Year’s end is all fun and games

They gunned down Jesus, Ocho Cinco, and the Butt Pirate before anyone really knew what was going on.

“Wait. Wait,” John Long stammered, fumbling the buttons of his video controller. Shots ricocheted off the cyber rocks surrounding his action game character. The ruthless space aliens of the video game “Halo 2” were closing in and with their arrival, Long’s chances of winning a $399 Xbox 360 were fading fast.

“It’s really hard,” Long said as he waited for his character to re-spawn. Old-timers might best associate re-spawning with the reloading of a pinball after one slips past the flippers. “Well, for me it’s hard. I’m not real good at focusing.”

Dozens of teenagers gathered Saturday at First Christian Church in Sandpoint for the chance to play for a free Xbox 360. The gamers paired off in groups of four and waged war against other teams equally motivated by the chance of winning the prized of video game consoles.

The pre-programmed screen names through which they fought ranged from absurd to blasphemous, though there seemed to be a willingness by their chaperones to let some of the behavior slide. The primary purpose of the Xbox competition is to keep children sober and off the streets for the New Year’s weekend. Coupled with a prize-rich talent show, a little sumo wrestling and other supervised thrills, the two-day event was billed as “Shockwave.” The event fires up again tonight at 7 and lasts until 12:30 a.m. Admission is $5.

“This is our third year,” said Mike Couch, First Christian Church youth pastor. “The first year we had about 500 students and 300 last year. We’re hoping for 300 this year.”

Finalists from Saturday’s Xbox competition and the talent show will square off tonight, though much of the night is planned around people who didn’t compete.

While the cyber battle raged Saturday, a half-dozen acts competed in the church auditorium next door for a $200 first prize and smaller gifts. Jon and Jacob Ruff, billed as the Ruff Boys, turned out their two-man rendition of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Make You Feel Better.”

“Maybe we’ll be the Red Stripes,” Jon Ruff said, playing off the name of the quirky, two-person band The White Stripes.

Initial plans for Shockwave included a full-blown chess tournament, but even Bobby Fischer would have been trampled and forgotten by the mob flocking to the Xbox competition. No one signed up for chess, though some beleaguered video gamers might have fared better battling for a board and nondescript pawns.

Long’s team, the Ninjas, were drubbed early in the competition, defeating only a quartet of middle schoolers playing as The Wieners. The last-place team in Saturday’s matches was promised an exhibition game today against a team of youth pastors selected from five churches that organized Shockwave.

The team to beat, The Guardians from Cedar Hills Church, mowed down all comers Saturday and seemed to know what their opponents were up to despite playing their competition blind. In Xbox competitions, two televisions are put together back to back, so the opponents can’t see each other strategizing. Each player views the screen as if looking though the eyes of his character and sees his opponents as targets coming into view. Even with that advantage, Ocho Cinco didn’t stand a chance.