Arcade Lounge

Well, it’s taken me a few days to get around to posting about the show. All in all it was a great success. Alan, Grant and their team did a great job in getting all the machines together. On the day (well, the day before) it seemed everything was against them and the show was almost a non-starter. All of the Egrets were stuck at customs and after being released late on the Friday afternoon, half of them reached their destination at about 9 o’clock at night. The rest of them were due in at 6am Saturday! When we arrived at 11pm on Friday to set up, the electrician was setting up the supply for the hall whilst PCBs were installed in the machines. It was an all-nighter for most of the IC’09 team.

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This week marks creation of Dragon’s Lair 25 years ago. The machine that not only made you and all your mates go “WOW”… but your Grandmother too. I remember being a kid at that age where a pound was a lot to put into a machine that looked so difficult, it could have been over in 10 seconds flat. So I would have opted for 10 credits on Pac-man.

Needless to say, I was happy to stand and watch the Cartoon cabinet in it’s attract mode waiting for someone else to insert their hard-earned cash.

Here’s the magical source…

For those that have always wanted to walk dogs but don’t have a dog… And maybe too old to ask the neighbour if they can borrow theirs…

Allegedly a  bit of a challenge as it’s not too difficult to get your dog run over or mawled by the neighbourhood bully. Still, it could be worse. It could be a Great Dane or St Bernard…
source :: TOKYOMANGO

Now available as an optional upgrade for the surface tension table, I thought it was time to shine some light on this dark and mysterious keyboard…

Well, where do I start…

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Well I finally managed to make it to the Game On exhibition at the London Science Museum. I would say that I dragged my girlfriend there, but it wasn’t as if she was difficult to convince. She soon found the system playing Bubble Bobble and that was probably the last I saw of her.

This is definitely worth taking time out to head to. As you step through the entrance, you start at the very beginning… pong, computer space and some other huge machine which signifies the beginning of an era. I intended to go back and have a proper look at that but found myself playing too much Bomberman on the Dreamcast, against kids that were barely tall enough to see over the counter.

So from Pong to Wii, the games have advanced, but maybe not the names…

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If you are a collector of Atari 2600 games and are near to completiton wondering what you will do next…

AtariAge, based in the US, are still creating games for your beloved Atari 2600, 5200, 7800 and more. Plus they will ship internationally.

If you are that way inclined, AtariAge have a sale on until the 15th January. They also want to buy any Atari carts you might have kicking around, so they can put them to good use (i.e. Sell them back to you with new guts).
I don’t know about you, but I’ll leave writing my own game and packing it into 8K of ROM up to the experts!

Anyway, check out the site. There’s a whole host of hardware, software and information available.

I came across this cool piece of design-meets-technology… a pong table which integrates LEDs and touch sensors. The creation of Moritz Waldermeyer was on display earlier this year at the Rabih Hage gallery in London, along with the roulette table.

See Moritz Waldermeyer’s blog…

I haven’t made it to this as yet but will certainly be heading over there before the year is out.

Explore the history, technology and culture of computer games in this new special exhibition. From the PDP-1 of the 1960s to the latest consoles, Game On examines the technologies that have revolutionised the gaming world. See the ten most influential consoles of all time, learn about the design process behind games such as Tomb Raider, investigate the relationship between films and gaming and play over 100 games including classics Space Invaders and Super Mario Brothers!

Prices: £8.50 adult, £6.50 child/concession.

Go to the Game on website

Pong!

Make sure you play car pong too. I only managed a measly score of 112, which I thought was pretty good until I saw the leader board!