Video Game Tournament 2012 (05.12.12)

*Normally I just use initials when I speak of people in my entries, but I need to use names this time. I was also thinking to film some of the tournament (or all), but I needed to concentrate since I was a participant. And as another footnote, I worked and attended the wedding of the host of the tournament.*

I did post a few tweets during the tournament on my Twitter, so you may already know the outcome, but to get all the dramatic details of what I went through, please read on.

My friend David hosted a video game tournament back in March of 2008. I was invited and participated. Read all about it at the following link (just skip down to the Video Game Tournament section). After reading that, you'll know that you'll be reading a lot this time too.

http://forevergracefulimpact.blogspot.com/2008/03/march-entry.html

4 years later, David hosted another one and I was invited again. I was really looking forward to this since I had so much fun last time. I was second to arrive. It was cool to see their new place and then to welcome returning players from the last tournament as well as people I had met from David and Frances' wedding. A good number of us arrived and David started to explain the rules.

First off, David split us up into different divisions; Pacific, Atlantic, Central, and Midwest. As seen in the photo above, I was in the Central division and there were a total of 18 players (originally 20). We were placed into each division based on our skills as known by David (which he is a good judge of). I...don't think there was much more meaning behind that though, but it was an interesting way to set things up. Plus they never wrote anything on it at any point, ha.

Next were the rules for the preliminary round. Basically, we were all going to play various games on various systems from various genres with various rules and challenges. You'll see how that turned out as I explain them in detail. There was a challenge per each game and whether you completed it or not, you earn points based on if completed it or in some cases if you were the best overall.

After the preliminary round was the playoffs. The top 8 scores would advance to the playoffs and be paired off based on your placing (1vs8, 2vs7, 3vs6, 4vs5). I'll get more into those rules when we get there.

"Revenge" was announced. Basically, if you lost at a game you knew you could've/should've won, you may use your "Revenge" and have a rematch immediately. You're only given one chance to use it though. In the end, only one person used their "Revenge" throughout the course of the tournament. I actually forgot we had them, ha.

David also had break times for food and just general rest where he would ask questions for prizes. Again, more on those when we get there.

And that was it. It was time to get our game on. Personally, I had not played a game since beating The Minish Cap (May 4th), but I didn't care. I didn't prep myself last time and I didn't this time. He kept all the games a mystery except for maybe 5 and we played WAY more than 5. We started around 1PM.

From here on I will explain things thusly:

(majority of box art courtesy of GameFAQs)

Name of the game (system played on)

Whether I played it before or not

Challenge

My results

- Notes

*the order of games is the order I played them*

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SOLO ROUND

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Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2012 (Xbox 360)

Never played before

High Score (10 points for first, 8 for second, and so on)

25252 Points (2nd)

 - I really do enjoy light gun games. Anyone can literally pick them up and play. The rifle accessory we used felt good. The scope was useless since the reticle was on screen, but I tried it for a brief second, ha. I sort of set the bar as I made the first big high score. I also was the only one that got on one knee to shoot, ha. Hey, it helped. Have to do what I needed to win. MikeG got first and beat me by a couple thousand points, grr. I did think this was a great way to start off the tournament; a good simple game to warm us up.

*after this round, all of us were bouncing around from 3 different TVs with different games to help keep things moving and so a bunch of us weren't just sitting watching one person play the whole time*

Cruisi'n USA (N64 - Wii VC)

Played the arcade version

Fastest time on easiest track (10 points for first, 8 for second, and so on)

No time, didn't finish

 - This game did not control well. It was the general consensus as most of us had only played the arcade version and that was and still is fun to play. It sucked that I didn't place though. I'm pretty sure I got last place points (1) for this game.

