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I went to Game On when it opened and to be honest, I wasn't too impressed. Don't get me wrong - it's rammed with hundreds of great games that you can play - but as a coherent and informative look at videogames' history, position in society and development it's a bit of a failure.
It's not as well laid out as its previous incarnation at the Barbican a couple of years ago, either. Some areas feel cramped and you often miss the fact the games are split into different typologies (shooters, brain games (if memory serves) etc.). And it's incredibly noisy in there - you can barely hear the game you're playing, sadly.
I found myself going through it in a sort of ludic fever, impulsively going from game to game before spending any meaningful time with them. If anything, the exhibition will prove to videogame haters that games are indeed morally bankrupt causes of attention-deficit disorders in our children.
To anyone that has any interest or love for games, however, Game On is nice chance to play favourites from the past and those that they might have missed. Sadly, this isn't really enough to demonstrate how significant videogames are in contemporary culture.
Jon Burgerman's illustrations are fun, though, despite the fact that Issues and Questions about videogames they meant to illustrate are hackneyed and ill developed.
Hey ho. Ultimately, it's worth going along. I just think videogames deserve more. |
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