Battle of Destiny 2008

By 7pm the hallway upstairs is cleared out and blocked off while things are set up for the day's grand finale; the culmination of the blood, sweat and tears shed during the heats on the ground floor. Everyone files onto the street outside for a well-earned break and some much-needed fresh air. Badges hang from their necks, arcade sticks and posters bulge under arms, and it's an opportunity to discuss the day's events before being ushered back inside for the finals, where the auditorium has been decked out with hundreds of chairs. The audience, now packed in close proximity, are treated to sauna-like heat while the giant video screen goes through minor technical hitches.

The finals themselves are the defining moments of Battle of Destiny. The prizes for the four victors are seven-day trips to Las Vegas to compete in Evo 2008, a major US fighting game tournament. Street Fighter II is first up, enthralling the audience. Professor Jones from France eventually takes first place. Tekken 5 practically empties the room by comparison, and although the 14-year-old marvel known as Devil from Poland wows all by winning the final, it still proves the least engaging of the four play-offs.

Elsewhere, Justin Wong, the Marvel vs. Capcom 2 world champion, has flown to Europe for the first time. He takes part in a grudge match against 24-year-old Sinity, who, weeks earlier, had taunted his way through a thirty-five page forum thread in which he had boasted of his abilities to tear Wong apart at his own game. (Brilliant.) On the day, the match is up on the big screen as a special bonus, and Wong utterly humiliates Sinity in a breathtaking exhibition, ripping him to pieces over three matches of unparalleled technical mastery. Showboating after two stunning one-man victories, Wong even allows the audience to pick his final characters: the weakest team in the game. To rapturous cheers and laughter, Wong uses the three, with the comedy antics of the little Kobun character taking centre-stage.

Wong tells us later that Battle of Destiny is a lot more organised than some of the tournaments he's attended in the US. Good work, Britain. He's modest about the quality of UK competition, although he does point out that he's been playing 3rd Strike on Sunday afternoon and breezed past all his opponents very comfortably. As for SF IV, "It looks good and I've enjoyed playing it, but I really need to give it more time to get into it." Worth a rental, then. "It's all about 2D," he says when we ask about his gaming preferences.

Of all the finals, Capcom vs. SNK 2 is the most impressive from a spectator perspective. Showing a lot more depth in play than we expect, its balanced ratio system works flawlessly in a series of close matches brimming with over-the-top, crowd-pleasing combos, until Yamazaki 93 claims a well-earned victory. The Street Fighter 3rd Strike finals, which round off the four tournaments, aren't quite as engaging, as tactics are pretty uniform. Despite all the contenders being thoroughly masterful, Zak, a fantastic Oro player, claims victory.

The Neo Empire team doesn't let things end there though, and brings US champion Justin Wong back to the stage to play 3rd Strike against Ryan Hart, the highest-profile fighting game player the UK has ever produced. Hart, playing Yun against Wong's Chun Li, makes a good go of things, taking the lead in the best of three matches, only for Wong to equalise in the second. It's edge-of-the-seat stuff when, in the first round of the final match, Wong backs Hart's Yun - now with only a sliver of energy - into a corner and lets rip with her super art combo. People are already standing when Hart parries the first few hits, cheers rising as he goes through some more, and then the roof practically tears itself off as he parries the last of all seventeen hits and reverses the match in the most memorable moment of the weekend, going on to claim victory. Wong, who famously lost in the US to Umehara Daigo under near-identical circumstances, will be having nightmares about that one.

As Battle of Destiny draws to a close it's clear Neo Empire has done wonders for health of the UK scene. Without their undying love for this, it would be easy for the community to have disbanded with the closure of arcades like Windmill Street's Namco Wonderpark. What Battle of Destiny revisits is a far cry from abusive online competition, where players are separated by headsets, a hundred thousand miles and manners. Here you really feel a social aspect that's been forged in the arcades of yesteryear, where gamers sat side by side, shook hands, and really understood each other. Some argue 'hardcore gaming' is a myth these days, but nothing could be further from the truth at BoD. As the venue empties back onto Holloway Road, it's obvious no amount of Halo frags comes close to the depth of ability exhibited by the beat-'em-up veterans we're walking alongside.