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“Everything that has a beginning has an end,” so said a certain Oracle, and so it passed for One Asia Gaming earlier today, with drama and excitement in revolutionary douses. In my final day as ‘undercover reporter’, I’m pleased to opine that Day 3 was the most memorable day of all, owing to all the finals of our tournaments playing out, back-to-back. For each contest, there might have been hundreds of contenders, but there could be only ONE. Life is cruel, yes… Let’s take the Score with nEbO tournament for instance. More than 128 players came swaggering forth, but only one champ was left standing. (Grats to you Alvin!) He will represent Singapore at the EA SPORTS™ FIFA Online 2 Championship in Korea. Playing as Inter-Milan and backed up by a posse of supporters, he scored a narrow victory against the runner-up, who fielded Newcastle (albeit with different players from the current real Newcastle team; the game lets you do that). Visitors who stayed longer got another treat – a friendly matchup between the new champion and last year’s winner! The aces fielded Brazil and Spain respectively, and played out what could actually be the real finals in the upcoming World Cup. If this friendly is anything to go by, Singapore may very well win the FIFA Online 2 Championship in Korea. Alvin posted a convincing 4-0 victory… and his opponent came in second in the Korea finals last year! Maybe this is owed to how Alvin was already warmed up by all the matches he’s played earlier. Nevertheless, four million Singaporeans are keeping their fingers crossed… This was a day for extra prizes and visitor treats. The Animal Kaiser Family Challenge came to a conclusion too, but in addition to props for the winning team, one extra award was given out – for the best-dressed family. Teams came in matching outfits just for this! Lest we forget, the Family Challenge is wholly organized by the local AK community, for the community. Once again, they are proving that AK is a fun, family-oriented game. Not to be outdone, Starcraft™ II upped a notch for its offer of Beta keys. Yesterday, Blizz reps were on-site, taking challenges from anyone who could try beating them for Beta keys. Today, visitors could challenge anyone manning the SCII booths to a battle. Beat any on-duty staff, and you’d be spending late nights playing SCII in no time flat! If you were craving for fast-paced action, you couldn’t do any better than watching the Dragonica Online 5v5 Tournament finals. As you’d probably know, Dragonica is one of the fastest action MMOs in the world. Watching 2 top teams do battle was a sight for sore eyes, with spells and special effects illuminating the entire screen. How did the players even track there their toons were? The finals saw Team 1 and Team 6 facing off for the best of 9 rounds. It was a closely-fought duel, where Team 1 (‘Mystified’) edged out their enemies by only 5:4 victories. These are true professionals – not only have they been playing together for a year, they have first-team players and reserve-team players lined up for such tournaments! If a Dragonica matchup is an attack-oriented slug-fest, a Counter-Strike shootout must be the most defensive game to watch. Mindless charging and blanketing areas with bullets is for amateurs. The pros do it differently. At the Counter-Strike Online finals, visitors saw careful and tactical gameplay, which will soon be repeated in all LAN stores in the region once again. Watching 2 squads of Counter-Strike hardcore players was a treat, not just because of the skills exhibited, but also due to these same skills honed since the early 2000s, on the old Counter-Strike. The game plays just as well as the original, plus new weapons and maps. So watch out for it! And congrats to the fab five who out-gunned and out-maneuvered them all (I hope I got all your names right): Wee Keong, Mervin, Zack, Philip, and Gary! There you have it: 3 full days of keyboard-jamming mayhem, unbelievable deals and eye-candy. This is how we roll at One Asia Gaming. We’re sure to return next year, and make our presence felt at other gaming shows. Until then, get your game on!
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