Loco
01-27-2012, 02:48 PM
Hypefestation 2.0 by Loco
Thursday
After many hours of traveling by train and plane, myself, Jack (apeX Reaxion) and Reece (apeX Reece) arrived at Newark airport, eager to meet our American cousins at the hotel. Adam (apeX Fitzer) would arrive the next day. Jack naturally kept his controller handy, already disappointed at the lack of Gears of War on the in-flight entertainment system and determined to find anyone who brought an Xbox for some Mercy 1v1s. A cab ride later we arrived at the Hilton. I looked for old faces at first, people change over three years but it didn’t take long for the memorable familiarity of the competitive Gears family to resurface, and though some people had got bigger, taller, in some cases wider, they were the same great personalities that made my experience in the 2008 MLG season special.
After meeting and greeting we focused on some priorities; first and foremost Reece and myself kept on the lookout for Konvict, Jack’s American twin, to gauge a real life comparison. I have to say that, disappointingly, they weren’t all that similar but then again they never wore their glasses at the same time, so there may have been some planned precautionary measures on their part. Later we were taken to the room where the event would take place; the Hypefestation crew were busy and everything looked well organised, it was shaping up to be a mini-MLG for VIPs aka GoW 3 players only. During the next few hours we met more people as they arrived at the venue. We chilled out with Fallout, Nickmercs, found Fatalstrike somewhere on the street and enjoyed a swig of the finest vintage Champagne for Shane’s birthday. After a bite to eat we turned in for the night, but not before several rock paper scissors tournaments to determine who would win one of the beds to themselves. I say several because of course every time Jack lost, which was every time, there was another supernatural reason explaining how he still somehow deserved the bed. In the end he got it anyway but stressing him out, as always, was completely worth it.
Friday
Day one of the competition. Adam (Fitzer) arrived just before midday, tired but prepared to make his best efforts at rejuvenating himself with an assortment of Lidl goodies. American confectionary has its stand out products, particularly the chocolate, but their sweets just don’t compare to their UK (or in this case, German) rip-offs.
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/407042_355740074453932_270903862937554_1319081_994 841531_n.jpg ('http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/407042_355740074453932_270903862937554_1319081_994 841531_n.jpg')
apeX.Afterlife (left to right) - Loco, Fitzer, Reece, Reaxion
Just before entering the venue, brothers from another mother Reecez Rampage and Jessez Rampage met in their first heart-warming reunion since party chat. The room looked great, the setup was well designed and the feature/main stage added the perfect touch to an already great atmosphere. Adrenaline was soaring and everyone ardently anticipated the seeding draw. Our first match would be the ninth seed Legacy, a game hotly predicted to be one of the main events of the evening.
The match was scheduled for the main stage and soon enough we were engrossed in pre-game warm-up, discussing the maps and making our best efforts to calibrate ourselves after a couple of days off the game. Hotel was a quick affair, we took the map 4-0 and Jack immediately felt at home flailing his arms around in different shapes at the other team as the trash talk came in full force between both parties. We felt confident, for a moment we even looked forward to Dry Dock on KOTH, a game mode we’d had the least preparation for this time around. It started well, control of the first hill, 40+ seconds... and then a restart because one of the weapon swaps was wrong (unfortunately though the Xbox’s had updated, it hadn’t picked up the Xbox Live update, so the default swaps weren’t what we thought). But sometimes these things happen, the next time around we didn’t get control and eventually lost the map by 30 or so points, I guess it didn’t help that the hill spawn order was one we’d never experienced before, and the final spawn at frags completely threw us off guard as we prepared for the middle bridge. Trenches Execution was next, a map that would ultimately be the bane of our tournament. We were simply not prepared enough to deserve a chance on it.
We didn’t play anymore matches that day, so we settled down and enjoyed the rest of the matches taking place. Given the amount of entertainment taking place, in some ways it was slightly easier to forget about our loss and move on to the next day.
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1236/img00057201201221804.jpg ('http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1236/img00057201201221804.jpg')
The back of Jack's head has a mouth
Saturday
After our 42nd McDonalds, we hit the venue early in an attempt to sneak in a cheeky warm-up session. If Reaxion couldn’t convince the staff to allow for some early free-play then we knew the dream was over, especially given that he couldn’t resort to threatening to beat people up like in the UK.
