I was lucky enough to be invited to a special Alienware Gaming Night where I would pit my gaming skills against some of the best PC gamers. With the prestige of taking part against literally some of the best (competition winners from around Europe), Alienware were also handing out an Alienware M14x laptop to the winner. This gaming laptop is no joke. In essence it’s a beast, both visually and performance wise.

Alienware M14x

Out of the whole Alienware gaming range the M14x is the middle ground in terms of size, portability and performance. I say middle ground, but there isn’t anything mediocre about it. Quad Core Intel i7 processors, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 3GB of Nvidia SLI graphics all encased in a uniquely designed Alienware body. Not forgetting the impressive range of connectivity solutions to get you connected and gaming anywhere, literally. All of this make the M14x a great choice for gaming, not only in the comforts of your home, but taking around to friends or LAN parties.

3D Or Not To 3D

The gaming was planned to be all in 3D. I’m not the biggest or most convinced person when it comes to 3D anything. It’s more gimmicky than anything in my opinion. Especially when one has to wear ridiculous glasses to be able to experience it. Also as I wasn’t a regular PC gamer (I hadn’t gamed on a PC for almost a decade) the signs were not good. But the gods seemed to be smiling upon me. As the tech people fought against the gods to get the 3D sorted due to technical problems I perused the various different models of Alienware gaming laptops displayed around the venue.

With the help of @Motoko_K we commandeered the biggest and baddest looking laptop and got to work. We soon got ourselves customising the colours of the keyboards, logos and grills on the laptops. Bright lights and customisation always win! The AlienFX lighting controls allowed us to change the lights, of almost anything emitting a light from the laptop. As well as having different effects like dimming from one colour to another, or cycling through a range of them. Our efforts can be seen below!

Peripherals, Ready!

It was decided that the gaming would go ahead in 2D and it was going to be a Call of Duty BlackOps shoot out. 1v1 elimination. Getting used to playing with a keyboard and mouse once again wasn’t that difficult, but the urge to try out moves in Call of Duty from the years of playing on Xbox and PS3 were clearly trying to get out. I found myself consciously fighting to attempt to throw grenades and flash bangs, but the problem was I didn’t really know which keys they were assigned to.

As I progressed through the 1st and 2nd rounds, it was clear the various regional competition winners who were in attendance from around Europe were PC gamers, but not so much Call of Duty gamers. At least I had the advantage of knowing the maps and spawning systems to try to stay one step ahead. As I watched the various different competitors, it was shocking to see, even in a competition in front of people all those who just sat in a room staring out of the window. A great example of the game playing them rather than them playing the games. Sad indeed. I played my usual way of running around and hunting my prey, even with my uncoordinated keyboard and mouse skills.

In the end my luck ran out as I was knocked out in the semi-final by the overall runner-up.

The overall winner on the night was the UK competition winner who seemed to be pretty happy winning the Mx14 laptop, and why not. Not bad for a night of gaming fun!