About Me...

Hi, I am Jody 'Cali Girl' Robinson a.k.a. XP-CaliGirl of clan Xtreme Prejudice. Xtreme Prejudice isn't prejudice, it is named after a term from a movie. Magistrates' XP-Kiljoy and XP-Cromwell started clan Xtreme Prejudice on August 27, 1996. Please click on XP's Manifesto to read more about the clan. One of the Magistrates of clan Xtreme Prejudice is John 'Kiljoy' Ehde a.k.a. XP-Kiljoy a.k.a. one of the top players of Quake from the Red Annihilation.

The Red Annihilation Tournaments was a Quake DM tournament in 1997, where open play was conducted on Mplayer.com. The finalists were flown to E3 where the finals were played using LAN-based connections. The winner of the tournament was Champion King of Quake Dennis 'Thresh' Fong. Dennis won alot of prizes for winning the tournament including a '97 Ferrari 328GTS. The '97 Ferrari 328GTS was donated personally from John Carmack, Owner and Lead Programmer of id Software.

Five (5) of the of the eleven (11) inmate players that are now in the Champion Quake clan DeathRow were originally XP clan members: D3-LittlleDragon (was a.k.a. XP-LittleDragon), D4-Orion (was a.k.a. XP-Sinister), D6-Geiger (was a.k.a. XP-Geiger), D7-Twistedkiller (was a.k.a. XP-Twistedkiller), D13-Unholy (was a.k.a. XP-Unholy). Two (2) of the members were friends from clan Postal. D15-Da5id (was a.k.a. Da5id-POST) and D8-Reptile was (a.k.a. Reptile-POST). Three (3) more members were from clan Legend which is D11-Thresh (was a.k.a. LGD-Thresh), D2-B2 (was a.k.a. LGD-B2) and D9-Frick w(as a.k.a. LGD-Blackhole). Xtreme Prejudice and DeathRow are still good friends and are still like family to this day.

One of my friends Christina 'XP-Pookie' Chan had more pictures of Mplayer's Red Annihilation Quake Tournament in her Photo Album of Pookie's Play Pen site.

I am the publisher of CGN Cali Girl News an Alliance Member of Gamesmania in Canada. An Editor of my friend Aristotle's site Jediknight.net (an affiliated site of Stephen's Blue's News site). Editor of Gamers eXtreme (GX). I am now publisher/editor of Mplayer.com"s Camp SSI (Strategic Simulations, Inc.), plus two recently launched sites called RPG Tales, Sim Nation. Along with contributing news to my brother, Jacob 'DarkViper' Robinson a.k.a. XP-DarkViper of ActionXtreme for several of his Action gaming news sites on Mplayer.com.

Member of Mplayer.com

I am known on Mplayer as California Girl. I have been a member of Mplayer.com since last year March 1997. I still to this day really enjoy visiting my friends including clan members along with playing them games on Mplayer.com. Mplayer to me has been like a home away from home if you know what I mean? :) I have been able to talk to a lot of friends that International on Mplayer on the microphone. Some from China, South Africa, Holland, Sweden and Japan.

No No No Cali ! :( ... Your Trip to the PGL

Oops. I am sorry about that... :(

Back To The PGL...

Day 1

I didn't know I was going to the PGL Tournament for sure until about a few days before the flight when Joel a.k.a. GX-Wemmick reminded me again about going to the PGL Tournament.

He mentioned to me about the PGL Tournament before he left for his trip to Europe. Joel also has a column with Gamers eXtreme called Wemmick's Temporary Sanity. He created an article about it when he came back called Gamer's Guide To Europe.

I had to get up at 3:00a.m. One reason I woke up early was due to being excited about the trip that I was unable to stay asleep and another reason I wanted to report some Star Wars Gaming news at Jediknight.net before I left.

After reporting the gaming news at Jediknight.net I left to the airport by 5:30 a.m. and was at the airport by 6:00a.m. The flight left at 7:00a.m. and I arrived at the Oakland, Airport at around 8:20a.m. Wemmick of Gamers eXtreme was at the airport to pick me up according to our previous arrangements made. He said it was easier for him to pick me up at the Oakland Airport due to the Oakland airport was closer than the San Francisco airport for me to be picked up.

