http://www.FITES.net 

Catalog screen

Friend list screen

Screenshots courtesy of ThinkComputers

X-Box 360

Yeah, I pulled that from his wikipedia page but how many gamers out there have a wikipedia page about them? I don’t have one about me, and I’m big time! This gentlemen was gracious enough to take time out of his busy day of training to enter the den of the wolf and be grilled on his life in and around gaming. This is one of the best interviews we’ve ever had on the Pittco site especially from an editing prospective. For a Pro Gamer I think some of the things about his gaming past might we quite a shock to you listeners so open your ears because…

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Fatal1ty

Listen to the Interview HERE ▼

Our favorite bit of the interview?

“The amount of information you’ll gain at going to a LAN party compared to what you find out online is drastically different. I always said you’ll learn ten times the amount of information by going to a LAN party than you will online, ever. … Get to LAN parties, you’ll learn way more.” – Johnathan “fatal1ty” Wendel

A special thanks to Bob ‘enigma5′ Buskirk for setting this interview up.

If you’d like to download the file for listening later, or the above feed isn’t playing for you, check out our Pittco Audio Mirrors:

Pittco Gamer Interview – Fatal1ty (on Amazon S3)

Pittco Gamer Interview – Fatal1ty (on Dropbox)

Pittco Gamer Interview – Fatal1ty (on Crate)

Pittco Gamer Interview – Fatal1ty (on Cad.cx)

Pittco Gamer Interview – Fatal1ty (on Pittco.org – local mirror)

Iron Storm XIII will take place April 20-22, 2012 for 42 hours straight of tournaments, general gaming, and great fun with gamer friends of all ages.

Registration

Registration at the door is $45. Registering now, online, is $35. If you register before February 1, a single registration is only $30!

REGISTER NOW

New for this event is what we have termed the “baller” ticket. We, like other events, recognize that sometimes our attendees want to help the organization more. So, for $50, you can be a Pittco Baller. What does this get you? Well, other than a sincere thank you for going above and beyond financially to support our event and our organization, you’ll get preferential treatment to keep you gaming: early admission or line-jumping privileges. You’ll be able to jump to the head of the check-in line as soon as you arrive, get checked in, and bring in your stuff so you can get right into the action. Beyond this, we will try to provide a value for you by adding some things as we decide on them. We’re considering things such as more table space and free food, and we’ll be working with sponsors to see what extra things we can secure for you. For now, though, the best benefit is the warm, fuzzy feeling you get from helping us by giving us a little extra cash to use for additional advertising and other things to ultimately build a stronger, larger event!

I AM A BALLER

Remember, we have 200 seats available and we came close to selling out last year! So, register now!

Tournaments

What tournaments will we have? Here’s a quick list, but check out our tournament announcement for full details:

• PC
• Counter-Strike: Source, 5v5
• Heroes of Newerth, 5v5
• League of Legends, 5v5
• StarCraft 2, 1v1 – sponsored by Antec, with an Eleven Hundred chassis for 1st place and prizes for other places, too
• Team Fortress 2, 6v6
• Console
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, 4v4 on Xbox 360
• Goldeneye 64, 4 person FFA on N64
• Halo: Reach, 4v4 on Xbox 360
• Mortal Kombat (2011), 1v1 on Xbox 360
• Super Smash Brothers Brawl, 2v2 on Wii
• Street Fighter AND/OR Marvel vs Capcom 3, 1v1 on Xbox 360 – will be decided at the event, we’ll probably play both!

REGISTER NOW

Sponsors

A modern, large LAN party is nothing without great sponsors to provide coveted prizes. We have so far secured fourteen great sponsors and are talking to 10s more. Here’s a list of our Iron Storm XIII sponsors:

• Antec, which is our official sponsor for the StarCraft 2 tournament
• FrozenQ (new sponsor!)
• In Win
• Qualcomm Atheros, which acquired long-time Pittco sponsor Bigfoot Networks, maker of the KillerNIC
• Rosewill (new sponsor!)
• TRENDnet
• Zotac (new sponsor!)
• GameSkulls
• BAWLS
• Classic Game Room
• CPU Magazine
• Hive Gaming
• ThinkComputers.org
• Gamers Mobile Party

Check out the Iron Storm XIII sponsors and prize list for more information!

