The Video Game Club will host the third annual Game Fest, featuring a number of computer and video games for the enjoyment of City College students and the community.

“Game fest is fun to come to even if you’re just watching,” said Cassandra Siegel, Video Game Club president, and club commissioner for the Associated Student Senate. “And the tournaments are always fun to watch.”

The festival will be set up from noon to 9 p.m. on April 17 in the Campus Center. Entry and game playing will be free, while the food banquet of pizza, chips, and soda will cost money. Also, there will be entry fees for the video game tournaments.

Five tournaments will take place throughout the day, costing five dollars per entry. The games open for competition are Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Street Fighter Four, Tekken Six, Super Smash Brothers Melee, and Guitar Hero II. All participants, amateur and veteran alike, are welcome to play.

“The first year, we had five and six-year-olds come and play in the tournaments,” Siegel said. “It was pretty cool.”

Knowing the official rulebook for each game will greatly help, because the tournament rules will be based exactly off the rulebook for each game, Siegel said. Referees will be on site watching the tournaments and making sure that everyone plays a fair game.

“The tournaments can get pretty intense,” Siegel said. “So, we keep judges around to ref.”

First and second place winners in the competitions will receive cash prizes and a percentage of money from the profits of the competition and food fees. The percentage will be based on how may people participate in each tournament. The rest of the proceeds will be saved for next year’s Game Fest.

City College has provided a total of 40 computers and five high-definition televisions for the event. Game Fest attendees will also bring standard televisions. On the flat screen TV beside the Cyber Center, instruments for both original Rock Band and the special edition The Beatles Rock Band will be set up.

A variety of video game consoles will be used, including PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo GameCube, and WII. The video games available for game-time are Halo, Modern Warfare and Bad Company. WII will be used in the tournaments with the Play Station 3.

The computers will be available all day. The games set up on the computers will be Counter-Strike, Worms, Pagle, World’s Warcraft III, and many others. The game play is unlimited on each computer.

“We don’t have waiting lists,” Siegel said. “We don’t have problems with people waiting for a computer that often.”

In the past, as many as 500 people from City College, UCSB and the community have come to the festival. It’s not unusual to see people come from long distances.

“Last year we had someone come all the way down from San Francisco to play in one of the tournaments,” Siegel said. “And he got second place.”