Wednesday, October 19, 2011
It's Moving Day!
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
A weekend of Devastation
If you stepped through the Phoenix Convention Center third floor ballroom doors between Oct. 7 – 9, 2011, a large white banner that read “DEVASTATION” splattered in black lettering hung high above the registration table, greeted you. Items up for raffle, including tournament edition arcade fighting sticks, gaming keyboards, and Gears of War-themed headsets, waited to be claimed. Swirling spotlights focused on the center stage that would hold cosplay and Rock Paper Scissors contests. Dozens of glowing LCD TVs sat on long tables and flickered with life and arcade cabinets lined the side walls, all warbling their own electronic languages. The rumblings steadily grew louder as more and more competitors arrived – Devastation '11 had begun.
Like many things, Devastation started small. In 2005, the emergence of the Seventh Generation of consoles and online gaming threatened to snuff out arcades, confine gamers to their parents' basements and extinguish video game tournaments in Arizona forever. Robb Chiarini decided that he'd brave the naysayers and revive the fun, love and social atmosphere that once surrounded competitive gaming and started to organize his own video game tournament. Thus, Devastation was born.
“That very first year, I ran it out of my house. I had a game room set up and I built these gianormous arcade sticks,” Chiarini said. “I thought 'hey, this is fun!' even though we played for 24 hours straight, people were tired, and I overextended myself for a single-day tournament. I had a blast and I see where I did some things wrong but I think it was great fun for everybody.”
About 70 people came from Arizona, New Mexico, California, Colorado, and Texas during the first event, and as the years passed, Devastation steadily grew larger. The 2009 competition at the Phoenix Convention Center drew in just less than 1,000 attendees, snatched more than 160,000 online viewers spanning 80 countries, and clawed its way to becoming one of the largest and most reputable events of its kind in the world.
“I want people to have fun [at Devastation], have a good time and make them feel like they are a part of the event,” Chiarini said. “I've gone to other events where they basically just say, 'hey Number 133, go ahead, you're up on Stage 2. Once you're dead, then go away'.”
Devastation '11 boasted tournaments in a large variety of different games, including: Gears of War 3, Dance Central, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Tekken 6 to name a few.
All was not well, however, and Devastation '11 had its share of problems. The most apparent was the confusion among the organizers that stemmed from the variety of video game tournaments. Some tournament pools started much later than scheduled, which caused some competitors to drop out due to time constraints. Audio and video problems with the online streamed matches also popped up and some TVs blacked out during gameplay.
Jeremy “Black Mamba” Florence started seriously competing in video game tournaments after he won fifth place on Dead or Alive 4 at Evo 2006. He entered Devastation beginning in 2009 and was disappointed with the organizational issues that plagued this year's event. Despite his misgivings, Florence still considers Devastation to be one of the better tournaments he's been to.
“The venue is definitely one of the best venues you're going to get in a gaming tournament. It's big and spacious. They have a ton of games to play, so you're not going to be bored the whole time you're here,” Florence said.
At the back of the ballroom, dozens of chairs sat, facing a movie theater-sized screen where spectators could observe web streamed matches. David “UltraDavid” Graham, along with several guest commentators, described every heart-stopping round and bone crunching strike. Some high-caliber gamers, including WCG Ultimate Gamer Season 2 champion, Kat “Mystik” Gunn, showed to compete at the event. Other big names in the competitive gaming scene, such as Alex Valle, Mike Ross, Justin Wong, Ricky Ortiz, Peter “ComboFiend” Rosas, Abdullatif "Latif" Alhmili, and Ryan "Filipino Champ" Ramirez, came to wage war on the digital battlefield.
So, you say that you can stomp all your friends at Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, have the highest Gears of War 3 kill streak on Xbox Live, and dominate every opponent on Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, at all your local video game tournaments? Great job! Does this mean you're ready to take on and defeat professional gamers like Justin Wong at events such as Devastation? Pro gamers can sometimes spend up to 60 hours a week honing their combo execution, headshots and kill streaks.
