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Game On - gaming through the ages

Ariadne

13:13 / 16.05.02

If you get a chance (and you're in London) get along to the http://www.gameonweb.co.uk/ exhibition at the Barbican.

I went yesterday and it's great. Play Pong, play space invaders, and all sorts of games up to the present day. There's a review of it http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1989000/1989810.stm.

It does cost 10 quid so, so give yourself plenty of time to play and get your money's worth.

(and this my first attempt at links, so forgive me if it comes up wonky)

Ariadne

13:14 / 16.05.02

Shit. I'll beg the moderators to fix that but in the meantime, if you copy and paste those they should work.

Spatula Clarke

13:15 / 16.05.02

A bit wonky...

Link one

Link two

Ariadne

13:16 / 16.05.02

cheers!

Sax

13:24 / 16.05.02

Sounds fantastic. Is it rigged out like an old-skool arcade as well, with sticky red carpets, glowering youths in tracksuits, love-bitten girls with milk-bottle white legs, and moustachio'd greaseballs in the change booths selling single cigs for 10p.

And do they have one of those grabbing machines with teddy bears and pound notes taped to 10 Embassy?

So, Ariadne, what was your high score?

Bear

13:34 / 16.05.02

I was going to post about this - I'm going to have to go along. They were talking about it on Blue Peter a couple of days ago, they had the Donkey Kong arcade machine with them.

I've been doing a bit of retro gaming myself, someone gave me a program called mame and you can download and play lots of old games on it - Altered Beast and Bomerjack !

Ariadne

13:54 / 16.05.02

I'm afraid it's not very arcade-like, Sax, which is a terrible shame.

And I can't boast any high scores. I'm stunningly crap at most games, and stereotypically female in my choices - watch me hog the Pac Man machine and the Sims.

But it's great for memory-jolts. The space invader tables made me come over all funny, zooming right back to the games room at a caravan park in St Andrews...

Sax

14:04 / 16.05.02

You should do a short story on caravan park kids' rooms. Shocking places, redolent with menace and nightmares, as I recall. Shoved into them alone with a glass of warm Dandelion and Burdock while the parents went to get pissed on Double Diamond and Babycham, forced to play with the older boys who were better at football than me, the evil sons of some horrendous couple my mum and dad had made friends with in the next caravan...

*rolls up into foetal position*

"Mum? Are you there?"

Now see what you've done. Stripped away years of therapy.

Ariadne

14:13 / 16.05.02

Blimey. I was always protected by my younger sister (known at the time as Danger UXB and handy to have around) and boisterous cousins. My only bad memory is being rubbish at all the games. Nothing's changed there, then.

Sax

14:17 / 16.05.02

You were probably the girls I tried desperately to impress with my skills on table-top Defender but who wouldn't talk to me because my haircut was by my mum.

Ariadne

14:20 / 16.05.02

As far as I can remember everyone's haircuts were by their Mums. Or maybe that was just in caravan parks in St Andrews.

YNH

16:13 / 16.05.02

It's not likely to come to Des Moines, then? *sigh*

pointless and uncalled for

16:16 / 16.05.02

Damn, I'd love to go to this. It would be worth the ten quid if I could get to play Time Crisis and Time Crisis II for eight hours.

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