OXCGN – Breathing Life Into Gaming

DarkLAN ’08 was a Blast

in more ways than one.

by XboxOZ360

©2008 Grant Smythe

While our ambitions were high earlier on with the RS:V2 Team Comp with a $800 First Prize, which didn’t quite pan-out sadly, the day ended up being a simple, informal get together by a ‘small’ group of Xbox.com.au Forumites who basically had a ‘blast’. For whatever reasons, it seems some NSW players can not handle winning cash . . . odd as that sounds . . . but hey, we still changed the format, and in doing so, had some great fun, providing a basically great, informal day of gaming instead.

PlayersLounge is a well set out, clean, tidy gaming lounge and has some extremely comfortable chairs that allow you to stretch out and relax for hours on end, rather than feel like you’re sitting at some office chair getting a stiff neck craning at a screen. The guys there are great gamers as well as managers, and know how to treat gamers who venture along for any of their activities.

Thanks go to Ed for his diligence during the day, and willingness to work in with us, seeing our criteria changed often over the time we were organizing the event. There’s plenty of food locally, so no one went without any nourishment, including DarkArmada’s coffee intake first thing to keep his engine running all day.

Seeing that we did not have many there for the day, the place had people coming and going all day from the general public, and even as the last of us were leaving at around 8pm, a small group were heading in the door for some gaming, and it was already quite full. So it’s an extremely popular stop for many hard-core-gamers, as well as casual gamers.

We have to take our hats off to Sutton Dagger again for his efforts in coming down from the Central Coast for the day, and to two newer members, Pure Pois0n and her partner, who traveled from out at Castlehill, which is a decent treek into the city from ‘The Hills District’. So they were suitably rewarded for their efforts with some nice 3mth Gold Subscriptions as a thank you for getting there. As tigerAUS was heading up from the South Coast, it turned out that railworks stopped him from doing so, with both Pidgeo and OzFalcon both ending up in bed for the day with the flu . . . get well soon guys.

Most of the day consisted of lots of Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, both as Single Player, Co-Op and System Links events. Lots of Verses, Attach and Defend. It was great hearing the screams as someone (who shall remain nameless) was shot or was being chased throughout the maps, but who also did a fine job of blowing others off the maps as well. And was a delft hand at Forza 2 I might add.

Games played during the day included F.E.A.R, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, COD 4, Forza 2, Ace Combat: Fires Of Liberation, The Darkness, plus a few others I just didn’t get a chance to see others playing. So all in all, those that came had a great time. We have no idea why so many were held off from coming (other than those who had difficulty in getting there due to Rail Work and colds that had committed to coming along), all we can do is attempt to put on events where members can meet, get tp know other forum members, put faces to GamerTags, and basically have a good day out.

Some of the guys were keeping others who weren’t there informed via XboxLive PM’s, Dark with his new Twitter account, and via SMS, so many were kept up todate of what was happening during the day. SO thanks to those people for taking the time to keep others informed. It’s that sort of thing that makes a community what it is.

We will keep you informed of the next one, and we would love your feedback as to how we might make it even better for you next time round, or entice those who didn’t come, to perhaps brave the real world, and head out to a future DarkLAN. There’s a few pics of the days events to have a sqiz at, so please enjoy, pass your comments and hopefully see you at future events.

©2008 Grant Smythe

Filed under: Xbox 360 News