Christophe Tang
Christophe Tang
Christophe Tang is a convention favorite, known for his multi-talented accomplishments as a cosplayer, video game designer, and gaming tournament champion.
Early Career
Chris Tang was lucky to have entered gaming at an early age. He won the Hawaii state Nintendo championships and was Los Angeles City Champion in the 1990 Nintendo World Championships, and later topped that by winning Sega’s famous Sonic & Knuckles “Rock the Rock” tournament on Alcatraz in 1994. From there, he went on to have a career that continues to this day. He worked at Tengen and had a hand in different classics like Gauntlet IV (where he was instrumental in the inclusion of its Quest Mode) and Rampart, as well as at Capcom during its Dreamcast glory days.
Chris grew up as a competitive gamer, succeeding with many high-profile victories including Nintendo and Sega World Championships – a side effect of which helped him to fulfill his dream of becoming a creator in the game industry. Contributing to top franchises such as "Street Fighter",
Awards
As a cosplayer, Chris has won over 40 awards in competition, with appearances in magazines and on TV. Highlights include Hero Suit Barnaby Brooks Jr. from "Tiger & Bunny", Battlized SPD Red Power Ranger, Transforming Autobot Smokescreen WRX, Gundam Epyon, Sportacus, and Captain Commando. Though his creative focus has shifted towards game development, he's looking forward to creating characters and costumes that will be especially fun for cosplayers in the near future!.
Features
Chris is featured in films such as the award-winning "Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters", and appears as a cosplayer on HBO's hit TV series "Entourage" and on various "Tiger & Bunny" video releases.
In 2016 he was invited to join the U.S.
National Video Game Team and will be inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame in Ottumwa, Iowa later this year. He is also the emcee for the Classic Tetris World Championships ongoing since 2010, and the voice behind the "BOOM! Tetris for Jeff!" meme that's been going around lately.[1][2][3]
Success
Success in cosplay has cleverly hidden Chris' career in the "real world" as an accomplished Senior Game Designer - having contributed to hit franchises such as "Street Fighter", "Marvel Vs.
CAPCOM", "Resident Evil", "Tetris", and "Dance Dance Revolution".
Diverse talents have had him doing everything from gameplay, concepts, graphics, story, and scriptwriting to voice directing and playing the role of Windrazor in the "Transformers Beast Wars Transmetals" video games. Currently, he leads his project, code-named "SHINEI" for Hitspark Games to be an inspiration to hard-core gamers and cosplayers alike.
Belief
Christophe believes"
"we've all got Special Moves and Super Meters, and that with the right motivation, we can accomplish virtually anything we love doing!"
Winning the Sonic & Knuckles “Rock the Rock” competition on Alcatraz
"The “Rock the Rock” competition happened prior to the Sonic & Knuckles game release so I had to practice on Sonic 3, and I knew some things like the ‘Collect Spheres” scenes were common between both games so I played that a lot.
Once I got to the competition, I found out the sphere segments played no part at all in what we needed to compete on, so I had to adjust on-the-fly and learn the level layout for Mushroom Hill Zone to make the most of it on the day of the qualifier at Hard Rock Cafe. Having solid fundamentals from playing Sonic 3 certainly helped, however, and going into the grand finals on Alcatraz – where it was on Sonic 3’s Launch Base Zone using Knuckles – practicing on Sonic 3 the night before made a huge difference! My brother Michael had won the HoJo National Championships on Sonic 3 and was able to give me some good advice along the way, as we always helped each other do our best on various competitions. The Sega competition wasn’t my first, as I was a Los Angeles City Champion in the 1990 Nintendo World Championships and won the Hawaii State Nintendo Championships among other events. A funny side note to that is when I was interviewed for the Nintendo competitions and asked what my favorite game was, my answer was always Phantasy Star, which of course is a Sega game!"