The Wolves’ Den came alive with the sights, sounds, and smells of video game culture late Friday night.

Tables were ringed with high-end PC’s and bright yellow tangles of power and ethernet cables. The sounds of a wide array of videogames mingled with the happy chatter of voices. The smell of free pizza wafted through the air as it arrived in waves.

Matt Rakow, lead organizer of the LAN party and a senior in computer science, estimated there were 150 students over the course of the night.

The three main events were a Halo 3 tournament, a Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament and a big game of Team Fortress 2. There was also Duck Hunt.

Halo 3, a popular first-person shooter, had its tournament structured in two vs. two format. Twelve teams participated in the contest of teamwork and accuracy.

Wolves’ Den regular Brandon “Seraph” Johnson, a sophomore in aerospace engineering, was unstoppable with the help of his teammate Kove Horne, a junior in agronomy. The score of the final game was 25 to 13.

Allen Cameron, a junior in history, commented on the mix of regulars and fresh faces in the tournament.

“If you say you play in the Wolves Den, people just assume you’re dominant,” he said, recalling the aftermath of sweeping a triad tournament with a few ringers. However, he also said the “unknown factor” of outsiders can be a serious threat.

Running simulaneously was a Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament. It’s a cartoony but fiercely competitive fighting game where players try to knock opponents off a floating stage.

It was organized, run, and won by Michael Pham, a senior in electrical engineering.

Pham used the Nintendo character Peach to defeat his opponent’s character in the final match.

Pham said there were 38 participants in the tournament. Of those, the proportion of major contenders was “probably about half.”

In the center of it all were tables and tables of PC gamers playing Team Fortress 2, a team-based shooter.

With the help of several power strips, ethernet cables and a 24 port switch, they all competed in the same series of games. It was red versus “blu” with teams of six.

According to Kyle Winters, a freshman in management, “team blu was… extremely victorious.”

Winters contributed to his team’s victory by playing two different roles in the game, that of the spy and the scout. He won a T-shirt for winning and a $10 gift certificate to Best Buy for amassing the greatest number of points on his team.

Rakow said several gamers requested that IRC hold another LAN party soon.

“I would like to do it again personally,” he said, “but IRC needs to vote on it.”