Event:Octane 5 - LAN Party Event Date: 10/11-12/02 Written By: Warhawk Date Written: 10/15/02

All the Octane LANs I have been to were completely amazing, and Octane LAN number 5 was no different. There were not as many people there this time (close to 50), but it didn't seem to matter. The party vibe was definitely there and everybody had a great time. Sweaty Mex took the job of MC this time around and did a really great job. He always had something good to say over the PA system and had a great sense of humor.

There were several tournaments this time as well with over 100 dollars worth of gift certificates up for grabs. The first tournament was Battlefield 1942 and Exar, fearless leader of the SVFrag LAN, came out the winner. Next was the highly anticipated Unreal 2003 tourney. There were too many contestants for one server so two servers were started. The two players with the highest scores from each server after 50 minutes faced off for the final prize. After the 50 minutes the server one leader was QueMine with 192 and server two champ was Zer with 168. Those two contestants then faced off one on one for the final prize. The fifty dollar gift cert went to our very own QueMine who came out with a 9 to 6 lead. Hopefully QueMine won't spend it all in one place… oh wait, he HAS to spend it all in one place.

The last of the tourneys was another game of 1942. This one was a lot better than the first one, I think mostly due to a better choice of map. It took place late the next morning so it consisted of all the hard-core players that lasted through the night. The first game went to Jen but he refused to accept the prize because the round was very unbalanced. The round was restarted and this time QueMine almost came away with another win but was beaten out by WasTED by one point!

Regardless of who won the tourneys, everyone had a lot of fun and that's the important part.

I think an Octane record, for most Bawls consumed was set by Jen. He must have spent well over 20 bucks on Bawls, and he still didn't manage to stay awake the whole time. I think Jen probably also held the record for heaviest case, with his 65 pound water-cooled- everything behemoth. It seems the more a case is modded the heavier it gets. If there is a case modding contest at next LAN, hopefully there will be a prize that will make it worthwhile to haul these massive cases around. Perhaps a gift certificate for a chiropractor would be appropriate.