Monday, October 8, 2012

72 Scenes from the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, 2012 - Mental Floss

On September 30, I spent a geektastic day at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. I arrived early and got a look at many booths before they opened (later, they would be swarmed by thousands of attendees). For much of the day I was one of several referees for the Classic Tetris World Championship. The whole day was a joy ? a convention hall filled with classic games, from Atari to Zelda, with pinball in between. And, this being a Portland event, there were game-themed crafts everywhere. The expo organizers summarized the weekend like so:

? Over 3,000 attendees came through the doors over the weekend
? Over 160 arcade and pinball machines were on display for freeplay
? Over 70 retro video game consoles were set up to play
? There were over 70 vendors in attendance
? Our after-hours event was a blast with over 200 people dining and drinking until midnight right in the Mega-cade
? Our live auction was packed with over 400 attendees. At the auction we raised nearly $900 for Portland?s Cat Adoption Team

I just want to emphasize that this event had a ?Mega-cade? and it was, indeed, mega. I brought my camera and captured some scenes from the event ? some before the action began, some in the midst of it. Have a look, and click on any photo to enlarge:

Oregon Trail, 2012

This actually happened. In 2012. I have hope for future generations. (To the side of the mega-cade was a large area with various classic computers and game systems set up for free play.)

Oregon Trail

Atari 2600 ? Combat

This also happened, in a little time-warp area in the back of the hall. In the closeup you can see that the game is Combat. Remind you of your childhood much?

Atari 2600 Living Room

Atari 2600 Combat

Scenes from the Mega-cade

The Mega-cade was frankly more mega than these photos convey. Rows of pinball machines, standup arcade games, co-op games, and lots of driving games ? all in freeplay mode! ? made for a geeky paradise. I kept returning to the updated X-Men co-op game, both because it was popular, but also because I had burned hours (and many dollars) on that game in years past.

Joust

Mega-cade

Mega-cade

Mega-cade - Pac-Mans!

I was particularly confused by this ?Granny and the Gators? game. Click to enlarge, trust me. (The second photo is a detail of the play area.)

Mega-cade - Granny and the Gators

Mega-cade - Granny and the Gators detail

Mega-cade

Mega-cade

Mega-cade

Here?s the X-Men game. Note that in this modified version, instead of two CRT screens, it has one large (and quite nice) LCD.

Mega-cade - X-Men

The family that plays X-Men together?stays together.

Mega-cade - X-Men

And here?s a Back to the Future pinball game on the fritz. When was the last time you got to see inside a BTTF pinball game?! (Click to see the guts, especially on the latter two shots.)

Mega-cade - BTTF

Mega-cade - BTTF

Mega-cade - BTTF

Mega-cade - pinball

Mega-cade - pinball

It?s hard to see here, but this is a parent teaching a child to play the Empire Strikes Back game. This kid?s gonna grow up right.

Mega-cade - Empire Strikes Back

Mega-cade - Empire Strikes Back

Games, Games, Games

There were thousands of game cartridges (and some floppy/CD games) on display, plus some other neat memorabilia. Here?s a look at part of what you missed.

Movie Posters

NES Tetris: ?From Russia With Fun.?

Tetris

Games

Well, this is neat

I picked up some excellent Tetris fridge magnets from this vendor:

Game Art

Game Art

Color Basic

Hey, look ? modern Atari 2600 games!

Games

Games

In case of emergency:

Game Repair Manuals

Games

Nintendo Power

NES Games

NES Controllers and Weapons

Games

Games

Games

Games

Games

Games

Games

Games

Games

Games

Games

Games

This booth was helping an autism charity. There were crowds around it later in the day (this was taken before the doors opened).

Games

Games

Retro Systems

Lots of retro game systems were set up on the show floor ? you could play most of them, and many were also for sale.

Guess what costs $200 these days:

Intellivision clone

The Power Glove: it?s so bad. (And it?s $249.99.)

Power Glove

Check out the price tag on this:

R.O.B. System

R.O.B. costs less on his own, out of the box:

R.O.B.

Colorful PlayStations

PC System

My father had a system much like this one. Portable!

Note: We almost never do this, but 72 images?that?s a lot of images. So we?re splitting this into two pages.

Source: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/145066

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