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (Xbox 360 - XBLA)

Never played before

High Score (10 points for first, 8 for second, and so on)

427190 Points (4th)

 - I've always wanted to play this game! The D&B in our area has the arcade version also and I still want to play that with some friends. That was some frantic fun! I actually was doing bad at first because I was switching back and forth from the d-pad and analog to see which felt better. And I'm so glad I discovered the bombs! I didn't know those existed! Those saved me in sticky situations where I just pressed buttons accepting my doom. The first time it happened, I thought I ran over a power up just as it appeared. After the second time, I looked up to see there was a bomb icon and how many I had left. After realizing that I felt more relaxed and just racked up points. The highest score broke 500,000, geez.

Kung-Fu (NES)

I had a copy of this on the original NES growing up

High Score (10 points for first, 8 for second, and so on)

83440 Points (1st)

- I knew what I was doing, that's all, ha. The only thing I needed confirmation on was if your remaining time gave you points, which was confirmed while watching others play. No one got passed the 3rd boss though. Holding an NES controller in my hand was so nostalgic and fantastic.

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Break time to eat. Actually, the first team round happened before this, but I wanted to keep that all grouped together. Yay for pizza. That also meant David was going to ask us questions for prizes. During this time he played various game sounds and songs and we had to guess which game it came from. Feel free to look any of these up online (YouTube).

For the first prize of the day we only had to answer one question correctly. David played a theme song from I game I never played, "Rival Turf." I knew the name, knew what system it was on, and even knew what the box art looked like, ha. I just never heard the music from it.

For the second prize we had to get 3 correct answers to win it. The first sound was a jumping sound to, which someone answered "Super Mario Bros." This is where I got geeky, ha. I threw my hand up exclaiming that he was wrong and others were saying that he was correct. I looked to David and explained "He's saying it's from the first Mario Bros. game and he's wrong. It's actually the jumping sound from 'Super Mario Bros. 3.'" David gave me a look and said to everyone "He's actually right." Dang right I'm right! I went on to explain to the others that the jump sounds were different and that's when they knew it was on, ha. The next was a song and I immediately shot my hand up. It was Fulgore's theme from "Killer Instinct." I still have "KI Cuts" on my iPod so I know what those songs still sound like, ha. The next song I answered right away also as it was Kraid's Lair Theme from "Metroid." While I only said "Metroid," no one else knew to argue. The prize for that was an awesome Mario hat. I wore it immediately.

The third prize had the same rules as the second prize, get 3 correct answers. I forgot a few of the questions that were asked. I know I got geeky again when the theme from "Double Dribble" was played as they just said "Double Dribble" and not whether it was the NES or Arcade version. He played the NES one, but no one else except me knew that the Arcade version had the...very bad voice sampled version of "The Star-Spangled Banner." I did get the answer for the "Blades of Steel" theme. Others argued it was "Ninja Gaiden" because of the opening sound effect...but they clearly (as clear as a voice sample can sound) said "Blades of Steel" after the sound effect. They just didn't happen to hear that before answering. I got another answer correct afterwards, but I can't remember what it was. Could have been the "Double Dribble" thing and I'm just remembering it incorrectly. And then I got my 3rd answer correct with any easy song, the opening theme from "Punch-Out!" And I win yet another hat, but this time it was Sonic! I put that on right away also right on top of my Mario hat, ha.

I played some games with the hats on and I changed which one I wore at points. I later stopped wearing either of them as the hours went on. And that was the end of prizes for that break. Now full of pizza and soda, we went on to continue the preliminary round.

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TEAM ROUND (teamed with Kenny - I picked his name from a hat/cup)

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Final Fight (PS3, Xbox 360, Arcade Emulator)

Played the arcade and SNES version

Be the first team to beat the 3rd level cop boss Edi E

First place

- Kenny was an awesome teammate. While I had played this game before, I didn't remember all the things about it like Kenny did. We ended up playing the emulated one while the others were on a the Double Impact versions on PS3 and 360 (all the same). Kenny was Haggar and I was Cody the whole time. No one else we were up against was using Haggar, which was another advantage for us. It was also a fun round since all the teams and those waiting their turn would continuously look at everyone's screens to see who was farther or who reached certain points first. So fun. "They're ahead of us!" "We caught up! We caught up!" Good fun.

