Gamers compete, play demos

8-bit music, reminiscent of early "Zelda" and "Mario Bros." video game soundtracks, filled the air as local game enthusiasts attended SXSW's ScreenBurn and The Austin Chronicle's second annual Game On Austin event on Nov. 16.

Game On Austin played host to a night of video game demos and tournaments from local video game companies at the Mohawk, a music venue on Red River Street.

Upon entering the venue, gamers were greeted with a giant projector displaying 8-bit videos on the stage in sync with the music which was provided by local programmer Party Time! Hexcellent!.

Next to the stage, Tek Republik, Austin's only public gaming center, provided four Xbox 360s and let gamers play various games such as "Halo: Reach" and "Dead Rising 2."

Across from Tek Republik, arcade cabinets filled with Xbox Live Arcade games gave gamers the opportunity to experience the old school arcade feeling on new school games "'Splosion Man" and "Comic Jumper."

On an upstairs deck, Dannobot Games showcased their game "Opposites" which turned out to be surprisingly addicting. The game is basically "Tetris," just played horizontally.

An abnormal feature about "Opposites" is that the controllers people used to compete head to head, or rather "chest to chest," were embedded in the chests of female mannequin bodies. "Opposites" is available on Xbox Live Arcade.

Local Austinite Christie Lara demoed "Opposites" and other games at the event.

"I'm not a big gamer, but I'm having fun trying out the games here," Lara said.

In Mohawk's green room, Game Over Videogames, a retail video game company, brought classic video games for people to play like "Donkey Kong" for Super Nintendo and "Mario Kart" for Nintendo 64.

Game On Austin wasn't just about showcasing video games.

A heated tournament took place upstairs for the recently released game "Star Wars: Force Unleashed II." Competing Padawans battled in multiplayer matches late into the night making this booth a crowd favorite to watch.

ACC student Thomas Lloyd won first place in the tournament and took home a copy of the game signed by the developers.

Lloyd, who is in his first semester at ACC, plans to choose a major in ACC's game development program in the near future.

The new multiplayer addition to "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II" was developed by Red Fly Studio who hosted the tournament at Game On Austin.

The game is very much reminiscent of Nintendo's "Super Smash Brothers," but with Jedi training.

At the end of the night, gamers gathered around the stage for a raffle where the grand prize was a wristband for the upcoming ScreenBurn showcase during next year's SXSW.