So, after missing out on previous game ( UKR 2:0 TUR ) I was lucky enough to stumble upon this game in time as Maxy was searching for an admin in the main IRC channel. Of course his favorite admin, Gravgon, was busy playing a NDML game (such a crappy excuse). Anyway, it was a game I was starting to look forward to as soon as I knew who Croatia was playing, as it turned out to be Lithuania! The server was already picked by the time I was given an IP to connect to, or they had mad luck on the first server they tried. I did what any decent ndml admin is doing: jump on a team and warmup waiting for the remaining Croatian players and the Lithuanian dm2-hero Vaga. While I did my fair share of warming up, I also got to know what maps each team picked:

Croatia :: q2dm7
Lithuania :: q2dm2



As the pings seemed fairly even, with the notable exception of Vaga who had a 80-90ish ping, the game was almost ready to start, and while the teams were doing their final preperations by warming up and calling votes, I decided to clean the dust of my scorebot and get it ready for action. It soon turned out to not work all too well.

Q2DM2 :: Lithuania's map

Q2dm2 is always a blast for some reason. I don't know if it is the randomness of the spammed nades or the funny failed quadruns that seems to haunt this map. As this was Lithuania's map I was somehow expecting them to put up a good fight against the in-shape Croatian team, who seems to hate this map for obvious reasons. Yeah, the lifts. Anyway, the game started and Lithuania grabbed the first quad with the hpb-superhero Vaga doing his first quadrun for the day. Not all too successful but nonetheless a good sign of what was to expect in this game. "Not too successful" seems to be the general vibe for both teams. None of the teams were too successful camping that Red Armor lift, as it shifted back and forth between the two teams with one takeover following the other, some nicer than the others (mg's takeover with the sg, or necro/dx doublepenetrationlike takeover with quad etc). What suprised me some was the lack of really good quadruns for long periods of the game. It was a big fight near the quadpool whenever the quad spawned (doh!), but even when the quad-guy got out somehow random spam seemed to hit (if you're having your doubts, ask Vaga, I think he got some nice nades hitting him). Anyway, DM did a good job underneath the Red Armor doing plenty damage, but think his main role on the team was to spam smileys. It was extremely close for a long time (even though my im-making-up-my-own-scorebot didn't always give that impression). Near the end Lithuania finally managed to hold the lift for an extended period of time, and also grabbed the last quad to secure the win! Well done.


Q2DM7 :: Croatia's map



Well, after a bit of kicking (kicking zdufs = fun!!) and some warming up, we were ready to start. I tried to make my im-making-up-my-own-scorebot work, and it did perfectly well during the warmup. As the countdown ended, the utter chaos was unleashed and all you saw was guys with 19 health running around blastering enemies and teamkilling friends. Somehow there were some sort of organization present, Necro and Frenzy held Red Armor for Croatia and Maxy did the dirty work as always, camping the Rocketlauncher/Grenadelauncher with minimal health/ammo, while dx was causing havoc around the hyper and ssg spawns. Poor Vaga had 120 ping for most of the game, and seemed to skip around a lot, but according to his teammates he can't aim unless his ping is above 80 and he did seem quite happy trying to outblaster maxy up there. DM, having done a good job researching before the game, knew that the only way Croatia was going to lose this map was if all of them started to jump into slime as no lava was present. Unfortunately this only happens if the Croats pings are extremely bad, not if their opponents spam smileys at each death. But, the fondness for smileys aside, he did put up a good fight near the Red armor with his comrades nrk and mg. Anyway, when Necro dropped out of my scorebot for the xxx'th time I got a bit pissed off at my crappy scorebot and missed some of the game as I got involved in an IRC conversation, but when I got back the Croats had gotten a big lead and was winning this map in style, as expected.

This game was suffering from no whining and delays, so to get a bit of a delay I decided to check the rules to see if I was correct when I said q2next1 wasn't on the maplist. Then someone said q2next1 should be removed from all servers! Omg! Ban? But when I saw q2next1 wasn't on the list I decided not to ban after all. Someone should be happy. After the short delay caused by lazy admin, the elimination started: q2dm6 -> bunch of maps -> and we ended up with q2dm1.

Q2DM1 :: Deciding map



I don't know but somehow q2dm1 seemed to be the appropriate ending to this game. Lithuania won the map with quad, Croatia won the map without rail. So now they were gonna battle it out on the map with rail, but without quad. And as soon as we did some more kicking, the teams were ready to go. Unfortunately Durklas timed out and zdufs were back on the server, which could be the reason why the Croatian played this game in a furious manner! Immediately putting pressure on the key areas of the map, Croatia showed that they weren't gonna let DM and his fellow quakers go away with the win in this match. Frenzy immediately took control of the rail-position, and did a mighty fine job throughout the game. Necro and dx did what they do best, just plain fragging opponents wherever whenever with whatever. Maxy and Vaga as always had a battle over the lift, but maxy just showed who was the boss on this map and held the position nicely most of the game. What about Lithuania? Well, nrk and mg had a hard time trying to figure out what to do with dx and necro in mega, at times they managed to get them the hell out, but each time they came back with some silly tiny guns and fought their way back. DM had a very hard time with Frenzy, and allthough Lithuania tried to focus their attacks on the water-area for a while, Frenzy with good support managed to clear the area, racking up frags throughout the duration of the game. Croatia's lead just kept increasing steadily throughout the game, and while I was seeing funny actions and teamkills, the game was almost over before it began. I swear it felt like 10 minutes.

Good games by both teams, little if no whining whatsoever and was a fun match to watch. Lots of takeovers and unsuccessful quadruns on q2dm2, a bit of controlled chaos on q2dm7 and the standard maplockdown on q2dm1. That's all I need in a good game of quake2.


:: Demos ::
q2dm1 (necro)
q2dm1 (maxy)
q2dm2 (maxy)
q2dm7 (maxy)
q2dm1 (DM)
q2dm2 (DM)
q2dm7 (DM)