Smash Brothers Tournament

By Mitchell Lockey
Staff Writer


On a normal day, students in PC 101 would be sitting at their desks, trying to stay awake while listening to a lecture about engineering or business.

On Oct. 23, the sounds of pages being turned and professors talking were replaced by fierce battle cries, roaring applause, and the moans of a zombie that somehow learned how to play video games.
The event, a tournament put on by Gamers’ Paradise, featured the popular Wii game Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a multi player fighting game featuring many of the popular Nintendo franchise characters. Up to four players can choose a character and duke it out amongst themselves on different stages ranging from a flying airship to a bridge that falls apart during the battle.


 A total of 14 LCCC students participated. Fifteen registered but one player was out with the flu. The format was a series of four player free-for-all matches. Each player has five lives. When a player’s character is knocked off of the stage, they lose a life and return to the stage to fight again until they run out of lives.
The match goes on until one brawler remains, or until the seven minute time limit expires, in which case the player with the most remaining lives wins. The last two players remaining at the end of the match move on while the other two are eliminated from the competition. This process continues until the final match, where the top players from the previous rounds go at it one last time, last man standing wins it all.
The participants were equally matched, although a couple of the players stood out among the rest in the quarter and semi-final rounds. Steven “G.M.S,” played as Ness, and didn’t seem to have any trouble moving on to the final round. He quickly dispatched his opponents, usually winning with at least an extra life to spare.


 Terence “KingChaos” Woolfork, a R.O.B. user, was a force to be reckoned with in his brackets. None of the other players were able to overcome Woolfork, who has played the game seriously since the game came out in January 2008, and has participated in tournaments around Ohio, sometimes traveling as far as Springfield to compete with the rest of the Smash community.


Another memorable, although not exactly talented, player, was Ryan Thomas “Ozzie” Miller, who came to the event dressed as a zombie. His moans and yells had everyone in PC 101 in stitches up until he was eliminated from the competition.
The final round pitted Steven “G.M.S.,” as Ness, Earl Walker and Aaron Lovelace as Wolf, and Woolfork “KingChaos” as R.O.B. against each other for the 1st place prize, an engraved trophy and a $25 dollar gift card from Buy Backs Entertainment.
The round started off close, but as the battle progressed it was clear Woolfork was in command. Walker and Steven “G.M.S” attempted to team up against Woolfork, but Steven “G.M.S.” was eliminated in their double team attempt, and in the final seconds of the round Woolfork had too much of a lead for Walker to win.

When asked how he felt about winning the 14 man tournament, Woolfork said, “I feel like how I used to when I played seriously.”