V&A PRESENTS FRIDAY LATE: LOLI-POP, ft. Japan Underground

V&A PRESENTS FRIDAY LATE: LOLI-POP, ft. Japan Underground
Public Event · By Japan Underground

When:    Friday, August 31, 2012
What Time:    6:30pm until 10:00pm
Where: V&A museum
Show me the money: Free

FB link: http://www.facebook.com/events/343765235701271/

Join us for an evening of Lolita fashion, the unique street style of Japan. Be styled in pink, with frills and wigs, plus doll-like make-up with an edge. You can be dressed up, made up and photographed with professional backgrounds and also meet professional Lolitas from the Frills and Frolics meetup. Japan Underground will be playing fly Japnese tunes to boogie to in your Lolita platforms to, a great night out for you and friends or a place to make new friends ^^

Details coming soon!
http://www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/1842/friday-late-loli-pop-3018/

MOE: Maid's of England celebrate their 1st Birthday in Camden Town

Wondered through the labyrinth of Camden Stables market to find the basement tea rooms where they were the perfect English tea rooms for the Maid's Of England - serving delicious cake and butt whooping at jenga (well the butt whopping depends on which Butler or maid you played against.)

Was worth the run around and at a bargain price too - check out my full low down on animepicks.

Mayamada launch new t-shirt line at Tutti Fruitti

If your an avid convention/expo goer you would have come across the British- Jap designs of Mayamada. Clothing range come manga - they are making a line of clothes to help fund their own manga and are even expanding upon the characters before they release it. Mayamada are hosting a series of quirky events to get people to check out their designs and have a laugh too. I've been to a past anime screening of Steamboy, in an usual venue, with a great vibe & free popcorn and prizes too :D

They recently launched a new range of t-shirts and hats at Tutti Frutti Covent Garden. Nigel, Lau & Adam hosted a great night of retro tunes, connect 4, Jenga touranments with great atmosphere. You also got 20% off Tutti Fruittti frozen yogurt just for attending - score XD I went to and competed in the Jenga tournament - see what happened on my article on animepicks.co.uk

London Film and Comic Con highlights

Morrigan from Darkstalkers

Went to LFCC this year and even though it was smaller than I previously remembered it's was a great day with oh so many cosplays! Please go to Animepicks for my full review :)

For an old timer Kevin Sorbo looks great - Hercules fans would of swooned !

Gamedisco Launch sends people to the showers!

Upon arrival to the venue, The Book Club, what seemed like a quiet low key hidden pub, this place in fact shielded a heard of gaming fanatics in its basement silencing the cheering and manic dancing. Let’s head on down to the arcade of wonders.
 

I immediately went to the guys with Nintendisco tee’s and asked about the name change, the guys in fact began playing Nintendo based 8 bit tunes and bring Nintendo games only but with raging demand from them for their events they decided to change the name to make they a bit more approachable to Sony, Sega & Microsoft. They were adamant there was plenty of gaming love for all and no discrimination so the name change was in fact a smooth move.

Gamers having fun

 I asked so why Shorditch, well it’s a cool and happening area, why not? The venue itself fit the bill, with lightbulbs all over the ceiling, dim light areas to help focus on the arcade machine of which many choices were available including Supertoads I heard people get excited over.  You also had a DJ area where they set up their decks, projectors ready for tournaments (Sonic, Mario Kart, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, Crash Bandicoot) and a convenient bar to quench the thirst of victory.

Their plan is to hold the event every month, keep it free for as long as possible and most importantly promote gaming. In the past gaming was seen as a derogatory past time, something from your childhood. However with smart phone apps and gaming taken to a new level you would find an older and even younger generations getting a piece of the gaming action whether they are ‘geeks’ or not. So rather than sitting at home and game on your own, go out, socialize, compete and rejoice gamerism.

