• USA won CS: Source and Halo 2
• China won WC3
• Korea won Starcraft: BW (surprise!)
• Japan won DOA: Ultimate (does that guy even own an Xbox!?)
• Some other countries I don’t care about won some other games I don’t care about

USA also won the overall championship for having the most wins.

Singapore managed to get second for DOA: Ultimate… Wilson Chia received louder applauses from the audience than the champion.

China also came close to third placing for Starcraft. It was quite an intense three-round match that was too close to call right till the last map. The Australian player using Protoss got pushed back to his main base by an early game Zerg rush and survived on a single Photon Cannon that finished building just in time. Then he slowly regained the upperhand and eventually won.

The CS:Source Finals between USA and Kazakhstan was also quite close. USA needed 2 rounds to win the game while Kazakhstan needed 8 to force the game into overtime. Then Kazakhstan managed to win 5 rounds during which USA won only one. But alas, USA proved to be the better team.

Overall, WCG 2005 was quite an enjoyable event. Although there is still much more room for expansion in terms of scale, but that’s up to Italy, the next WCG host.

I will post today’s pictures later.

I took a break from translating Gunparade Orchestra to check out the fifth World Cyber Games currently being held at Suntec City level 6 in Singapore. I was there from around 4pm till 7pm and caught two highlight CS:Source games.

WCG takes up the level 6 convention hall and is divided into three main areas. Immediately after entering the hall is the main stage with two giant screens and many rows of seats. Highlight games with live commentary take place on-stage at scheduled intervals. WCG actually started yesterday, but I was too wasted to go for the opening ceremony.

To the right is the main playing area where all the game matches are being played. The spectators are fenced off and the players play in different areas divided according to games. There are TVs and Xboxes (Crystal Edition) for the Halo 2 and Dead or Alive matches.

They looked like they were doing one-handed touch-typing.

Where’s Kasumi?

The first highlight match was Sweden against Lithuania on de_dust 2. It was a 4v4 match. Sweden won eventually, but later lost to Poland and fail to qualify for the next round. I thought that the Swedish team had very good cooperation. There was one game where they got hit by a terrorist rush to the bombsite right beside their base and lost. The next round, they camped in two pairs, one pair behind the wall and one pair crouched at the area where it slopes up to the bombsite. Thus all four were hidden from view when the terrorist entered the bombsite from the path directly above the CT base. Three terrorists reached the planting area itself before the CTs showed themselves. One person from each pair came out first to draw the terrorists’ fire and died, but before the enemy could react, the next two came out and killed everyone.

Sweden vs. Lithuania

To the right of the event hall is the area where the sponsors show off their goods and there are also some activities for the visitors, such as a World of Warcraft and Quake 4 playing area and some Xbox booths. The Xbox booths had Jade Empire running. They (not even 360s) were quite empty…

Bring out the Blizzard fanboys.

Warcraft seems to be the only game that has cosplayers walking around the place promoting the product.

What’s a Tauran like him doing in a place like this?

The second highlight match was Romania against Denmark on de_infernoe. Romania lost the first pistol round as CTs and had to play the second round without any money for guns. But with one of the best teamplay I’ve seen, they won the second round without a single death and went on winning for three more rounds. However, Denmark finally got its strategy in place and started winning at the seventh round. Romania failed to adjust its tactics and went from a 5-1 lead to a 10-5 lost. However, they regrouped and won 13-2 for the second match and their overall points was enough for them to qualify.

Click here for the rest of the pictures I took.

I’m not sure if I will be free to watch the finals on Sunday. Back to translating…