In Pictures: 12 Videogame Wizards

Meet 12 gamers from disparate backgrounds who possess fingers of fury and can rock a joystick like no other. Whether they're collecting kills, jamming on toy instruments or raising a horde of small furry animals, these players have all taken their game to levels mere mortals can only imagine.

In South Korea, videogames are a national pastime, and top players are akin to superstar athletes. Lee is one of the most recent stars to dominate the country's game of choice, "Starcraft." The professional gamer's lightning-fast keystrokes and creative game strategies have landed him the No. 1 world ranking by the Korean E-Sports Association. He also earns over $100,000 per year on team Hwaseung Oz and has been immortalized with a clay print of his hand.

Most gamers play racing games to experience the fantasy of taking the wheel. Lucas Ordonez from Spain played to turn fantasy into reality. In 2008, Ordonez won a competition sponsored by PlayStation and Nissan, by being the top virtual racer out of 25,000 entrants from 12 European countries in the game "Gran Turismo." His prize: to train in GT Academy and become a real-life racer. Proving this was not just a publicity stunt, Ordonez and his teammate took second place in the European GT4 Cup Championship last September.

Victor "Lil Poison" de Leon earned the distinction--and the Guinness World Record--for being the youngest professional gamer at the age of 6, when he was signed on by Major League Gaming in 2004. Just a year later, he placed second out of 550 contestants in a major professional tournament. Currently, Lil Poison is involved in a children's cartoon series starring himself as the protagonist, and is the subject of a documentary that will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011.

Her meteoric rise to the No. 1 ranking in "Call of Duty: World at War" in "Free For All" mode caught the attention of the Frag Dolls, a select team of skilled professional girl gamers hired by developer Ubisoft. The 22-year-old resident of North Carolina survived the grueling application process to become a Frag Doll in June 2009. There, she continues to compete in tournaments and hopes to inspire other girl gamers to persevere amid the male-dominated culture.

The yellow videogame hero Pac-Man may be an icon from the '80s, but he's still got a following. In the first Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship in 2007, Carlos Daniel Borrego Romero from Mexico handily beat out the competition to take first place, scoring 222,160 points compared with the runner-up's 177,730. He also beat Pac-Man legend Billy Mitchell, who made headlines in 1999 for being the first person to record a perfect score in the game, but only placed eighth in the competition.

Playing videogame rock with his friends led to a real rock star moment for Molinari. In May 2009, Molinari and his band, The Gurnkillers, won a national "Rock Band" game competition, sponsored by Harrah's Entertainment and MTV Games, edging out the runner up by just a few points and taking home $10,000 in prize money. A longtime fan and game developer, Molinari has hosted "Rock Band" nights each week for the past few years, and recently opened a startup game development company in New York that helps musicians port their music into "Rock Band."

Another videogame-instruments superstar, Danny Johnson set a Guinness World Record in 2009 for his high score in "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock." The then 14-year-old gamer from Texas racked up an incredible 973,954 points on the game's most difficult track, "Through the Fire and Flames," by DragonForce. The previous record-holder was Chris Chike who scored 899,703 points in 2008.

The 25-year-old Walsh hails from Grand Rapids, Mich., and has been a professional gamer since 2003. Known as "Walshy" in the Major League Gaming arena, his skill in videogames such as the "Halo" series, have helped his teams take top places in national tournaments. Walsh has also earned fat six-figure contracts from MLG and big sponsorships from companies like Red Bull. Walsh also runs a clothing company for gamers and is involved with a videogame charity group.

In 1996, the kid's game "Pokémon" came out, introducing us all to the world of pocket monsters and the trainers who command them and "gotta catch 'em all." More than a decade later, the game is still played by avid fans. Japan's Kazuyuki Tsuji recently took the title in the Pokémon 2009 World Video Game Championship, Senior Division, winning every single match he played in the competition.

You may know a loved one whose life revolves around the highly addictive "World of Warcraft," a mass multiplayer role-playing game. Chances are, that person's addiction pales in comparison to Little Gray's, the Taiwanese player who is the first person to have completed all 986 tasks listed in the game's Armory and has garnered virtually every achievement in the game.

"LittleBigPlanet," Sony's unlikely hit game for the PlayStation 3 about a sack-doll who traverses various levels, has inspired legions of players to create their own unique levels using the game's built-in custom creator tools. One of the most talented level creators is David Dino, a safety coordinator at a hospital in California. Dino was hand-picked to design a new level in the re-release of the game called "LittleBigPlanet: Game of the Year Edition," featuring 18 new bonus levels.

Blogs have dubbed her the Most Popular Girl in Pet Society, and it's no wonder. This Taiwan native has amassed over 3,000 Facebook friends, most of whom were added for "Pet Society," a social game made by PlayFish. It only took Chiu a matter of months to get her virtual pet IceLashes to level 45, out of 47 maximum levels, whereas other dedicated players' pets usually reach levels 20 to 30. In addition, her virtual house has six floors and around 20 rooms, and is extravagantly furnished.