I woke-up early last Friday, keen to travel to the M Festival and the WCG UK Nationals, the International competitive gaming event. I left my house around 7 a.m. and arrived at the venue for 9 a.m. Having tackled security and dropped my greetings to a few people, I set up and waited for the rest of the team to arrive and prepared myself for a good weekend.
Team Dignitas, which is sponsored by Dell, arrived in staggered stages throughout the day, coming from five different countries and all over the UK. After we said our hellos, I settled down and watched the results of the Command and Conquer tournament come in as I mentally prepared for my own matches, which would be played on Saturday.
In between matches, I found myself on the EA stand meeting Gemma Atkinson, who has a part in their new video game Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3. She will be playing a Military Officer Lt Eva McKenna. I had a photo taken with her and a poster signed!
Luckily for me I was able to get in there before the masses came to follow my footsteps. I then sat down, with the EA staff, watching her sign poster after poster. Then to my surprise, I have a tap on my shoulder asking if I could move my stuff so he could sit down… It was Marcus Bent — last season’s English Premier League football player. So, I’ve been hanging out with the superstars!
Saturday was a really busy day. In the morning had to play the winner bracket Semi-Final and then the winner bracket Final and then the Grand Final in the afternoon. I practiced for a bit and awaited my opponents to message me. The Semi-Finals I won 2-0 and the Final 2-0 and I was on course to the Grand Final to defend my UK championship for the second year running. I had two interviews before the final, one with xleague.tv and the 2nd with Radio1.
I got on stage, confident, willing and hungry to win. I had come from the winners bracket so I only had to win one map, which was completed within 8 minutes and another trip to WCG was secured! That evening, I chilled out, and caught up with lots of different people and enjoyed myself as my job was complete.
On Sunday I was feeling reasonably confident, having just won the UK championships for the second year running. I was looking forward to be playing on the EA stand where they had set-up “Play Apollo @ Red Alert3.” I had about an hour there, playing two different four-player fight for alls! Basically, I was being tag-teamed by three people at once! Luckily for me, I had worked on this game in the Alpha stages in Los Angeles RTS Studios and therefore knew what I was doing and took down both games as the winner. It was great fun and we had a good handful of players and crowd watching us play.
Later on I took the stage once again for the World Cyber Games winners presentation and the “Team UK” picture. I had the honour to hold our European Cyber Games championship trophy, which we won earlier in the year!
Overall I had a fantastic weekend at the M Festival, glad that the gaming industry in the UK is growing support and improving all the time. I went there on a mission and came back a winner.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Christ you got your own stand? Nicely done. I can see why you don’t need a proper job now then.
You’re officially a gaming celebrity then, making the crossover to Radio 1. Shaun Clark to have a small part on the radio talking about games like they do about movies? Rumour started.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:39 am
We knew him when he wasnt famous!
Good job mate.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:44 am
A bit sad to ask but i have been trying ot get some fans opinion of the poster design, what did you think of it. My team designed it you see and got relatively no feedback on the artwork! Looks like a fair few people got it signed but that was probably due to her!
Cheers!
Rik