Sami Cetin (Ranked no.2 in Mario Kart in the world)

Came across the UK’s number one champion Sami Cetin, (British born with Turkish & Finnish background) at playing Mario Cart time trials (Console: Snes). Competing in the Mario Kart World Championships in France to attain number two rank in the world. Number one being a French native, currently Cetin is training with a group of other British Gamers to battle it in France’s next championship.  His niece is also woman's champ for Super Mario Kart (console: snes) too, Leyla Hasso is merely thirteen years old and holds UK’s number one. Winning clearly runs in this family.

Amongst people exchanging score times and game stats, we could hear Street Fighter tune remixes playing in the background by DJ Rob and and random screams as people were winning games for winning random battles. Overall a great night that didn’t break the bank and if you were skilled you could gain a few games and reputation in the gaming world. Just make sure you bring a spare top because sweat will pour !

enjoying some arcade fun XD

Gamerdisco Launch: 'an arcade for adults'

 Where: The Book Club,

100 Leonard Street , EC2A 4RH London, United Kingdom

 Show me the money: Free

When: 04/07/2012 (tomorrow)

The guys at Nintendisco are trying something new here is the info from the fb event:

"The Launch night of an original club night experience!
From the team who brought you Nintendisco comes the brand spanking shiny new monthly club night; GamerDisco- a truly social video gaming event!

With multi-screen projected gaming from old skool Nintendo to up to date future classics whilst DJs spin 90's, electro, hip hop, chiptune and gaming themes.
This is a night for both casual button bashers and seasoned pros alike!
Free entry and gaming prizes; 'an arcade for adults'."

This is a night for both casual button bashers and seasoned pros alike!

Guest DJs:

Olio
(Ate Bit Vomit- http://8bitvomit.tumblr.com/)

+ more TBA

Free entry and gaming prizes ~

To find more info on the month 'geek' meetup:

http://www.meetup.com/geekpub/events/69534132/

Tekken Tag Tournament 2's Lab mode has lots to offer ie dancing bears

 The Tekken Tag Tournament 2 tour was just not enough coverage for me, so had to get up close and personal with the game at the Namco Bandai Summer Showcase. Here Namco Bandai had three games on show for me to play with TTT2, Tales of Graces & Ni No Kuni Best of both worlds some top class RPG’s with some beat ‘em up.

Here we got to try a new build for TTT2 on PS3 and Xbox 360, along with the arcade machines. The focus was on the Fight Lab mode, which is the new in-game tutorial led by the fabulous character Lee Chaolan’s alter ego Violet. 

Fight Lab completely breaks Tekken down to its component parts and teaches you from the ground up, it's entirely different to tutorial modes in other fighting games and goes a long way to remove the much maligned barrier to entry the genre is known for. Frankly the background of dancing Kuma & Panda ballerinas were what sold the game for me plus Lee being my favourite male character in the game.

Also Namco Bandai provided Tekken experts on-hand to teach us some more advanced techniques. These guys were here to test our abilities against and to just chat with. This is a great opportunity for and my friend Josiah as I play Tekken religiously whereas he hardly touches fighting games. We spotted a guy with a Katamari Kind of moustache & beard ensemble, turns out this was Tekken Tournament winner who I encountered at previous Tekken events. The guy was more than happy to show us his own exclusive battle against Tekken designer Katsuhiro Harada. He currently hosts his own gaming event’s at Kingston University called Lion’s Den follow him on twitter for the latest tournaments: @Liono_Meridian

Great bonuses included in the game are new & old characters: the return of Kunimitsu, Michelle Chang and Prototype Jack from the original Tekken, Angel and Alex from Tekken 2, Humanoid Ogre (now known as Ancient Ogre), Tiger Jackson and Forest Law from Tekken 3. Alongside Jun Kazama from Tekken 2, True Ogre from Tekken 3 and Jinpachi Mishima from Tekken 5 all with updated character designs. Devil Kazuya also makes an appearance but as an in-game transformation of Kazuya and Unknown from Tekken Tag Tournament also reappears as one of the final bosses. The game also introduces a new masked character named Jaycee who is in fact Julia Chang's alter-ego. She retains her fighting style of Chinese Kenpo, with added Lucha Libre wrestling moves.

