Team USA has won the overall championship in the recently-concluded World Cyber Games (WCG) 2007 held in Seattle, Washington this weekend. The champs bagged a total of 6 medals, just one medal shy of a deadlock with South Korea's seven-medal record.

The Americans dominated in various platforms and came out on top in Gears of War, Dead or Alive 4, Project Gotham Racing, Tony Hawk's Project 8, and Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs

This year also saw the emergence of Germany in the RTS genre with 4 medals, topping powerhouse South Korea's three-medal performance. The United Kingdom also put on a stunner as they swept Starcraft with an unbeaten streak in the Singles game courtesy of star player Apollo.

When all was said and done, more than 700 players from 74 nations expressed their fulfillment in their participation throughout the event. Victory may not have been for everyone, but there was much happiness to be shared.

The World Cyber Games is the biggest e-sports gathering in the planet. It was founded in 2001 and has been one of the industry's most celebrated shindigs ever since, attracting fans and media from all over the world.

With the arrival of Sword of the New World: Granado Espada, K2 has revealed their lineup of events for the Leipzig Games Convention which will be held on the 22nd. If you plan to join the pilgrimage to the Convention, you'll be able to find K2's booth at Exhibit Hall 4, stand B46.

K2 will be displaying a number of their current games in their booth including, of course, Sword of the New World. Aside from that there will be contests and a photo shoot with your favorite K2 character. They'll be using blue screen though, so wear something... not blue.

There will also be a photo shoot with, as K2 describes, a "a sexy female character from Sword of the New World: Granado Espada." Of course there's also the complementary goodies where visitors will walk away with t-shirts, necklaces, mouse pads, and other nice freebies.

A live War Rock tournament will also be held at the KIPA booth on August 23 in the World Cyber Games Booth in Hall 2. Winners will get prizes.

Let us go far as to say that an article like this had to be written, and we're glad that someone actually did. While blogger and PC geek dp was as avid a gamer as any of those who remain of the multi-genre gaming enthusiasts, it's not hard to see where his sentiments are stemming from.

As part of the social subculture in the world, LAN parties used to be the pinnacle of community gatherings and social structuring that allowed gamers to connect on a real inter-personal level. But now, as broadband weaved its way to the mass market, the number of LAN party attendees soon dwindled to nothing.

It was pretty fine at first, of course, as most FPS or RTS gamers who couldn't win a match (even if their lives depended on it) were noticeably the first to go. But then even the mainstream LAN gamers suddenly opted out, seeking out human flesh player pwnage glory in the likes of MMORPG PvP games. The end of the LAN party was at hand.

While broadband's 2Mbps and even 4Mbps is nothing close to the mainstream LAN party's 100Mbps (or if you've got the bucks to blow - 1Gbps), gamers opted for the laggy, increasingly unimaginative but virtual worlds that MMO games had to offer. Players didn't mind not knowing the person that they were playing with, as long as they could be played with. And then players were able to hide behind masks of alter-egos, even if it confused some of the more practical players.

So now the once-mainstream, now-brainwashed gamers spend around eight hours a day crawling around dungeons with pixelized versions of themselves, hacking away at other pixelized versions of monsters with a sorry excuse for AI. Soon, those gamers couldn't pay for their own Internet connections that they soon returned to LAN parties, only to connect their PC to the high-speed network and fire up World of Warcraft. The nerve!

Thanks to some charitable PC enthusiasts who have the audacity to shell out their money for a great LAN gaming session, or even well known game developer companies such as id Software, LAN parties still have a fighting chance to be epic milestones in the gaming community. The upcoming QuakeCon is one of the world's most awaited and celebrated LAN parties, and it's probably the only last refuge of the LAN party culture. Competitive games such as the Electronic Sports World Cup and the World Cyber Games need this mechanic, and so it's not a big deal on their part.

So for game enthusiasts that are still out there, here's our calling to revive the gaming culture's biggest social achievement in world history. Let's return it to it's former glory and even seek out to bring the FPS-heads from consoles into our fold. After all, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 are all capable of wired and wireless networking. And if it's not hard to ask, can we get more cross-multiplayer titles? Please?

