Hey everybody. For reasons of my own, I've decided to go back and post this draft of my experience at the Classic Gaming Expo 2k10 that's been sitting in my archive for like 8 months. Enjoy!
Website: http://www.cgexpo.com/
Flickr photo set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52607399@N05/
Forums on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F77B3A3049328A31&playnext=1&v=HLrYCF_IiTg
===========================
This weekend I went to the Classic Gaming Expo 2010, and lemme tell you, it was a lot of fun. I posted a bunch of pictures to "flickr" here, but as for the things not pictured (mostly because I forgot to bring my goddamned camera the second day...)
-The keynotes were pretty good. The best was easily the Activision keynote, where Steve Cartwright (the man behind my favorite "Activision Anthology" games Barnstorming and Frostbite), Gary Fishback, and David Crane regaled the crowd with anecdotes. Activision apparently had the successful "Design is Law" strategy that Romero was shooting for, they were a tight-knit group of talented people who worked in the same space and were able to share and collaborate with their individual products in such a way that the quality of their work really shown. They really tried to push the bar to make better games using a lot of "tricks" in addition to their simple programming excellence. For instance, they would make and test their products on the lowest-quality piece of crap TV imaginable, with the reasoning being that if it looked good on that then it'll look great on a standard TV. Atari, on the other hand, produced all of their games using high-end Sony monitors, leading to a less polished look on a standard TV.
-At one point, Gary Fishbach recalled his decision of which company to work for: Activision or Atari. He had previously programmed at least one of the Coleco ports of Donkey Kong (oh, and if you're wondering why there are only two levels in the home version, he told management that he had maxed out space and needed a double-sized rom to put the full game in there, and they told him to jump in a lake; I actually obtained a copy of 2600 Donkey Kong at the show, but I unfortunately do not have a 2600 to play it...). Anyhow, having programmed a game, being one of only, like, 13 people on earth with game-programming experience, he could get a job no problem. Atari flies him to their office first class and says how they'll make him rich (they started a royalty program AFTER the Activision guys left the company due to their poor compensation; by the way, I recently learned that apparently consumers just pretty much bought whatever carts Atari would put out; there weren't even any screenshots on the back of the box! Thus, I can kind of see where Atari was coming from with not respecting it's programmers, if a game was going to sell regardless of quality; still kind of a dick move, and you can see why maybe that strategy wouldn't last forever?). SO ANYHOW, Activision doesn't promise big money, they're just devoted to making quality stuff. So Gary calls up Atari and says thanks, but no thanks. The guy he interviewed with is furious, he tells him don't sign anything, I'm flying out to New Jersey right now to meet you. So he does, and they fly to New York and walk right into the office of the head of Warner Communications, the company that owns Atari at this point. Office bigger than my house. Manny Gerard asks him what is it going to take to hire him, and he could have gotten, like, $5 million, easily. And he says, to the head of the company:
"I'm sorry, but I just can't work for a company that put out that piece-of-shit Pac Man cartridge."
-FINAL ANECDOTE from the Activision panel. Steve Cartwright is talking with David Crane one day, and says to him hey, why don't we make Pitafall 2? A sequel, y'know? Like in the movies! And Crane tells him "You can't make a sequel to a VIDEO GAME." Ahahahahahahaaaaa.
-The games there were a lot of fun to play. Got to play the arcade version of Berzerk for the first time, shooting robots and being chased by a meglomaniacal smiley face. Got to play Halo for the Atari 2600, which I think I liked more than regular Halo. Seriously though, they have to put that as an extra in one of the upcoming Halo games or something. Got to play R-Type on the TurboGrafx-16. Very methodical kinda space-shooter, very difficult, but absolutely fantastic. The first boss was basically one of the aliens from "Alien", but it had ANOTHER alien bursting out of it's chest. The second level took place in a giant spleen and had six-legged giant zombie maggot things crawling around, it RULED. Unfortunately it had replaced Splatterhouse, the other game that looked like it ruled when I walked by on Saturday. How did they manage that section by the way? Bet I could do it better, tell you the truth... Oh, also got to play Pitfall (which is damned harder with the Atari joystick), Empire Strikes Back (a weird kinda Defender variant, but good), and Pac-Man (completely and totally terrible) on the 2600. Finally, Sunset Riders on the Genesis! A game where you basically just walk around dispensing western justice left and right, while visiting brothels for power-ups. The first player character wore blue and got double pistols, the second wore pink and got double shotguns. You want those double shotguns, but is it worth it to wear pink? Hell yeah it's worth it!
