ShootMania officially went live on Wednesday, April 10th, but just a few days before that there was one heck of a launch celebration in San Francisco. Hundreds of people turned out to play the brand new FPS title from Ubisoft's Nadeo studio, the same developers responsible for the hugely popular TrackMania series. On the weekend of April 6th and 7th, Cobb's Comedy Club was transformed into a huge LAN party, complete with 30 computers loaded up with ShootMania, giveaways for attendees, fan tournaments, an open bar, and an IGN meet and greet. But of course, the main attraction was the $100,000 ShootMania Launch Tournament.
That's a lot of monitors.
16 teams from all over the world met to compete at the Launch Event. The reigning champions from IPL5, Colwn, were back in action as the number 8 seed, quite a fall from their expected number 1 seeding. Fnatic, the team that placed 2nd at IPL5, was back with a new roster (Lekaim was dropped from the team in favor of former TCM Gaming's Luxxiz) and a great desire for success. Colwn and Fnatic were widely regarded as the tournament favorites, despite other teams like SK Gaming, Curse Gaming, 4Kings, and PyroGEN all placing higher than them in the online qualifiers. Games kicked into action early Saturday morning, and no real upsets took place aside from a surprisingly strong iDemise team taking down the strong European team, Imaginary. SK Gaming made an unceremonious exit by the end of the first day, losing to the reigning champions, Colwn, and a huge underdog team, Imaginary.
ShootMania players in the zone.
Sunday morning kicked off with our final eight teams still in contention. Colwn and Fnatic were the last two teams to survive in the Winners Bracket, and had some time to practice while the Losers Bracket caught up. Imaginary, iDemise, TCM, and PyroGEN all fell one by one in the Losers Bracket, with Curse Gaming and 4Kings being the only survivors. Curse had an amazing run on Sunday, dispatching iDemise 2-0, PyroGEN 2-0, and then 4Kings 2-0. The Winners Final played out, and Fnatic would end up on top with a series score of 2-0! This was their revenge from the IPL5 finals, and they were thrilled. In the Losers Final, a seriously hot Curse squad managed to take down Colwn in the third and final game of the series and earned their way into the Grand Final against Fnatic. Curse was actually knocked into the Losers Bracket in WR2 by Fnatic and had not lost a series since, so they were looking for some revenge of their own.
All day long, the games were great. 24 of the best ShootMania: Elite players in the world were in the same room, battling it out for glory and cash. The Grand Finals did not disappoint, with successful attack rounds being taken left and right. Curse lost the first game to the European powerhouse Fnatic, but attempted to rally in game two. Strenx, Luxxiz, and JiePie were so close to victory and bringing home the ShootMania Launch Tournament title for Fnatic. Buds, Talespin, and Xp3 had one last chance to take a game and attempt to reset the series. Game two turned out to be the final game of the tournament, as Fnatic held strong on defense and managed to squeak in a few very impressive attack rounds. In the final seconds, Talespin was eliminated by Strenx, and Fnatic became the winners of the $100,000 ShootMania Launch Tournament.
All hail the novelty oversized check.
Strenx told us later that evening that this was actually his first trophy ever for a first place LAN finish. Congratulations to Strenx, Luxxiz, and JiePie for all of their hard work and dedication to being the best at ShootMania: Elite. Now that the game has officially launched, perhaps there will be some new competition for these FPS gurus.
Here are the final standings and prizes for each of our competing teams:
- 1st - $30,000 - Fnatic
- 2nd - $15,000 - Curse Gaming
- 3rd - $11,000 - Colwn
- 4th - $8,000 - 4Kings
- 5th/6th - $6,000 each - TCM Gaming, PyroGEN
- 7th/8th - $4,000 each - Imaginary, iDemise
- 9th-16th - $2,000 each - AERO, Lady Killaz, RTL, High Rollers Gaming, SK Gaming, RiYM, MonoManiac, and vVv Gaming
Here you can see all of the scores on the official bracket: http://challonge.com/shootmanialaunch, and here you can see all of the VODs from the tournament: http://www.youtube.com/iplshootmania
All in all, the event was a ton of fun and was filled with great competition. If you're interested in playing ShootMania, you can purchase it now at http://www.shootmania.com or download the game on Steam.
Josh "AskJoshy" Sutherland is a former IGN Pro League employee, follow him at http://www.twitter.com/AskJoshy
Source : ign[dot]com
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