REGISTER NOW

(PC) Counter-Strike: Source 5v5

This will be a traditional CS:S Tournament. Rules and map rotation will be announced soon. A buy-in of $20 per team is asked to enter the Tournament. 1st place get Prizes along with bulk of the money pot; 2nd gets Prizes and their buy-in back.

( PC) Heroes of Newerth 5vs5

This will be our 2nd year running a Heroes of Newerth tournament. Last year S2Games was gracious enough to hook us up with a sponsorship and a cash prize of $800 for the tournament. We are currently working to acquire an S2 sponsorship for ISXIII.

(PC) League of Legends 5vs5

This will be the first ever LoL tournament at an IronStorm event. After the success of the last Heroes of Newerth Tournament we had a large out cry to support all of the LoL players in the area. So, you ask and you shall receive.

(PC) Starcraft II 1vs1

Potentially the largest single player tournament at ISXII; this year we plan on making it even better. We’ve partnered with one of our sponsors to provide place specific prizes for our 3 top competitors but by the time the LAN rolls around who knows what we’ll be giving away.

Pittco has teamed up with Antec this year for this intense StarCraft 2 tournament. Players will compete for SC2 bragging rights as well as Antec prizes, including their new Eleven Hundred gaming case! Head over to facebook.com/AntecInc for contests, PC hardware features, and more.

(PC) Team Fortress 2 6vs6

Team Fortress 2 has always been a very popular game in the Pittco Community. Hivegaming.net graciously hosts a Pittco Team Fortress 2 server because of that popularity. This event we’ll host a 6vs6 TF2 CP Tournament. Rules and map rotation will be released very soon.

 (Console) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 4vs4

Always one of the biggest and most entertaining tournaments at the event, ISXIII should prove to be no different. This will be a game featured on our deluxe console setup and will pull one of the biggest player bases. The CoD tournament never fails to put on a show.

(Console) Goldeneye N64 4person FFA

This is the game that stole all of our hearts and continues to do so till this day. Many of the industry’s journalists have praised it as one of the most important first-person shooters of all time. Pittco feels the same way.

(Console) Halo: Reach 4vs4

This was the game that started the major influx of consoles players to our Iron Storm events. The halo games always draw a huge crowd of players and spectators. We’ll be sure to have some top tier prizes picked out for the winners of this event.

(Console) Mortal Kombat 2011 1vs1

Get Over Here~! This is a recent addition to the IronStorm event. After a successful showing at SuddenLAN we’ve decided to incorporate into the big LAN. The latest version of Mortal Kombat takes us back to our roots and it’s a place we don’t mind being. The big question is, can Butane Mage reign supreme on a fighter other than Street Fighter?

 (Console) Super Smash Bros: Brawl 2vs2

Grab a friend and team up in this awesome Nintendo Wii fighter. SSBB always proves that no matter how simple the controls, no matter how simple the game, you can still get your ass handed to you like no other. This year the combo of saberwolf and r0bVious won’t be on display so who will be the next Brawl Kings?

(Console) Street Fighter 1vs1

Because Capcom releases another Street Fighter game every 6 months, we’ve decided to choose the game closer to the event. Hell, we might even play all of these. So if you’re a hardcore gamer, grab your fight pad and get ready to deal out some punishment.

X-Box 360

In the past 6 months or so, almost every time I gather in a group of mixed console players (i.e. PS3 and Xbox 360 users) the debate of which online service is better almost always comes up. Both Xbox LIVE and PSN have their own pros and cons so I’m writing to present my opinion on the matter. Take it as you see it, consider my opinions and then render your own. Bottom line: with these two companies spearheading the way into the 8th generation of consoles, I feel the service provided in the previous system will be the one who reigns supreme in 2012.

You surely have heard, unless you are a PC gamer or living under a rock, in April the hacker group coined by the media as Anon attacked Sony Computer Entertainment and brought down the Playstation Network for nearly 2 months. The downtime began April 20th and lasted, in some countries, until early June. Unbeknown to most, the network was not the only thing compromised. It was later revealed that 77 million PSN subscribers’ financial and personal information was jeopardized as well.

As you can imagine, this caused some uproar.

