NIC - October 26-27, 2001 - Review - Pictures
The second Network Invasion Charlotte LAN party was just plain fun!  The set up went smoothly, the air conditioner was working great, and the power and network teams did an outstanding job

Tournaments
There were three official tournaments at the party: Quake III CTF, Counter-Strike, and Unreal Tournament.  The Q3 and CS tournaments were originally scheduled to run simultaneously, but signups were scanty at first, so we decided to separate them and allow people to have the opportunity to play in both.  This, of course, created a bit of confusion, so once again the tournaments ran longer than they were scheduled.  Still, the competitors were ready and able, and there was plenty of excitement all around.   It should be noted that some of these team names were arbitrarily created and assigned by the staff in an attempt to maintain a small bit of sanity.

Quake 3 CTF
The Quake 3 Capture the Flag tourney was intended to be double-elimination, but there were only four teams, so the games were the best two out of three, and the winners advanced into the championship game, which was also best 2 of 3.

The teams were as follows: CCGA - Vesper, [CCGA]Umpa, [CCGA]Sue ZQ, and Featherhead; Team Biltmore (pictured above) - CurDog, RaGe, H3 Mr.Gravy, and DV|P1cC0l0; CMAT - chronocow, Mother, Aphextwin, and Terminator 1000; and RKT - RKT MacJ, RKT PenguinKILLER, RKT punk88, and RKT LugNut.  Team Biltmore won the tournament; congratulations to CurDog, RaGe, H3 Mr.Gravy, and DV|P1cC010 for their spectacular play!

Counter-Strike
The Counter-Strike tournament was double-elimination and consisted of six teams: Team Biltmore - CurDog, RaGe, H3 Mr.Gravy, and DV|P1cC010; RKT - RKT MacJ, RKT punk88, RKT PenguinKILLER, and RKT LugNut; SUMO (at right) - [CCGA]Sue ZQ, [CCGA]Umpa, Mother, and NIC.Overkill; FOAC - Featherhead, [B2dH!]Opi3, Aphextwin, and chronocow; NIC - NIC.Lobo, NIC.Snorkel, fah-q, and Dead_Eddie; and Beak's Assassins - NIC.Quitcher, KeRaK, [CQBO]MrBunnyKiller, and [CQBO]])runken]V[asters.

The bracket for the tourney can be seen here.  To sum it up, SUMO beat Beak's Assassins in de_storm to advance to the championship game.  Then Beak's Assassins creamed (hey, I'm writing this, so I get to supply the description) NIC in de_torn to win the losers' bracket and advance to the final.  There, SUMO once again showed Beak's Assassins how to play Counter-Strike with a brilliant display of teamwork, skill, and not-getting-lost in de_predator.  Nicely done, SUMO!

Unreal Tournament
The Unreal Tournament One on One was a single-elimination tourney.  Players got ten minutes to do as much damage to their opponents as possible.  The action was fast and furious!  In the end, RaGe (pictured at right) beat Aphextwin to claim the tropy!  The bracket for the tourney is here.

Prizes
All of the tournament winners received an official, shiny, and highly-coveted Network Invasion Charlotte trophy for their efforts.  In addition, CurDog was randomly selected to receive a case of Bawls.  The early-payers drawing of the Microsoft Game Voice was won by [B2dH!]Opi3.  There were quite a few door prizes to be given away, also.  In fact, there were so many that everybody still present at the door prize drawing won a prize.  The prizes included: three Alienware mousepads, two Alienware hats, five Extended Play T-Shirts, four Final Fantasy figurines, two Game Doctors, another Microsoft Game Voice, a Gear Grip Pro, a PC Tote, two Wicked3D eyeSCREAM light driver CDs with 3D glasses, a heatsink (I don't remember the details), and a 10-pack of blank CDs.

Pictures
Event pictures are here.

Miscellaneous
FreeBeak brought his Sega Dreamcast and set it up to play on the projector screen.  Hilarous games of Crazy Taxi gave gamers a break from their computers, and G2's Bad Mojo gave out free lessons on how to play Soul Calibur.  Late Friday night, several people played a co-op game of Serious Sam, taking it all the way to the end.  Saturday night after the tournaments were finished and the prizes had been given out, everyone was invited to join in a game of Return to Castle Wolfenstein.  That was certainly a blast.

Thanks
Network Invasion Charlotte would like to thank, first and foremost, all of the fine individuals who came to our party and made it a roaring success.  We would also like to thank our sponsors, in alphabetical order: Alienware, Bawls, Case Ace, Game Doctor, GamersPort, Kali, PC-Tote, TechTV, and Wicked3D.  While we're at it, we would like to thank Bad Mojo and the rest of the crew at G2 for all the advice they have given.  We hope you enjoyed our second LAN party as much as we did.  Be sure to keep an eye on www.networkinvasion.com for more parties in the future!

Mistakes, typos, and other such things are probably my fault.  Feel free to complain if it bothers you.
Quitcher