Tons of practice and fast reflexes are only part of the equation, however. Competition's equally mental and physical. Do you think that your nerves will hold up to the pressure when the spotlight's on you, everyone's watching and tension saturates the air?
Gunn's no stranger to such challenges that come with the territory of being both a female and competitive gamer. Girl gamers often face animosity and hostility when playing online and video game tournaments are typically male-dominated events. Undeterred by these obstacles, however, Gunn began her competitive gaming career with in 2006, participating through Major League Gaming and emerged as one of the top dozen U.S. Halo players. She's also a national Dead or Alive 4 champion and went on to win the second season of the video game reality show, WCG Ultimate Gamer Season 2.
Since winning Ultimate Gamer, Gunn's been focusing more on creating and training pro gaming teams through her company, Antelope Valley Gamers. Regardless of your level of experience, she believes that when it comes to showing up in that moment and your tournament life's on the line, it's vital to not forget to enjoy yourself.
“I try to remember to have fun. I think that's the biggest problem is that when you get so serious about a game, it takes out a lot of the fun.” Gunn said. “If you lose, it's hard to get over it, because you lost, somebody was better than you. That's pretty devastating to your ego. I think you just got to remember, 'OK, remember what I did wrong, try to improve and just try to move on as hard as it is and focus on having fun.'”
Despite its hiccups, one thing Devastation '11 definitely didn't skimp on was fun. Whether you're just starting out competing, a tournament veteran, male, female or just wanted to get the highest score on Pac-man, Devastation had something for everyone. Well worth the lack of sleep and mounds of empty energy drink cans. Now, go crack open another bottle of Mountain Dew and get back to training!
This Week in Famitsu
- 3DS – 62,245 units
- PS3 – 37,477 units
- PSP – 24,106 units
- Wii – 15,146 units
- NDS – 3,187 units
- PS2 – 830 units
- 360 – 788 units
- Dragon Quest 25th Anniversary Collection: Nintendo and Super Nintendo Dragon Quest I, II, and III (Wii) – 264,760 units
- Tales of Xillia (PS3) – 55,323 units
- Resident Evil Revival Selection (PS3) – 24,238 units
- Wii Sports Resort (Wii) – 15,014 units
- Everyone's Rhythm Heaven (Wii) – 14,412 units
- Final Fantasy: Type-O/Agito (PSP)
- Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3)
- Dragon Quest X Online (Wii)
- Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
- Monster Hunter 3/Tri G (3DS)
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Console Maintenance Tips from a Pro
Submitted by: Tom Ferko (Employee)
Monday, October 3, 2011
Get ready for some devastation
Registration is still open and it's not too late if you wish to partake in the event. If you can't make it up to Phoenix this weekend, you can still check out the action via streamed broadcasts by Level Up Series, Beyond Gaming, and Team hAZmat at the following channels: TwitchTV/DEVEVENT, TwitchTV/DEVASTATIONEVENT, and TwitchTV/BeyondGaming. Keep an eye out for the broadcast schedules to be released soon.
Also, stay tuned after the event for a report on all of the action of the weekend.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
This Week in Famitsu
- PS3 – 62,266 units
- 3DS – 49,191 units
- PSP – 23,352 units
- Wii – 9,130 units
- NDS – 2,748 units
- PS2 – 842 units
- 360 – 727 units
- Tales of Xillia (PS3) – 512,544 units
- Resident Evil Revival Selection (PS3) – 76,638 units
- Grand Knights History (PSP) – 19,996 units
- Resistance 3 (PS3) – 19,255 units
- Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD Version (PS3) – 19,190 units
- Final Fantasy: Type-O (PSP)
- Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3)
- Dragon Quest X Online (Wii)
- Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
- Dragon's Dogma (PS3)
Sunday, September 25, 2011
This Week in Famitsu
- 3DS – 55,264 units
- PS3 – 32,969 units
- PSP – 28,921 units
- Wii – 9,931 units
- NDS – 3,205 units
- PS2 – 964 units
- 360 – 830 units
- Grand Knight's History (PSP) – 63,672 units
- Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD Version (PS3) – 55,346 units
- Sengoku Musou 3 Empires (PS3) – 23,186 units
- Everyone's Rhythm Heaven (Wii) – 21,044 units
- Devil Survivor: Overclocked (3DS) – 18,564 units
- Final Fantasy: Type-O (PSP)
- Dragon Quest X Online (Wii)
- Persona 4: The Golden (Vita)
- Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3)
- Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
Gamers decipher a years old AIDS mystery
In an unprecedented feat, gamers used an online video game called Foldit to unravel the mystery of a key protein in the development of AIDS that's baffled scientists for more than a decade. The goal was to successfully create a 3D image of the structure of a retroviral protease, an enzyme from an AIDS-like virus that plays a key role in how it spreads.
