Lionz Denz 2

Photos by Tobininjafox

On Saturday April 4th 2015 the Marriot Hotel Marble Arch was taken over by the largest amount of Tekken anthusiasts to compete for a pot of  £700 and a customised arcade stick. Top ranking players worldwide turned up to the event including: Great Britain, France, America, Korea, Poland, Spain.

Since the days of the original Lionz Den dedicated to Tekken, Liono is back and sponsored by Bandai Namco Entertainment themselves to bring the Tekken hype. With other sponsors such as Bandai Namco Games Madkatz, Sony, 360 gaming.co.uk and Cool Kids Table who donated prizes for the players and raffle including a PS4.

Saturday saw a delay in the tournament due to five copies of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 being stolen, but community members ran out to shops to pick up more copies. All the seeded players amounting over 100 players battle to go up against the best players such as JDCR, Help Me, Kor and Asim. All the players dwindled down to a mere eight to play on Sunday. Games were available on Iiyama and Sony screens . There will also be setups with older Tekken (T1-T5) games for casuals. Food will be available at the venue and there will also be entertainment in the form of performers and comedians.

Devil from Poland against Help Me from Korea (screenshot by Aisha Anime)

The top eight were down to the following countries Korea, GB, France, Poland, France and America. The top three was Korea, GB and Poland and they were all fights to watch! Especially Asim vs JDCR as host Liono was gunning fro his fellow GB player Asim. With all the chanting JDCR and Help Me's determination did not waver. They saw success down to Devil from Poland against Help Me from Korea there were a series of death stares and Devil even provoked trash talk from the silent Help Me with a simple "I Hate you" you knew the battle was very serious then. Every thing was in great banter and fights began and ended with handshakes. With a close battle Help Me won and the finals were JDCR and Help Me both from Korea.

JDCR and Sophie Silva cosplaying as Armour King

With tension mounting on whether JDCR would win the title or would we have to witness more rounds if Help Me conquered his senpai - a very close battle ensued and the cool as cucumber JDCR took the title and prizes for Korea. Making Help Me second and Devil third.

The finals ended around 8pm which meant the after party was to begin with Performances from some diverse rappers, Dippy Magic, you tube sensation D4nny and an after party of Liono dancing !

More photos from the event and performers here.

Follow the Lionz Denz Page here.

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MCM Expo London 2012: Report

We have provided a top picks article on the comics and stalls and now here’s a general overview of all the different goings on throughout MCM Expo.

Of course no event is complete without Namco Bandai holding their tournament. Plenty of gaming fans showed up to the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 finals at London MCM, see any famous faces? I caught Chef handing out flyers to a Street fighter tournament!

Matt Smith was around doing signings for the first time, so many people queued up to buy dvds. I also walking into a look alike in the queue and posed in front of a Tardis which happened to be nearby – I don’t plan these things, they just happen, honest.

Rising Star Games (creator’s of Virtue’s Last Reward) were offering great deals on RPG gems likeHarvest Moon, Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, Rune Factory Frontier, with deals like 3 games for £30 and free soundtracks with purchases – turns out it’s well worth saving your money to spend on games at MCM.

The Euro Cosplay event was sadly severely delayed but the range of costumes were fantastic and the finals of the Euro Cosplay are to be held at Hyper Japan.

The Wii U hub was always busy but after a 10-15 min wait you got a chance to play this neat new console with a monster of a game pag which I found easy to use after much experience of hand console gaming. So don’t let change freak you out, the Wii U has a lot to offer.

A total lock down of fake items has been supposedly enforced, only official merchandise is allowed to be sold at MCM so you shouldn’t be ripped off. They even had security this year patrolling to stop pick pockets.

What did you think of this MCM Expo London? Have they improves on the previous conventions, or is there still room for improvement?

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.