Day Three of Devastation 2011

The final round of Devastation 2011 had started and things were starting to heat up with the League of Legends: Dominion Tournament. It was the first Dominion tournament that had ever been conducted and I was interested to see the kind of team composition that the players would use. Since Dominion’s gameplay favored certain types of champions over others, I had a general idea of which champions I was certain would see play and which wouldn’t. Plus, the event was streaming live over TwitchTV being commentated on by members of Team Sp00ky as well as seeing coverage by Beyond Gaming.

Sunday was also the day that a great deal of amazing cosplayers made their appearance in order to compete in the Video Game Character cosplay contest.

Tifa and Cloud are ready for action!

The cosplayers lined up to be judged at the table located off in one of the corners of the event hall, and there was a number of impressive contenders for first place. Take for instance, this costume of Link that came complete with its very own fairy!

HEY! LISTEN! HEY! LISTEN!

There was also someone dressed as Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII, with wonderful detailing on her costume. I just wish she had the awesome sword  to go along with it.

Lightning posing for photos by the cosplay judge's booth.

I have to say that there was an excellent attention to detail in each of these costumes. I only wish that more people had shown up to the cosplay contest that day.

People like this.

Now moving on to the final event of Devastation 2011 was the final rounds of the Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament. It was a intense affair with each competitor attempting to fake out their opponent. It was an interesting blend of luck and prediction that I have never seen before in a competition. Event Director Robb Chiarini oversaw the final two contests and took center stage to set the pace for the push-up contest.

50 paces...then turn and fire.

The Push-up Contest was easily the most painful to watch as each contestant’s strength slowly waned as the contest dragged on.

The Challengers are in position and ready to go!

The contest came to an intense showdown between two guys. It seemed like they could keep going for forever, but Robb turned the screws on them by having them both hold the half-way position of the push-up. Eventually there could only be one and thus Devastation 2011 had formally come to a end.

All in all, I had a fantastic time at Devastation 2011 and I look forward to going again next year!

Day One of Devastation 2011

Round One of Devastation 2011 kicked off with a bang as the first round of many tournaments began. The more popular titles such as Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Halo: Reach, Mortal Kombat, Heroes of Newerth and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 began the first of many rounds to come while others like Blaz Blue: Continuum  Shift, Tekken 6 and Michael Jackson the Experience only had one round of competition.

Dance party at the entrance!

However of all the tournaments that had multiple rounds there was one in particular that I wanted to see, the Rock-Paper-Scissors Tournament. The other tournaments that I mentioned were ones that required a considerable amount of skill and practice in order to vanquish your opponents and ensure victory. However, Rock-Paper-Scissors is a game of that mixes luck with strategy. There is no real skill requirement other than basic coordination and knowledge of basic strategies. As a result there was quite the crowd that had gathered to compete. Since the Game Zone booth was right by the entrance, I went to talk to Richard first and get a report on how busy things had gotten. Given the booth’s location he could watch the crowds come and go throughout the course of the event. From what he was able to tell me, the event had really gotten busy and they were doing some decent business. It helped that their booth was ideally placed near the entrance providing the perfect spot to attract attendees that were both arriving and leaving the event.

Richard and his co-worker are ready for action!

 

Unfortunately, I missed the earlier part of the event due to class and other engagements. As such, I missed a great deal of the events on Friday, but Saturday would prove to be especially eventful. Don’t worry, I promise to have more on Saturday’s events.