The art of gaming was on full display as students, non-students and former students played some of the more popular tournament fighting or strategy games. The most popular game played at SLUGO was Super Smash Bros., a 3D fighting game with iconic characters from different Nintendo games.
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion's Roar
Fayard Hall turned into a gamers paradise overnight as the Association for Computing Machinery hosted its bi-annual all night video gaming event, Southeastern Louisiana University Game On!.
Students and non-students gathered in Rooms 107 and 109 to play free games and compete in tournaments.
“It’s actually been pretty good,” said Joseph Dixon, a sophomore criminal justice major. “We have a good turnout and everything is more organized than last time. It’s good to see the new freshman showing up and getting to learn about this tradition on Southeastern.”
Participants brought their own television, computer desktops and consoles to play and share with fellow gamers. The turnout for SLUGO was not the normal amount of people that show up every semester.
“This is a relatively low turnout compared to normal,” said John Paul Hernandez, a sophomore computer science major. “We had a bad incident with advertising. It came out like a few days before the tournament began. We usually have dozens of people for the League of Legends tournament and now we only have three teams.”
The tournaments were for the games Mario Kart, Street Fighter, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and the most popular game played at the event, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
“Usually we pick games that are popular and that we know will be successful like Smash Bros.,” said Hernandez. “It’s a combination of what’s popular and what is attractive to crowds.”
The Super Smash Bros. community was the dominant audience during the event. Most players could be seen playing the popular game in the Student Union working on their skills.
“Some of my friends told me about it,” said Benir Osimbo, a freshman mechanical engineering major. “I was hanging out with them and they said, ‘There’s a gaming event that’s coming up and you should go.’”
SLUGO has become a tradition on campus as the event has been held by the ACM for more than 10 years.
“SLUGO started Fall 2004 in the old Student Union,” said former President of ACM, Rodney Garland. “A few years later, they moved to Fayard Hall and they have been gaming there ever since.”
Besides the addition of the Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft tournament, the format and games have been the same for SLUGO. The organizers of the event do not see reason to change the format now.
“We tried in the past to do card tournaments like Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh!, but never really had a turnout for it,” said Jeffrey Balint, a senior computer science major and former Vice President of ACM. “I used to host this as the Vice President. I’m retired now, and I would like to play video games.”
The art of gaming was on full display as students, non-students and former students played some of the more popular tournament fighting or strategy games. The most popular game played at SLUGO was Super Smash Bros., a 3D fighting game with iconic characters from different Nintendo games.
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion's Roar