Review: Game On 2.0

[jbanes]

Abstract

 

This last weekend, my family and I hit the Game On 2.0 exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago. Given that others have shown interest in the exhibit, I decided to share my experience.

 

Layout

 

If you believe the hype, the exhibit is divided into 16 "levels" of fascinating information about the history of Video Gaming, covering everything from the old to the new.

 

The reality is that the exhibit is all on one floor and is merely divided up by exhibit walls. There are no clear divisions between the "levels", though it's reasonably easy to say that there are about 5 main areas. Each area is lined with video games or video game systems, many of which have a controller available to play. Some of the arcade machines are behind glass.

 

Section 1: Classic Arcade

 

As you walk into the exhibit, you're treated to a visual feast of early arcade machines. To your right, you can see an original Space War machine (behind glass), a playable Vectrex version of Space War next to it, then a long line of arcade machines. These machines include:

• Galaxian
  
• Galaga
  
• Bezerk
  
• Ms. Pac Man
  
• Missile Command
  
• Space Invaders (With and Without Backdrop)
  
• Asteroids
  
• Dig Dug
  
• Several more that I don't remember
  

All the machines appear to be in good condition, and are highly playable. It's quite a treat when compared to the average, beat-up arcade machine. You really get a good feel for what it was like when these machines were new.

 

To the left, there's an original arcade Pong machine, and a large projection TV for MAME. Pong is projected onto a screen so you can play using buttons for up and down. I'm not familiar enough with the actual arcade machine to know if we were playing the original or not, but I was under the impression that the original cabinets used knobs rather than buttons.

 

I personally didn't get to play the MAME machine (my wife and older son did), but it was an impressive machine to look at. The projection screen towered a good 8 to 10 feet high as you played from halfway across the room. It seemed to be loaded with quite a few games as well. I saw visitors playing Galaga and a platformer I didn't recognize.

 

Section 2: Classic Home Gaming

 

Turning the corner, you find yourself bumping into the classic home gaming machines. The machines are lined up across the wall, protected by well-lit glass cases. In most instances the controllers are exposed to allow people to play. The first machine I bumped across was a Magnavox Odyssey. The two controllers (if you call them that ) were available to play table tennis, so my younger son and I tried playing. The machine appeared in good operating condition, but my son did have a little bit of trouble controlling his character. (For those of you who've never played one before, you can move the characters all over the screen. This includes the wrong side of the screen, and even off the screen. There's no scoring, so you pretty much have to enforce all rules and scorekeeping yourself.)

 

The presence of the Odyssey seemed like a good sign. Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. There were a few Atari 2600 games (Freeway and Code Breaker? What the... ?), but the machines immediately jumped to home computers like the Spectrum and an Atari 8-Bit. Systems like the Channel F, Intellivision, Colecovision, Odyssey^2, etc, were all missing. The display then jarringly switched to Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and Nintendo 64 systems; none of which were visible. The only Famicom I saw (or rather, didn't see) wasn't even indentifiable by its controller. It had been replaced with a cheap, knock-off controller.

 

There was also a system that played The Secret of Monkey Island (and had a picture of Guywood Threepbrush paper dolls next to it), but I didn't take the time to figure out what that system was. It may have just been a fancy, programmable mouse connected to a PC.

 

Section 3: Current Systems & Popular Icons

 

Rounding another corner, we came to an entire exhibit dedicated to the million and one iterations of Golden Tee Golf. Three older machines were behind glass, while the latest machine was available for play. Amazingly, someone was playing it. What is up with this game?

 

Also in this area was a shrine to Tomb Raider (mostly just pretty pictures), a Playstation running Tomb Raider, several XBoxs and Playstations, a PS2 Linux Development Kit behind glass, and a collection of all kinds of Pokemon stuff. We let the kids play Tomb Raider and an XBox motorcycle game before moving on.

 

Section 4: Handheld Gaming

 

Now this was kind of neat. Gameboy Advances were bolted onto a table along with Simon, Speak n' Spell, Game and Watch games, and "handheld arcade" systems like Alien Attack, Cavemen, and Super Cobra. The Cavemen system appeared to be inoperable, and Super Cobra didn't seem to do anything. Alien Attack worked, and was amazingly impressive for a backlit LCD game. The "fun" would probably wear off quickly for anyone who owned such a system, but it was definitely neat to try.

