By Mickey Evans
The ‘Smash’ video game tournament triumphantly returned to O’Neill’s pub on Monday night after a two-month hiatus.
The tournament was put on hold whilst O’Neill’s went under a full renovation, until the Leicester pub re-opened at the end of October.
The tournament draws its name from the 1999 Nintendo 64 game ‘Super Smash Bros.’
The evening event featured two games from the franchise; ‘Smash Bros Melee’, and the more recent ‘Super Smash Bros 4.’
Monday night’s event winners not only received a cash prize raised from entry fees, but were also entered into Smashzilla 7, a Nottingham based fighting game tournament, featuring games from Tekken to Street Fighter.
Organiser Will Savage said: “We’ve been doing this every Monday for the past two years, but we’ve recently come off a two-month hiatus due to O’Neill’s renovations.”
The turnout of 34 tournament combatants put to bed any doubts that the event would suffer from the temporary closure.
‘Jam’, a contestant, said: “I come here to compete, to meet friends from around the country, but most importantly, to drink beer and play smash.”
Connor Mackinnon, who travelled from Birmingham to compete, said: “If you don’t play (Captain) Falcon, you’re not playing it right.”
However, the success of the event would not have been possible without help.
Will said: “A lot of people help out, we try to get things moving as quickly as possible because we only really have three hours.”
Tom MacPherson, co-organiser, said: “We all help run the brackets.
“Will plays a lot so we help out, plenty of volunteers make things run smoothly.”
The regular events are warmly welcomed by O’Neill’s.
Andy Anderson, assistant manager of O’Neill’s, said: “We get a lot of retro-gaming events here, like the smash bros one.
“We usually put offers on, like 10% off food and drink.
“These events bring in more people every week, it’s really good considering it’s a Monday, usually the deadest night of the week.”
Smashzilla is hosted by Leicester Crew and GeekZilla, and sponsored by Pro-Comfi, Brook, Team Heir and, Green Shell Media and will run from November 18 to 19.
Tournaments are scheduled to be held every Monday night from 6 to 11pm.
