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Videogames Mon Sep 26 2011
Big Bucks for Video Game Champion
Nick Robbins scanned the vast sahara desert, calmly waiting for something to fall inside his rifle's scope. A trail of sweat dripped down the side of his face. Everything was working against him.
Meanwhile, Steven Naumann was on top of the world. His ethos was echoed throughout, with teams of boisterous followers chanting his name and wearing the same emblazoned camouflage T-shirts that read, "Whack 'em and stack 'em."
Of course, the verbs in this case are figurative. The only thing Robbins and Naumann were whacking were high fives, and their only stacks were of cans of Bud Light. This is the reality of the Big Buck Hunter World Championship, hosted annually at the Cubby Bear. Thousands of humans across the globe compete in regional competition to see which virtual hunter can whack and stack the most virtual game. And after the year-long process of digital hunting, Robbins and Naumann were the only two left standing. The winner was to turn a popular bar-time hobby into a giant-sized check worth $15,000 and a sweet trophy in the shape of a gun.
Top-ranked and unbeaten Robbins chose the Sahara landscape, and his familiarity likely played into his monstrous comeback to down the showy Naumann clan. After a slow start that saw several miscues on cows and ewes, Robbins dug deep into his manhood and picked off rams from the relative security of two surrounding does, and sniped trophy game from the jaws of the desert. He demonstrated clear skill in a game normally played with nothing but liquor for a crutch.
It was a thrilling display of Man's ability to dominate digital environments of man-made distraction, and another reminder that these days people will find any excuse to spray a shit-ton of confetti all over.
