God of gaming contest at Axis mall

Fight, race, capture, win, dribble, tackle — sounds like a lot of hard work, right? Wrong. For the 1,500-plus crowd that converged for the Calcutta Times God of Gaming contest at Axis Mall, New Town, over the weekend, it was a perfect combo of work and play — and the best opportunity to show off their gaming skills.
While Saturday saw more than 1,500 people turn up to register, on Sunday it was only the best of the best who unleashed their gaming prowess to clinch the God of Gaming title.The first ever such contest to be held in Kolkata, the event showcased the growing culture of LAN gaming in the country. All participants said unanimously that they had never attended such a big gaming contest in the city before.
Those flying solo, had the choice of playing FIFA 11, the popular football game, played on a playstation or Need for Speed, the ultimate challenge in car racing. The biggest attraction though were the team games, Counter Strike 1.6 and Warcraft III, Defence of the Ancients (DOTA). DOTA is a strategy game where the heroes have magical powers and have to destroy opponent bases. The team games consist of five members each and two teams are pitted against each other. Said Souhittyo Sinha, 12, “I have come all the way from Behala to participate in the contest, unfortunately the registrations have closed. I have been playing for the last seven years and wanted to try my hands at NFS. I know the tracks inside out and had a good chance of winning.” Souhittyo had cajoled his father to bring him to the venue and is one of the growing breed of youngsters that takes gaming very seriously.
Team K7, also known as Inception, had made it to the finals and sweated it out at the terminals hunched over the actionpacked Counter Strike. There are 12 rounds in the game with each round lasting for around two minutes. “We practice for around four to five hours daily. We had very good opponents in the contest and it was a tough game,” said Sumit Banerjee, 21, a BCA student. Sumit has been gaming for the last eight years. He also had Rohan Gupta, Krishna Chandra Sahu, Rahul Debshikari and Raja Saikai for company in the game.
Santanu Basu, winner of the FIFA game said, “I want to take up gaming professionally. Gaming is a serious affair and takes a lot of dedication these days.” Tollywood actor Arunima gave out the prizes sponsored by Iserve Solution and Services Pvt Ltd and the PC partner was Alienware. The gaming partner was Gamekhel, the ultimate gaming destination where you can play, download, and read reviews of the hottest games online.