World Cyber Games is soon to be upon us – HLTV.org takes a look beyond the World Cyber Games.

"Beyond the game" – World Cyber Games slogan and theme-song, we have flipped it and asked ourselves, what is beyond this year’s World Cyber Games?

The 2008 World Cyber Games will be held in the German city of Cologne. Cologne is one of the oldest cities and fourth-largest city in Germany. The city was found by the Romans in the year 38 BC. Cologne lies on the River Rhine and is famous for its Cathedral, the Kölner Dom. The city’s trade fair grounds are host to a number of trade shows, most known for its celebration of Cologne Carnival, the fair will now host the 2008 World Cyber Games.

As World Cyber Games strive to act like the Olympic Games, only allowing one participant from each nation, a few teams have been ruled out. The team to beat this autumn, mousesports, is not able to participate in any World Cyber Games activities due to mousesports having two players without German citizenship.

"A player must have nationality or citizenship of his/her represented country.
If a player does not have a passport of the country that he/she is representing, he/she will be disqualified from the tournament immediately and the corresponding Strategic Partner (SP) will be responsible for any such case."

Cologne will be scene for hundreds of gamers over this weekend and everyone is invited to watch, or are they now? Due to German law, World Cyber Games have been forced to make a special scene for the Counter-Strike 1.6 matches to be played on, where only people above the age of 16 are allowed in. It is a shame that the younger enthusiasts will not have a chance to watch their favorite players up close. Germany is however use to it and even with the law no allowing the younger audience, Germany has set scene to extraordinary eSport event. ESL the main trend-setter within eSport in Germany has done it several times already. ESL is known in Germany for hosting their Intel Friday Night Game shows around in the bigger cities of Germany, even at the Extreme Masters II finals in Hannover earlier this year, the house was packed to the limit. This should rule out a repetition of the empty seats seen last year in Seattle.

Who is going to be crowned World Cyber Games champions of 2008? Defending champions from emuLate will not have a shot at defending their title this year, as they failed to win the French national qualifier. Can World e-Sports Masters winners mTw finally grab the gold after getting silver last year, or will likes of SK Gaming, MYM, GamePlay, e-STRO and others, get in their way? It is down to the wire this weekend, and it will be the last chance to shine in 2008.



Who will be grabbing these medals?

HLTV.org will be onsite in Cologne, bring you live coverage from World Cyber Games. We will be providing you with HLTV, demos, results, standings, scorebots, photos, updates and much more during the entire weekend in Cologne.