UK Terrorist - Counter Strike LAN 2004 Report
It is a fantastic year for PC gaming, there's no doubt about that. So far we've seen the release of Far Cry and more recently Doom III, with (hopefully) Half-Life 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Oblivion Lost and various other games hitting the shelves in the coming months. Graphics cards are more awesome than ever too, we even see the return of SLI, albeit in a slightly different form to when 3dfx wielded it.However, despite all of the recent technological advancements, new game engines and more powerful hardware, one game continues to be a popular choice for the online and LAN gaming crowds. It runs on the game engine of what is possibly the best FPS ever created: Half-Life. The game is of course, Counter-Strike. Several years old, yet still for those who enjoy some FPS multiplayer action, Counter-Strike is the one to beat.
Why does it continue to do so well? Maybe it's the thrill of Terrorist Vs Counter-Terrorist battles. Perhaps its the enjoyment of sniping your best friend from the roof of a building. Maybe the speed, teamwork, skill, the list goes on. Take from it what you will; Counter-Strike has a variety of features that make it enjoyable for a vast number of people. It may continue to be around for years to come too, as it is being ported onto Half-Life 2's "Source" game engine. A beta of CS:Source surfaced recently in fact.
On a warm, sunny, summers day there is every reason to protect yourself from those UV rays by locking yourself indoors! Time for a Counter-Strike LAN.
The_Hub
Last weekend saw me visit my local cyber centre: the_hub for a look around at the finals of UK Terrorist, one of the UK's biggest CS LAN events. Counter-Strike fanatics lock horns and compete to win a variety of prizes, 1st prise being £1750 (ample for an updated gaming-PC!)A lot goes into organising a LAN event such as this. Machines need preparing, maps choices need making, along with the choosing of competition groups. On top of all that you need somewhere to actually host the event. I had Andy, one of the_hub's technicians, take me on a tour of the facilities provided by the_hub.
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Four teams could play at once, spanned across various rooms at the_hub. AMD Athlon XP's with nVidia GeForce FX's keep CS ticking over at a healthy FPS with good visual quality. It was however a rather warm weekend, so all the CPU cycles in use resulted in a lot of heat! The gamers sat outside when not playing, soaking up the sun.
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A spectator room with projectors was setup to allow people to get a look at the action over HLTV. Games were also broadcast onto the internet, making use of the juicy 32Mbit bandwidth on site! Audio commentary, streamed over the Internet, was provided by Team Sportscast Network.
The Result
For those who have been following the UKT tournament, maybe even supporting a team, or playing in the finals/preliminary stages, here are the end results:In the final match, Team AMD Gamer played Four Kings Intel. Two maps were played, de_Inferno and de_Train, Four Kings winning both. Congratulations to them and everybody who took part!