Match number two, versus SYG. After taking the first map, we found ourselves down by 150 points to 0 on Dry Dock King of the Hill. The crowd was shouting as we attempted to stage an epic come back, which momentarily put us in the lead at 200-195 (approx) points before they regained control of the final hill. Mercy followed as the tie-breaker. I remember Crream shouting my name, I turned around to see him giving us support and I realised that our game had drawn a huge amount of spectators, far more than I initially thought. Both teams attempted an outside strategy for the first round but we then started to push inside church in hope of a shotgun fight every round after. SYG continued with their outside tactic, until the crowd started to call for both teams to push inside (and I have to say, thank you, crowd). The game immediately swung in our favour.
Unfortunately we had to wait 10 hours for our next match but we ended up making the most of that time. We had the pleasure of meeting the great man Peter ‘PeteNub’ Knepley of EPIC Games, who kindly provided us with some Gears swagger that still outclassed the attire of every competitor at Hype except for myself, probably Reece, maybe Adam but definitely not Jack. We talked about the European Gears scene and competitive Gears in general. Everyone including myself honestly can’t thank the guy enough for making an appearance and showing how much he and EPIC care for every part of the Gears of War community. Reece and myself jumped on the commentary station to talk about Europe as well as our experience so far. After being on stream and following a few comments about him apparently avoiding the camera’s gaze, Reece claimed that he thought only the audio was being streamed, which was a convenient excuse for him doing things like checking his hair in the reflection of his phone’s screen, amongst other things. Falloutt also introduced me to Killa KC who likewise, on behalf of Europe, I’m extremely grateful for coming to the event and making an effort with the Gears of War scene. We genuinely do appreciate it.
http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/209/40751631443084493581314.jpg ('http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/209/40751631443084493581314.jpg')
Celebrity photo with @PeteNub (left to right) - (zKilla, Killa, Pete, Nick, Wildebeast, Loco)
Next up was Prophecy. At that point it was late, so forgive me for my lack of recollection of the match. We played fine and took the match 3-0, though Checkout was a close game where Prophecy made an impressive come back from 0-3 down to put us on the edge. Our performance on Trenches KOTH was sound, so at least we’d taken one King of the Hill at the tournament.
Though we were tired, free play was available whilst a couple of matches took place on the main stage. I got involved for a while, which was a big mistake because Jack then also realised there was free play, so I quickly came to terms with the fact that we basically weren’t going back to the room for another 4 hours. Adam, Reece and myself lined up some chairs next to Jack’s station and stared at him for a while, with the sole intent of annoying him. After threatening to beat us up and leave the tournament to go home (back to the UK apparently), he finally packed up and we hit the hay.
Sunday
Jack and myself thought that spending $17 each on a breakfast buffet would be a good alternative to McDonalds. I’m not sure if 2 bowls of fruit was worth it on my part, but whatever. In a few short hours we were up against LoX on the main stage. Despite their drop to the lower bracket, there was lots of hype surrounding their team and we expected them to be on fire. Well, they were. We messed up Hotel and then had to face Trenches Execution and Rustlung King of the Hill. This match made me realise that, regardless of our potential, which I’m certain is comparable to that of Dignitas in 08, you really can’t expect anything unless you’ve nailed absolutely every aspect of the competitive game, to the point where win or lose you can leave a match with your head held high. These last two maps summarised our first shot at Gears of War 3 in the US, and we’ll never make the mistake of hoping to just ‘get through’ game types we’re unorganised on again. Overall we placed 13th-16th.
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/8337/40103635515414451252527.jpg ('http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/8337/40103635515414451252527.jpg')
KOTH warm-ups are always intense...
Sometimes you finish a tournament confused as to what happened, but in this case we all left our final match knowing exactly what to work on, as well as the general execution of our game plan. Since we all realised this, enjoying our last day at the event required absolutely no effort. We watched a series of great match-ups, capped off with the legendary rivalry of Gears, Infinity vs The NSAN3Z. At the next Hypefestation, hopefully you’ll see Adam, Jack, Reece and myself in one of the awesome Hype team intros. I mean, who doesn’t want to see what Jack’s pose will be?
And by the end of the day, everyone had a great time, acted responsible and went straight to bed............
