Want to fight the undead this weekend? It’s time to start practising to maim, slice and kill vampires and other horrendous-looking beasts. Carnage has never been this much fun as South African gamers make sure their rocket launchers and chain guns are locked and loaded.
American Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, the world’s number-one cyber-athlete, will be attending the rAge 2005 expo in Johannesburg. And even better: New Age Gaming (NAG) Magazine offers R20 000 for the first South African who beats Fatal1ty in a shoot-out in the dark and sinister game Painkiller.
Fatal1ty is an international electronic-sports champion — in other words, a cyber-athlete. He has just won the Cyber-Athlete Professional League Painkiller world tour (receiving $400 000 in prize money) and before he travels to China for another Painkiller competition in October, he will visit the rAge expo together with Brian “Zen” Grapatin, another top international professional gamer.
In Painkiller, the player takes on the role of Daniel Garner, who has been killed in a car accident and lives in a world between heaven and hell after being denied access to heaven. It is the player’s task to find out why Garner was denied access, while fighting hordes of demonic soldiers, hungry vampires and aggressive beasts to stop what seems to be a holy war.
“Fatal1ty is the number-one sponsored gamer in the world. He travels all around the world for tournaments,” says NAG Magazine writer Miktar Ezekiel Dracon, who prefers to use his pen name. “With Fatal1ty coming to South Africa, it is pretty much the same thing as getting the best cricket player, basketball player and soccer player and have kids try to defeat them.
“Fatal1ty does a few shoot-outs per year. In this way, he gives locals a view of how he plays. He will probably be giving advice to our own best gamers who do well here but badly overseas.”
Now in its third year, rAge 2005 is Johannesburg’s annual PC gaming and technology expo held at the Coca-Cola Dome in Northgate, this year from September 30 to October 2.
At the expo, there will be more than 50 exhibitors promoting new games, hardware, software and gadgets. There is a launch of new games and new ideas in gaming — like XaviX, an interactive television game where the player uses his whole body to play a game of tennis, for instance, using a real tennis racket.
The latest hardware shown off at the expo will include the new PlayStation Portable, and the gadgets on show will range from MP3 players and notebooks to home theatre systems.
Gaming tournaments will be held daily and visitors will be able see the latest technology in development from different exhibitors.
The NAG local-area network section, an area where 700 gamers will hook up their own computers to play games all weekend long, is already sold out.
And those gamers planning to play the whole weekend (they will be allowed to continue through the night) may want to strengthen their fingers, hands and wrists. Dynaflex’s electronic Powerball, which will also be on display, can help them train — but its makers warn about the “amazing feeling you keep in your hand — you may get addicted”.
On the net
www.rageexpo.co.za
www.fatal1ty.com
www.nag.co.za