We were thinking recently how F1 could be made more exciting, and rather than adjustable rear wings, all the FIA need to do really is equip the cars with red shells and banana skins, then we'd have some overtaking and interesting racing.

Anyway, real-life motorsports aside, we'd also like to announce that we're returning to Mario Kart Wii for our fun console tournament at epic.FOUR later this month.

Just like with our earlier UT2k4 announcement, we've decided to go back to a console game which has been enjoyed by many at our past events. Plus with the random nature of the game, you all have a good chance at winning!

Our console area is available for everybody to use through the event and will be equipped with an Xbox360, Wii and N64 for some retro gaming action on our big screen. You can also bring your own controllers and games along for any of these consoles to play along with your fellow gamers.

In a throwback to our LANs of old, we've decided to make our main tournament at epic.FOUR a UT2k4 last man standing deathmatch.

Those who used to attend the 'other' events will remember the exciting and intense UT2k4 tournaments and those days are sorely missed, so it's back!

The tournament format is quite simple. We fill a server with people who want to play on a first-come-first-served basis and kick off a deathmatch map with a time limit of 5mins and a frag limit of 100. As soon as either of those limits are reached we kick-ban the bottom few players and move onto the next map until we're left with an epic final and a load of sore wrists!

It will be a solo tournament, so you don't need to worry about finding teams, just sign up at the event to take part!

And as for the most important question...insta or full weapons? Well that's up to you, we'll put a poll up and you can decide!

It's payday for many of you, so what better way to treat yourself for a month of hard work, than by enjoying a weekend of fun gaming without the boss wanting you to work faster!

We have plenty going on at epic.FOUR later this July and full details on things like timetables are starting to be prepared for announcement in the next couple of weeks.

Activities such as the pub quiz are starting to shape up, and don't forget we have a world of meat to serve up in our OM NOM NOM BBQ.

If you haven't already grabbed your seat, then make sure you book now, before you're tempted to spend that pay on something you don't need, like food.

As part of the many activities taking place at our next event in July, we can now confirm that our two 'resident' DJs Haden & Superchief will be back again with not only their live sets during epic.FOUR, but also with a return of their 'DJ-Off' which some of you would have seen during the early hours of the last event.

Haden & Superchief are regulars to the events and their sets have always been a massive success, so we look forward to welcoming them back to the decks in a few weeks!

With just over 4 weeks to go, now is the time to grab your tickets for our great summer LAN party at Uttoxeter Racecourse, head over to epiclan.co.uk/epic4 to confirm your space and we'll see you there!

Want to relive those golden days playing 4-player split screen Mario Kart or Goldeneye?

Well we are pleased to announce a Nintendo 64 with 4 controllers will be made available for you to play on over in the console area at epic.FOUR, allowing upto 4 player split screen mayhem on our huge projector screen.

The classic titles that will be available to play include:

• Turok
• Turok 2: Seeds of evil
• Superstar soccer 64
• Super Mario 64
• Mario Kart 64
• Zelda: ocarina of time
• Wetrix
• Perfect Dark
• Goldeneye
• Diddy kong racing

In addition, we'll have our usual XBox360 and Nintendo Wii with a range of titles to play, and you're free to bring along your own games and controllers to use on the systems.

Our good friends at Crucial have confirmed that they will be supporting our next Midlands LAN Party, epic.FOUR (29th July - 1st August).

Crucial have sent along a 4GB kit of Ballistix RAM as well as the now-famous Memory Hawgs and plenty of other giveaways that you can win at various opportunities throughout the event.

epic.FOUR takes place at Uttoxeter Racecourse, Staffordshire with a capacity of over 120 participants with a massive range of fun gaming and other activities taking place from the Thursday to the Sunday of the event. Bookings are open at epiclan.co.uk/epic4.

To see more about the Crucial range of products, visit their website at www.crucial.com/uk

During the Community Workshops held at epic.THREE we received feedback on how to make the epic community better and help you all get to know each other that little bit more. One area that was discussed was giving everyone a little bit of background to the people you play online and chat in the forums with.

To kick it off, we started the epic.Statistics so that you could track how well you've played on our servers. The next stage was then to pull all of the information about you into one location, your profile.

We've all had a profile on the website since it launched but it was only used to display previous events and achievements. There were also two types; the main site profile and your phpBB profile on the forums.

The changes we've made:

• Merged your forum profile into the main site (contact emails/website etc)
• Linking your account to your statistics when you enter your Steam Id
• Allowed you to add additional contact information (including adding each other directly to Steam Friends)
• Allowed you to add background and rig information

The profile is updated from the My Account link on the main site navigation, so please have a look and let us know what you think. If you have any problems, drop us a message on the forums and we'll look into it for you. The forum control panel will still need to be used for managing your forum specific settings (time/date format, avatar and signature).

It is also worth pointing out that filling out the new look profiles is not mandatory and as default won't make public any more information about you than is already on the epic sites - the additional information can only be viewed by logged in members.

Yes, you've read correctly - bookings for epic.lite 2 are now open! Places are limited to 32 participants at the event and are guaranteed to go fast. To confirm your place signup and pay now!

The event is hosted at Bagnall Village Hall, Staffordshire (our "cozy" venue) between 24th September and 26th September 2010.

Tickets are £30 for the weekend, so avoid disappointment and book your place!

In one of the most highly anticipated moments of 2010, epic.lite 2 bookings will be opening at midday today! One might call mere, others might just go with "OMFG it's only 3 hours 50 minutes away!".

epic.lite 2 will also be hosted at Bagnall Village Hall, Staffordshire (our "cozy" venue) between 4pm 24th September and 4pm 26th September 2010.

Places are limited to 32 participants so seats are guaranteed to go fast!

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The first selection of pictures from epic.lite 1 are now up on the gallery.

We'll be updating this throughout the event and ensuring we snap the "best" moments from the LAN!