You also get to play in a Snoop Dogg exclusive background with him in his throne watching and singing a Tekken inspired song with his ladies dancing to you thumping your opponent. 

Also you will notice the little details in TTT2 a lot of characters speak in their native language. This has been noticed as Lili speaks French, Eddy Gordo and Christie Monteiro speak Portuguese, Leo Kliesen speaks German and Miguel Caballero Rojo speaks Spanish. Still, there are some characters that do not speak in their native language (e.g. Lei Wulong still speaks English despite being from Hong Kong).

Any true Tekken fan should order their ‘We are Tekken’ limited edition of the game now ! PS. great Indian buffet & drinks, I was happy to trash talk and continued to win though I do despise Josiah's choice of non humans Roger Jnr & Yoshmitzu - stop using cheap marsupial moves to beat me >_<

Lee we will have our revenge !

Yoshinori Ono & Katsuhiro Harada: twitter rivalry

Street Fighter creator Yoshinori Ono and Tekken creator Katsuhiro Harada have been going after each other since the announcement of Street Fighter X Tekken/Tekken X Street Fighter. They've chronicled this rivalry over twitter for fans of both franchises to follow. 

Rumours of Yoshinori Ono's death have spread all over the internet as he was suddenly taken ill, I should know I'm still waiting for my signed Streetfighter x Tekken game I won from a competition :( Three weeks after his release from hospital, the approachable face of Capcom adding personality and humour to the corporation, clears up the misunderstanding.

Even tho Ono has recovered fully his sudden illness in April 2012 was both unexpected and very serious. Capcom’s reluctance to issue a public statement only warranted rumors further. Ono's first project was a wrestling game called Muscle Bomber, soon after this he had his first contact with Street Fighter, the one-on-one fighting game series that would become the definitive game on his CV. 


Katsuhiro Harada is a producer with Namco Bandai. He is best known for his work on the Tekken series & Soul Caliber VI. He even did the voice of Marshall Law in Tekken 2 & 4

It's refreshing to see a company rivalry with light hearted shenanigans between easy going Ono and bad ass Harada. 

To catch up on all that's happened so far check this comprehensive article Kotaku put up detailing it all. Also be sure to follow Ono and Harada's twitter feed. 

Tekken Tag Tournmanet 2 tour London GamerBase HMV

Me and Ronnie are Team Tekken!

Namci Bandai decided to do a last minute tour of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 around the county, starting first with London then to Manchester & Glasgow. Armed with only their their game dev's and 'We are Tekken' background drop it's all they needed, come 6pm their was already a crowd waiting to play at Gamer Base HMV in Trocadero.

Scheduled from 6-12 midnight some of these hard core Tekken fans stayed that long waiting in line to play or cheer on their mates or even strangers. As far as I was concerned, if you played Anna you were support from me.

No Fifa please :S

Having a last effort of pulling down all the Fifa posters as to not confuse the gamers, it was a constant game jam - I had to retreat to the over 18's room for air and rest my fingers. The smell of sweaty gamers engulfed Gamerbase!

I got to see the hyped up Snoop Dogg arena, him sitting on his throne with his women whilst you hear his special song play. I was impressed with a certain teams timing with combos and tags but unfortunately they dissapeared by the time I got close enough to talk to them ^^; Should of worn heels!

Had PR gurus Hollie B & Joseph mingling with fans and other fellow game industry people running to and fro taking interviews and photos but I doubt they got a shot of this criminal who hogged the game hub I was queuing at! this fiend never tapped any of his team mates in which rendered the experience pointless So if you see him point and shout 'Game hog' also he lost a lot so you know who you are and I will annihilate you if you ever let me get on the bloody game pad.