Last week we brought you an in-depth preview of Virtua Fighter 5 from Sega with the promise of more VF5 goodness to come. Earlier this week Sega invited us out to its San Francisco, CA headquarters to play in a media only Virtua Fighter 5 tournament. Sega brought in two stylish VF5 arcade cabinets from Japan and offered a very nice prize that we'll be revealing to you a bit later.

Media from IGN, GameSpot, EGM, 1UP and several other outlets were on hand, with the tournament consisting of 16 total players. Being the resident fighting game gurus that we are at GameDaily, we knew that this would be an interesting affair. The atmosphere was thick with sarcastic remarks surrounding Chris Buffa's series of articles proclaiming that gaming journalism is in need of a tune-up. While Buffa's remarks were primarily directed at GameDaily, many of the egos within the gaming industry felt the sting of Buffa's pen.

Milkman from 1UP has always been one of the more outspoken gaming journalists around, and added his two cents to Buffa's offerings, creating a pseudo rivalry between 1UP and GameDaily. Of course, if you want to go back in time a bit, 1UP and GameDaily have faced off on numerous occasions when Milky was pummeled around Dead or Alive 4 review time and when 1UP was caught red-handed in an issue regarding its DOA4 guide.

It seemed only fitting that the first warm-up match of the day was between 1UP and GameDaily, with Milkman taking the win in back to back rounds, with little to no effort. While we may claim to be fighting game gurus, our background is in Tekken and Dead or Alive with very little time spent on Virtua Fighter. However, Milkman and his colleagues at EGM and 1UP have spent quite a lot of time with Virtua Fighter 4: Evo on the PlayStation 2 and Milkman even has a VF5 character card from his time in Japan during the beta test.

Suffice to say, GameDaily was not looking good going into the warm-up rounds and Milkman was heavily favored to take the top spot. Many of the folks from Sega and other publications were expecting an all Ziff final, but GameDaily had other plans. After a few minutes in the training mode on VF4: Evo (which Sega had on-hand for practice), we were ready to go.

The tournament kicked off with 16 participants, using a single elimination format, one match, and best two out of three rounds. The favorites to win were Bryan Intihar from EGM and Milkman from 1UP. The brackets were completely random, but Bryan Intihar ended up in the top of bracket A, while Milkman was in the opposite bracket with the other Ziff favorite, Shane. GameDaily was located in the bottom half of bracket A.

As the tournament progressed the Ziff crew grew in confidence, with all three favored participants taking out their first two opponents. GameDaily was the virtual no-name going into the tournament, but after our first two matches, a few members of the crowd were beginning to take notice. We employed standard fighting game tactics of turtle up until your opponent makes a mistake you can capitalize on and that worked extremely well for us.

In the third round of the tournament, the crowd was into it and the tension was high as GameDaily faced off against Bryan Intihar from EGM in the semi-final bracket. Just before the tournament started, Bryan was owned by GameDaily, finishing the warm-up match with a flawless round (known as an "excellent" in VF terms), so he went into the match on his heels. The crowd was still favoring Ziff, but a new name had emerged among the cheers, GameDaily had been dubbed, "The Quiet Storm". As the storm grew louder, Bryan found himself knocked out of the tournament, with GameDaily advancing on to the finals.

At this point it was time for the remaining semi-final match between Milkman and Shane, both Ziff employees. The all Ziff final had already been disrupted by The Quiet Storm, but the crowd still favored Ziff to take home top honors. Shane and Milkman played VF on a regular basis, with Milky generally owning the scene. However, as the match progressed, it definitely felt as if Shane had the upper hand. The match went the full three rounds with Shane taking the lead toward the end of the final round, but when it came time to finish off Milkman, it looked as though Shane choked under the pressure and let the match get away from him. This falter would setup the rematch of GameDaily vs. Milkman.

There was no bad blood going into the final match as the two combatants recognized and respected their skilled adversary. The Quiet Storm selected Lei Fei, the same character he had been using throughout the tournament, while Milkman stuck with his bread and butter character, Pai. The match was a close one, going into the third and final round, but The Quiet Storm pulled off a surprising upset and not only deterred an all Ziff final, but took home the prize as top Virtua Fighter 5 player among the 16 competitors present.

Is The Quiet Storm the most skilled Virtua Fighter player around? Not at all. But what's important is that a room full of gaming journalists, several of which were seasoned VF vets, were not able to overcome the basics of high level fighting game strategies. It was a proud day for The Quiet Storm and GameDaily fans everywhere. We'll talk a bit more about the prize as well as Virtua Fighter 5 in general over the coming months. For now, just know that GameDaily houses the best gaming journalist when it comes to 3D fighting game competitions.