CPL To Develop Its Own Game

The Cyberathlete Professional League is getting into the development business. At its World Tour Championship Finals in Dallas, the CPL announced project Severity, which is a new multiplayer online game that will be used for CPL competitions.

Severity is a first-person shooter that will feature both solo and team play modes. "Severity will be the first videogame conceived from the ground up to ensure the growth and appeal of multiplayer game competitions worldwide," said Tom Mustaine, CPL's new Director of Game Development, said in a press statement. Mustaine, formerly studio director of Ritual Entertainment, is in charge of Severity's development. According to the CPL, Severity is built on technology created by developer id Software and will include enhanced tournament support, spectator modes, and detailed player and tournament statistics tracking.

Former id Software designer John Romero, who's also chairman of the CPL Advisory Board, recorded a video announcement that was shown in Dallas. "Guess what? The CPL's going to have their own shooter," Romero said in the video. "It's called Severity." Romero says the goal is to create the "ultimate PC shooter" for team and solo matches at CPL competitions.

The CPL expects to begin testing the new game with members of the video-gaming community before the end of 2007. The game will be available for both PCs and consoles, though the CPL hasn't announced which consoles yet.

CPL Championship Finals Diary

In other CPL news, Day 2 of the CPL Championship Finals saw some pretty intense matches in the Counter-Strike tournament. After the preliminary rounds on Sunday, the action ramped up Monday as some of the top teams and players faced off. One of the bigger matches of the day involved a major upset, as U.S. team Turmoil scored a huge comeback victory over the heavily favoured Team 3D this morning. Gotfrag.com has more coverage on the match here.

Turmoil was later defeated by another U.S. team, Revolution Sports, which scored a remarkable comeback victory in one of the best matches of the day. "We were losing really badly but we had a big comeback," said Joshua Springer, a player on Revolution Sports. Springer's teammate Ted Weinrich said the Turmoil contest "was a really intense match."

In other matches this afternoon, top Swedish team SK Gaming dominated by handily defeating several teams. Similarly, Brazilian team Made in Brazil romped through its matches and scored a major victory against Sweden's Ninjas in Pyjamas, one of the top Counter-Strike teams in e-sports.

The big ticket matches, however, came Monday night in a premiere between Team 3D and Complexity, arguably the top two Counter-Strike teams in the U.S. I now know what a classic e-sports match is all about, thanks to Counter-Strike teams Complexity and 3D. Arguably the two best pro teams in America, Complexity and 3D have a unique rivalry in professional gaming. According to GotFrag.com, 3D has more career victories but Complexity owns the edge in head-to-head matches, 28-15.

Monday night's match had a considerable amount of hype around it, not only because it was the 44th time these two rivals would face each other but also because the match was a must-win contest for each team to move on. The match began and it was neck and neck for while, but eventually 3D pulled out to a small lead. However, Complexity battled back to tie the score. The game remained deadlocked late in the second half until regulation play ended with both teams tied at 15 (each Counter-Strike match is one 15-round map split into halves). That led to one of the greatest things in sports: overtime.

I thought the competition was intense during regulation, but that was nothing compared to the pressure and fast-paced action of OT (which is two three-round halves). At first, 3D was trailing but the team stormed back, led by its best player Mikey "Method" So, to tie the match and force a second overtime. Then 3D had Complexity on its heels, but the team made a number of cunning moves to even the odds and force yet another overtime. And that was the essence of this classic duel: just when you thought the match was about to end, some unexpected happened. Players made brilliant, improbable plays that no one saw coming, whether it was a ridiculously long range AWP shot, a heart-pounding rush against superior manpower, or an ingenious ambush. Somehow, the tables always seemed to turn back and forth between Complexity and 3D.

I've seen Counter-Strike played before, but not like this. I was lucky enough to watch overtime with Lee Chen, president of GotFrag.com, who's seen his share of professional gaming matches, and even he was blown away by this epic battle. If there was any doubt in my mind that pro gamers were real athletes, it was all but erased by the virtuoso performances by all 10 players involved in the match.

The only bad thing about the Complexity-3D match was that it had to end. And sadly, it did after three hard-fought overtimes. The final OT was neck and neck until Complexity was able to eek out a narrow margin of victory. But the match won't soon be forgotten by those who saw it, and all who participated in the match should be proud of it. The Complexity-3D match was an instant classic. And it sure beat the hell out of Monday Night Football.