 

Behind glass they had all kinds of classic handheld systems. The ones I can remember include:

• Game Boy Color
  
• Game Gear
  
• Wonderswan Color
  
• Atari Lynx
  
• Neo-Geo Pocket
  
• Atari Touch Me
  
• Arcade Frogger
  
• Arcade Donkey Kong
  
• Arcade Pacman
  
• Vectrex
  

The "arcade" handhelds were the portable LCD games that look like miniature arcade cabinets.

 

Section 5: Specialized Gaming Systems

 

By the time we had gotten to the last section, we just weren't that interested in waiting in line for the more modern systems. There was a Flight Simulator of some sort that was out of order (complete with joystick, rudder, throttle, and a bazillion other controls) and several other modern systems. Our time was running out anyway, so we left to take the kids for some Ice Cream in the Classic Town part of the Museum.

 

Overall Impressions

 

When you first enter the exhibit, you find yourself extremely impressed by the lineup of the machines. It's not often that so much classic arcade hardware is all in one place. It really does promise to be a great exhibit. It's too bad it goes from awesome to mediocre so quickly. Once you pass the Odyssey, most of the stuff consists of popular systems that people probably still have in their closets, as well modern systems that you may have at home. Considering that the exhibit is supposed to be about gaming history, it's a bit saddening to see that the classic arcade is the only place they made much effort. Seeing systems like the Intellivision, Colecovision, and Atari 5200 or 7800 would have really helped close the gaps. Even if they were only display pieces.

 

The fact that I went out and purchased Shark! Shark! and Beauty and the Beast right after we visited, shows that they weren't trying hard enough to obtain these old systems. Sean Kelley's store is known well enough in the area to where they should have had no trouble acquiring hardware in good condition. All it would have required was a bit of asking around.

 

The handheld display was a pleasant suprise. I hadn't expected to see older handheld systems outside of a display case. The abuse these things take usually means that you don't want to be exposing small children to a now-delicate artifact. The fact that Simon had a crack and two of the arcade handhelds weren't operating seems to show that these devices were having difficulty with the abuse. Seeing the Wonderswan was a treat (I've never seen one before), but I think it would have been nice if they had put the classic Football game out for the kids to play. Not only can you purchase a remake of the system from Walmart, but the original systems stood up to an incredible amount of punishment. As the first handheld electronic games, the Milton Bradley line would have been well represented from a historical standpoint.

 

Speaking of historical contexts, there wasn't a whole lot to actually learn. At the beginning of the exhibit, most systems had plaques to give at least a little information. As the exhibit went on, though, the information on the walls and plaques becames scarcer and fluffier in content. Simple things like a timeline of systems or a comparison of controllers would have seriously improved the educational value. It felt like the only purpose of the exhibit was to be a very expensive arcade.

 

Final Verdict

 

If you've had very little exposure to classic arcade and home systems in real life, this exhibit will probably pique your interest. Alternatively, you may find this extremely interesting if you want to see classic arcade machines in their prime. If you're one of those weirdos who absolutely loves Golden Tee, then there's something for you to see as well. Otherwise it's just a very expensive arcade, and you may want to spend your money on the U-505 Submarine Tour instead.

[Rik]

Awesome!!!!!!!!,man,the States gets all the great shows and exhibits,here in Canada,nothing!at least where I live.I would go to a classic gaming exhibit in a heart beat,if there were some!I even have to order parts for my GT FIERO from the U.S,U.S rules in these categories!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[jkoolpe]

I went to the Game-On when it was in San Jose a few months back myself.

 

While I certainly applaud the organizers for traveling from England to put on this exhibit, I found myself also disappointed. That may be because I'm not that into the home console stuff...I had come to see the classic arcade uprights of which there weren't nearly as many as the advertisements had led me to believe.

 

I posted a more lengthy review at the KLOV message boards, but for me, the coin-op assortment was pretty meager. Sure the machines were in nice shape, but several classics were sorely missing such as any color vectors like Tempest, nor any Williams games (like Defender). There was a cockpit Star Wars, but it was running with a non-vector monitor so it must have been the MAME version and as such it wasn't very playable. And of course the graphics didn't have that wonderful glow that a real vector monitor has.