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DOUBLE DRAGON ROUND (teamed with Vince - assigned by David)

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Super Double Dragon (SNES)

Played a few times on the SNES

Get to Mission 3 without using a continue

Only got to Mission 2

- I was the leader for Vince during our Double Dragon rounds. Our main strategy was to surround the enemy and just double team them if possible. Later on it changed to do-jump-kicks-to-avoid-danger-and-get-cheap-weak-hits-in-order-to-survive, ha. Vince lost all his lives first and I was on my last life by that time. I think we were a few screens away from the second boss before I died.

Double Dragon (Xbox 360 - XBLA)

Played the original arcade version a few times and this version at the last tournament

Get to Mission 4 without using a continue

Only got to Mission 3

- The last time I played this was at the last tournament. It seemed...a tiny bit easier 4 years ago, ha. It was difficult. I actually lost all my lives first and Vince lasted a good amount of time before getting killed off.

Double Dragon Advance (GBA Emulator)

Never played before

Get to Mission 3 without using a continue

Did not get passed Mission 1

- This game was tough. First off, they couldn't get the second controller to work so the challenge was to also share one continue. We had 3 lives so I took the first, then Vince, then back to me. The game kicked our butts, ha. David was telling everyone about how deep the game is (which it is with all the moves and integration of stories from all 3 NES Double Dragons), but not all of us took the time to try to figure it all out. We were just brutalized. Watching others get far in this was impressive.

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SPORTS ROUND

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Super Dodge Ball (NES - Wii VC)

I had a copy of this on the original NES growing up and downloaded it again on VC

Bean Ball mode, beat your opponent

Lost using Randy

- I can't remember who I was paired against (I think JR), but he beat me. My timing trying to catch the ball was just off. I was able to throw super shots out, but none of them connected with him. I was disappointed with my performance here.

UFC Undisputed 3 (Xbox 360)

Never played before

Win the Light Heavyweight Tournament

Lost in the 2nd round using Dan Henderson

- I had no idea how the controls were and neither did most of us there. I also didn't know most of the UFC characters in the game except Brock Lesnar, but we were only allowed to use Light Heavyweights. So I was given Dan Henderson to use. I thankfully won my first round match against Aris, but we were just hitting buttons hoping to connect hits. I actually didn't know we could use the right-analog stick to grapple until my second fight. We had a few computer AI opponents to fill out the rest of the tournament bracket slots and most of us lost to our computer opponent including me. I think the farthest anyone got was the 3rd round before losing. Technically, no one won, but the farther you went in the tournament, the more points you got for this game.

NBA Action '95 (Genesis)

Never played before

Win the game, 2-minute quarters

Won with 43 points using the Houston Rockets

- This wasn't a tough game to play. As I was telling a few people, I'll be fine with old school sports games, not current-gen ones. Sorry, Vince. No Double-Dragon bond anymore, ha. I got a kick out of just knowing roster members in this game. Everyone was familiar, ha. The roster for the Rockets was (I hope I remembered this correctly) Otis Thorpe, Kenny Smith, Robert Horry, Vernon Maxwell (still have his jersey), and of course Hakeem Olajuwon.

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MULTIPLAYER ROUND

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Karate Blazers (Arcade Emulator)

Never played before

Make it to the 3rd level with a limited amount of continues/credits

Failed with MikeG as my partner

- This was a fun beat-em-up. A lot of just were just amused by the characters and their actions. The 2nd level boss said "whoo" a lot so a bunch of started doing Ric Flair's "whoo." For a while, MikeG and I were the Rush Hour team since he chose the Black guy and I chose the Asian guy, ha. We got to the 2nd level boss, but lost the remainder of our pooled continues/credits there.

