BlazBlue Tournament: Round 1

BlazBlue Tournament: Round 1: Wednesday the 15th

It may have had a slightly bumpy start but the first leg of the BlazBlue tournament was a great success.

It was a very colourful night with the event organisers eager to get some posters up and some matches flowing. There were some regular faces there on the evening but I had the chance to mingle with some new faces too, all were great fun to chat to and the atmosphere was very chirpy and funny.

BlazBlue is one of my favourite fighting games, the colours and characters have always seemed to jump out and catch my eye and the guys and gals themselves also had their favourite characters geared up in their favourite colours (Taokaka being my favourite). This created a good balance between players and the multiple set ups helped mix things up a bit for the players so there’s was plenty of chances to win a few matches.

As always there was an incredible line up of arcade sticks on the night, some where a little battered but that just shows how much these guys practice and play!

Overall Andrew organised a great night for the BlazBlue community and with a stream connecting everyone with the public just made the night even better.

Visit the gallery here

Round 2 will be held on the 29^th of February, why not pop into GB and test your BlazBlue might?

Soul Calibur 5 Gamerbase Tournament

On the 8th of Feburary Gamerbase held a night of Soul Calibur casuals and a tournament with the the two event organisers Duncan and Joel which turned out to be a great night.

Gamers turned up nice and early to get their practice in (and Joseph Walsh from Namco) and brought with them some of the best variety of arcade sticks I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in a long time.

Atmosphere was good, it wasn’t an extremely competitive crowd that evening as there was a lot of chit chat going on and multiple set-ups to cheer on anyway. It was good to see some different energy and faces running this event, Duncan and Joel where on hand to help people register and get some practice in and Joe was there MCing the event with a couple of others from the Soul Calibur community. Streaming was done by James Bardolph, he was also talking with the online viewers and keeping them on their toes with questions, showings of special edition guides and the SCV arcade stick.

Skill level was impressive, from gamers who know Soul Caliburs rhythm to the newcomers. They all seemed to face off to each other well, some gamers won with a staggering lead but most fought tooth and nail to get further into the tournament. There was a few prizes to be handed out by the end too, which were well received by the winners.

Over all it wasn’t a bad night, you could hang and watch the tourney for free or take part for £5! It will be interesting to see who’ll win this SCV tournament overall… Check out the gallery here: Gallery

Fancy attending the next round? Visit www.gamerbase.com or the GB Facebook page for details about any up and coming tournaments. Gamerbase Home & Gamerbase Facebook

Soul Calibur V Event / Casuals

The casuals were held on the 4th at The Chapel Bar by Namco Bandai games and Premier PR Games and held a nicely sized group of around 200.

There was a good amount of set-ups there, enough for everyone to get some practice in and everyone seemed to be doing so with vigor. Set-ups where located in several places so you could easily challenge people to a match or two and The Chapel Bar staff served us up refreshments all day so no warriors went thirsty.

Some respected and well known faces from the fighting community turned up including Ryan Hart, the Denton brothers, tech head Jamar and of course Hollie and Joe from Namco Bandai who were making sure all gamers felt involved, including everyone who joined the stream. You could easily watch Hollie and Marc Denton talking to the guys and gals on the live stream, that’s what I like about Namco’s events, there’s always some awesome coverage like that.

PPRGames where also there, talking about the advertising campaigns SCV had amongst other things and where very friendly and helpful. There was also a special guest @KayaneChan who basically taught us all a thing or two, she’s an incredibly talented SC fighter and has been since the age of nine!

Thanks to Premier PR Games and Bandia Namco for hosting a great event!

If you want any information regarding some of these events or similar, please follow @namcobandai @pprgames @HollieB and @Joukisan for more information.

Click the link for the gallery: Link

EAG Expo 2012

The EAG Expo comes round every year to show people some of the best and most up to date amusement machines in Europe.

The EdexCel Centre!

EAG 2012 was held At the EdexCel Centre in London and had a huge amount of floor space to show all those beauties in action. All arcade machines where set up so you could play for free! All day you could play to your hearts content and experience some those much loved arcade machines you left behind in your hayday.

SEGA had a big display space with many amusement machines on the floor that day. Time Crysis 3 & 4, Outrun, Superbooths (Photo related), Bejeweled and many more where there to see but sadly no House of the Dead, to my dismay!

Brand new Arcade machine's can come at quite a hefty price!

You can find SEGA’s fine amusement products here: Link

Namco Bandai where also working the floor with several beauties, the huge four player Pacman Battles machine went down well with all, it was great fun to play especially with a full team! They also where showing others like Deadstorm Pirates, Super Bikes 2 and Terminator Salvation which were all oodles of fun to play.

You can find all Namco Bandai’s machines here: Link

Rivalry is always a good thing

A lot of these machines can give out tickets, you can normally redeem these for prizes like at Namco Fun Scape in London: Link

3D Technology representatives where present on the floor to give you a quick tutorial of how the machine worked or to initially set it up. All where friendly and polite, some where even giving little bits away like lanyards, sweets and other little trinkets. Most of the 3D technology there held its own and I even got to experience some new variants of amusement machine, these easily created different feels and vibes to most of the 3D rides. I hope the manufacturers stick with this and run with it, especially for the amusement business as they’ve been in sharp decline for a good few years now.

No more of these guys please

Show your support by visiting the EAG Expo next time in circles around! It is for free, so why not show your support for those arcade gems you always loved and probably always will… And get more people involved too!