-Entered a contest to win the big 3 classic systems (2600, Intellivision, and Colecovision). Don't think I did win, they would have contacted me by now, right...? Anyhow, they guy there had the GREATEST GAMING SHIRT ever, it was all of the 8-bit Megaman Robot Masters lined up in one big 8-by-8 grid. I also gotta say: those old consoles are SNAZZY looking, especially the Intellivision with gold trim and all, just sharp as hell.
-I must mention the Specialty Gamer booth, where I ended up spending something like $120 or so. Bought a Saturn lightgun, Virtua Cop 2, and Japanese House of the Dead for $30. Unfortunately, as I arrived, someone was already purchasing the $20 copy of Marvel vs. Street Fighter! DAMN YOUUUUUU! Seriously, next time I've gotta check Saturn imports first out of the gate. My bro bought Dragon Warrior (with instructions and coverslip thing), and Pedro had me lend him the money to buy two games from his childhood: Beavis and Butthead, and Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City for the SNES. We played them later; B&B is pretty mediocre and really difficult, but it is co-op. Michael Jordan has seperate buttons for jumping and dunking, so it's basically the greatest game ever. Seriously, anything you could want at this booth, and really good prices. Boxed N64, NES, and SNES games; I had not idea such things even existed, I thought only the Genesis had durable enough boxes to survive the... two decades since production.
-Seriously, I think I need to buy a TurboGrafx-16. The two games I saw there totally rocked. However, the games are six bucks on the virtual console, so can I REALLY justify the extra expense...? Yes. Yes I can.
Website: http://www.cgexpo.com/
Flickr photo set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52607399@N05/
Forums on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F77B3A3049328A31&playnext=1&v=HLrYCF_IiTg
===========================
This weekend I went to the Classic Gaming Expo 2010, and lemme tell you, it was a lot of fun. I posted a bunch of pictures to "flickr" here, but as for the things not pictured (mostly because I forgot to bring my goddamned camera the second day...)
-The keynotes were pretty good. The best was easily the Activision keynote, where Steve Cartwright (the man behind my favorite "Activision Anthology" games Barnstorming and Frostbite), Gary Fishback, and David Crane regaled the crowd with anecdotes. Activision apparently had the successful "Design is Law" strategy that Romero was shooting for, they were a tight-knit group of talented people who worked in the same space and were able to share and collaborate with their individual products in such a way that the quality of their work really shown. They really tried to push the bar to make better games using a lot of "tricks" in addition to their simple programming excellence. For instance, they would make and test their products on the lowest-quality piece of crap TV imaginable, with the reasoning being that if it looked good on that then it'll look great on a standard TV. Atari, on the other hand, produced all of their games using high-end Sony monitors, leading to a less polished look on a standard TV.
