On October 14th I attended the McDonald's Midnight Gaming Tournament to attempt to compete in Guitar Hero with people from around the DFW area. I would soon learn that I was nowhere near the level of those that showed up, but with only a couple hours of playtime, I didn't expect to be. The story involves Guitars, Cheerleaders, and a final showdown between people described as "machines" and "robots" by their fellow competitors. I would leave with a new respect for those that long to be a the ultimate Guitar Hero.

Background

The Video Gamers League partnered with McDonald's to put on a tournament in the greater-Dallas market to provide a way for Gamers to compete beyond the local area. There is a tournament for each of three games, Tekken 5, Guitar Hero, and NCAA 07 Football, and all the tournaments take place at the same time, from 9PM on Saturday until whenever a winner is determined. The format follows a simple single elimination format starting with up to 32 players, resulting in a single winner after 5 rounds. There are going to be eight preliminary tournaments, resulting in eight winners per game that will compete on the ninth week to determine the overall champion for each game. I attended the fourth week of the tournament on October 14th.

The Facilities

The Video Gamers League had gotten permission to setup inside and outside the McDonald's in Allen, Texas, but it was definitely not ideal. The outside setup for Guitar Hero was the nicest, with 4 machines on stages that raise the player about a foot above the parking lot that was covered by a tent. If it had rained, the entire outside setup would have to be torn down and moved inside, but I'm not sure if there would have been room.

The setups for NCAA 07 Football and Tekken 5 were both inside, with Tekken being in the PlayPlace area, and NCAA residing in some booths in one corner of the main restaurant. The registration desk was centrally located, but no signs outside indicated where it was, so it took me a couple minutes to find it. After signing in and filling out a form that I agreed to not suing them for using my image however they wanted, I got a wristband and went outside to practice.

Warming Up

I overheard the guys at the registration desk talking about how the qualifying round would be a song played on Hard difficulty level, so I went outside to practice more. Among the people comfortably completing songs on Expert, there was one person struggling to complete Smoke On The Water on Hard, me. After failing the song several times, I finally completed it, with a score well under 100,000. I knew I wasn't going to win, but maybe I wouldn't look like a fool.

There were other people practicing, and even people not involved in the competition were playing and just having fun. There were some kids under 18 (who would not be allowed to compete in the tournament) having a good time, and doing much better than myself. You could tell they must have played before.