World Cyber Games 2005

This year, Singapore played host to what was arguably the best World Cyber Games (WCG) to date, with US$435,000 up for grabs and around 40,000 spectators walking through its doors. Team USA walked away with the most medals but it was heartening to see Singapore also managing one silver medal in Dead or Alive.

In the spirit of this great sporting event, the geekier wing of IslandHope popped down Suntec City after church today to soak up the atmosphere of all the matches (death matches!) taking place in the cavernous exhibition hall. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the Warcraft III finals had already finished. Update: Seems like Tigerming managed to catch the Warcraft III match! Changky, Guppy and MC Hammer stayed on to watch the Counterstrike finals between Team USA vs Kazakhstan and I heard from Gab later on that it was an adrenaline filled match. Although Kazakhstan was totally annhilated, they still did their country proud by reaching the finals despite only having dial-up internet to train on (the rest of the world is probably already on broadband!).

The Olympics of TV and computer games, with a venue to match.

Note: Image taken from WCG official web site.

MC Hammer, Ariel, Guppy, Changky and Princess at WCG! The seats behind us were totally filled up when the Counterstrike match began.

INK cannot resist making a rare appearance on his blog for a geeky event like this! The proud wifey agrees.

Toys on exhibit! Check out that super duper old Nintendo Entertainment System clone in the middle (ah nostalgia). Those days, you didn’t need mod-chips to play “friendly” games.

Credits: Changky for lending his Lumix FX9 for the first two shots and for personally taking the third photo.