...featuring the increasing insurgence of Cosplay to the UK.

When the month-long celebration of gaming in London, the London Games Festival, came to close, it could mean only one thing: time for the Movies, Comics and Media expo in the heart of London's docklands. Within the halls of the Excel centre, thousands of fans hungry for a taste of the latest games, movies and animé coming to British shore's gathered waiting to be amazed. Of course, this being the close of the London Games Festival, Expo wasn't going to disappoint.

Many of videogaming's best developers were on show to give convention goers a little taste of what to expect this Christmas and in the next year. As per usual Koei turned a few heads, especially with their new Fist of the North Star game heading to the PS3 and Xbox 360. Playing as Ken, the inheritor of the magical kung-fu style, Fist of the North Star, you travel across a post-apocalyptic world ruled by chaos, populated by mutant biker gangs who wouldn't think twice about murdering in order to secure food and drink, or even for kicks. Using the same style as Koei's previous Dynasty and Samurai Warriors games, you must complete your tasks whilst slaughtering wave after wave of goons. This time though, with the help of your mighty martial arts skills, heads and bodies explode, filling the screen with as much claret as a bomb going off in an abattoir.

If 2D fighting is more your thing, then two different developers can offer two very different experiences. First off is the well known Capcom, and their latest addition to their VS series of fighters, Marvel VS Capcom 3. Following on from it's predecessors, you select three fighters to battle with, switching between them mid-battle to unleash hyper combos and screen-filling combination attacks. It's a beauty to behold, with newcomers like Dante and Trish from Devil May Cry exploding onto the screen with finesse, showering the environment with bullets and sword-slashing specials. However my one gripe with the game is that it feels airy and has little substance to it. For all the graphical wizz-bang, attacks don't feel like they have the power behind them, and are more light shows than deadly.

On the other end of the spectrum we have Blazblu: Continuum Shift from Arc System Works...

...A follow on from this years Calamity Trigger, it's the same 2D, finely animated animé brawler that you come to expect from the creators of Guilty Gear. With a wide array of characters that look beautiful in fluid motion (including the smooth Hazama, cat Girl Taokaka and metal monolith Iron Tager), not to mention Astral Finishers that fill the arena with violent death, you can't help but look in awe at it. Like many of its kin, it's easy to pick up, but difficult to master. The beauty is in working out the combos, and stringing together ridiculously long combos in order to pin down your opponent and lay the smack down on them. Of course some may be intimidated by it's very Japanese style, and the hard as nails CPU (I'm telling you now, play the final boss on the hardest difficulty, and prepare to break your controller in rage) will put a few off. Still it was my favourite game there, and I look forward to it's general release.

Probably the biggest draw for the weekend was the Euro Cosplay competition held on the Saturday. Over 30 contestants from 18 countries around Europe competed to see who would be crowned the best cosplayer. For those not in the know, cosplay is all about dressing up as your favourite game/ movie/ animé character and acting like them. A lot of the fun comes from the creation of the costumes, or performing in them as the character. An event like this marks a major step forward for cosplaying in Europe, where animé fandom is not as great as it is in North America and obviously in Japan.

To mark a spectacular show, some of the worlds best cosplayers sat as the judges, including world-renowned Gundam and mecha costume-maker Goldy from Japan, whose costumes seem to be lifted straight from the screen and pages of Manga. After a spectacular show on costumes, including an impressive Holy Angemon from Digimon, and a dancing Domo Kun, the judges decided Leandro of Portugal was the winner, cosplaying as Cain Nightroad from Trinity Blood. It came down to his explosive stage presence, not to mention those massive wings making an impressive costume. Plus Britain managed to get third, with an entertaining The Lion Sleeps Tonight performance by Karen dressed as Rigaldo from Claymore.

The MCM staff will have to do a lot to top this years spectacular display. Already they've listened to expo goers, and have now hired more space for the event, meaning even those with huge costumes can make their way around the hall with ease. There are also promises of an even bigger and better Euro Cosplay next year, encompassing over 20 countries. Lets just hope that the dreaded curse of sound failure in the masquerade wont haunt Excel ever again, as it has become rather too predictable for masquerade entrants to come onto the wrong music or no music at all. Still time can only tell what lays in wait for those eager to mingle with game and animé fans in the heart of London's docklands. Although I can promise it'll never get boring!

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