If you’re wondering where the articles or coverage went, don’t worry, I haven’t stopped writing my own material. Those will resume in the near future, hopefully tonight, and I promise it’ll be the high-quality, insightful, and humorous writing that’s been missing from here in the past. We’ll also have some site changes in the upcoming weeks, as well. Stay tuned. Or, if you’re not a fan of “Tuned” from eGe, stay Ksharp.
– There’s an excellent movie making the rounds. You know him as Sam “Devour” Chamma, and he plays for the Carolina Core, the Chammalina Core, or Samdemic, depending on how you feel about that CGS franchise and their Source team. I’m not going to put a ranking on it, but it was instantly one of my favorites. The music is good, the frags are top-notch, and the editing is creative and subtle. Nothing ruins a frag movie faster than too many effects – it’s the eSports equivalent of a great movie that uses a shaky camera too often and gives people vertigo. This is a link to a lower-quality, streaming version, but it’s worth downloading the high-quality version if your computer can handle it.
– Here’s an interesting quote from a GotFrag article: “Meanwhile, Made in Brazil confirmed that it has not practiced for this event and that it does not plan on switching games to Counter-Strike: Source.” Maybe it’s just me, but if I was a GM for the CGS Region 2 (Central/South America), that wouldn’t exactly inspire me with confidence. MiBR accepted the invitation, they’re going to play in the CGS qualifiers, and if drafted they said they would become a CGS team. But still, they’ve never played Source, and that’s going to be a big disadvantage in the World Championship against teams from the other regions that know the game forwards, backwards, and blinded. I’m not predicting doom for MiBR if they get drafted, but it’s an uphill climb, and it seems like they’d rather play 1.6. Those are two concerns for any GM, I would think.
– Crazy, crazy Halo 3 documentary. I really want to talk about it. I want to give you insight without making you watch the documentary. But I just can’t. I’ll say two things: it’s not about weapons, or storyline, but it deals with additions to the platform; HaloTV (essentially), and I believe some kind of level maker/modifier. I’m not sure about the last part, by the end I was too excited to pay attention, and I don’t even play Halo. But it looks fun, creative, exciting, and probably excellent for TV coverage, especially in MLG’s delayed-broadcast format. What more can we ask for in a game?
– Gaming in Popular Science! There’s a ten page look at different elements of game design challenges, like water, fire, physical interaction with models, etc. This is just a link to the third page because I think it has implications to “1.6 vs. Source”, namely the “uncanny valley” phenomenon. Briefly, it says that objects more familiar to people are “inspected with greater scrutiny leading to a drop-off in acceptance as the simulated object nears the point of being lifelike.” Some people honestly prefer 1.6 models and animations to Source; maybe it’s not because 1.6 is more realistic, but because it’s less realistic. Who knows, but it’s an interesting look at the current limitations of hardware, and what to look for in the future.
– Signing on to a site for fifteen minutes because I crave some fraggin’ action? Sounds like a good idea to me. Here’s a (very) brief interview with the brains behind instantaction.com, a site designed to do just that. It’s still in the developmental phase, but something to keep an eye on if you’re jonesing for action during lunch-hour.
– I don't want to alarm anybody, but BioShock is on a new platform, and it looks amazing.
Daily Spray: CGS Edition (9/21)
Region 3 (UK/EU)
I thought fans might enjoy not paging through all the different scoreboards, sites, and scattered information. If you want to look at them anyway, here’s the Region 3 UK scoreboard from the CGS, and also the EU scores. Although I haven’t done European coverage in the past, from what I know this is basically a three team race between Dignitas, Zboard, and 4Kings for two United Kingdom franchises, and fnatic, EYEballers, and NoA for two European franchises. There are other good teams, mind you, but I think those were the consensus front-runners going in, and if they weren’t, they’ve certainly looked like the best teams at the combine. Here’s a Cliff’s Notes version of the action:
UK
– Dignitas and Zboard are playing each other in the Grand Finals, with Dignitas coming from the lower bracket after a loss to Extremely Sneaky. That was a pretty big upset.
– Dignitas beat 4K in the Lower Bracket Finals to make it to the Grand Finals after 4K lost to Zboard in the Upper Bracket Finals 10-8.
– Other than the upset match, there haven’t even been many close calls for those teams during the tournament.
– There are challenge matches going on today, and Dignitas avenged their loss to Extremely Sneaky with a 14-4 pounding. That victory was tempered a little bit by an 8-10 loss to 4Kings, but Zboard also lost a challenge match, so it’s hard to say if anybody picked up ground on the others. 4Kings has probably done the best so far in the challenges, which is an interesting development given their 3rd place finish in the tournament. Should be very interesting to see who gets drafted, at this point.
– The Grand Finals are scheduled for tomorrow, and there’s been SourceTVs for all the action until this point. I wish I had known that sooner. I haven’t been able to find a scheduled time for the Finals, but the SourceTV information is “sourcetv.verygames.de:28001” (change port last # 1-8 if it doesn't work).
– If you’re interested in more detailed coverage, it seems like the best option is esreality. They don’t have a Finals time, either, but they’re probably the best bet to get one, at this point.
EU
– This is much easier: NoA, fnatic, and EYE are clearly the best teams. No upsets so far from teams outside of those three, and the field is pretty small to begin with.
– EYE and fnatic are in the Grand Finals, and they’re probably the favorites. NoA is good, but they haven’t beaten either of those teams, and the matches weren’t even that close. At this point, it seems like a lock that EYE and fnatic will be the drafted teams, in my opinion.
– The Finals are also scheduled tomorrow, but the time is unknown (again).
Region 2 (Central/South America)
– Scoreboards again for this one, and the best bet is probably the CGS site. You'd assume they'd be a little quicker than everybody else. I’m not sure if there’s SourceTV, unfortunately, but scorebots are running in #gotfrag on Gamesurge.
– G3neration X and MiBR are both highly-touted 1.6 teams, but I’m not sure how they’ll do in Source. Art of War is a 1.6 team, too. Personally, I think inRage has a huge advantage because they’re just more familiar with the engine, maps, and any other aspects of the game. It’s hard to say how many rounds that's worth, but I think they’re a good bet to get drafted or at least make the Grand Finals.