 

My final thoughts would be that if you enjoy the home console stuff, you'll have a ball and you should definitely check it out, but if you're into the old classic uprights (and especially if you have a collection of your own as I do), you'll be underwhelmed...save your $10 admission (well, that's what I paid anyway).

 

For classic uprights, get yourself to the CA Extreme show this summer...you'll see 100s of classics that you can play to your heart's content for a weekend and lots of history from many of the actual programmers (especially from the old Atari alumni who live in the area still and usually attend to give talks/lectures) .

 

Just for fun, here are some pictures I took from last year's Extreme show:

 

http://www.photosite.com/jkoolpe/

 

Just my admittedly biased 2 cents...

 

Jon

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract

 

This last weekend, my family and I hit the Game On 2.0 exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry of Chicago. Given that others have shown interest in the exhibit, I decided to share my experience.

 

Layout

 

If you believe the hype, the exhibit is divided into 16 "levels" of fascinating information about the history of Video Gaming, covering everything from the old to the new.

 

The reality is that the exhibit is all on one floor and is merely divided up by exhibit walls. There are no clear divisions between the "levels", though it's reasonably easy to say that there are about 5 main areas. Each area is lined with video games or video game systems, many of which have a controller available to play. Some of the arcade machines are behind glass.

 

Section 1: Classic Arcade

 

As you walk into the exhibit, you're treated to a visual feast of early arcade machines. To your right, you can see an original Space War machine (behind glass), a playable Vectrex version of Space War next to it, then a long line of arcade machines. These machines include:

• Galaxian
  
• Galaga
  
• Bezerk
  
• Ms. Pac Man
   
   
   
   
   
  
• Missile Command
  
• Space Invaders (With and Without Backdrop)
  
• Asteroids
  
• Dig Dug
  
• Several more that I don't remember
  

All the machines appear to be in good condition, and are highly playable. It's quite a treat when compared to the average, beat-up arcade machine. You really get a good feel for what it was like when these machines were new.

 

To the left, there's an original arcade Pong machine, and a large projection TV for MAME. Pong is projected onto a screen so you can play using buttons for up and down. I'm not familiar enough with the actual arcade machine to know if we were playing the original or not, but I was under the impression that the original cabinets used knobs rather than buttons.

 

I personally didn't get to play the MAME machine (my wife and older son did), but it was an impressive machine to look at. The projection screen towered a good 8 to 10 feet high as you played from halfway across the room. It seemed to be loaded with quite a few games as well. I saw visitors playing Galaga and a platformer I didn't recognize.

 

Section 2: Classic Home Gaming

 

Turning the corner, you find yourself bumping into the classic home gaming machines. The machines are lined up across the wall, protected by well-lit glass cases. In most instances the controllers are exposed to allow people to play. The first machine I bumped across was a Magnavox Odyssey. The two controllers (if you call them that ) were available to play table tennis, so my younger son and I tried playing. The machine appeared in good operating condition, but my son did have a little bit of trouble controlling his character. (For those of you who've never played one before, you can move the characters all over the screen. This includes the wrong side of the screen, and even off the screen. There's no scoring, so you pretty much have to enforce all rules and scorekeeping yourself.)

 

The presence of the Odyssey seemed like a good sign. Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. There were a few Atari 2600 games (Freeway and Code Breaker? What the... ?), but the machines immediately jumped to home computers like the Spectrum and an Atari 8-Bit. Systems like the Channel F, Intellivision, Colecovision, Odyssey^2, etc, were all missing. The display then jarringly switched to Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and Nintendo 64 systems; none of which were visible. The only Famicom I saw (or rather, didn't see) wasn't even indentifiable by its controller. It had been replaced with a cheap, knock-off controller.

 

There was also a system that played The Secret of Monkey Island (and had a picture of Guywood Threepbrush paper dolls next to it), but I didn't take the time to figure out what that system was. It may have just been a fancy, programmable mouse connected to a PC.

