i34 - 10th August 2008 (day 3)

Time to get Serious!

9:30am – Arrived at the event as per usual, set up and got checking the usual websites, facebook, team-infused.com. Me and sammy took a walk around and hopped onto the VF5 stand to get in some last minute practice, only 4 hours to go until I have to get on the main stage and grab my #1 Title that I so badly want. 

11:00am – Ok, I made a drastic decision, Rayne, my opponent was watching me and learning how I play on my main character Kage Maru, so I thought the best way to counter him is to surprise him with, I started to use Lau, very similar to my character but a tiny bit slower but harder hitting moves. I know this is risky but after sparing against R2K and Sammy this character has proved that I am playing better with Lau, as R2K was beating me down quite hard with Kage before. 

12:00pm – Now I am going to sit down and relax, get my thoughts together and prepare =D Going to be a good final no matter what happens, but lets bring on the gold!

Talk to you after! 

3:15pm – hmm, I didn’t prepare myself for this bit of writing but I lost and came 2nd, I guess I just come out and say it like that haha, I had amazing support from my team mates, I heard the yells of go on banks and screams of encouragement when my name was announced, I felt a surge of energy go through my body and felt really prepared and confident, but just before we started we got told to unbind all buttons but the default 4, so no back buttons are to be used (weird because all tournament we have used all buttons, nothing I can do and I will not blame my loss on this) 

Next time I am taking 1st!

Rayne played an amazing game, super fast and side stepping around all my moves, with good blocks and playing an aggressive stance, I could not get a hit it and didn’t even get a round, he even managed to get one Excellent on me, which is where I don’t touch him, after watching it back on Quadv stream, I can see, he just went on and on, no chance for me to fight back, I kept pressing my back buttons to which is just religious after playing the game like that since when you had it. 

He deserved to win, if he can play that well even when told to change buttons, I congratulate Rayne on a well fought match, over the whole tournament he didn’t loose a round and until I met him I only lost one, but clearly Rayne was just on another level. 

Rayne has asked for my phone number and 360 gamer tag, to do some sparing which will be very cool and I wish him the best of luck of Germany, he will bring the gold home for sure! 

I am very happy with my Silver medal but disappointed that I let down infused, they gave me amazing support and I am surprised I am still wanted in the team, I really feel like part of a gaming family. Now that this is over its back onto Forza 2 motorsport and Race Driver:Grid which I will be playing on Xleague in the free summer cup to try it out, I have played the demo which is very good and seems a bit similar to Forza, so you never know what will happen =D!

I will use these last few sentences to say thank you! 

Thank you to all of the infused guys, flip, zai0s, s1rus, vanq, Dan, adz everyone at Qpad and Sorcerer (the qpad stand was great!)

Also our other sponsors, Multiplay and plantronics. 

The event was great and it will be very memorable, I will continue my racing now on Forza and Grid if Grid turns out to be as good as the demo. 

I did have a look at Soul Calibers new one but it seemed very sluggish and easy to do the combos, so didn’t make for an exciting game! 

See you around everyone, thanks for checking out my blogs, also check my gallery, lots of picture!

infused BanKs and infused SammYstar