-At one point, Gary Fishbach recalled his decision of which company to work for: Activision or Atari. He had previously programmed at least one of the Coleco ports of Donkey Kong (oh, and if you're wondering why there are only two levels in the home version, he told management that he had maxed out space and needed a double-sized rom to put the full game in there, and they told him to jump in a lake; I actually obtained a copy of 2600 Donkey Kong at the show, but I unfortunately do not have a 2600 to play it...). Anyhow, having programmed a game, being one of only, like, 13 people on earth with game-programming experience, he could get a job no problem. Atari flies him to their office first class and says how they'll make him rich (they started a royalty program AFTER the Activision guys left the company due to their poor compensation; by the way, I recently learned that apparently consumers just pretty much bought whatever carts Atari would put out; there weren't even any screenshots on the back of the box! Thus, I can kind of see where Atari was coming from with not respecting it's programmers, if a game was going to sell regardless of quality; still kind of a dick move, and you can see why maybe that strategy wouldn't last forever?). SO ANYHOW, Activision doesn't promise big money, they're just devoted to making quality stuff. So Gary calls up Atari and says thanks, but no thanks. The guy he interviewed with is furious, he tells him don't sign anything, I'm flying out to New Jersey right now to meet you. So he does, and they fly to New York and walk right into the office of the head of Warner Communications, the company that owns Atari at this point. Office bigger than my house. Manny Gerard asks him what is it going to take to hire him, and he could have gotten, like, $5 million, easily. And he says, to the head of the company:
"I'm sorry, but I just can't work for a company that put out that piece-of-shit Pac Man cartridge."
-FINAL ANECDOTE from the Activision panel. Steve Cartwright is talking with David Crane one day, and says to him hey, why don't we make Pitafall 2? A sequel, y'know? Like in the movies! And Crane tells him "You can't make a sequel to a VIDEO GAME." Ahahahahahahaaaaa.
-The games there were a lot of fun to play. Got to play the arcade version of Berzerk for the first time, shooting robots and being chased by a meglomaniacal smiley face. Got to play Halo for the Atari 2600, which I think I liked more than regular Halo. Seriously though, they have to put that as an extra in one of the upcoming Halo games or something. Got to play R-Type on the TurboGrafx-16. Very methodical kinda space-shooter, very difficult, but absolutely fantastic. The first boss was basically one of the aliens from "Alien", but it had ANOTHER alien bursting out of it's chest. The second level took place in a giant spleen and had six-legged giant zombie maggot things crawling around, it RULED. Unfortunately it had replaced Splatterhouse, the other game that looked like it ruled when I walked by on Saturday. How did they manage that section by the way? Bet I could do it better, tell you the truth... Oh, also got to play Pitfall (which is damned harder with the Atari joystick), Empire Strikes Back (a weird kinda Defender variant, but good), and Pac-Man (completely and totally terrible) on the 2600. Finally, Sunset Riders on the Genesis! A game where you basically just walk around dispensing western justice left and right, while visiting brothels for power-ups. The first player character wore blue and got double pistols, the second wore pink and got double shotguns. You want those double shotguns, but is it worth it to wear pink? Hell yeah it's worth it!
-Entered a contest to win the big 3 classic systems (2600, Intellivision, and Colecovision). Don't think I did win, they would have contacted me by now, right...? Anyhow, they guy there had the GREATEST GAMING SHIRT ever, it was all of the 8-bit Megaman Robot Masters lined up in one big 8-by-8 grid. I also gotta say: those old consoles are SNAZZY looking, especially the Intellivision with gold trim and all, just sharp as hell.
-I must mention the Specialty Gamer booth, where I ended up spending something like $120 or so. Bought a Saturn lightgun, Virtua Cop 2, and Japanese House of the Dead for $30. Unfortunately, as I arrived, someone was already purchasing the $20 copy of Marvel vs. Street Fighter! DAMN YOUUUUUU! Seriously, next time I've gotta check Saturn imports first out of the gate. My bro bought Dragon Warrior (with instructions and coverslip thing), and Pedro had me lend him the money to buy two games from his childhood: Beavis and Butthead, and Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City for the SNES. We played them later; B&B is pretty mediocre and really difficult, but it is co-op. Michael Jordan has seperate buttons for jumping and dunking, so it's basically the greatest game ever. Seriously, anything you could want at this booth, and really good prices. Boxed N64, NES, and SNES games; I had not idea such things even existed, I thought only the Genesis had durable enough boxes to survive the... two decades since production.
-Seriously, I think I need to buy a TurboGrafx-16. The two games I saw there totally rocked. However, the games are six bucks on the virtual console, so can I REALLY justify the extra expense...? Yes. Yes I can.
