The Best of the Best

Gardena, CA, February 18, 2004 - the world's best Halo PC players converge Gardena, California, a small city pinned between downtown Los Angeles and the coast. Nineteen players representing their home country battled to determine who will claim "World Champion" status. The Halo PC International Championship is organized by Microsoft and iGames, and is sponsored by AMD, ATI and Alienware. This finals event took place in a large cybercafe named Internet PC Cafe, or IPC located in a bustling shopping strip.

What's at stake? A very nice plaque stating "Halo World Champion" that will go nicely in the fireplace mantle, as well as an AMD-based Aurora Alienware gaming system for the top 3 players. In addition, the nineteen competitors who made it to this finals stage, receive an ATI Radeon 9800PRO video card, as well as a free trip to the city of angels (and smog).

Outside IPC at 2:00pm

The entryway to gaming

Skewed angle

The cafe was closed to walk-in customers for the whole day as the tournament proceeded. The day began with all nineteen participants representing the US, UK, Ireland, Mexico, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, Chile, Singapore, India, Brazil, Holland, Sweden and others having an equal chance at winning the big prize. These representatives are champions in their own home country, and have had to face stiff competition just by being here in the international finals. For example, the US champion, who is a Los Angeles native - has already won a Gateway 42" Plasma TV, and the Japanese champion has won the equivalent of US$6000 and other PC hardware prizes.

There were multiple rounds of competition in this final day, with battles of up to 6 vs 6 (free for all mode) to decide who advances to the next round. Each player has their own gaming station, pointed out by a small flag sitting on top of the sleek black desktop PC cases of the gaming center. The scores in each round (each round consists of up to 5 matches) are used to calculate who advances and who gets left behind. In the semi-finals, there were 2 brackets, each playing 4 matches in a 6 vs 6 battle. 2 Players in each bracket was eliminated and the remaining 4 advances to the finals, which was an 8 vs 8 shootout.

Jakub of Denmark

South Korea representative

At the end of a semi-finals round

The battles themselves seem subdued, as there is no talking allowed between the players - and the spectators unallowed to speak, the room was quiet, the exact antithesis to what is happening in the headphones of the players, as explosions and bloodshed are depicted on-screen. It didn't seem to be such an exciting spectacle - as it felt more like an online exam in a college PC lab - especially with the organizers walking back and forth in the aisle seemingly acting like overzealous professors.