I arrived on the same day the PGL Tournament was going to start which was Thursday Nov. 12th. Driving from the Oakland airport to Berkeley to get to the GX office, was really nice. Berkeley seemed to be a nice, youthful area. You saw college students walking from place to place. There was one area in Berkeley that Wemmick showed me. It had beautiful Autumn leafed trees as well as some that had yellow leaves. It looked gorgeous.

After leaving the office we went across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The clouds surrounded the bridge that day was more like fog so I couldn't really see San Francisco that well while crossing it. Once we were at the Club-I building there were people already there. The first day wasn't packed but there were enough people walking around with excitement.

The PGL Tournament was Thursday November 12th, 13th, & 14th. The tournament competition was Quake II, Starcraft, and Quake. The competition in Quake II was really awesome to watch the 1 on 1 battles. I haven't yet played Starcraft but I have heard it is a very good strategy game. Quake was also exciting to me to watch the teams including my buddies in DeathRow compete to win. Plus being able to meet alot of my other buddy friends in person.

I was able to be at the PGL for the full three (3) days of the tournament to watch Dennis 'Thresh' Fong and my Kurt a.k.a. Immortal (Immortal was also at the XPCON2). Immortal ended up winning one of the games against Thresh.

My Spotlights on Quake II DM Matches

• Thresh [1] vs. Immortal [10]: This match had everyone on their toes. Immortal kicked up the excitement with the crowd with a first kill to Thresh. Through out the game Immortal gives Thresh quite a few railgun hits. While the game was nearing the end, I kept wondering if Thresh would come back and win the game but Immortal totally owned the level. Immortal's railgun skills truly amazes me.

• Noname-99 [10] vs. Immortal [20]: Noname-99 had the first kill on Immortal. Immortal then came back and over took the game. At the 10 min mark, noname racked up some frags but Immortal still accomplished the game.

• K9-Masta [21] vs. Lord-187 [9]: K9-Masta did really good in most of his matches. This particular Match had Lord-187 taking two lava suicides.

After the matches were over for the day, I was able to go to a nice Thai Restaurant. It was the first time I was able to try Thai food. I don't like very sweet dishes so I was really touchy on trying a Thai dish. I tried a chicken dish that had a red chili pepper sauce. It was one awesome dish. The white chicken meat with a really cool flavor.

Day 2

Friday the 13th (I am not superstitious) was more of a relaxing day. I was up early to leave at 8 am to the GX office again. Wemmick had mentioned the night before that he would take me around for a tour of San Francisco. After we left the GX office we drove across the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge again. It was a very clear day compared to Thursday Morning's Cloudy episode. I was able to see all of San Francisco its splendor. The view was gorgeous. The whole city looked as if it was reflecting off the watery Bay.

Wemmick pointed at a tiny little island, which was Alcatraz. It looked so small, as if no one could really live on such a place. Another place that was pretty interesting was Lombard Street. It is a zig zaggy road known to be the most "crookedest street in the world,". We drove across the well known Golden Gate bridge. The bridge is alot bigger than I expected and an enjoyment to see and cross over. We didn't actually hit the city, just stopped at the viewpoint. I believe the closest town was Sausalito. I was able to see another view of Alcatraz. After leaving there we went to The Legion of Honor Art Museum. It had these really nice Lion Statues in the front entrance.

We then went back to the Club-I building by around 2pm. There were a lot of people already there by then. It seemed to be about 3 times more than yesterday's attendees.

My Spotlights on Quake DM Team Matches

DeathRow [72] vs. Clan Kapitol [61]: This was an extremely close match. For a while there it looked like Clan Kapitol was going to take lead.

DeathRow [89] vs. Clan Kapitol [65]: This was a pretty good match. Unholy stepped in to take Reptile's place in this game.

Spotlights on Quake II DM Matches

Thresh [15] vs. RB-Ren [0]: This match determined who played the final match with Immortal. I was unable to see this match due to me not getting to Club-I until 2pm.

K9-Masta [10] vs. Thresh [25]: I saw the end of this match. It looked like Thresh did pretty good.

Immortal [20] vs. RB-Ren [-2]: Immortal got the first kill with a rocket launcher. Ren back flipped into the lava. Immortal once again accomplishes his game.

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was a beautiful sight at night.

Day 3

Today felt like a super busy, yet exciting day. I was up around 7 a.m. and had to get to the GX office to meet everyone early. We had to be at the Subway by 8:38 am due to knowing it would be crowded at Club-I. It was pretty nice to be on the Subway.