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s720x720/424803_3144317289579_1314403345_3237277_1243178549 _n.jpg ('http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s720x720/424803_3144317289579_1314403345_3237277_1243178549 _n.jpg')
Good effort Jack
Shoutouts:
Firstly, I hate doing these because I’m always worried I’ll miss out someone I spent like 15 hours speaking to at an event. Apologies if it happens, it’s completely unintentional, the amount of great memories makes it difficult to organise them all.
Vishouz - The most helpful guy ever, he made life so much easier when preparing our trip to Hype. Really cool guy to talk to, great chilling with you mate, see you soon.
DaFace and Gandhi - Amazing commentary, thanks for giving a substantial piece of the Hypefestation experience to the viewers at home.
CDN - Not only for the Hype organisation, but also for you and your team playing us online and helping us gain the practice we need to be able to make these trips to America as productive for us as they are fun.
Konvict - We’ll get that picture of you and Reaxion next time, I swear.
And the rest of the Hypefestation crew. You guys put on an awesome event.
Falloutt - Undoubtedly one of the great player personalities of Gears. Great to see you again mate.
Nickmercs - Yeah I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much at an event. This guy, seriously.
Crream - Another great personality, looking forward to seeing you and Crank back in action.
Fatalstrike - The man. Now you’ve been to European events as well, It’s weird when I don’t see you at an event regardless of where it is in the world.
PeteNub, KillaKC - Thank you once again.
A handful (there’s plenty more) of people I generally speak to both at the event and online, and from back in the day - Blaze, Terror, Monster, Prospect, HD, Wingos, Xcel, Arctyc, Evade, JustSnipes, Pinkalicious, Pink Vanity, Kewtie, Coleman, Sundown, Enmity.
Infinity and The NSAN3Z for giving the final that everyone, excluding their own team, wanted to see.
And of course, the GoW Family in general. There’s no community quite like it.
apeX eSports - For making this possible.
SCUF - Check out scufgaming.com, amazing Xbox 360 pads that can add so much to your game.
GoWForum.net - Europe's competitive hub for Gears of War 3.
Cheers guys, don't forget to follow me on http://www.twitter.com/Loco and check out my facebook page on http://www.facebook.com/LocoEU
Loco
Thursday
After many hours of traveling by train and plane, myself, Jack (apeX Reaxion) and Reece (apeX Reece) arrived at Newark airport, eager to meet our American cousins at the hotel. Adam (apeX Fitzer) would arrive the next day. Jack naturally kept his controller handy, already disappointed at the lack of Gears of War on the in-flight entertainment system and determined to find anyone who brought an Xbox for some Mercy 1v1s. A cab ride later we arrived at the Hilton. I looked for old faces at first, people change over three years but it didn’t take long for the memorable familiarity of the competitive Gears family to resurface, and though some people had got bigger, taller, in some cases wider, they were the same great personalities that made my experience in the 2008 MLG season special.
After meeting and greeting we focused on some priorities; first and foremost Reece and myself kept on the lookout for Konvict, Jack’s American twin, to gauge a real life comparison. I have to say that, disappointingly, they weren’t all that similar but then again they never wore their glasses at the same time, so there may have been some planned precautionary measures on their part. Later we were taken to the room where the event would take place; the Hypefestation crew were busy and everything looked well organised, it was shaping up to be a mini-MLG for VIPs aka GoW 3 players only. During the next few hours we met more people as they arrived at the venue. We chilled out with Fallout, Nickmercs, found Fatalstrike somewhere on the street and enjoyed a swig of the finest vintage Champagne for Shane’s birthday. After a bite to eat we turned in for the night, but not before several rock paper scissors tournaments to determine who would win one of the beds to themselves. I say several because of course every time Jack lost, which was every time, there was another supernatural reason explaining how he still somehow deserved the bed. In the end he got it anyway but stressing him out, as always, was completely worth it.
Friday
Day one of the competition. Adam (Fitzer) arrived just before midday, tired but prepared to make his best efforts at rejuvenating himself with an assortment of Lidl goodies. American confectionary has its stand out products, particularly the chocolate, but their sweets just don’t compare to their UK (or in this case, German) rip-offs.
