i27 LAN report

The DDR posse

Lastly, we took a trip out to the often-neglected beer-bar to see what we could get to quench our thirst - and stumbled upon an entire i-Series sub-event, the DDR and Singstar tournament.

It must first be appreciated that i-Series is really a male-dominated event - although every year we see more and more girls turning up. Anecdotal suggests that girls socialise together off the back of their boyfriends' hardcore gaming habits, and that this actually creates a community of friends who come back again and again, regardless of their blokes' attendance.

Popular among the girls is the DDR tournament, which sees members of the public face off against the (often-all-conquering) Multiplay UK staff. The standard of dancing is incredibly high, with footwork that would make Michael Flatley flinch. We spoke to eager participants Hannah and Swifty about what they thought made the DDR event so popular.

I started by asking Hannah how often she practiced. "Well, at the moment, not very much. World of Warcraft has taken over my life and that's all I've got time for right now." So how is she so outrageously good at it? "Well, I started off really crap, but you just have to practice and practice. And it's like a bicycle - even if you don't play the game for a while, you never forget your moves."

Fair enough. Are we right in our perception that this area of the event is much more amenable to females? The Multiplay staff chip in: "We do have quite a few men over here usually, they're just all playing Counter-Strike at the moment." Hannah adds, "There's always more women in here than anywhere else though. If you look at the percentage of women that spectate and men that spectate, I think the women number is much higher. They enjoy the social and DDR aspects rather than CS.

So who's the tournament favourite? Swifty enlightens us: "The Multiplay staff are always into dirty, dirty hax like putting players in classes far below them or moving different songs into the wrong classes to give them an advantage. Dementia is probably going to win - he's leagues ahead of even me."

So there you have it: i-27 is not just a training ground for future killing machines, it's a training ground for the popstars of the future too.