8 was held. A bunch of consoles were setup with screen for gamers to play throughout Saturday, and were free to play any game they wished. I’d have to say 80% of the machines were running Street Fighter 4 though, all practising for the Sunday tournament.

It was great to meet up with the organisers that make these events possible and to chat with them about the same issues and woes we’ve faced up in Brisbane in LanSmash. So many friendly and awesome people in Sydney.

I was toting the LS Capture box to capture HD footage at the event to try and capture some gameplay. It mostly survived the trip via Qantas baggage handlers, and was back in action after some strategically used gaffer tape. The OHN8 venue is a converted Uni food court and was quite spacious for the guestimated 120-150 gamers rock up. Luckily, I scavenged a trolly and with a bit more tape constructed the LS Mobile Capture Rig of Doom.

Saturday night I was giving the task to record the SF2:HDR finals as best I could. There was a minor issue arise that the PA system used to play to the audience was only in Mono, and only having one channel made it quite frustrating to watch. Luckily one of the organisers had a soldering iron handy, so I cut together a Stereo to Mono converter which held up long enough for the final 8 matches.

Such a long day on Saturday… Street Fighter 2 finished at around 23:30 and the the Tekken6 1v1 finals went on to around 1AM. Exhausting because there was SF4 finals to be run on Sunday!

The national aspect of this event was awesome, with gamers representing their states and proud of the rivalry. Of course being in Sydney there was quite a bit of heckling against non-NSW players. It was great to see though, very entertaining to watch.

From Queensland I saw quite a few familiar faces that come to the LS events. Haichii, Colin, Kumar, Tom, Tyrone, Vlad, and Murete were all representing their state.

Unfortunately for QLD we were only able to have one of us make it in the Top Eight for the Street Fighter 4 finals which was Kumar. He fought hard against HumanBomb but was knocked out (youtube video here). I have no doubt though with more training and more players here in Brisbane we’ll be able to do better in future national events.

No doubt that Melbourne has definitely one of the most competitive scenes in Australia. With regular events such as Couch Warrior’s run in VIC we’re seeing quite a few players with high skills learning from each other.

I had to catch a flight at 9PM on Sunday so I missed out on the SF4 finals. It was between HumanBomb (Sydney) and ToXY (Melbourne); both highly skilled and respected players. Check out this Youtube clip of their finals match.

Ultimately it was HumanBomb who seized victory. Overall I’d have to say it was a victory for Victoria though as they claimed 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place in the SF4 top 8.   

Thanks to OzHadou for letting us in to capture this event!

Quote of the day “Can you check this monitor for me Web?” – Wilko, after crushing his beloved 24″ Dell LCD …

When: July 2009
Photos: http://www.lansmash.com/v/album/2009/WinterSmash2009/

Our first Winter LAN at our new home QSAC! Big props to the volunteers who helped setup on Friday afternoon, I think this is the first time we have had so many volunteers take the day off work to help setup on Friday.

Saturday filled the gaming seats with over 140 gamers walking through the door. Thanks to all gamers who were patiently waiting out the door as we processed everyone in. We’re looking into prepaid options in the future to help streamline the wait, but with out efficient girls at the door we managed to push everyone in under 30 minutes.

QGaming’s CounterStrike Source tournament rolled on smoothly with excellent coverage from GameStah’s Boomser and TobiWanKenobi. It’s a rariety for these tournaments to run on time, so props to QGaming and the CSS gamers for knowing their stuff.

There were lot’s of public games played through-out Saturday and a ton of linux iso sharing to boot. UT2004 made a brief comeback and reminded me just how poor I am at precision FPS games after years of no practice. It is as fun as it was five years ago though, so it was fantastic to give it a whirl. No doubt we’ll be bringing back the LS UT2004 Last Man Standing comps in the next Smash.

Even with a large chunk of the team off oversea’s to compete in Evo2k the Smash Bro boys had a decent tournament turn out!

Some might remember this as the ‘Swine Flu Smash’ however, as there have been numerous reports of gamers falling ill after the weekend passed. I’m sure it was just the awesomeness of the event overloading gamers immune systems.

Early Sunday morning was hard to get out of bed on a cold winters day and the numbers showed with only around 70 gamers filling the halls. No matter though, as there was plenty of gaming action through-out the day.

The Halo 3 2v2 started a little late with the tournament organiser issues but MasterCyl stepped in play to kick off the comp. Halo was jam packed full of gameplay and I am always surprised at how much Halo these gamers want to play. I think quite a few opted out of lunch just to cram in as much Halo they can!

TF2 3v3 Arena was the competitive tournament of the day for the PC side and boy was it fun. I think this format works best at the LAN rather then the traditional 6v6 style games played online. 3v3 allows for a much faster paced game and the team co-ordination is a lot simpler to run then a full on 6v6.

Oh yes, and MadMoose had a message to give all those that didn’t come to WinterSmash this time round.

Results

QGaming CounterStrike Source 5v5

LS Team Fortress 3v3 Arena