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/407042_355740074453932_270903862937554_1319081_994 841531_n.jpg ('http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/407042_355740074453932_270903862937554_1319081_994 841531_n.jpg')
apeX.Afterlife (left to right) - Loco, Fitzer, Reece, Reaxion
Just before entering the venue, brothers from another mother Reecez Rampage and Jessez Rampage met in their first heart-warming reunion since party chat. The room looked great, the setup was well designed and the feature/main stage added the perfect touch to an already great atmosphere. Adrenaline was soaring and everyone ardently anticipated the seeding draw. Our first match would be the ninth seed Legacy, a game hotly predicted to be one of the main events of the evening.
The match was scheduled for the main stage and soon enough we were engrossed in pre-game warm-up, discussing the maps and making our best efforts to calibrate ourselves after a couple of days off the game. Hotel was a quick affair, we took the map 4-0 and Jack immediately felt at home flailing his arms around in different shapes at the other team as the trash talk came in full force between both parties. We felt confident, for a moment we even looked forward to Dry Dock on KOTH, a game mode we’d had the least preparation for this time around. It started well, control of the first hill, 40+ seconds... and then a restart because one of the weapon swaps was wrong (unfortunately though the Xbox’s had updated, it hadn’t picked up the Xbox Live update, so the default swaps weren’t what we thought). But sometimes these things happen, the next time around we didn’t get control and eventually lost the map by 30 or so points, I guess it didn’t help that the hill spawn order was one we’d never experienced before, and the final spawn at frags completely threw us off guard as we prepared for the middle bridge. Trenches Execution was next, a map that would ultimately be the bane of our tournament. We were simply not prepared enough to deserve a chance on it.
We didn’t play anymore matches that day, so we settled down and enjoyed the rest of the matches taking place. Given the amount of entertainment taking place, in some ways it was slightly easier to forget about our loss and move on to the next day.
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1236/img00057201201221804.jpg ('http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1236/img00057201201221804.jpg')
The back of Jack's head has a mouth
Saturday
After our 42nd McDonalds, we hit the venue early in an attempt to sneak in a cheeky warm-up session. If Reaxion couldn’t convince the staff to allow for some early free-play then we knew the dream was over, especially given that he couldn’t resort to threatening to beat people up like in the UK.
Match number two, versus SYG. After taking the first map, we found ourselves down by 150 points to 0 on Dry Dock King of the Hill. The crowd was shouting as we attempted to stage an epic come back, which momentarily put us in the lead at 200-195 (approx) points before they regained control of the final hill. Mercy followed as the tie-breaker. I remember Crream shouting my name, I turned around to see him giving us support and I realised that our game had drawn a huge amount of spectators, far more than I initially thought. Both teams attempted an outside strategy for the first round but we then started to push inside church in hope of a shotgun fight every round after. SYG continued with their outside tactic, until the crowd started to call for both teams to push inside (and I have to say, thank you, crowd). The game immediately swung in our favour.
Unfortunately we had to wait 10 hours for our next match but we ended up making the most of that time. We had the pleasure of meeting the great man Peter ‘PeteNub’ Knepley of EPIC Games, who kindly provided us with some Gears swagger that still outclassed the attire of every competitor at Hype except for myself, probably Reece, maybe Adam but definitely not Jack. We talked about the European Gears scene and competitive Gears in general. Everyone including myself honestly can’t thank the guy enough for making an appearance and showing how much he and EPIC care for every part of the Gears of War community. Reece and myself jumped on the commentary station to talk about Europe as well as our experience so far. After being on stream and following a few comments about him apparently avoiding the camera’s gaze, Reece claimed that he thought only the audio was being streamed, which was a convenient excuse for him doing things like checking his hair in the reflection of his phone’s screen, amongst other things. Falloutt also introduced me to Killa KC who likewise, on behalf of Europe, I’m extremely grateful for coming to the event and making an effort with the Gears of War scene. We genuinely do appreciate it.
http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/209/40751631443084493581314.jpg ('http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/209/40751631443084493581314.jpg')
Celebrity photo with @PeteNub (left to right) - (zKilla, Killa, Pete, Nick, Wildebeast, Loco)
Next up was Prophecy. At that point it was late, so forgive me for my lack of recollection of the match. We played fine and took the match 3-0, though Checkout was a close game where Prophecy made an impressive come back from 0-3 down to put us on the edge. Our performance on Trenches KOTH was sound, so at least we’d taken one King of the Hill at the tournament.
