GotFrag: First let’s talk about your team, Hammer and Anvil. Tell us about how you formed, the games you’ve played competitively, and your team’s accomplishments.

Matt "BALLISTICS" Powers: Hammer & Anvil was created on December 13, 2003 by three Xbox Live members, Jeff Schine (FYCTION), Matt Powers (BALLISTICS), and Josh Garrison (FISCOPATH). The intent was to create a small, elite group of gamers with the goal of excelling in the sport of professional gaming and becoming an example to all other professional teams. Hammer & Anvil is the culmination of the most dedicated, skilled and professional competitors in the video game industry. Lead by a law enforcement official, (BALLISTICS), Hammer & Anvil has successfully combined real world tactics and in-game strategies to produce exceptional results.

Typically we play tactical shooters such as Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. Currently we are competing in Gears of War. We are hoping that the World Series of Vdeo Games (WSVG) and Major League Gaming (MLG) will pick up GRAW 2 and Rainbow Six: Vegas.

Our accomplishments can be found HERE.

Hammer and Anvil is participating in the Gears of War Major League Gaming Online League. Tell us a little bit about the experience so far.

We definitely like what MLG is trying to do with these online tournaments, but Gears of War needs some serious patch work before it can be a true measure of team skill...online that is.

Several teams that should have made it much farther didnt. Including us.

Do you believe this fault to be on the factor of host or on the factor of your skill?

I would say our skill was of course a factor; however, the factor of host was a lot greater. We have several players on Hammer & Anvil with great hosts and on a couple of occasions the host the other team provided wasnt great... but its the best they had so you just have to roll with it.

So with that, it's even more likely for them to win on their host and because we can provide such a good host, they have more of a chance on winning on our host. I'm not making excuses for losing because we did lose a couple where the other team just played smarter... but there definitely were a few that would not have turned out the same way if GoW didnt have the host issues that it does.

Do you believe Gears of War to be ready for competitive play? What is the biggest flaw the game has in the competitive aspect?

GoW is definately not ready for competitive ONLINE play. As far as in person events go, I can't really say. I dont have much experience with GoW on a LAN, but I heard it still has major host issues on LAN as well.

Host is a plague that has haunted console games for some time now. Do you believe this takes away from the credibility of consoles in a competitive league?

For the most part, no. There are several games that generally run fine online. The ideal thing to happen is for developers to give gamers the ability to make a dedicated server...like in Rainbow Six Vegas. Gears of War is the only game that I can think of where online competition is truly ruined by host advantage.

When comparing Gears of War to other tactical shooters, what does it have that is better for competitive play? What does it have that is worse?

First off, the game is amazing. It has the best use of cover and team strategy than any other game to date...in my opinion. The weapon balance is excellent and the multiplayer maps are awesome.

It definitely has some negative points. First and foremost, the host advantage issues must be fixed. Other than that, all it really needs is a few more multiplayer lobby options.