When we arrived at the Club-I it was already pretty busy. The rest of the day was full of surprises. Saturday felt like it was about 6-7 times more people than what showed up on Thursday. It was so packed with people.

Spotlights on Quake DM Team Matches

Clan Kapitol [75] vs. Power Rangers [81]: This was a really close game. You couldn't tell which team was going to win.

DeathRow [115] vs. Clan Gib [59]: This was the first game of the Quake Team Championship, both DeathRow and ClanGib were fully prepared and ready to go. Deathrow played with a lot of confidence in this match. The final score had DR up 115 to 59. Both teams regrouped to discuss a strategy to prepare for the second game in the match.

DeathRow [129] vs. Clan Gib [76]: DR controlled the end of the match, winning 121-76 and taking home the PGL Quake Teams championship. Unholy took Reptile's place in this match. Wemmick describes this match really good at the PGL site.

Spotlights on Quake II Matches

Immortal [3] vs. Thresh [10]: Immortal did pretty well in this game. Thresh needed to win 2 matches against Immortal to win. Immortal only needed to win one match against Thresh because Immortal defeated Thresh on level DM3, Friday. This match was played on level DM3 as well. Thresh put him down with some nice RL work, and followed with a spawn kill at the railgun to go up 2-0. There was one Rocket Launcher fight in the rocket launcher room where Immortal was dodging rockets from Thresh. After Thresh won this game he had to prepare for his next match against Immortal.

Immortal [0] vs. Thresh [43]: Thresh, having one more match to win the championship to one final match. There was a random draw which was taken place. The level that they ended up playing was the Power Trip. Immortal started to look like he was sort of giving up by the time he was 15 frags behind. Thresh wins the game and is granted his Quake II DM Championship.

Spotlight on StarCraft

Gadianton [Winner] vs. Kin-Dom{KoD}: This game was a very exciting game for every StarCraft player. Gadianton wins the title of the StartCraft PGL Champion. Calbear of the GX Staff wrote up a commentary of the match.

Thresh ended up winning the title of Quake II Champion along with my buddy friends of DeathRow B2 a.k.a. Patrick Li, Reptile a.k.a. Jim Dangcil (whom I also call Tarzan, right Tarzan? Hehe.) Frick a.k.a. Wes Culver, (I met Wes through Pat a.k.a. B2 on ICQ when DeathRow were in the tournament in Sweden), Dennis 'D11-Thresh' Fong, Jason Carlton a.k.a. Unholy, winning the title of the Quake Champion Team for the 3rd Season of the PGL.

Quake II DM Division 1 on 1 Players:

Starcraft Division 1 on 1 Players:

Quake Division Teams: Clan Capitol - Clan Gib- DeathRow - Power Rangers:

After the PGL was over we all didn't know exactly where we wanted to go out to eat. Pookie mentioned a few places along with Cross mentioning some places. We ended up going to a really nice Chinese Restaurant in ChinaTown.

Starcraft and Half-life

After dinner some of us went back to the GX office. Pookie, Cross, Chris and Steven played some StarCraft while Spear and Nemesis played Half-life in Multi-player mode. XP-Chael and I watched the matches from various screens. I kept my eye on Nemesis' Computer because I was really more interested in the Half-life game.

After watching a few Half-life matches, Spear asked me if I had the chance to play Half-life yet. I told him I didn't and he let me play Half-life on his PC. The game was fascinating. I played it for about 2 hours and realized it was getting pretty late.

Half-life Weapons

The things I noticed in the Half-life game was, the different weapons.. The grenade seemed to be much more powerful than your typical hand grenade and regular grenade in Quake & Quake II.

Half-life Enemies

The enemies in the game were pretty nice too. One enemy that was really creepy was the critters that chase after you. Along with the enemy that looked like a rope for a tongue. I thought I jumped on a rope and it was moving upwards, I then looked up and I was going to be eaten by a creature of some sort. That wasn't a very nice sight. The tongue was like it was sticky so it was sort of hard to jump off, I did succeed in getting away from it though. Overall the game was very addicting and it felt refreshing to play a new game. I really enjoyed checking the game out.

 

[View Part 2 of Cali Girl's trip to the Professional Gamer's League]