#LeStudio52 gaming night - a success!

On 1 April we held our first ever public gaming night at #LeStudio52 in Shoreditch. The social gaming event was organised by Abul (@adonisdemon). We had three different screens running on two Xbox 360 and one PS3, all running various games including WipEout HD, Black Ops, Super Street Fighter IV, Red Dead Redemption and Blur. Two competitions were held, with two copies of Dragon Age 2 up for grabs, courtesy of The Average Gamer.

Congrats again to Abul for a successful gaming night (and winning the Super Street Fighter IV match). Also congrats to Yacin for winning the Blur competition.

For a full account of what happened during the gaming night, head over to #LeStudio52 website and read the post by Abul. 

I have also posted pictures from the event on Facebook. You can find them here.

Angry Birds Day London event

Last weekend was the first anniversary of the hit mobile puzzle game. To celebrate, Rovio Mobile, the Finnish based developer behind the game urges the fans of the game to celebrate by organising flashmobs around the world dubbed 'Angry Birds Day'.

We at #LeStudio52 has been thinking for a while on organising an Angry Birds competition using large screen, so when Rovio suggested this we immediately ceased the opportunity to turn the London event into the most memorable. We had the backing of Nokia as the main partner. Rovio also sent toys to be distributed to people attending the flashmob. Other partners includes Chillingo (the publisher of Angry Birds on iOS), Powermat and Spreadshirt.

We were divided into three groups, and we instructed to meet at 1pm at the respective meeting point. The idea was to meet up at different pubs, and have the participants of the flashmob meet up by 'finding the bird'. I was leading the group (that includes Chillingo) at The Nags Head on St James Street near Covent Garden tube station. Everyone who spotted me and my Angry Bird, got an Angry Birds plush toy.

The flashmob began at 2pm sharp on Covent Garden. After walking around the parameter of the famous market, we were stopped by security who insisted we leaved the borough, but we were allowed to continue our 'protest' on the bordering neighbour of Westminster Borough. The flashmob grew bigger as people started following us, and others caught up. We stopped outside the Zimbabwe Embassy and had a brief chat with the protesters outside. Eventually we arrived at Trafalgar Square, despite being previously warned by the authorities not to 'protest' there.

The flashmob was coming to an end, but then I shouted that we should head down to Parliament Square. Well we didn't quite make it to the former now none-Democracy Village, but we did stop outside the Horse Guards Parade and were allowed by security outside Downing Street for a quick photo stop.

The post flashmob event was held at the Northumberland a short walk from Trafalgar Square. There we held competitions, the top prize being a Nokia N8 generously donated by Nokia. Other prizes includes capacitive gloves, Powermat wireless charger and Angry Birds t-shirts.

The final consisted of a face off between Richard who won the 'most points' in Angry Birds level-5 competition and Ollie, who bested everyone by getting through six levels in the trial Angry Birds quickest (1.32 minutes). Ollie won the big prize (the Nokia N8) by hitting Richard three times using the Angry Birds plush toy.

Big thanks to Julien, the main brain behind the event, the people at Rovio and Nokia for supporting the event, 1000heads and WOMWorldNokia, Jenni and Abul from #LeStudio52, Lee for helping out with me in judging the competition and all the volunteers who made it happen (Alexa, Scott, Gareth - apologies if I forgot anybody else).

Angry Birds is available on iOS, Android, Symbian, Maemo 5 and WebOS, and soon to be available on PSP, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.

More pictures here

Angry Birds Day in London

Hit mobile puzzle game Angry Birds is almost a years old. To celebrate, we at #LeStudio52 and Rovio Mobile are organising the biggest meetup in London. Flashmob, a large event and an after party at a swanky club - we've got it covered. We've even got coverage on Metro already and now. We are currently targetting about 1000 people for the flashmob so make sure you sign up today. Perhaps we can even unlock some very special Foursquare badges. ;)

Follow us on twitter @lestudio52 for the latest updates on Angry Birds day in London.

Angry Birds plush toy review

Rovio Mobile's Angry Birds has been taking the mobile gaming world by storm. The recently released Android version saw over 2 million downloads in its first weekend. As of October 2010, over 10 million Apple iOS version were sold. The game is also available on the Symbian^3, Maemo and WebOS platforms. There are also plans to release it to the PlayStation Portable/PS3 platform as a PSP Mini game. It is quite literally one of the best selling games of 2010.

In Angry Birds, players attempts to retrieve eggs that have been stolen by evil pigs, using a slingshot to launch birds at structures that are imprisoning the eggs. There are a variety of birds available in the game. Each has their own abilities, for example the blue birds can separate into three smaller birds while white birds can drop bombs.

Rovio Mobile, the Finnish developer behind Angry Birds, has today revealed that five Angry Birds plush toys will be made available this Christmas. These are based on the red, blue, yellow, white and black varieties. Each of the bird will cost US$14.99 not including international shipment. Already some of them has sold out, so better be quick if you want one of these cute 8" plush toys for Christmas.

But... these are not the birds I am reviewing today! The version I have is significantly smaller, and in my opinion looks better. I only got it because my good friend Julien Fourgeaud managed to snag a couple from Nokia and Rovio whilst he was in Finland earlier this month for #LeStudio52 members. I've had it for two weeks, but decided it was time to finally remove it from its plastic prison.

All I can say for now are that these are freaking awesome. Each of the birds have a built-in slingshot/catapult. They also make noise when flung around. They are in essence, real life versions of their video game counterpart. As far as I know, these are not on sale yet. But keep an eye peeled because when they do, they will sell like hotcakes.

It's all about people

This is final part of a series of tech and social related posts relating to last week, of which I now dub - the week of awesomeness. The previous were about Nokia World 2010, HTC London event and the meet up organised by the new Three Mobile social media team.

So the best bit of last week? The people. Okay, I was pretty stoked that my twitter comment got firked as well, but seriously it is all about the people. Nokia and HTC can show off a device that actually did came equipped with kitchen sinks and it wouldn't matter if you can't share the excitement with wonderful friends.

The pre-Nokia World event at 1000Heads/WOMWorldNokia tower was pretty epic as I finally had the opportunity to meet people I've known online for some time but never able to put a face with their online handler. So kudos to everyone involved in organising the meet, including James Whatley of 1000Heads and Micky of NokiaDNA.com. Also massive cheer to WOMWorldNokia for hosting us, and apologies to the rest of 1000Heads for creating so much noise. Head over here for pictures of the meet.

Equally awesome was the Nokia World evening party in Debut London, I mean friggin iced vodka and gin & tonic cloud room. I've never had a headache as bad as after the party, and it lasted up right through the HTC event the following day... Just so you know, I've already drawn up a plan to quit drinking for a month, but alas this failed on the first day... Still I am determined to see through this plan before my birthday next month. 

If you've been following my tweets for the past couple of weeks, you would have seen me occasionally tweeting from #LeStudio52. It is about making things happen and using our collective power to do so. In any case watch the #LeStudio52 hashtag on twitter for more info, and watch this space. We already have Heather from GiffGaff (a virtual mobile network on o2) coming around and distributing sim cards. If anyone would like one, ping me on twitter and I would be happy to give you one.

Also successful was the #4sqLDN night of ping pong and golf. Well I didn't attend the table tennis bit as I was running a bit late from Nokia World (I even decided to give the HTC meetup a miss), but the golfing bit was brilliant. I haven't touched a golf club for over ten years so the night was a display of massive golfing fail. Cheers to City Limits Golf for putting up with us noisy lot and to David and Diana for organising this.