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“It’s really rare that you get to play the game before the day of release,” Gunn said. “Normally you can play the download version, but this was an unlimited multiplayer trial. Nobody had experience so I wasn’t worried.”
If you’re familiar with the original Tron game or if you’ve ever played Snake, then this won’t be too difficult to understand. Get the other players to run into light trails from your Light Bike. Noriega was dominant in the one hour practice session, but the competition was a different story. Although not shown on TV, Noriega put down his controller with 20 seconds to go because he knew he couldn’t win.
“Right before we went live, when me and him were at the bathroom, we were standing in the urinal,” Ammari said. “I said, ‘You’re rocking all of us!’ He giggled like he knew it. When I saw what happened, I was completely shocked.”
Right after the Tron: Evolution session, the two winners were whisked away to compete in the main event. (In order to throw everyone off, Noriega competed against Pfster as well, so no one knew which real match was the final.)
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Ammari was super excited for Rock Band, seeing as how he usually played drums with his friends. “Drumming takes a lot of stamina,” Gunn explained. “It takes a lot of energy to do the kick pedal and independent drum beats. It takes a lot of talent for drumming. Yaz was obviously in a lot better of a position. Yaz said, ‘I play it all the time with my friends.’ I didn’t know if he was telling the truth. (At the Grand Finals), he was doing really well, I thought ‘Oh man he was right.'”(He was doing well was an understatement: He doubled Gunn’s score.)
However, Gunn came back with a 5-0 victory on BlazBlu. Yaz said his loss was because Kat conveniently picked the counter character to his fighter, which he thinks she heard he was going to compete with prior to the competition. “If I got to replay the finals, I definitely would have change things up,” he said. “When I said my character name, she just kind of yelled. It was simple to fix for me. I beat myself when all she did she was just air dash and come in with a normal swing. I knew what was happening.”
Gunn finished off her win by destroying Ammari with a 15-1 score on Halo: Reach.
“I spent a few hours a day on Green Day: Rockband – four to five hours a day at least. I probably got eight hours just in between the different games just rotating games,” she said.
Granted, she was competitive in the Xbox version of Halo when she was a teenager, and Ammari, who was mainly a PC Counterstrike player felt he was at a disadvantage. “I think I did good because I’m an overall good gamer, and I can adapt and see strategies,” he said. “It’s definitely a disadvantage not coming from a console background. These people have years of experience against me.”
“Since the final I haven’t turned on my Xbox,” he said, adding that he still keeps in touch with Noriega and Ryan Burnett. “I don’t want to play Halo with (the other gamers who competed) after I just got destroyed.”
Though Gunn said she’s still friends with Ammari, he sung a different tune. “Ever since that day, we’re cool, but I wouldn’t say were friends. I wouldn’t be like, ‘Hey Kat lets go hang out,” he explained. Ammari was going to retire from professional gaming, but he recently started a new Counterstrike team with some friends and is hoping that he can get another sponsorship.
As for Gunn, she’s enjoying her win. The first thing she’s going to buy with her money has nothing to do with gaming. It’s a blender for her Mom and Dad. “I told them I’d buy them a really nice blender,” she said laughing.