Interview with Fatal1ty, the world's number one gamer
Johnathan Wendel, aka Fatal1ty, is the number one FPS gamer in the world right now. HEXUS.net caught up with with him during a break from taking on all-comers at ECTS.Aged 23, Fatal1ty has been a pro-gamer for the last five years, having cut his teeth on the likes of Wolfenstein 3D on a 286 nearly 10 years ago. Between then and now he's played everything there has been and worked his way up local and state rankings, eventually through to national and then international finals.
Fatal1ty is unique in that unlike many other pro-gamers, he doesn't specialise in any particular game. His ability to play ech game as well as any other, and beat his opponents in their speciality games seees him and the World Champion across no less than FOUR different titles. Already the champ at UT2k3, AvP2 and Q3A, Fatal1ty has recently become the Doom 3 world champion too.
When asked about his gaming habits, Fatal1ty is keen to emphasise that he tries to maintain a balance between gaming and pursuing more active hobbies. To keep a balance between gaming and other pursuits, he's a keen sports player, which he believes helps him to hone his competitive instincts.
In the weeks running up to a tournament Fatal1ty will train for up to 8 hours a day. The key, he says, to being a succesful player is to not only know the maps you're playing on but learn the game itself.
One example of this was in the semi-final for the Doom 3 championship at QuakeCon. Low on health, with his opponent bearing down on him, Fatal1ty shot out the lights, creating a dark a spot to hide in. His enemy went right past him allowing him to escape and come back to win the match, eventually going on to win the tournament and a $25,000 first prize.
With cash prizes like that on offer, being a pro-gamer is beginning to look like a worthwhile, profitable career. Fatal1ty has developed the whole idea of pro-gaming further, by launching his own company. He has links with hardware manufacturers to produce "Fatal1ty" branded products and looking to the future he wants to put money back into pro-gaming and develop and support the stars of tomorrow.
So what's in store for the gaming master? Right now he's doing a 90 day tour of pretty much the whole world, doing stop offs and shoot outs wherever he goes. After appearing with HEXUS.net at Leicester Square on Friday, he's heading off to France then Russia and working his way across Europe to Asia.
Between now and Christmas Fatal1ty looks like he's going to be very busy, whether its either training for the next tournament, developing and promoting his hardware brand or promoting pro-gaming in general. I'm now going to go off and brush up on my skills, cos I rather fancy a bit of the jet-set pro-gamer lifestyle myself.