Golden Eye 007 (N64)

Played it a lot back in the day on N64

4-players, 5-min match, most kills wins (1st 6pts, 2nd/3rd fewer pts, last 1pt)

2nd with 3 kills

- Went up against MikeG and Jordan...or Marvin (sorry, never caught his name). We actually only had 3-players as either someone left early or we were just lucky and everyone else already played before us leaving just the 3 of us. I know I would've won this had the control configuration had not been altered. No one else complained about it and I always try to adjust to someone else's settings rather than waste time trying to customize it the way I like it. I forgot the weapon type that was chosen, but I know I was using the shotgun a lot.

Pit Fighter (PSX...I think...we were playing on a PS3)

Only played the arcade version...back when that's all it was on, ha

Metal Mayhem, highest score wins (1st 6pts, 2nd fewer pts, last 1pt)

167510 Points, 2nd Place

- Went up against JR and Kenny. It was chaos. Just hit buttons and hit whoever was standing. It really went by quick. The only strategy I had was to go after who had the highest score at the time.

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FINAL PRELIMINARY ROUND

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Splatterhouse (original arcade version - Xbox 360)

Never played before

Reach Level 3 without using a continue

Died before reaching the Level 2 boss

 - I was always interested in playing the Splatterhouse trilogy. I even considered buying them all on VC, but never did. I wasn't used to how Rick moved so there were a few cheap hits that cost me. I did know about one strategy to use on the first boss that actually worked. This is a type of game I know I could beat easily if I spent time with it. I don't think anyone got to Level 3. Closest might have been Kenny who got to the boss of Level 2.

Punch-Out!! (Wii)

Have it and did everything in it

Defeat selected opponent (skill level judged by David)

Beat Disco Kid easily

- Last time I played this game was when I completed the last mission challenge for it. I forgot Disco Kid's patterns, but it came back as we went into the second round where I TKO'd him. Such a fun game. While watching others play their rounds, I was recalling their opponents' patterns and at times would yell out to dodge or when to hit them to get stars. I want to say this was another great crowd pleasing game.

House of The Dead 4 (PS3)

Played the arcade version

High Score after the 1st level (10 points for first, 8 for second, and so on)

21611 Points (only recall seeing 1 or 2 higher scores than mine)

 - MikeM was my partner for this. While we were assigned partners, it was still an individual score we were gunning for meaning that your "partner" could be stealing your kills and points. We played using the Move controllers with light gun accessories. Like I've said earlier, I really enjoy light gun games. I got on my knees and used a chair to rest my arms on to shoot. Oh yeah, I'm a badass, ha.

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Another break time for food. Not like we weren't snacking and chilling while waiting for our turns for games, ha. But this time they were tabulating the scores of everyone to see which 8 would make the playoffs.

After some time, the scores were ready and the top 8 were being announced.

8th Kenny

7th Vince

6th Jordan...or Marvin (again sorry, never caught his name)

5th Arnell

4th MikeG

3rd Fernando

2nd MikeM

1st JR

I don't remember the scores of everyone, but I want to say 38 was the lowest and 60 was the highest. I remember mine and MikeG because we had only one point separating us; 52 for me and 53 for him.  And sorry to those following me on Twitter. I tweeted I was 4th, but there was a mistake in how things were written out and announced.

JR vs Kenny

MikeM vs Vince

Fernando vs Jordan...or Marvin (I want to say it's Jordan)

MikeG vs Arnell

As for the games that were to be played in the playoffs, that was already pre-determined somewhat . The weeks leading up to the tournament, David asked everyone to pick 2 games they know they will destroy in as possible choices. I had chosen "Mortal Kombat II" for the SNES and "Bust A Groove/Move 2" on the PSX and brought them with me that day since I was asked to. So we had 16 games to choose from (I don't recall there being repeats) knowing that each of us consider ourselves experts in at least 2 of them. No one knew who suggested what, but then David asked us to pick 2 games from the total 16 (in case we heard another one we wanted to go with) as their 2 titles they wanted to play. I don't know what everyone ended up picking because after MikeG and I picked ours, it was time to get serious. I'll use our picks to break down how the quarter finals of the playoffs were to go.

