«Yggdrasil's» account of his European Cyber Games participation

«Yggdrasil» and «The Tactical» with their checks.Photo: Philippe Vaillant

Name:
Philippe Vaillant

Position:
PGR 3 player

About the author
Philippe Vaillant was the first draft pick for Berlin Allianz during the 2007 European Draft. The racing game fanatic is twenty years old.

Not only March is the month where Spring begins, with its emerging flowers, or even that month which means the end of the financial season for the video games' editors, but more in depth, that 3rd month of the year 2008 could not make the players from both North America and Europe continents being more busy.

Indeed, two major events took place that early March, at the same period, and all this for the best of E-sports. On the left of the Atlantic Ocean, the CGS 2008 North American Combine saw numerous players take on one another in order to get a spot in the Championship Gaming Series. What we will have an interest in here is obviously Forza Motorsport 2, the new racing game the CGS have decided to choose for Season2. But first, I will focus my attention describing my experiences at the Samsung Euro Championship 2008, in Hannover, Germany, where I played in the Project Gotham Racing 4 tournament.

As soon as I saw Project Gotham Racing 4 in the games list of the WCG Europe 2008, I could not felt happier. A smile on my face, I knew I was going to give it my best, and try to bring home the Gold for Berlin Allianz : this would have been some kind of thanks to the Berlin Allianz General Manager "bsl", for inviting me to join his German franchise, earlier in 2007.

France chose the line-up of players who were going to attend the SEC 2008 event. I was there, with the other teammates from Counter-Strike, Fifa08, Command and Conquer 3, and Warcraft III. I then later planned my trip to Germany by buying night train tickets.




After an unlimited time and some bad sleep, I eventually went off the train and had to join the french team in the airport 5 hours later. Yeah you guessed so, airplane tickets were too expensive, trains all the way! All frenchies made it toghether in the airport, we went to luch there, still waiting for another 3 hours for the shuttle going to CeBIT, where the competitions took place.

The first day only consisted of the Opening Ceremony, but the most excited part of it was definitely the meeting between the players of different countries. It is nice to see all of those guys you know online, that you never met. Even if you already did, it is still cool to talk about this and that! I even met The Tactical there, the famous Berlin DOA player a.k.a my CGS teammate and went for a drink in the players' lounge after that the Ceremony was over.

This was ok I guess, still breakdancers making the show, as they did last year. Later, I visited the place, even making pictures you will find in the Gallery section, and it was quite fun to be there, playing some Xbox 360 hits, watching the nice german girls with sponsols all over the body (who said babes?), even though it can be boring sometimes when you are waiting too much for a match to be started. Ok, so the day was over, it was time for hotel room. The hotel was pretty cheap, 1 hour away from CeBIT, where the competitions were held, then it was quite annoying to get up every morning at 6am to do the basics, breakfast, shower etc and then bus, to be there in CeBIT around 9am.




Ok whatever the conditions are, Tactical and myself agreed on the previous day about one thing : we had to bring medals to the Franchise of bsl thanks to whom the CGS dream would not have been possible. Tactical would eventually get the Bronze medal. Day 2 was here, let's get the party started.

Actually, the party did get started, and pretty much in a good way for me. Despite the hard bracket I had - I went through the winner bracket undeafeated to reach the Grand final, even by beating what will be the European champion later on, in the half final. Waiting for the loser bracket final to come to an end, for me to know which opponent I will have to face the next day, I felt already glad that I had brought a medal, either silver or gold.

The actual PGR3 Seattle World Champion, a.k.a Handewasser from the Netherlands, eventually beat the German local for a spot in the Grand Final. Despite a great showing from Johnson from Germany and some good speed from other players, this was the expected final : the Netherlands vs France.

The last day of competition has come. Both of us were pretty nervous. Handewasser wanted to keep his crown as the current european and world champion, and as for me, I felt more than motivated to take my revenge on him, after the defeat in the same Grand final against him last year.

Well, we are on stage, players ready, audience ready to watch some exciting racing as well. Start the game! the shoutcaster said. After some intense racing, Handewasser managed to take the lead with the first race under his belt : NL 1 - 0 FR. The next race will see an awesome and unexpected mistake from him in the ultimate corner, which gave me the win. Score was tied at 1 - 1




Everything was fine, the pressure could not be more intense, speed was definitely there. No one could expect what was going to happen a few minutes later, when the last race would be over. Here is the painful story, at least for me, obviously...
We were then racing the last track, everything was good, we were overtaking each other, and all what can happen in a normal race. Normal, this is not the word I would use though for the result of the race.

Indeed, when it all came to the finish line, everyone thought Handewasser had won the race, overtaking me at the real last moment to be ultimately in front of me for what would be a 0.01 distance or so. I have to admit I even thought I had lost. How sad I was is undescriptable. However, when the final screen with the results appeared, it did show that I, D2C YggdrasiL on the screen, was first. That was unexpected, the Netherlands guy's frustration could not go higher, as well as my excitement about the win.

Congratulations and interviews on stage, were done and the tournament looked over. Actually, not really...After some long analyse of the race from the referees, one of them announced 15mn later that there should be a rematch of that last track. I did see that the Netherlands team leader made a huge pressure on the referee about the situation, whereas the french one was not even talking to the referees, which is definitely unfair and might have an impact on what the referees have eventually chosen to do.

As for myself, I did not want a rematch, because I knew it would not even be on stage, but in the Xbox 360 area, whose conditions are totally different : TVs, pressure, among others. And I did not see the point of it, since a computer does not lie, all the more on Handewasser's view on the finish line, it is written 2/2 about his place on the track. I still do think the tournament should have been over after all the official things like interviews were done, whatever the ghost shows on the screen. There must be a reason of the win, I'm not sure about it, even though I do have an idea, but since I don't have the proof I cannnot state it...I would need the complete replays, from the beginning of the races, what is impossible to find at the moment. Whatever the opininons, a rematch had to be done, I did lose the race + the other best of 3 he had to win, and the gold medal felt off my hands.

I cannot let an empty space without having my opinion on this rematch. When an official match is played, when it is on stage, when it is in front of several hundreds spectators, whether the result is a mistake or not, there should be no rematch, all the more when it is in totally different conditions.




A football world cup final would be over, France won over Brazil in the Stade de France, referees will never know if there was an offside on the goal who gave the win 1/0 to France. Is there going to be a rematch? And even in a new stadium, with 0 spectators to support those teams which have been waiting so long for such an event? I guess no, what do you think? If you do think there must be a rematch, then Electronic Sports is not a sport, here is definitely the proof.

Well, it is over now, but you can still make your own mind and opinion with that video below : the controversial finish is at the end of it. You can still enjoy the whole video, which is a about the top3 players' races of the tournament. And who knows, maybe Gold next time, in Köln 2008! But now, it is time for Forza Motorsport 2 and the Championship Gaming Series. See you on the track!

Congrats to Handewasser anyways and Johnson from Germany for showing he will be a great contender for WCG 2008 World finals.