Cats Den holds contest for latest video game hits

By Megan Hurt

If you think you’re great at Mario Kart for Wii or Gears of War 2 for Xbox360, you just might have the talent to win a JanSport prize package.

The prize package, including T-shirts and other various JanSport prizes, will be given to the winner of Thursday’s duel tournament of Mario Kart and Gears of War 2, hosted by the Cats Den.

The tournament, which is free, will begin at 7 p.m. and consists of bracket style elimination. For the Mario Kart tournament, there will be two Wii’s to play from and two-to-four players of each race on each Wii, said Greg Chandler, a math economics junior and Cats Den coordinator.

“We might do four players per race, but we might have only two so as not to divide the screen in too small portions,” he said.

The Gears of War 2 tournament will also be bracket style, but will consist of a team tournament, where it will be two players verses two other players, Chandler said. Both tournaments will be held at the same time, but students will be able to participate in both tournaments if they wish.

The plan is to go with a single elimination round for each player, where the winner of each race progresses to the next round. Chandler said if not enough people show up to participate in the Mario Kart tournament, it will be played with double elimination, where you would have to lose twice to be out.

This is the first tournament for both video games, and popularity of tournaments varies from game to game, but Chandler is hopeful for a good turnout of 20 to 30 people.

“The more popular the game, the closer of a look we take at deciding to create a tournament,” he said. “If the game sells well, we’ll try to run it.”

Chandler said more competitive style games work best for tournaments and newly released titles that have a lot of hype are usually popular. They also listen to student suggestions on what games to use.

The Cats Den has been hosting video game tournaments off and on for two years, Chandler said, and has seen both big hits, such as Halo 3, and other titles that haven’t been so great, such as Wii Bowling.

“I think when a lot of people can play the games at home amongst their friends, it doesn’t do so well, and games that people want to find a new challenge in playing do well,” he said.

Chandler said the tournament is a good opportunity to meet new people with common interests.

“Because we are running lots of events for video games, you can win prizes and find people who like the same things you do. It’s fun and free,” he said.

This semester the Cats Den is hosting many other video game tournaments, trying to figure out which ones get a good response from students. Games scheduled for this semester include Halo 3, Super Smash Brothers and NCAA Basketball, Chandler said.

“We’re seeing what works and what doesn’t,” he said. “I think (Mario Kart and Gears of War 2) will both do very well.”

People who want to participate in either tournament need to sign up before the event begins in the Cats Den Thursday at 7 p.m.