MikeG picked "FIFA Soccer 12" and "Street Fighter X Tekken." I chose "Mortal Kombat II" and "Super Smash Bros: Project M." It's a best of 5 games. We both go head-to-head in all 4 games we chose and we set up the rules for the ones we specifically chose (nothing too silly...which I made jokes for). If the score reached 2:2, then we would play a 5th game (from the 4 we played) that the higher seeded player gets to choose (that rule changed later for David to be the selector of the 5th game). The winner continues on to the semi finals. Got it?

And this is when I started to get nervous. The preliminaries were fine. While I was disappointed with some of my performances, I was still confident in making the playoffs. And by a weird coincidence, I was in 5th place...again. I was 5th at David's tournament 4 years ago, ha. AND we played exactly 17 preliminary games in both tournaments. Might have been by design, but me being in 5th both times wasn't by design and yet is pretty awesome.

David also held his final quiz prize during the playoffs, but I'll put it here for similar reasons as before. There was actually another quiz prize given out, but I forgot when it happened. It was for a 1600 Microsoft Points card. I didn't win, but I still got one answer correct. If I won, I already agreed to give it to MikeG who was sitting next to me, ha.

And now for the final prize. This was the final big prize so he made the question hard. The question was to name as many of the games as you possibly can that we played in the preliminary round. And if you haven't been paying attention to my well detailed explanation of how I did in each game...I had been typing down my stats the whole time in a Note document on my phone (not as super detailed, just the bare facts of what we played and how I did). I asked David to change the question and he asked why and I pulled out my phone and showed the Note document to everyone, haha. So David changed the question to naming all the characters in "Mortal Kombat 3." I told him to change the question again, ha. But then we went back and forth and we had conflicting totals for the number of characters. So with that, we started to write our answers down although only 3 of us attempted; myself, Fernando, and JR. I wrote down 14, Fernando wrote down 17 or 18, and JR had 24. Then we all started questioning David who said there were 24. Right then I knew he was thinking "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3" because "Mortal Kombat 3" only had 15. It became more evident to David that I was correct when he started to name all the ninjas (Scorpion, Rain, Kitana, etc) because none of them were in "Mortal Kombat 3." Yes, my geekiness went off again, ha. I pretty much could see the character select screen in my head. MikeM then checked online for the answer and David started checking each of our lists as each character was being named off. I was missing only Jax (darn it), but I had everyone else and more correct than the other 2 so I won the final quiz prize; an Impact X Rocker gaming chair. So to recap; in quizzes alone I won a Mario hat, a Sonic hat, and now a gaming chair. Definitely wasn't going home empty-handed, ha.

That quiz happened halfway or a quarter of the way into the playoffs. I don't remember. I do know that the playoffs started at 9:30PM. Time flew by. And now it was time get it done or get knocked out. Game time. I will be giving more notes for the playoffs. Thank you for reading up to this point so far. We're almost done.

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Quarter Finals VS MikeG

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Originally we were going to play MikeG's games first since he was a higher seed, but other playoff matches were already going on the 360. So we went with mine.

Super Smash Bros: Project M (Wii)

Played and own Brawl and Melee, but not this modded version

5 Stock, no time, best 2-3 matches, Smash Ball is the only item on

- Toon Link (MikeG) VS Pikachu (me)

- Snake (MikeG) VS Peach (me)

- For those that don't know, Project M is a mod created that balances out the characters in Brawl and has them play more like their Melee styles. I actually prefer Melee over Brawl so I felt more comfortable playing my characters this time than when we played Brawl 4 years ago. MikeG said the last time he touch any Smash Bros game was from that last tournament, ha. I had played Brawl a few months ago (out of boredom) just trying to get more of the harder challenges completed so I wasn't rusty by far as you can see by the fact that I didn't let this go to a third match.

- I had created another "Oh, crap. He uses Peach" moment. I really don't hear of many people using Peach, but THAT IS MY GIRL! And thanks to this tournament, I like her Final Smash a lot more now as I have dubbed it the "GTS: Go To Sleep" after CM Punk's signature move. Oddly enough, I was wearing a CM Punk shirt for the tournament, ha.

