We went to “wagamama”, a Japanese restaurant inside the Prudential Center known for their fresh ramen noodles just as they opened their doors at 11 AM. Okay, maybe we didn’t get up that early. We ordered some duck dumplings, wagama glazed ribs, and chili squid for starters. The ribs were fall-off-the-bone delicious. For the meal, I got the “miso beef ramen”. It was pretty good (though it pales in comparison to Pho).
After lunch, we went back to PAX and walked around some of the exhibition booths where various hardware and software companies were showcasing their various products. We didn’t really spend too much time at each booth because the guys had already seen everything the day before and even though it was all really cool stuff, I get bored easily.
One notable booth was the NVIDIA booth where you could see their new 3D cards. I put on the 3D glasses and stepped up to a keyboard and mouse. The other guys put on their glasses as well and watched as I played part of the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 single player campaign. The technology is really cool but the only thing that really looked “3D” was the gun that your character is holding. Everything else looked pretty much the same so I was a little disappointed in that. My friends also complained that the 3D was causing motion sickness.
It was almost 1 PM so we went to the main theater for the “Penny Arcade Make-a-Strip Panel”. It was my first panel at PAX so I was excited though I had no idea what was going to happen. The panel featured Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the two guys responsible for PAX, as they showed what goes into making a Penny Arcade comic. We sat way back of the balcony section. Several large screens displayed closer views of Jerry and Mike on stage.
The panel started with Jerry typing some dialogue between the characters of the comic. The audience cracked up but I had no clue what was going on since I don’t follow the comic. Mike then pulled up Photoshop and started sketching out the comic while Jerry answered questions from the audience. I was incredibly impressed with Mike’s drawing ability. I’ve always loved art and drawing. Maybe I should start my own webcomic one day. ;)
There were multiple microphones spread throughout the theatre and people got in line to say whatever was on their minds. One guy came up and thanked the two guys for hosting PAX where nerds can get together and be comfortable. Several people later, another person offered similar sentiments. At that moment, it finally hit me. PAX was so much more than just another “nerd” conference. People who may be a little socially awkward, a little obsessed with geeky things, are somewhat allergic to
After the panel, it was about 3 PM so we headed to the PC free play area where the tournament was being held. The organizers told us that our bracket wouldn’t start until 5:30 PM so we had some time to kill. Since we were already there, we stayed there to play some random games on their computers. We stopped playing a little early to check-in but they still weren’t ready for us.
We walked around and checked out a few other areas but nothing really interested us. We eventually settled down in a room with some random people playing music. It’s kind of cool that people who have never met before could still make music together.
We went back to the PC free play area and continued waiting for our bracket to start. The previous brackets were still going on and we noticed that no one had 3D glasses on. It turned out that the 3D cards were having problems so the tournament organizers decided to just hold it in regular 2D. That was such welcome news to our ears…and our stomachs.
It finally was time for our turn in the tourney. The format was “Squad Deathmatch” with single elimination. That just means that each match was between four squads with four players in each squad fighting to reach 50 kills. Our squad was comprised of S.Y., his brother G.Y., L.D. who had never played the game before for the PC, and me. We were the last team to be seated and they sat us down together on a row of computers. We had to quickly configure our buttons and join the designated server. I tried out my settings and I hurried to fix a few buttons that were still messed up.
This was my first gaming tournament so I wasn’t sure how the competition would be. I consider myself to be one of the best players in my circle of friends so I was hoping that we would at least advance past one round. Our strategy was relatively simple; since L.D. had never played this game on the PC before, we had him play a support role and try to stick together with our squad. Since it was a race to 50 kills, we decided to ignore any tanks that the other teams would use and just focus on killing enemy infantry. It ended up being a very sound strategy.