 

Section 3: Current Systems & Popular Icons

 

Rounding another corner, we came to an entire exhibit dedicated to the million and one iterations of Golden Tee Golf. Three older machines were behind glass, while the latest machine was available for play. Amazingly, someone was playing it. What is up with this game?

 

Also in this area was a shrine to Tomb Raider (mostly just pretty pictures), a Playstation running Tomb Raider, several XBoxs and Playstations, a PS2 Linux Development Kit behind glass, and a collection of all kinds of Pokemon stuff. We let the kids play Tomb Raider and an XBox motorcycle game before moving on.

 

Section 4: Handheld Gaming

 

Now this was kind of neat. Gameboy Advances were bolted onto a table along with Simon, Speak n' Spell, Game and Watch games, and "handheld arcade" systems like Alien Attack, Cavemen, and Super Cobra. The Cavemen system appeared to be inoperable, and Super Cobra didn't seem to do anything. Alien Attack worked, and was amazingly impressive for a backlit LCD game. The "fun" would probably wear off quickly for anyone who owned such a system, but it was definitely neat to try.

 

Behind glass they had all kinds of classic handheld systems. The ones I can remember include:

• Game Boy Color
  
• Game Gear
  
• Wonderswan Color
  
• Atari Lynx
  
• Neo-Geo Pocket
  
• Atari Touch Me
  
• Arcade Frogger
  
• Arcade Donkey Kong
  
• Arcade Pacman
  
• Vectrex
  

The "arcade" handhelds were the portable LCD games that look like miniature arcade cabinets.

 

Section 5: Specialized Gaming Systems

 

By the time we had gotten to the last section, we just weren't that interested in waiting in line for the more modern systems. There was a Flight Simulator of some sort that was out of order (complete with joystick, rudder, throttle, and a bazillion other controls) and several other modern systems. Our time was running out anyway, so we left to take the kids for some Ice Cream in the Classic Town part of the Museum.

 

Overall Impressions

 

When you first enter the exhibit, you find yourself extremely impressed by the lineup of the machines. It's not often that so much classic arcade hardware is all in one place. It really does promise to be a great exhibit. It's too bad it goes from awesome to mediocre so quickly. Once you pass the Odyssey, most of the stuff consists of popular systems that people probably still have in their closets, as well modern systems that you may have at home. Considering that the exhibit is supposed to be about gaming history, it's a bit saddening to see that the classic arcade is the only place they made much effort. Seeing systems like the Intellivision, Colecovision, and Atari 5200 or 7800 would have really helped close the gaps. Even if they were only display pieces.

 

The fact that I went out and purchased Shark! Shark! and Beauty and the Beast right after we visited, shows that they weren't trying hard enough to obtain these old systems. Sean Kelley's store is known well enough in the area to where they should have had no trouble acquiring hardware in good condition. All it would have required was a bit of asking around.

 

The handheld display was a pleasant suprise. I hadn't expected to see older handheld systems outside of a display case. The abuse these things take usually means that you don't want to be exposing small children to a now-delicate artifact. The fact that Simon had a crack and two of the arcade handhelds weren't operating seems to show that these devices were having difficulty with the abuse. Seeing the Wonderswan was a treat (I've never seen one before), but I think it would have been nice if they had put the classic Football game out for the kids to play. Not only can you purchase a remake of the system from Walmart, but the original systems stood up to an incredible amount of punishment. As the first handheld electronic games, the Milton Bradley line would have been well represented from a historical standpoint.

 

Speaking of historical contexts, there wasn't a whole lot to actually learn. At the beginning of the exhibit, most systems had plaques to give at least a little information. As the exhibit went on, though, the information on the walls and plaques becames scarcer and fluffier in content. Simple things like a timeline of systems or a comparison of controllers would have seriously improved the educational value. It felt like the only purpose of the exhibit was to be a very expensive arcade.

 

Final Verdict

 

If you've had very little exposure to classic arcade and home systems in real life, this exhibit will probably pique your interest. Alternatively, you may find this extremely interesting if you want to see classic arcade machines in their prime. If you're one of those weirdos who absolutely loves Golden Tee, then there's something for you to see as well. Otherwise it's just a very expensive arcade, and you may want to spend your money on the U-505 Submarine Tour instead.