Mortal Kombat II (SNES)

Played the arcade, own the SNES version, and played various versions

Best 2 out of 3 matches

- Sub-Zero (MikeG) VS Kitana (me)

- Liu Kang (MikeG) VS Scorpion (me)

- Liu Kang (MikeG) VS Kitana (me)

- There's a reason I picked MKII; I destroy at MKII! I'll always be confident with old school fighters. I'm fairly decent with barely any current-gen fighters, but I'll most likely lose. During our matches, MikeG gave me looks afterwards and David said it out loud, "no mercy!" I was playing to win, ha.

- I couldn't believe that he beat my Scorpion because he had been my favorite character in that series, but I knew I was deadly with Kitana too. I could've chosen others like Mileena, Jax, or Raiden, but since I knew I was going to choose MKII as I game, I had to have Scorpion and Kitana represent for me. Thank you, Kitana, for a few flawless victories and lopping off Sub-Zero and Liu Kang's heads, ha.

I was so glad I won my 2 games. Now I could relax and just try to hold my own in MikeG's games. He had to play catch-up.

Street Fighter X Tekken (Xbox 360)

Never played before

Best 2 out of 3 matches

- Ryu/Law (MikeG) VS Ken/Bison (me)

- Xiaoyu/Kazuya (MikeG) VS Bison/Juri (me)

- Ryu/Law (MikeG) VS Bison/Juri (me)

- I knew that this game was going to be played at the tournament at some point. It was just a feeling I had. Thankfully I was told that if I had played "Street Fighter IV" that I would be okay with the Street Fighters, which relieved some nervousness. Had I not owned and played the 3DS version then I would have been totally screwed. I knew I wasn't going to choose any Tekken characters since the last Tekken game I was good at was the original "Tekken Tag Tournament" and "Tekken 3." I did play "Tekken 6" not too long ago, but it definitely doesn't play like 3 or Tag. Had I chosen any Tekken characters, it would've been the Mishima Clan. The one thing I did ask was how to tag in and out, ha. THAT was important to know. I didn't bother with the gems.

- I thought my Ken/Bison team was going to be my team the whole way, but I kind of crapped out with Ken for some reason and lost with him on my team. Bison stayed the whole time because, as silly as it sounds, his evil psycho-ness surges through me whenever I use him in any game he's in, muahahahaha. Then putting Juri with him just made a new Team Evil for me. Had to stick with Team Evil since they got a victory. Too bad they fell to Ryu and Law. Had I remembered about our "Revenge" ability, I would've tried it here because I could've done better. David also gave me props for holding my own in a game I've never played before against someone he knew was really good at it.

- By the way, we played using these sweet SFxT controllers. They're pretty solid and I'd recommend them to those that like using controllers over fight sticks.

- I was planning on using a VampyBitMe team consisting of Juri and Poison, but that's one character I was alright with and one I'd have no idea how to use. At least I still had Vampy represented with Juri. I also thought of StarSlay3r right before these matches and remembered that she liked using Chun-Li and Rufus (I think). I did tweet her before the whole tournament saying that I was channeling her skills, ha. She tweeted "good luck" back and I had an extra boost for the entire tournament. Thank you, StarSlay3r.

FIFA Soccer 12 (Xbox 360)

Never played before

Highest score after 2 4-minute halves wins

- Manchester United (MikeG) VS England International (me)

- Yeah...so MikeG likes playing sports games, ha. I asked him what the buttons were and that's all I could really ask. He scored his first goal within the first minute of the game I think. His second goal came maybe halfway in the second half and that was it. I kind of spent most of the time trying to trip his players. I only got one yellow card warning, ha.

And now we are tied! MikeG caught up and David was going to pick our final game, which was...

