"Whew, the Beatdown was Most Excellent(tm). I'll try and sum it up with the highlights of the show:"

"I got off the plane at 11:40, 3 hours delayed and very frayed. As it turns out, the airline lost my computer (no doubt the Pandemic Society influenced this,) and wasn't able to get it to me until the next day. Once it was established that the computer would not be with me for the remainder of the night, myself and two Activision buddies (John Baker and Steve Elwell) headed to our hotel rooms at the Ramada(?.) I was there but two minutes before grabbing a taxi and going to the Beatdown. Friday night was winding down, and I only had time to get acquainted with my old Gamespy/Beatdown buddies before it was closing time. "

"Saturday morning I awoke to find my computer ready and waiting (the airline had brought it to the hotel,) and I was off to the most kickass lan party ever. When I entered, I saw what I had (somehow) missed seeing the night before - two hundred lively gamers ready to waste away the next two days screaming and yelling and having the time of their lives playing their favorite computer games. I set my machine up, met up with Simplex, who donated his machine to the 'Battlezone II demo' cause, and began getting things working. "

"Everything went great. I gave away some 15 Pandemic shirts to all sorts of people, we got the game running on two machines, and people began huddling around, wondering what it was we were showing. Missionyrd was on hand, unaware that we were going to be showing off Battlezone II, and was pleasantly suprised. I got to show him all about the game and gave him a rundown of everything new. The new treaded vehicles got people excited, as did the revamped graphics engine - the game was looking stellar. "

"Soon after my crew & I began demoing the game to people, Gamespy was kind enough to give us some time on their VERY big projection screen, within viewing range of everyone there. I remember looking around, seeing people caught in a struggle between playing their game of Quake and looking up to see what was on the screen. After a while, some people just stopped playing altogether, and leaned back in their chairs watching. We demoed a cool deathmatch map on Bane (whipped together just days before by our very own Jack Davis,) and I dropped in some 20 scion units and 10 isdf units to battle it out. Suffice to say, the Beatdown's projector turned into a beautiful blanket of explosions and all-out warfare. People were REALLY impressed. Then, to keep their attention, I popped open the editor with a quick CTRL-E, and began deforming the terrain and painting it to read 'ROCK' (a traditional Beatdown battlecry.) I remember one guy coming up to me and going "Cool! okay, now go back in the game.." (which I did, and flew around the new pink mountains which spelled out 'ROCK') to which he could only say "whoah, cool!!" Tetsuo began yelling "ROCK" and pretty much the whole place was watching and/or yelling 'ROCK.' I think I got asked 5 times for it as pic of the day for PQ."

"At around 5am, things began winding down, and tournament winners were announced by Gamespy's hilarious 'Dr. Evil Fargo.' 8am rolls around, and there are literally thousands of donuts ready to be eaten. I've never in my life seen so many donuts. I only had one, because if I had any more, I would be feeling it on the plane in a couple hours. :) At 9am, it was a sad goodbye to the best time I've had at a lan party, and I was off with John and Steve back on the plane."