Live from the World Cyber Games US Finals

Live, from the World Cyber Games US Finals in downtown New York City, we bring you the closing day of the World Cyber games.

Pictured above, guys who thought that they were coming to test their video game abilities to determine who would be representing the United States at the World Finals in Singapore this November are instead humiliated in a physical contest of push-ups. Out of six guys, only one managed to do more than 40 push-ups, winning a digital camera (Samsung Digimax V5) from corporate sponsors.

The finals for the day have largely played out. Winners have been determined for Halo 2, Starcraft: Brood War, Warcraft III: Frozen Throne, Counter Strike: Source. (The other official games are FIFA Soccer 2005, Need for Speed Underground 2, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, and Dead or Alive Ultimate). We interviewed the team manager for the winning Counter Strike: Source team and the winner of the Starcraft finals.

The lights have dimmed on the on-stage silliness and the closing ceremonies are about to get underway. Queue WCG theme music, ?Beyond the Game? the cheese of which must be heard to be believed (lyrics here). The crowd actually got into it ? screaming ?beyond the game!? Cheesy lyrics are only bad when nobody enjoys them. That ain?t the case here.

The winners (and their ages and locations) are:

• Halo 2: Dan Ryan (19); Tom Ryan (19) both from Pickerington, OH for Team 3D

• Stracraft: Sean Plott (19) from Leawood, KS; Sherwin Mahbod (19) from San Francisco, CA, both with rS Gaming (we interview Sean Plott below)

• Warcraft III: Dannis Chan (22) from Sunset Beach, CA for Mouse Sports; Jeff Bliss (16) from Atherton, CA for TGS; Matthew Anderson (19) from Lexington, SC for CKeck6

• Counter Strike: Michael So (21) from Northridge, CA; Kyle Miller (21) from Washington DC, Ronald Kim (21) from Dallas, TX; Salvatore Garozzo (18) from Eastchester, NY; Josh Sievers (21) from Polk City (pictured at right), IA all for Team 3D

• FIFA Soccer 2005: Matija Biljeskovic (21) from Rockford, IL for Dignitas

• Need for Speed Underground 2: Kamran Siddiqui (20) from Orlando Florida

• Warhammer 40,000: Matthew Proctor (20) from Dallas, TX for Pro Gaming

• Dead or Alive Ultimate: James Clifford (21) from Jefferson Township, NJ

Pictured above: the World Cyber Games 2005 US championship Team USA. These are the collected winners listed above.

We got the chance to interview Sean Plott (19) from Leawood, Kansas (pictured at right). Sean?s a sophomore majoring in mathematics at Harvey Mudd college in Claremont, CA. This was his first big tournament, so he was excited to have won first place, $2,000, and a free ticket to Singapore. In fact, he was downright ebullient, talking as fast as his fingers fly over the keyboard in a Starcraft match.

The five major elements of a winning Starcraft strategy

We did manage to get him to slow down long enough to drop some knowledge on us. According to Sean, a player must master the following five elements of the game in order to win a major Starcraft tournament:

1. Strong build order. ?Let?s say you want to tank rush a player. there is in fact an optimal way to do that.? He described the ?Two ?racks? strategy and the ?fast gas? strategy. (Insert joke about gamer diets and vespene gas here.)

2. Overall strategy. ?What is your focus? What is your goal?? Players must decide whether they?re going to go for the aggressive blitz or attempt to defend and starve their opponent of resources.

3. Micro. A player can prevail against a better-fortified or more massive army through superior control over each individual unit.

4. Macro. ?That?s my strongest element in the game ? I?m constantly setting stuff up, building stuff, building stuff back in my base. It?s every 15-20 seconds that you have to go back and build stuff again.?

5. Tactics. This about ?abusing the map? or using territory to your advantage.

6. Speed. You?ve got to see the finger speed on these guys to believe it. There?s a reason why the winners in today?s games are between the ages of 18 and 22. They?ve simply got the reflexes and speed of youth on their side.

Sean?s inspirational message for those who would game competitively: ?I?m very proud of the fact that I?m a huge nerd and that I go to these tournaments. Everybody knows it?s a huge part of who I am.?

We?re getting forcibly removed from this place ? the facilities crew are eager to get the hell out of gaming geekdom and get their Saturday nights on, so with this parting shot of some well-used and abused Xboxes, we bid you adieu.