#Twitclan Get Playtime Thanks to @MyKindofPhone

A wee while back I posted details of a compo being run by My Kind of Phone (Microsoft Windows Phone) I’d entered a group of friends (the #twitclan) for; it was a simple enough word of mouth marketing exercise which with some effort (mainly from David Carrington who just so happened to be moving into his new house on the day of the prize so couldn’t attend) we won.

The prize was a rather awesome daytrip to London for our motley crew for their first ever meet up and a day spent…. well basically trying to beat the hell out of each other (in the gaming sense).   For me this was particularly great as one member of the #twitclan crew (Matt Jones) I had been chatting with online for years but never met.

Anyway.  The designated day arrived (July 31st) and 11 disparate / desperate souls trudged to the Hospital Club in London’s Covent Garden where Phil & Seamus greeted us with a private cinema, an Xbox, a table straining under the weight of geeks elixir (coffee) and muffins a plenty.

I’ll admit to not being the first in, so found a few of our clan busily shooting each other in a round of 4-up Modern Warfare 2 but rather quickly everyone arrived and got stuck in.

The rest of the morning was spent glued to the gorgeous screen trying to knock of plenty of multi-player co-op games that we could.  From memory we played Modern Warfare 2, FIFA 2010 and Split/Second pre lunch.

Talking of lunch it was an almost perfect (there was an optional salad) gamers meal of silly-fat burgers, fries and beer just in time for a movie.

Our choice was simple – Zombieland, and timed to throw up the first decent zombie chomp seen right when those burgers got bitten in to.  Nice.

Post lunch/movie it was more of the same.  James Whatley had brought along his long lost youth in the shape of Street Fighter 4 (I think) and proceeded to demonstrate just why he is known as being a demon texter – those fingers move too damn fast for someone of his age.  Not wanting to brag but I did kick his butt when it got to my turn, and the reason for not wanting to brag…. I had no idea what I was doing.  None.  Literally I was hitting any button, hanging on and hoping for the best, a tactic to which it appears there is little defense.  Good fun but it didn’t take long for the group to revert to our mainstay, MW2.

When 6 pm finally came around and the cinema had to be handed back for “proper things like movies” friendships had been renewed, strengthen and plenty of male back slapping performed.  Clan photos were taken (although suspiciously few have appeared online for me to post) and rather delightfully Phil presented me with a shiny new toy in the form of the top end Windows Mobile 6.5 phone – the HTC HD2 which as anyone so inclined knows is a tidy piece of kit sporting a massive 4.3 inch WVGA screen and all that goodness one expects from a serious smartphone.

Unfortunately we lost a couple of members straight after but needless to say pubs and bars were patronised and despite best efforts we failed dismaly to cause Matt & Paul to miss their train North options.  A blinding day of fun which will make all those online only evening sessions just that little more special.

Thanks to everyone who voted for us to win, Microsoft for stumping up a great prize day, Phil & Seamus for organising the whole thing and most of all to the #twitclan for rocking up and being good mates.

Roll Call – (the only photo I could find and not a smiley one):

Back row – Richard Hyndman, Terence Eden, Craig Franks, Nick Butler

Front row – James Whatley, Matt Jones, Abul Hussain, Kip Hakes, Paul Smyth, Barney Craggs (me) & Chris Westall