Halo 3 LAN – Brisbane – Australia Cyber League’s 09 1st
$AU3000 up for grabs and won . .
©2009 Jemimah Hawley
Saturday January 17th ’09 saw one of the biggest Halo 3 events in Australia take place at the Chifley At Lennon’s hotel in the centre of Brisbane.
Among the twenty four teams who attended the event were some of the most talented and skilled in the Australian Halo 3 community. They included: Best BR who came fourth at the World Cyber Games finals in Cologne, Germany last year, Nuke and Pave who were there to prove that they could go toe-to-toe with the best and come out on top, Team Evolution, who were previously ranked number two in Australia, with their new team line-up, and old-school Sydney based team, Battle Rifle Precision (BRP).
The competition was stiff and intimidating but with a share in $3000 up for grabs, nerves were put aside, copious amounts of free V were consumed and the boys prepared to get down to business.
There were a few bumps in the day early on; one being the hotels location and finding the obscure back entrance that connected to a one way road that didn’t appear one way. There were a few frantic phone calls and a few pale and shaken faces as folks found themselves driving head on into three lanes of on-coming traffic as hundreds of pedestrians watched. The GPS in my car lead me astray so I too fell victim … there was much screaming and swearing that I’d never drive in Brisbane again and my passengers whole-heartedly agreed with me.
Don’t trust the GPS. Ever.
Almost everyone managed to find the hotel and the function room eventually and we were set-up by 10am, but there were several hiccups with power, TV and Xbox placing, so it took us another hour to iron out the kinks before launching the tournament at 11am.
By the time the first rounds had finished we had nearly one hundred and fifty spectators and players packed into the room from all over Australia. As I mingled I found that many had driven and flown up from Melbourne and Sydney, there was a large group from South Australia, several from Western Australia and several more from in-land Queensland and New South Wales along with a heap of Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine coast locals.
The room was buzzing with excitement and enthusiasm that was hard to contain, and even the hotel staff came up to watch on their breaks!
By lunchtime we were well underway, the first of the loser bracket teams had been eliminated and the top seeded teams had begun to face off against each other in-game. The commentators from GameStah had worked out their equipment issues and had started to commentate on the games that were being played on the LanSmash screens which were connected to a projector in the ‘chill-out’ area where the players could go to stretch out and relax between their games end enjoy the view.
At 2pm fifty free Domino’s pizzas arrived and the boys took a well deserved break to mingle and talk ‘strat’s’ before going back in.
It was at that point that several relatively unknown and under-rated teams started coming to the attention of the other players as the brackets were examined. The Sydney based ‘Braaad’s Team’ (Pro team name, boys…) had made it through undefeated so far and the completely unknown players from Team Freefall were wow-ing a number of the seasoned players and teams with their skill and knowledge as they too continued to power through.
By 6 pm less than a dozen teams remained in the game, BBR was yet to lose a game and Braaad’s team was looking like they could possibly pull off a top three finish at the rate they were going. Nuke and Pave weren’t far behind and when they did eventually match up with Brad’s team, they shifted down a gear and began to really work and dominate.
The night ended with the final match between BBR and NaP. BBR showed that once again they were the best, going undefeated and claiming the $1500 first prize.
NaP took $1000 in second, Braaad’s Team third with $500 and Team Evolution came fourth and took home $150 worth of Halo bobble-head thingo’s, Microsoft points and memory cards.
Overall it was a terrific day! A few people drank to much V and we’re starting to look a little seedy by mid-afternoon and after twelve hours of non-stop Halo, few wanted to play again for awhile. It was an exhilarating experience and something that I was thrilled to be a part of. With more of these events in the works, the Australian competitive console gaming scene appears to have a bright future ahead!
©2009 Jemimah Hawley
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Filed under: Console gaming, Editorial, Events, Microsoft Games, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | Australian game tournaments, Australian Halo 3 LAN's, Australian halo lans, Brisbane LAN's, Chifley, Game tournaments, halo 3 lans, Halo tournaments, Lennon's Hotel Brisbane, WCG, World Cyber Games