Super Smash Bros: Project M (Wii)

5 Stock, no time, 1 match, Smash Ball is the only item on, Final Destination

- Toon Link (MikeG) VS Peach (me)

- MikeG wasn't looking forward to this especially since I had 2 straight wins with him earlier in this very game. I beat him to advance to the semi finals! Other qualifiers were MikeM, Fernando, and JR. David made the semi finals a team game. I got paired with MikeM and it was us going up against the pairing of Fernando and JR.

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Semi Finals w/MikeM VS Fernando and JR

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NBA Jam (Xbox 360)

Played a few times

Win the game, 2-minute quarters

- LA Lakers (me/MikeM) VS ...I honestly can't remember who they chose (Clippers or Bucks maybe). MikeM chose the Lakers for us. He was Kobe and I was Magic Johnson (classic).

- This went down to the wire. I want to say we were leading by a couple buckets at the half and they took the lead going into the fourth. The biggest point deficit was probably 6 points and we had to play catch up. Down to the last minute and they played smart and started running down the clock. We just needed one more possession to shoot a 3 to win or go for 2 and head into overtime. And in the end...57-59. Fernando and JR were heading to the finals. We were so close!

David wanted MikeM and I to play for 3rd place while the finalists played for the top spot. He left the last game choice for both matchups to us. MikeM and I chose...

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Battle for 3rd VS MikeM
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Super Smash Bros: Project M (Wii)

5 Stock, no time, 1 match, Smash Ball is the only item on, Final Destination

- Mario (MikeM) VS Peach (me)

- We had a great match going, but I was always leading in stock lives. MikeM was still putting up a good fight, but most of his defeats were met by a combination of GTSs and Super Slaps. Thank you, Peach, for securing the 3rd place spot in this tournament.

- David also gave us the engraving plate that we can stick onto the trophy. He didn't have time to get those ready, but that leaves me the freedom to engrave whatever I might want on it. I might just leave it blank, but if anything I would put "3rd Place" along with my name on it.

- The finalists played another game of "NBA Jam" with Fernando coming out on top and became the undisputed champion of this tournament.

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Final Thoughts

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And that is it! My goodness! I won my last game at 12:40AM and that means that I was there for close to 12 hours! Played 22 games (24 if you count playing Project M 2 more times), 9 of those I never played before. That's a lot of games to play in consolidated amount of time! I felt very drained when I got home, ha.

All the competitors were good and we made a good a crowd that laughed, shouted, and enjoyed each others' company. I don't participate in many tournaments (maybe less than 10 my entire life), but there were some where people just kept to themselves and their cliques and didn't give props to good players especially when they were performing well. So I really liked this crowd. Crowd interaction is a big factor to me for things like this. A dead crowd can really suck the energy out of you while a live crowd that's into it gives you extra energy and adrenaline to keep going and giving it your all.

I'm glad I didn't leave empty-handed. And here I was walking out with 4 different prizes.

I want to thank David for doing this again. If he ever does another tournament, I will definitely be there. I got 3rd this time and 2nd 4 years ago. All that's left is the top spot.

Plus I like David's idea of finding the best all-around gamer. We played many different games of different times and genres on different systems. We had some who were experts on some games, but not a single one of us was the best at all of them. David said it a few times that night, but a good gamer can adapt to any game whether they have played it or not. I think that's what I am if I'm any type of gamer, an all-around gamer, rather than an expert in a certain genre. Give me enough time with any game and I can beat it. Of course that wasn't the case with the tournament. As long as someone can tell me the basic controls, I'll try to figure it out like I did on that night.

But this is the start of me not playing games for a while. While I haven't been playing as much as I used to over the years, I just don't want to dive into anything right now. Unless some amazing titles are announced at this upcoming E3 that will come out soon, I'm not planning on buying anything until 07.03 when "Theatrhythm Final Fantasy" comes out. And I don't plan on playing any games unless friends get together to play something.

Thank you to David for the excellent tournament. Thank you to all the participants that made it fun. And thank you to all of you who sat down and read this whole thing.

Be healthy, be thankful, and be loved.

Take care.