Bitch-slapped: One does not simply walk into Mordor

Its black gates are guarded by more than just orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly.

And so, where ten thousand men dare not tread, one woman went instead. In hotpants.

If you’ve only just recently arrived from outer space or something, here’s the relevant intel – local gaming show The Verge ran a video featurette from the rAge LAN earlier this week, and, well, it was a bit of a catastrophe. Let’s just say that an FHM model, a bunch of poorly-conceived Lord of the Rings analogies, and a supersized heap of sneering condescension didn’t work out, quite in spite of hard drives and alles. Ja, né, no comment.

Pictured: not a gamer (sorry).

Help local gaming cafe get drunk

It must be my day for receiving strange emails.

Cape Town-based LAN group Gamers Crypt has launched a fantastically bizarre campaign to promote their gaming cafe: for every person who likes their Facebook page or follows them on Twitter, they will drink one beer on the 27th of May. Now, this isn’t a problem right now; the four-strong group of men (who are listed here) look like they can handle the 85 beers they’ll have to drink as the total sits right now, but it’d be interesting to see if they can handle double, or even triple, that amount.

In case you don’t believe any of this, the group will demonstrate their binge on the 27th of May, live on YouTube. You can also witness the event first-hand at Blouberg Beachfront.

If you’re as sadistic as me, then click on through to either their Facebook page or Twitter account and like/follow them. Even if it’s just to watch some okes drink themselves into a coma, at the very least you’ll help promote this local gaming scene.

Good luck guys! You’re going to need it.

Posted by Geoff Burrows May 19, 2011

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MWEB’s war on latency continues

Are you an MWEB subscriber? Do you play MMOs? Are you tired of being outplayed by noobs just because they have a latency advantage? MWEB feels your pain, bro, and is offering a unique solution to the age-old problem of stuck-at-the-arse-end-of-Africa. No, they haven’t offered to fly all online gamers to Europe (although that would be sweet); instead, the service provider has launched a program called WTFast which, according to the FAQ, will “streamline your game data to the game servers.” Simply put, your data will go through the most efficient channels to reach the server on which you game.

Cool Xbox controller, bro.

Press release: 2010 WCG national team trials

“The air was electric at the Fountain Court at Sandton City on Saturday, 7 August 2010 as the contestants arrived at the 2010 WCG National Team Trials as sponsored by SAMSUNG.

The eight players who had qualified during the year through the MSSA’s Provincial LAN Championships were all chomping at the bit. It was clear that nothing would have kept the finalists from competing!

The eight finalists present were:

Free State:

Ryno Gildenhuys (2010 ASUS Free State Champion)
Quintin Sweetman

Gauteng:

Sebastian Collins (2010 ASUS Gauteng Champion)
Kevin Doran

KwaZulu Natal:

Werner Buter
Nialle Momsen (2010 ASUS KwaZulu Natal Champion)

Western Cape:

Dominic Brummer
Gage Ridley (2010 ASUS Western Cape Champion)

Not only were the eight players excited to be at the Trials, they were all fully practiced and ready to take on their counterparts from all over South Africa.

The WCG song list had previously been circulated to the finalists to ensure that the gamers would be at their best – and they were…

It was expected that the only thing that would really differentiate the gamers from each other was nothing more than Big Match Temperament (BMT).

The Trials were done as a Round Robin where each finalist played against every other finalist under the most gruelling of circumstances and while thousands of shoppers looked on in awe at the skill exhibited by each and every finalist.

Between SAMSUNG and MAYHEM, a quality network and electrical service was provided during the entire Trials which allowed the finalists to be at the top of their game.

Right from the word go, the Trials were hotly contested between the players from the Western Cape and from Gauteng.

However, a much improved Kevin Doran rocked the floor and the audience while he demolished all his opponents one-by-one.

His skill could not be matched as he played his way into first place to win the Trials and to earn his place at the WORLD CYBER GAMES (WCG) in Los Angeles later this year.

Photographs of the event can be found on Mind Sports South Africa’s facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/mindsportssa

Issued by:

Colin Webster

President

Mind Sports South Africa”

Posted by Geoff Burrows Aug 10, 2010

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FIFA Interactive World Cup 2010 local qualifier

An enormous 466 contestants descended on the Cresta shopping centre, Johannesburg this past Saturday to compete in the FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC) 2010 local qualifier.

As early as 9am, players had begun grinding through continuous elimination matches, until around 5pm, when the final seven had emerged. Amongst them was newcomer Naeem Williams who produced some great upsets in the tournament by eliminating both 2008 FIWC local qualifier Bjorn Diedricks and 2009 FIWC local qualifier Gordon Butler in late round matchups. Unfortunately Williams’ reign was cut short in a 4-2 defeat by semi-finalist Andries Makgato.

To make an even final 8, the Saudi-Arabian FIWC feeder event winner, Rakan Al-Haqbani flew in from Dubai to attend the event but suffered a 5–3 loss at the hands of Collen Ndlovu in the quarterfinals.

The first spot in the finals was awarded to Abubaker Ebrahim’s French team after a secure 4-2 win over Ian Pillay’s Spain. Ndlovu’s English squad then capitalised on Chelsea’s goal-keeping errors for a 4-1 victory over Makgato and confirmed an Ebrahim/Ndlovu final.

The final matchup of the day commenced with both players donning Bafana Bafana jerseys and Ndlovu issuing some light hearted smack talk to his seasoned FIWC’08 grand finalist opponent. Ebrahim didn’t seem too bothered though as he rocked the post with France’s Thierry Henry in the early seconds of the game. France continued to pour pressure on Ndlovu’s frantic English defence, only stopping for the whistle to signal the end of a goalless first half.

Without a moment’s pause, the second half kicked off and the silence of the crowd was shattered by Ndlovu’s first early goal. Ebrahim retaliated by catching the keeper off his line with a well-placed chip. Before the crowd had time to digest the 1-1 score line, Ndlovu and Ebrahim had pushed it to 2-2. In the dying seconds of the second half Steven Gerrard’s boot delivered the deciding goal, cementing Collen Ndlovu, the 18 year old youngster form Bedfordview, Johannesburg as our FIWC 2010 local qualifier.

When asked why he entered the tournament, Ndlovu simply replied “I live for football.” A statement fully supported by the fact that he claimed to have practised between “5 to 6 hours a day” at FIFA 10 before entering the competition.

Our proud winner

Ebrahim landed himself a brand new PSP and R3000 worth of games for his second place efforts. As overall winner of the tournament, Ndlovu received a new PS3 slim, R3000 worth of ps3 games and will be flown over to Barcelona, Spain, to participate in the global FIFA Interactive World Championship on the 1^st of May. The grand prize of the Championship include 20 000 Euros and the title of FIWC world champion.

If all the nail-biting action wasn’t quite enough for you, DJ switch along with the gravity defying football freestylers and break-dancers were on hand to keep you entertained. Other highlights included visits from members of local rock band The Parlotones, Comedian Trevor Noah and Revin John from 94.7 Highveld Stereo.

This year’s event concluded as the most thrilling and well-attended local FIWC qualifier to date. All that’s left to do now is wish Collen Ndlovu the best of luck when he represents South Africa in the FIFA Interactive World Championship.

Posted by Brad Hutchinson Mar 09, 2010

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