Intel Masters aims to pick top clan

Intel is planning the UK's biggest ever gaming event, with £25,000 in prize money, a museum setting and Chris Barrie. The Intel Masters tournament will see 24 gaming clans from across the UK (including the Intel-sponsored 4 Kings clan) competing for the inaugural Intel Masters crown and a stupendous £25,000 prize purse.

On Saturday, December 21st at London's Science Museum, the 24 clans will compete in Counter-Strike, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and WarCraft III, naturally enough on Intel Pentium 4-powered PCs. Those who pop along for the spectacle will be able to watch on the enormous IMAX cinema screen, and pass the time in-between matches by duking it out in FIFA 2003 gaming pods.

David Mitchell, Head of Brand Marketing at Intel, had a lot to say. "Staging the Intel Masters allows us to demonstrate to existing gamers and the uninitiated what they have been missing so far. We hope the Intel Masters will validate gaming as a recognised form of entertainment and challenge current mainstream perceptions of gaming. The Intel Masters will show professional computer gaming's ability to create passion and atmosphere amongst its competitors and fans similar to that associated with professional sport," which doesn't sound like a speech we've heard in dingy LAN cafes ever before...

So, if you fancy seeing the cream of the UK's gaming crop getting all feisty with one another and hurling appalling obscenities around betwixt the pillars of the Science Museum, pop along on December 21st. The opportunity to meet Chris Barrie and scold him for his role in the Tomb Raider flick is surely enough of an incentive.