 

CMP - the folks responsible for organizing the Game Developers Conference has recently confirmed that they will host a Korean GDC come September this year.

Ah, Korea, land of awesome kimchi, mass-produced MMOs - no offense to the really good ones that came out, cyber athletes/celebrities, the World Cyber Games, and female MMO gamers who sell their virginity for uber in-game items. (A Ragnarok Online myth that's yet to be confirmed, quick, call Jamie and Adam!)

Anyhow, GDC Korea is set to take place from September 13th to 5th at the Bexco Convention Hall in Busan, South Korea. The event is said to capitalize on the country's "fast growing" games community. (What? It's still growing?)

The event is said to consist of a two-day conference on the 13th and the 14th, and an Expo that will run for the full three days. The event is said to also be organized in part by Busan Metropolitan City. For more details on the event, feel free to click our read-link below. It should lead to the official site.

WCGZone announced today that they have just added three new games to their website: FIFA 07 Soccer, Age of Empires III, and Age of Empires III: the War Chiefs.

For those not in the know, WCGZone is the year-round online gaming competition destination launched by the World Cyber Games back in 2006. Their website remains as one of the avenues where gamers can play year-round online matches and access clans and online communities.

The addition of these new titles now brings the total number of games on WCGZone to seven, which includes FIFA 06 and Counter Strike 1.6, to name a few. But these new titles aren't the only things that WCGZone has up their sleeves. They also announced the following changes to their monthly leagues:

• Players will now earn points instead of pre-determined prizes. This allows winners to choose from a multitude of prizes posted on the official WCG website.


• Beginning in Spring 2007, quarterly single elimination tournaments will be held alongside the monthly leagues. Only the highest ranking players from the monthly leagues will be invited to participate.

SteelSeries (a leading manufacturer of various gaming accessories such as headsets, keyboards, mouse pads, and mouse accessories) just struck a partnership with Reason Gaming (a British team that manages squads for Quake 4, Counter Strike, Call of Duty, Battlefield 2, and Halo 2; and was even chosen to represent UK in the World Cyber Games 2005) to produce cool videogame accessories.

As such, Reason Gaming will take part in promoting SteelSeries products. Also, both companies are preparing for various UK LAN events for 2007, so that's something to look forward to.

Says, Kim Rom, Head of SteelSeries' PR & Communications:

SteelSeries have been supporting a wide range of eSports teams since our inception in 2001. We select partners carefully, ensuring they are well suited to represent our brand. Reason Gaming has already had solid results with Gladiator Computers and Western Digital.

Here's a bit of inspirational news for all of you gamers out there. Wesley "TTR Ch0mpr" Cwiklo, the youngest member of Team USA, took gold in Project Gotham Racing 3 on the Xbox 360.

Team Korea (you know what a gaming-crazy nation Korea is) took home the Grand Champion title (their first since 2002; they won this year partly because of the gold and silver from Starcraft: Brood War). Team Russia got second in terms of medal count. Canada, China, Poland, and USA each took home one gold, so that makes Wesley Cwiklo the only gold medalist for Team USA.

Cwiklo went undefeated round after round at Monza, Italy, where the event was held. The final race was against Christopher Hogfeldt of Sweden, a fellow TTR member (TTR is a team of PGR players).

Next year's World Cyber Games will be in Seattle. Ralph Morton, Executive Director of Seattle Sports Commission, was there at this year's closing ceremonies to take the WCG flag in the symbolic turn-over.

(One last thing about how the Koreans are a gaming country (or at least a nation where gaming is not frowned upon but seen as a positive thing). We were digging through our press photos from the event, and we kept finding Koreans; it seemed like they were really well-represented there. Eventually, we settled for that image of the event stage, because it's pretty neat.)

About US$ 462,000 were given away in prizes. Gold medals went to China for WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne, the Polish for Half Life: Counter Strike, and Germany for FIFA 06. You know how parents say that gaming doesn't pay? Well it usually doesn't, unless you're really good like the 700 players who went to this year's WCG.

If any of you guys know of any other competitions - or if you're joining a competition - why don't you let us know? We'll cheer you on. And if you're in the Seattle area, make sure you don't forget about next year's WCG!