My opinion: You pay for what you get. Playstation members will be the first ones to tell you that it costs nothing to become a member and that, every month, Microsoft and Bill Gates take 9.99 from the millions of Xbox LIVE subscribers. They will also be the first to tell you that DLC is cheaper, easier to get for free and distributed better.

What they leave out is that their network was hacked and their information could have been put on the black market. As some of you may know, I am an Xbox LIVE member. I have been since getting into online console gaming nearly 5 years ago. I have paid every month to keep my service up and running for one reason that was made perfectly clear to me in mid April: I am paying for a superior service and security.

When you break down the list of features between both services, they are damn near identical. There are tradeoffs in some cases, but most of the items offered by PSN and Xbox LIVE are the same. The similarities end at the user count. PSN currently has 77 million users to Xbox’s 35 million LIVE subscribers.

So this begs the question, “why am I still supporting something that makes me pay for the same features that the competition doesn’t?” There is a simple answer to that question; putting aside the fact that the primary game I play gives DLC early to Xbox, the answer is security.

 Fact: PSN got hacked, LIVE didn’t.

Now, since the hack, PSN has certainly stepped up security. They have given out a 1 year subscription of an identity theft program to all affected members, they have partnered up with Call of Duty’s leading competitor in Battlefield 3 to release DLC early on the PSN, and lastly they have fixed their service.

The future is certainly still very much unwritten for these two competitors. The main question is who is going to win out of the competition? The consumer. Healthy competition creates better opportunities for the consumer and this war will be no different. LIVE offers Netflix, PSN gets it the moment the Exclusive contract with Microsoft ends. PSN gets rave reviews for its dashboard design, LIVE counters with a new update incorporating Bing, ESPN, MSNBC, Hulu and HBO Plus. Xbox gets CoD DLC early, PSN gets BF3 DLC early. The list is endless.

One key feature is that Microsoft has recently announced that LIVE will be fully integrated with Windows 8. Just imagine what PSN will counter with.

All I know for sure is that we are in for some great stuff in the very near future.

The console kids that attend Pittco need some love from time to time so I felt generous and allowed one of the finest console players that has ever graced the floors of an IronStorm to be interviewed on the Gamer Interview. He hates to admit that I’m better at Street Fighter than him but if it has 2 sticks and buttons-to-bash this guy feels right at home. His main goal in life is to exterminate the Locust Horde.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you: infinity.

Listen to the Interview HERE ▼

Leave it to Pittco to take the idea of flash mobbing, at a LAN and try to create an event so off the wall spectacular that it really has no choice but to be fun.

You see, we hear at the Pittsburgh LAN Coalition know that these long Fall/Winter nights can drag on for the gamer. We know that you have been itching to play that new hot game with your buddies in person. We know that you like seriously can’t wait for Iron Storm XIII. We also know how to throw a party. So here you go:

The Pittsburgh LAN Coalition, Inc. Presents: SuddenLAN.

The idea behind SuddenLAN is simple. Remember the times where you buddy would call you up and have you come to his house to play the games? Well, consider this your call. On Saturday, December 3rd, Pittco will be gathering in the Washingtown Township Firehall down near Belle Vernon, PA to have a 15 hour LAN and we are inviting you. Not doing anything this weekend or burned out from Christmas shopping? Come LAN with us. Get your Steam ready, update your Consoles. Pack up your rigs and roll up your wires, because on Saturday… we LAN. Oh, and you know the best part about Flash Mobbing?

IT’S FREE!!

SuddenLAN will be a PURE LAN with a small tournament structure and will be absolutely FREE to all that attend. The event will be held at the Washington Township Firehall, 1317 Axton Ave, Belle Vernon, PA. Doors will open at 4PM on Saturday, December 3rd and will close on at 1pm Sunday December 4th. Internet Access will be available for those who wish to use it, and Pittco’s 8 Screen Console set up will be arranged for free play. Bring the games you want and have at it. Of course for those who wish to bring their whole set up, it is encouraged.

If you don’t know what a LAN is stop by and have your cherry popped because it’s sure to be a good time! Space is limited so first to show up gets the seat. We will have FREE Drinks and Pizza during the event. We’ll also be giving away a set of  Corsair SP2500 Gaming Audio Series High-power 2.1 Speakers. With 232 watts of power, these babies retail at $250 and all you have to do to win them is walk through the door

Location

Time

Door Prize

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