Intermission
After the Free For All, it was time for the main event. But before the start of the 2v2 action, Jesse Sternburg, one of the associate producers for G4TV's Arena gave everyone a little introduction to the upcoming season of the show, which is going to feature America's Army: Special Operations played on cutting edge VR gear, courtesy of the US Army. A number of the players signed up to get a chance to be on the show.

Also announced at intermission was that friends of GameJockeys had brought a modded Xbox with modded Halo to display, so tournament participants could see (and play) with some of the toys many have only seen in videos by BOLL and others. The modded version of Halo (Skins! Shotguns with Scorpion rounds! Etc!) was kept in another room so that the uprorious laughter wouldn't disturb the competition games.

Pool Play
The new iGames tournament format always starts off with pool play (and FFA) so that every participating team has the opportunity to play several games against different opponents before being eliminated. With twenty-three teams participating, the SoCal regionals had six pools, five of four teams, and one with three. A coin flip determined game type with the winning team deciding between Team Slayer on Battle Creek, King of the Hill on Chill Out, or Team Ball on Wizard. The game choices were divided pretty evenly between Team Slayer and Team King with, ironically, one oddball choice of Team Ball.

As is usual in pool play, there were some wildly uneven matches (Team Slayer: 50-2 - Ouch!) but many games were quite close, decided by seconds or a handful of kills. Some of the teams that would advance to the later rounds saw early losses, as they warmed up and sized up their competitors.

Proof of how close many of the matches were comes from the number of teams that advanced out of pool play. Normally, only the top two teams advance out of each pool, meaning in this case that only twelve teams should have made it to the single elimination rounds. However, if there is a tie in the pool for the top two positions, all tied teams advance. Calculating the win loss records for each pool resulted in a total of sixteen teams advancing - definitely some well-matched competitors!

Single Elimination Rounds
iGames' new single elimination format for Halo is a best two out of three games match, with the first two games being Capture the Flag (three captures) being played on the same map twice, each team taking a turn as red and blue. The tie breaker is Team Slayer to 25.

For the regionals, the CTF map was Damnation. Team work is key on this map, as well as talent with the sniper rifle, rocket launcher and multi-level grenade tossing. As usual, teams that really knew the map well were able to anticipate the movements of their opponents, and more than once spectators witnessed rockets being launched across the level with no target in sight, only for the victim to appear just as the rocket reached its destination a second or two later.

As the finals approached, there were some incredibly good matches. For example, in the final sixteen match between Xtreme Killers (Rafael Lopez aka {XK} SEAL and Saul Peņa aka {XK} D BuG) and Game Quest Elites (Arslan Aladeen aka Pukenut and Ryan Southard aka PaThoGeN), the two teams split wins on CTF and the tie-breaking round (on Prisoner) was decided by only 2 kills.

Perhaps one of the most impressive matches of the tournament was the battle for third and fourth place between Cock 'n Load (Manuel Haro aka Master Yoda and Gregory Gonzalez aka Psycho Greg) and Destructive Unit (Gabriel Contreras aka LowK and Kyle Deguzman aka ChAoS). Game 1 of the match took nine minutes with Destructive Unit coming up the winner, 3-2. Game 2 looked like Cock 'n Load's game, as they quickly took a 2 flag lead. Most observers started to anticipate a tie-breaking slayer match. However, Destructive Unit regrouped, and 15 minutes after the game had started, emerged victorious 3-2, game and match.

Of course, it always comes down to the finals, and the competition was superb. Team "I'll Make One Later", featuring Nick Albin aka [-Slim-] and Noah Evans aka chumpp (who also place 2nd in FFA), faced -={MT}=- PsychoGuys, featuring FFA Champ Chris Brubaker aka TheSPFXmaN and Francis Godfrey aka PsychoFrank (who also placed 4th in FFA). I'll Make One Later took game 1 in seven minutes playing blue with a score of 3-1. -={MT}=- PsychoGuys fought harder in game 2, taking two flags before I'll Make One Later won in the twelfth minute.

Congratulations to I'll Make One Later, and everyone who participated!

Full brackets will be published on iGames soon, so check back for the link in a few days. We will also have some updated statistics with top kill %, best kill/death ratio, team profiles, etc. Until then, the following:

FIRST PLACE - The Best in Southern California
$100 Cash
$100 Gift Certificates to GameCrazy
Xbox Live Starter Kit
New copy of Halo
New copy of Brute Force

I'll Make One Later
Nick Albin
Noah Evans

SECOND PLACE
$50 Gift Certificates to GameCrazy
Xbox Live Starter Kit
New copy of Shenmue II
New copy of Brute Force

-={MT}=- PsychoGuys
Chris Brubaker
Francis Godfrey

THIRD PLACE
$30 Gift Certificates to GameJockeys
New copy of Rallisport
Red Bull 4pack Gift Pack

Destructive Unit
Gabriel Contreras
Kyle Deguzman

FOURTH PLACE
$30 Gift Certificates to GameJockeys
New copy of Whacked!
Red Bull 4pack Gift Pack

Cock 'N Load
Manuel Haro
Gregory Gonzalez

All teams tied for fifth place received Red Bull 4pack Gift Packs.

PHOTOS: