Over the past weekend (2nd and 3rd of December) Ej, Bob, chemicalNova, Landers, Sacrifice, and myself (EsKy) ventured out to Olympic Park Sydney for the Game1 expo which took place in the midst of the Autosalon. With cars everywhere and our own little corner of the show floor set aside we quickly made ourselves busy.

Saturday 2^nd December

We were provided with a quite a nice booth upon arrival, with six brand new computers and two fairly big plasma screen televisions, which over the course of the day played Counter Strike: Source movies.

Bob and Ej setting up for the day.

We started off the weekends events at our booth with a 5v1 Counter Strike: Source competition, open to the public to sit down and play 20 rounds up against the Godfather of Counter Strike himself Whisper. The rules were simple, 20 rounds and whoever had the highest score at the end won a prize, however killing Whisper proved to be much harder than most who sat down to play had anticipated. It wasn't long before our little competition had drawn an audience with people waiting for their turn to have a crack at it. While some were frustrated with the continuous and unrelenting slaughter at the hands of Whisper everyone enjoyed the games played.

While all this was going on the Gotgames 36 Hour LAN was in full swing with the tournaments all commencing. Unfortunely because of some technical difficulties we didn't get to shoutcast any matches on the Saturday, but thankfully these issues were resolved by Sunday.

Sunday 3^rd December

On the morning of the Sunday Ej and I were lucky enough to get some time in on the Nintendo Wii, playing Wii Tennis, before the hordes of people came in and began lineup to try it. Needless to say after people the Wii all I could think about was buying one. Shortly after the doors opened and our 5v1 Counter Strike: Source competition started back up, as did the Gotgames 36 Hour LAN in its final day of play.

Ej owning it up in Wii Tennis.

As the 5v1 Counter Strike: Source competition was brought to an end the Gotgames Counter Strike: Source LAN competition heated up and was quickly drawing closer to the finals. So with three shoutcasters on hand, a few mics, and two plasma screen tv’s the Gamestah crew got to work. It wasn’t long before we began drawing a audience, and not just those on break or on the way out of the LAN but also those who were there to look at the cars at Autosalon, being drawn in by some A grade Counter Strike: Source being played by the teams and some A grade shoutcasting by Ej, Bob and chemicalNova. They not only gave deep insight into the matches being played but also explained the game for the new comers. With the match being played on SourceTV over the plasma screen TVs and live shoutcasting, the combination made for an extremely entertaining show.

Bob, Ej and Whisper preparing for a cast.

As the matches progressed more and more of the seats set out in front of the TVs were taken until the final were all the seats were taken and people were sitting on the floor in front of the screens or standing rows deep behind the seating area too the point where the audience had blocked off the main pathway down the centre of Autosalon. All the matches seen were extremely close, some coming down to the final round or some even going into overtime. In the Grand Final team Imminent defeated f4f in an extremely close match to win the $5000 prize money.

Bob and chemicalNova casting the semi-finals as Ej joins the audience.

Overall the event was a great time out, getting to play some Counter Strike: Source, Wii Sports, seeing some beautiful booth babes, laughing at the riced up cars (though there were some exceptions in the form of a Ferrari 360 and a Lamborghini Diablo), and the Gotgames LAN. If your in the Sydney area we hope to see you drop in next year.

Bob, EsKy, chemicalNova, and Ej in front of the ATI and Gotgames

booth babes at the end of the day.