The first round finally got started. I accidentally picked the Recon class to begin the round so I was pretty worried that it might cost us the match. I had trouble getting used to the mouse sensitivity and I missed the first few enemies I saw. Fortunately, the rest of my teammates finished them off. It was a jungle map and there was a tank somewhere on the map. One of the other squads hopped inside of it and started causing havoc. Knowing that tanks are slow and that we could use the foliage for cover, I sprinted up to the tank and dropped a pair of C4 on its side. I pulled the trigger and BOOM! I blew up the tank and everyone inside. I didn’t care that I blew myself up in the process because I knew that my teammates would be safer with that thing gone.
At that moment, I finally settled down and realized that, “Hey, we can win this!” I changed back to my normal Medic class with the M60 (aka “The Gun of Rambo”) and I was back in my comfort zone. G.Y. helped direct the squad from one area to the next and we mowed down everyone along the way. Before I knew it, the round was over. We were amazed at the final score. We had 50 and the 2nd place team had only about 18! Ownage! I finished with about 18 kills and 6 deaths. That felt so good! The adrenaline was freely flowing now. I am so glad we entered this tourney!
The organizers had us stay at our computers and the second round started shortly after. This time, we were playing on a desert map. The competition was much harder this time around. We got off to a bit of a slow start. The score was really close between all four squads. One squad hopped into a tank and started to kill everyone. They started to pull away from us score-wise! They had about 38 points and we were just over 30.
Then all of a sudden, someone blew me up with a Carlos Gustav, an anti-infantry rocket launcher. I have to point out that that the Gustav is the cheapest weapon in the entire game. You don’t need any skill to use it; it has incredible damage, a large blast radius, and results in instant death. I knew it was only a matter of time before some no-skill n00b jerk face would try to use that cheapness on us. Well, getting blown up by the Gustav set off some kind of switch with me. I went into a blinding uber berserker nerd rage and promptly killed the first guy I saw. I then took out his teammate who spawned on him. I ran toward a building and killed everyone along the way and knifed the last guy for good measure. I saw my teammates had died so I killed the guys nearby and res’d my squadmates with the defibrillator. I lost count of how many guys I killed but the game awards you a virtual pin when you get a kill streak of at least 8. I finally died after completely running out of bullets on my primary gun. I glanced at the scoreboard and we took over the lead and were pulling away. We got to 49 kills and it felt like forever to get that last kill. When we finally took out that last guy, we all let out a collective yell. I ended up finishing with another score similar to the first round.
We had to get up from our computers while the other brackets played out their rounds. We all stood around reflecting how awesome this whole experience has been. Whew, the second round was so intense. All of that adrenaline had me flying sky high. I can’t believe we won another round. Boo yeah! We pwned so much face! I can’t believe we made it to the finals of a 64-team tourney that we only joined on a whim with a bunch of weeknight warriors featuring someone who has never played it before. I started to feel like we could actually win it all.
For the finals, there were two other pro teams who won their respective brackets. The last squad was another amateur team like our own. The round started off as badly as it could possibly go. Boom, I died. Boom, my squadmates died. One of the pro teams got on the roof of some building (which I didn’t know you could even do) and everyone was using Gustavs! Every time we died, the game kept causing us to respawn near the other teams where they could keep raining death upon us. We tried to run for the hills (literally) to get away from the cheapness but to no avail. They had no honor. Even if we played as cheaply as they did, I knew we weren’t going to come back and win.
At this point, it felt like we were now only fighting for 3rd place. Someone n00b tubed me and the round was over. We took a moment to congratulate the other teams. We finished last of the four teams. To add insult to injury, we found out that they only handed out prizes for the top three teams. Fail.
I am so proud of our squad for getting as far as we did. We finished 4th out of 64 teams! What an experience. I am so happy that we did so well but I am incredibly disappointed in the way the other teams won in the finals. I know that cheap tactics are part of the game and you can’t fault another team for using what’s available. But in the final round, I don’t think any of us died from even a single bullet. All they used were those cheap Gustavs. @#$%!!! Had the round taken place on a different map with different terrain, I can’t help but think that we would have placed higher. I can’t wait for next year! Team Rambo will rise again!
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