cyrenepenya: 2upGamers 7th Gear: A Well-oiled Machine

2upGamers 7th Gear had a change of scenery this time, moving to a more chilled environment at Ikamva Ajax Training Grounds in Parow, Cap Town. Despite the cold and stormy weather, 2up die-hards were ever present with an attendance of about 80+ strong, adequately equipped with their winter jackets and wooly hoodies to brave the Cape Town cold. With comfy seating for all, TWO awesome gaming areas (more on this later), and a refreshments area no more than a few paces away from the 2up area; the 7th Gear was gearing up to be the Gamers event we’ve been waiting for.

The first speaker to appear was Sean Fowles from GameX, the new exhibitions company that has rocked the Cape Town gaming scene with the announcement of Cape Town’s very own gaming expo, to rival that of the NAG Rage Expo that takes place in Johannesburg every year. Finally, some love for the Cape Town crowd! The first GameX Electronic & Gaming Expo will be held on the 12th – 14th April 2013 at the Cape Town Convention Centre (CTICC), which will host a tasty selection of exhibitors from game developers, local distributors, prominent gaming blogs, gaming events companies, plus many more. A list of exhibitors will be launched over the next couple of weeks but already the list is growing since the announcement.

And if this wasn’t awesome enough; Cape Town’s very own 2upGamers will be managing the stage at GameX for the three consecutive days, bringing loads of energy, great prizes, and an awesome party to all in attendance. Cape Town is making its presence known ladies and gentlemen! Details are minimal at the moment due to the announcement only being made a week ago, so stay close to el33tonline for more information on GameX during the next two weeks and in the meantime you can keep up to date with them via Twitter and Facebook.

EA South Africa Community Ambassador Extraordinaire Bryan Banfield - aka thebanmanZA - announced that the weekly Gaming Meetups that have been traditionally held in Cape Town every week will now be moved to the 3rd Thursday of every month, to ensure that it will remain accessible and convenient for all who enjoy the company of their fellow gamers in Cape Town. The usual affair of awesome company, some spot prizes just for being there, and even special guests like Apex Interactive will continue to feature so if you haven’t yet got to experience a CPT Gaming Meetup, join the Facebook group right here to stay in touch with news and announcements for the next meetup. If you’re not in Cape Town don’t fret, this group is for everyone.

Bryan then pulled several rabbits out of his magic hat with some sweet prizes courtesy of EA ranging from Sims 3 Collector’s Edition packs, copies of FIFA Street, Need for Speed: The Run, and Mass Effect 3 Collector’s Edition Art Books. 7th Gear attendees simply had to flex their thumbs and the first to tweet a string of required mentions and tags were the winners of the prizes they entered for. In addition to this, 2upGamers in association with Nokia South Africa had an awesome competition also via Twitter to win a brand spanking new Nokia Lumia! That’s how easy it is to win prizes at 2upGamers in association with EA Africa, Springleap, and Nokia. Can it get better than that?

Our good friends CapeTown Showdown, Cape Town’s premier fighting game organisers took to the stage to announce their Fighting League which will take place weekly to allow for aspiring players to hone their skill at their favoured fighting game title in order to get better at the game and improve the overall quality of competition in the fighting game scene. A brief video was shown which has been embedded below for your viewing pleasure, however further details in terms of location, time and game titles will be announced via their Facebook page which can be found here. If you fancy yourself pretty good at the likes of King of Fighters, Tekken and Marvel vs Capcom, keep a keen eye on Cape Town Showdown as they further develop their league structure over the coming weeks.

Thereafter, the serious fun began. eGamer ran their 2vs2 FIFA 12 Tourney equipped with two 32” HDTV’s and two PS3’s, which was very well attended with copies of FIFA Street up for grabs to the winning team. Ozone Energy in collaboration with ZombieGamer and ClanConnection ran an exciting Gears of War 3 challenge, sponsored by GioTek with several of their peripherals on hand for viewing and testing and of course giving the competitors superior sound, complimented by SIX 40” HDTV’s and six 360 consoles. That’s a lot of quality for one event!

Unfortunately I was not able to stick close to these competitions with the amount of socialising that was going on, but well done to the winners of these competitions and great job to all of the organisers for putting these together. There were also two special guests making their appearance at 7th Gear; Lego Batman and Tekken favourite Ling Xiayou, portrayed by prominent Cape Town cosplayers Abduragmaan Salie and Genevieve “KomboKitten” Lesch respectively.

2upGamers 7th Gear’s content was shorter than usual but no less informative, as they are going for more focus on the gaming and socialising with a healthy balance of industry announcements and features. 7th Gear was conveniently very ‘well-oiled’ in terms of time, format and the overall schedule, with food arriving at the time announced, competitions kicking off and ending according to schedule, while still leaving ample time for having fun and socialising with all in attendance. There were some negative remarks addressed towards 2upGamers 6th Gen, however, I am happy to say that 2upGamers not only manages to improve on every one of their previous events, but the crowd also brought the respect back that 2upGamers deserves.

Planning for August’s 2upGamers 8th Lap is already underway, with the announcement of the Nintendo 3DS XL Launch in collaboration with Nintendo South Africa already doing its rounds in the social media space. The 8th Lap will be held at the same venue – Ikamva Ajax Cape Town Training Grounds, and I believe there is one special announcement that will be revealed very soon as well. I’ve said it before and I will say it again; if you want to keep in touch with the best announcements this side of South Africa’s ever-growing gaming scene, 2upGamers is where you’ll find it. See you all on Friday the 3rd August!