Friday, Jun. 13, 2008
GAME TIME
Video Game Tournament Scheduled at Grapevine Convention Center
By Steven Kirby
Staff Writer
The second Iron-Man of Gaming competition comes to the Grapevine Convention Center on June 19-22 with more than $10,000 in cash and prizes being awarded to top gamers. The winner will be awarded the Iron-Man of Gaming championship belt.
But this isn’t the typical tournament, said Craig Skistimas, program director of ScrewAttack Entertainment, the Flower Mound-based company organizing the event.
"Most tournaments focus on one game, like Halo," Skistimas said. "The whole idea [of the Iron-Man] is to find the best [player] of all games."
The tournament, sponsored in part by retailer Game X Change, will pit up to 128 players against each other in games ranging from classic Super Nintendo titles to current-generation games from the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360.
Games will be from a variety of genres and include Killer Instincts [fighting], Goldeneye 007 [first-person shooter] and Mario Kart Wii [racing]. The classic games were chosen by the ScrewAttack staff, Skistimas said.
"We let our online community vote for the current titles that will be played," Skistimis said. "That way no one can say 'I don’t know how to play that game.’ They voted on them, and they’ve been announced for a while so people can train."
Iron-Man will also feature a mystery game that has never been played by the public.
"The Wizard is partly where we got the idea of the tournament," Skistimas said.
The Wizard featured Fred Savage and Luke Edwards as brothers who run away from home to a video game tournament. The movie was used as a promotion platform for Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers 3, which was revealed as the tournament’s mystery game.
To play in the tournament, competitors must register. Preregistration entry fee is $25, or $50 at the door. The event is open to the public and free with preregistration, or $5 at the door. To preregister see www.ironmanofgaming.com or www.screwattack.com.
People can also get in for free if they donate a game to the Get Well Gamers charity.
Get Well Gamers, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 2001, donates video games and consoles to children’s hospitals throughout the United States for terminally ill children. For details, see www.get-well-gamers.org.
The event will also feature entertainment presented by ScrewAttack including trivia games, a Rockband Rock 'n’ Roll contest, a Cosplay costume contest and presentation of movies based on video games like Mortal Kombat and Doom.
There will also be a silent auction that will feature signed ScrewAttack merchandise and other items with a portion of the proceeds going to Get Well Gamers.
"The focus is on fun," Skistimis said. "But we have serious gamers coming from all over the world to play."
Competitors from Romania, Canada and Africa have already signed up for the event as well as last year’s champion, Chris Delp of Irving.
"The whole idea [of the Iron-Man] is to find
the best [player] of all games ... The focus is on fun, but we have serious gamers coming from
all over the world to play."
— Craig Skistimas,Program Director of Flower Mound-based ScrewAttack Entertainment
Print
E-Mail