Scientists fruitlessly wrestled with this problem for years, and in a Hail Mary play, gave groups of Foldit users three weeks to fashion an accurate model. After the allotted time, researchers compared the best submissions to the enzyme's crystallographic X-ray and found that one of the teams correctly created its structure in just 10 days.
Studying every angle of a protein via a 3D image is vital for Pharmacologists in understanding diseases and developing drugs to combat them. Constructing these representations is what Foldit's for.
Created in 2008 by University of Washington researchers, Foldit uses a video game-like setting and provides players with a set of online tools to compete with each other at decoding complex amino acid chains, which make up proteins. More stable structures are awarded higher points. The community has grown to more than 236,000 players since it started, and many of the gamers involved with the experiment had no background in biochemistry at all.
"People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at," Fold.it's lead designer and developer Seth Cooper said in a press release. "Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans."
The weekly journal, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, published these findings in its Sept. 18 issue, lauding the players and researchers for their efforts.
The war on AIDS isn't over yet, but if gamers could crack an AIDS puzzle in less than three weeks, then give them about three months and we'll have warp drive and interstellar travel.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
A Special Conversation: Fumita Ueda and Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Part 4 (Final)
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Study shows that video game violence won't transform you into a murderer
Recent research shows, however, that it's not the games that are mainly responsible for the negative effects experienced by some people from prolonged exposure, but rather the player's personality itself. These findings were presented to the American Psychological Association (via USA Today), in an effort to help bring clarity and answer questions that have troubled many parents concerning violence in video games.
“If you’re worried about a video game turning your son or daughter into a killer, don’t worry about that,” said psychologist Patrick Markey, co-author of the study published in the Review of General Psychology. “But is your kid moody, impulsive, or are they unfriendly? It’s probably not the best idea to have that child play violent video games.”
The study aimed to assess the hostility levels of 118 participants who played either a violent or a non-violent video game. Those who were highly neurotic or had low agreeableness and conscientiousness showed to be more adversely affected by playing violent video games. Individuals who didn't have these personality characteristics were virtually or completely unaffected.
A study published in Psychology of Violence, written by Paul Adachi of Brock University in St Catherines, Ontario, supports Markey's findings.
“It appears that competition in games is what may influence aggression, not the violent content,” Adachi said. “We found — irrespective of violent content — the two highly competitive games produced more aggressive behavior than the two less competitive games.”
Essentially, how someone responds to a video game is not determined by its level of violence but by the person's temperament.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
This Week in Famitsu
Weird Games Found Only In Japan
- Nintendo 3DS – 57,927 units
- PlayStation 3 – 32,235 units
- PSP – 32,066 units
- Wii – 10,479 units
- Nintendo DS – 3,710 units
- PlayStation 2 – 1,028 units
- Xbox 360 – 938 units
- Monster Hunger Portable 3rd HD Version (PS3) – 282,960 units
- Black Rock Shooter THE GAME (PSP) – 108,716 units
- Mobile Suit Gundam: New Giren's Ambition (PSP) – 74943 units
- Sengoku Musou 3 Empires (PS3) – 70,488 units
- Shin Sangoku Musou 6 Special (PSP) – 28,598 units
- Final Fantasy: Type-O/Agito (PSP)
- Dragon Quest X Online (Wii)
- Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3)
- Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
- Photo Kano (PSP)