Students enjoy the the video game tournments provided by the Association for Computing Machinery and put their gamer skills to the test at the biannual SLUGO.
 The Lion’s Roar / Elizabeth Brown

The Association for Computing Machinery came together this past Friday and put on Southeastern’s Game On fundraiser, more commonly known as SLUGO.

Starting at 5 p.m. and lasting until 6 a.m., participants began by paying a $5 entry fee. Many of the participants signed up for various tournaments, some of which included: ‘League of Legends,’ ‘Super Smash Bros.,’ ‘Mario Kart 8,’ ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,’ ‘Yu-Gi-Oh!’ and ‘Street Fighter.’ 

Participants of SLUGO anxiously awaited the start of their passion while setting up for an all night event of gaming. 

“I look anxious, but actually I’m pretty calm,” said Vice President of ACM Jeffrey Balint. “I love doing this kind of stuff.”

While setting up, other students were exhilarated and pondered how they would spend the night. 

“I feel excited,” said freshman social work major Christian Jeanmarie. “I’m not a pro. I’m more of a casual gamer, so I’ll probably play ‘Bioshock.’” 

Those that did not bring their own equipment began to play games with others, some of which included: ‘Bioshock,’ ‘NidHogg,’ ‘Guitar Hero,’ ‘Grand Theft Auto V,’ ‘Mortal Kombat’ and ‘The Binding of Isaac.’

The top three tournaments were ‘League of Legends,’ ‘Super Smash Bros.’ and ‘Mario Kart 8’ on Wii U. Lasting the entire night, the League of Legends tournament had eight teams go head to head in a series of matches for a prize of $125 with the second team winning.  

Those who participated in the other tournaments competed for gift cards to various stores such as Best Buy and GameStop as well as prizes related to video gaming. 

The ‘Super Smash Bros.’ tournament originally composed of nearly 50 individual competitors. In the final match of the tournament, Craig Schayot won the final match for the fourth semester in a row, winning a prize of a $15 gift card to GameStop and a Pikachu figurine. 

“[I feel] a little prideful,” said Schayot. “It feels good to win.” 

The ‘Mario Kart 8’ tournament was composed of 12 players racing side by side in various rounds. Computer science major Jataylon Woods was the winner of the tournament. He won a $10 GameStop gift card and GameCube controller. After this victory, he felt enthusiastic. 

“It was fun,” said Woods. “I basically got lucky that I was a good bit ahead.” 

Pi Kappa Alpha sponsored the event by selling snacks and drinks and donating the proceeds to ACM. Women in Technology also appeared at the event and sold pizza for $1 per slice, while promoting their organization. 

According to Balint, SLUGO will be held every semester as it continues to improve. 

“This SLUGO has probably been one of the best SLUGOS in years,” said Balint. “This is an every semester event. SLUGO is getting better and so is the ACM. This year, we had people working together, it is definitely going to be better in the future.”