Championship Gaming Series PGR3 Winner
Interview with Joe "phantomhitman" Tackett
by: bapenguin
bapenguin: We'll start with the ever popular who the hell are you and what did you do to get an interview with the great and almighty bapenguin?
phantomhitman Joe Tackett, bap pretty much rules the nets, so anything that goes on the nets passes through his nets tube
bapenguin: You were recently invited to a gaming event hosted by DirecTV (and airing on DTV soon), what was it called? What was it like?
phantomhitman The event name was Champion Gaming Invitational. It was hosted by DirecTV and Best Buy. The event was amazing. This was not a normal lan center or local get together tourney, it was basically a TV show/movie set. Lot of money poured into setting everything up right and having top notch equipment. All cameras were HD and everything was rehearsed. All of the gamers were catered to through out the week. The entire event was all expenses paid, from airfare to rooms, to food, to events.
bapenguin: What games were you invited there to play?
phantomhitman I was part of the XBox 360 side of the event, playing Project Gotham Racing 3. There were 9 competitors in total that were invited for various reasons. The PC had competitions for Battlefield 2 and Counter-Strike. The 360 had Dead or Alive 4 and Project Gotham Racing 3 while the XBox had Halo 2.
bapenguin: You were invited because you have 133t skillz?
phantomhitman m4d sk1llz yo. I got invited to the event because I placed high in the WCG regionals for PGR. I came in second there and the first place guy was also invited. I had also done well in other lan/online tournies for PGR 3. Some people were invited for doing good in PGR 2 while others got invited to the event that knew someone. There were about 3 guys there that could have won.
bapenguin: Rumor has it your skillz prevailed and you placed first. How many players didn't you have to fight through to get there? How were the races set up?
phantomhitman: There were 9 players raceing consisting of 3 laps around a random track with 3 players in each race, single elimination You needed to finish first to move to the next round so there were basically 2 rounds. If you lost once your out!
I am not going to lie, I was extremely worried in the first race. The bracket got screwed up somehow, rumors swirled around about that, and me and 1st seeded guy raced each other right off the bat. I have meet this guy a few times and we know each other personally. Its hard racing against a friend but even harder when you guys are not suppose to race each other that early in the event. Regardless, he slipped up and I ran the best race of my life at that track and came home the winner. The second, and final round, pitted me against a really good guy I know from online and a halo player that was invited to this event as well. That race turned bad very quickly with bumping and spinning but I was able to pull away early to win that race and take home the cash.
bapenguin: Lots of pressure then. So with this being a DirectTV covered event, how do you think they did? Video game tournaments have tried to been filmed before but they don't usually pan out to so well. Do you think this one will be different?
phantomhitman The difference between this and other tourneys is the filming behind this one. Others were setup as competitions that were simply filmed while this one was a film based on competition. The stage was made just for the event, the camera placements, the live crowd that was going crazy non stop, the background and interviews we did there were also fun as well and gives people a person to root for.
bapenguin: So when can we expect to see the event broadcast?
phantomhitman They are telling us Sept 8-10 and I have been told the time will be 9 pm eastern. It will be on DirecTV channel 101, all in HD I believe. There are a few promo videos and a commercial already airing as well as being available on the IGN website.
bapenguin: How about any future events?
phantomhitman I am going to Las Vegas on Sept 15-18 to compete in the World Cyber Games US finals, first place gets a free trip to the world finals in Italy......so many exotics I need to molest there.
I also competed in the World Series of Video Games in Lousiville Kentucky a few months back and that is airing on GameplayHD, on the Dish Network right now. I am actually in their commercial for the event, check me out on the site www.gameplayhd.com , click of the PGR logo in the top right.
All tournies are for the same game, pgr 3.
Resources
phantomhitman's Gamertag:
R1R Phantom
Digital Pics of the Event
phantomhitman's
Daily Adventures
phantomhitman's PGR3 Team homepage:
Rank 1 Racing
