Funshop

The funshop was more like a Gaming Tournament. Awesome is one word for it. We decided to do a (last year's) 9th vs (last year's) 11th team deathmatch. 3 Team DMs.. great. The 11thies included Me, Roshan, Som the Great, Harsha and Ankit Bhalla. We were heavily outnumbered, with something like 8-9 ninthies.. not really heavily outnumbered, but outnumbered all the same. But that wasn't to make much of a difference. The game was Unreal Tournament 2003. The first DM was the map DM-Antalus, and it was a washout for 9th class, since many of them were playing UT for the first time in their lives. But a couple of them like Sanchit, Animesh, and Anirudh made their mark in the first game. Due to lack of computers, regulars to the workshops were given preference in allocation of computers. :-) But essentially, the 9thies were throughly dis-organized, each fighting to survive and never once went on an organized offensive. That gamer of the match was Roshan I think. The second game was even worse for the 9thies. They were completely wiped out and the second DM ended with scores something like 252 to 147 or similar. So we won heavily there, and that game saw Benjamin joining the ranks of 9thies and distinguishing himself. But they again suffered from lack of organization. Mostly the strategy (nobody planned it. it was just telepathically agreed upon by us) was that we would pick on each one and separate them from the rest, and finish off them one by one. We 11thies never needed to get really organized as each one was definately better skilled than any of the 9thy.

The real game, the real challenge, came in the 3rd DM. I still don't know what happened, but somehow it seemed like something had come into them, and they all started to act together, and all began to move together in groups. It became very difficult, since they went around in groups of nearly 6-7 around the map, each covering the other's back. And they went on an offensive. We (I confess) really had a tough time holding them back. Personally, I was as usual jumping and blasting around the map, and whenever I ran into them (which was a very regular thing), I engaged in a very very heated battle which was missing in the first two games. Like all of them combined together to launch every weapon they had on me while I was barely managing to escape them. Thankfully I had the sense to switch to rocket launcher at those times, and the alternate fire usually took out nearly 2-3/4 of them before finally I was conquered. That was a humbling experience. It was there that we all needed to finally get a little organized, with each one coming to the other's rescue if he was in battle, and that made things a little better, since for the first time, the 9thies were threatening our lead. At the lowest point in the game, our lead had dropped to just 35-40 points. Somehow we managed to fight harder, and it took all our skills to push them back, and we won the game with about 60 lead. Correct me if I'm wrong about the final lead. My eyes were watering and I was dead tired at the end of that game, and all I managed to see was that I was the leader in the game with umm.. I think 70 odd points. I am really impressed by this, and am contemplating a team-based tournament for different classes once school starts.

The last game before the end was a Capture the Flag game. Again 9th vs 11th. This game also proved that the last game was no lucky chance or fluke for the 9thies, since their team-work showed again and they managed to do a pretty good job at the game. The game was also a place where we 11thies finally got really organized and fought well. It was like a perfect team. Ankit Bhalla did good defending and stuck to the base till death, and Harsha was excellent in his cover-provision job by hanging around on the route back from the enemy base to help us when we brought the flag. Som was lethal with his sniper job, and he was like the overlord, hanging high in the skies taking down unsuspecting 9thies who were chasing us as we got the flag, or were attacking our base. And me and Roshan took turns in attacking the enemy base. I think I got around 5-6 flags home. It was a perfect pair, with either of us giving cover to each other. If Roshan went in, I went on the exact path followed by him and acted like a confusing-agent, confusing the 9thies who instead started firing at me, while Roshan managed to safely carry the flag out of the base, and I ran backwards taking out anyone who was following us, all the while being covered by Harsha the Guard, and Som the Overlord. A note of appreciation must be given to Benjamin for acting like an excellent sniper for 9th, though he still has to have more practise to get the finer details of the game, like crouching while sniping, and listening to sound around him. I believe Som teleported behind him quietly, and went just behind him while he was still sniping someone and BAM! that was the end of good ol' Ben. :-) Animesh and Sanchit and Anirudh showed excellent arena-instincts, like the description of an Unreal's character, Gorge, "Took to the arena like fish out of water". :-D


It was great. Simply great playing and I'm looking forward to longer matches.

posted by Shashank Shekhar @ 9:30 AM