Though we were tired, free play was available whilst a couple of matches took place on the main stage. I got involved for a while, which was a big mistake because Jack then also realised there was free play, so I quickly came to terms with the fact that we basically weren’t going back to the room for another 4 hours. Adam, Reece and myself lined up some chairs next to Jack’s station and stared at him for a while, with the sole intent of annoying him. After threatening to beat us up and leave the tournament to go home (back to the UK apparently), he finally packed up and we hit the hay.
Sunday
Jack and myself thought that spending $17 each on a breakfast buffet would be a good alternative to McDonalds. I’m not sure if 2 bowls of fruit was worth it on my part, but whatever. In a few short hours we were up against LoX on the main stage. Despite their drop to the lower bracket, there was lots of hype surrounding their team and we expected them to be on fire. Well, they were. We messed up Hotel and then had to face Trenches Execution and Rustlung King of the Hill. This match made me realise that, regardless of our potential, which I’m certain is comparable to that of Dignitas in 08, you really can’t expect anything unless you’ve nailed absolutely every aspect of the competitive game, to the point where win or lose you can leave a match with your head held high. These last two maps summarised our first shot at Gears of War 3 in the US, and we’ll never make the mistake of hoping to just ‘get through’ game types we’re unorganised on again. Overall we placed 13th-16th.
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/8337/40103635515414451252527.jpg ('http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/8337/40103635515414451252527.jpg')
KOTH warm-ups are always intense...
Sometimes you finish a tournament confused as to what happened, but in this case we all left our final match knowing exactly what to work on, as well as the general execution of our game plan. Since we all realised this, enjoying our last day at the event required absolutely no effort. We watched a series of great match-ups, capped off with the legendary rivalry of Gears, Infinity vs The NSAN3Z. At the next Hypefestation, hopefully you’ll see Adam, Jack, Reece and myself in one of the awesome Hype team intros. I mean, who doesn’t want to see what Jack’s pose will be?
And by the end of the day, everyone had a great time, acted responsible and went straight to bed............
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s720x720/424803_3144317289579_1314403345_3237277_1243178549 _n.jpg ('http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s720x720/424803_3144317289579_1314403345_3237277_1243178549 _n.jpg')
Good effort Jack
Shoutouts:
Firstly, I hate doing these because I’m always worried I’ll miss out someone I spent like 15 hours speaking to at an event. Apologies if it happens, it’s completely unintentional, the amount of great memories makes it difficult to organise them all.
Vishouz - The most helpful guy ever, he made life so much easier when preparing our trip to Hype. Really cool guy to talk to, great chilling with you mate, see you soon.
DaFace and Gandhi - Amazing commentary, thanks for giving a substantial piece of the Hypefestation experience to the viewers at home.
CDN - Not only for the Hype organisation, but also for you and your team playing us online and helping us gain the practice we need to be able to make these trips to America as productive for us as they are fun.
Konvict - We’ll get that picture of you and Reaxion next time, I swear.
And the rest of the Hypefestation crew. You guys put on an awesome event.
Falloutt - Undoubtedly one of the great player personalities of Gears. Great to see you again mate.
Nickmercs - Yeah I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much at an event. This guy, seriously.
Crream - Another great personality, looking forward to seeing you and Crank back in action.
Fatalstrike - The man. Now you’ve been to European events as well, It’s weird when I don’t see you at an event regardless of where it is in the world.
PeteNub, KillaKC - Thank you once again.
A handful (there’s plenty more) of people I generally speak to both at the event and online, and from back in the day - Blaze, Terror, Monster, Prospect, HD, Wingos, Xcel, Arctyc, Evade, JustSnipes, Pinkalicious, Pink Vanity, Kewtie, Coleman, Sundown, Enmity.
Infinity and The NSAN3Z for giving the final that everyone, excluding their own team, wanted to see.
And of course, the GoW Family in general. There’s no community quite like it.
apeX eSports - For making this possible.
SCUF - Check out scufgaming.com, amazing Xbox 360 pads that can add so much to your game.
GoWForum.net - Europe's competitive hub for Gears of War 3.
Cheers guys, don't forget to follow me on http://www.twitter.com/Loco and check out my facebook page on http://www.facebook.com/LocoEU
Loco