ReD’s Corner: Back to the future - ReD's Corner

ReD’s Corner: Back to the future

This week on TEK9, we had five copies of Mass Effect 2 Collectors Edition to give away courtesy of our friends at EA and we also had a dilemma, people just weren’t using our new super dooper gallery system. So we came up with the caption competition to help increase awareness of the galleries whilst giving you guys a cool free gift worth a bit of money.

The trouble was, we had no idea what to put in the galleries until Steven and I came up with the idea of putting up some historical stuff. Galleries from events of “yesteryear” as it were. I have been taking photographs since early 2004 and pretty much at every event I have ever attended, which is well over 75 events now. I had plenty of scope, but picking out just 3 was proving tough. As I started to go through them, one by one, eliminating some, keeping some in the “maybe” folder, the pictures brought back fantastic memories. Those memories included epic battles, monumental matches, surprise results and those slightly more quirky things that occurred, helping in no small way to make a particular event unique and special.

As I got down to a shortlist of 5, one particular gallery stood out, the CPC2 event held in 2007 in Enschede. The reasons were many, not just to do with the games that took place (things like Mick kissing a cuddly poodle and Carmac waiting outside the ladies toilet to interview people and me being high on sugar on Dutch roads to name just a few) and actually when I think back, I can hardly recall many of the matches that took place, in either COD2 or ET for that matter, but the photos reminded me of how much fun we had, old school style. This wasn’t the kind of lan tournament that we were used to, it had a game (ET) being used that didn’t see much action, save for one mighty fine visit to Quakecon each year and it had a game (COD2) which back then, still didn’t have that many tournaments that actually paid cash.


Having had a team of players at my former team Revolution representing us in COD2, I was familiar with the scene and when Mick from Dignitas showed up, I was reunited with a player I had already played in the same team as for Unreal Tournament. There were also other well known faces attending and I was looking forward to the sniping of Trainee, the sublime ability of Qwerty and a few others that had shone at the previous event as well as catching up with friends from both the ET and COD communities.

Other notable names were there too and the scene was well represented in the form of some big teams like TEK9, Speedlink and Reason Gaming, not to mention defending champions from the first CPC event, Dignitas.

That first day was a mixture of chaos, things not running on time and a few surprises in the group stage, but the overall feeling, with its community tables outside, the sun shining and the beer free flowing, was one of relaxed fun, something missing from many events, both before and since. The theme continued on day two, where Carmac joined us, something he would never have usually done for a COD or ET based event, but conducted his usual, high jinx interviews, trying to catch people out with his “borat” like impressions and pretending not to be able to talk English. It was comical and light hearted and the players loved it.


We also had multiple community poker games going on and again lots of fun, some taking it a little more seriously than others, but in the main, it was just about having a laugh and socialising. There was also the go-kart track across the way from the venue which we made good use of on one particular day, the ET players thrashing out differences on the track in a friendly way.

As the days went on, the banter increased, the familiarity between newly made friends grew and the over riding factor in everything that happened was about letting your hair down. Not in a stupid sense, but in terms of enjoying the games, both as players and spectators alike and enjoying the unique atmosphere generated by TosspoT’s events. It may have something to do with the venue, in a café/bar with a cinema to watch the big matches and an outside area which lends itself to a communal feeling or perhaps it was the shared log cabins that we all stayed in, sometimes 12 to a room or it might just have been the close proximity to the bar, but whatever it was, it was fantastic.

As the tournament moved in to its final stages, the games began to heat up too, so not only did we have a fantastic setting, feeling and camaraderie between everyone attending, we now had some epic matches to go along with it. The perfect ingredients if you like to a successful lan tournament.

In the Quarter Finals, TEK9 pulled off something of a surprise by knocking out Dignitas and in the other side of the bracket, Serious Gaming did the same to Reason, so the two British (and heavily fancied) teams were going home early. The first semi final was won with ease by the Finnish team Logitech.fi beating the Czech team eSuba in two straight maps, however the other semi turned out to be a true epic.

The two surprises of the tournament, although still very strong teams, TEK9 and Serious Gaming faced off against each other and it would turn out to be one of the best encounters in COD2 history with nothing able to pull them apart from each other over the first two maps. Map one was Vallente and they ended up playing 30 rounds before Serious finally took the first map 16:14. Map two would be no different on Carentan (just writing these map names down reminds me of the good old days and makes me feel slightly nostalgic) with overtime required yet again, this time falling the way of the Belgians 16:12. In the battle of the low lands, it was now one a piece.

The decider would be on Dawnville and despite remaining close for much of the game, Serious showed real class in the last 4 rounds to pick off TEK9 and claim a famous victory which also meant a place in the grand final.

It’s odd, I remember parts of that match with a clarity which shocks me, considering I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, let alone the scores of games 3 years ago, but for the life of me the final can only be described as unremarkable, at least in my memory passages. Serious Gaming won in 2 maps, I couldn’t tell you the scores though or even what maps they played, it just didn’t stick with me, but whatever, they were deserving if slightly surprising winners of what had been a fantastic tournament.

It wasn’t long after this that Blackmaine joined Dignitas and we had possibly the two best scopes in the same team and wondered how it would all work out. Obviously we now know, but boy do I miss those ridiculous shots that Trainee used to hit.

This was also one of the first produced events by QuadV (all be it in association with iTG at the time) and our trip out was just as fun and eventful as covering it was. The event just had so much of everything and all in a good way.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the ET and RTCW matches that took place as some of those were just as epic and when you remember how this whole Crossfire Challenge thing began, it is appropriate that they at least get a mention. This also made me think back to that day I landed in Dallas in 2006 on a hot August afternoon to meet 5 men I had never heard of before, let alone met and would then become their manager for the week in an attempt to guide them to victory at Quakecon in ET.

Our goal was simple, reward the community of Crossfire with a large pot of cash from the tournament to thank them for sending us out there via community donations. Our objective was also to raise enough cash via prize money to be able to hold a proper lan tournament for the game in Europe, something that up to then had been only a pipe dream.

There is a video on youtube of what happened on what was another magical esports journey for me and Stuart and to this day hasn’t been topped in terms of emotional involvement, but god I hated not being able to play. In the end, we finished 2nd overall and bought back $10,000 for the community and from that, the Crossfire Challenge’s were born, so you really do have to thank ET players for making what today is considered to be an excellent series of events and not just for ET or RTCW.

Appropriate then, that this weekend will see the return of those events for its seventh iteration. I wish everyone involved in the huge behind the scenes work, the very best of luck and already know that the players and spectators attending are going to have a fantastic time regardless of win or lose and the only sadness I have is that I can’t make it out there.

Have a good one people and I hope it comes even 50% close to the thrill of CPC2 because if that happens, it will be monumentally good.