MonkeyWrench

Videogame Nation - UK exhibition

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Anyone UK Thumbmites going to check out Video game Nation exhibition at Urbis in Manchester?

This exhibition charts the meteoric rise of videogaming. Once the sacred realm of the bedroom programmer, it has grown into a multi-billion pound industry which spans more than 30 years of games and consoles. From the British-made ZX Spectrum to the Nintendo DSi, discover and play old favourites and forgotten gems such as Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner and Sensible World of Soccer. Explore Lara Croft's worlds in Tomb Raider and understand why Grand Theft Auto has become one of entertainment's biggest British exports. Explore different gaming environments from the arcade game and sporting arena to interconnected multi-player games and virtual worlds. The exhibition also examines the cultural impact of gaming, from its cleverly designed graphics and contemporary soundtracks as well as its darker side – violent content and gaming addiction. With a high level of interactivity and strong historical narrative about the story of gaming, this exhibition is suitable for pros and novices alike.

http://www.urbis.org.uk/page.asp?id=3296

I spotted it on the local news and it looks pretty sweet, but what is even sweeter is a series of talks throughout the year from various industry guys.

http://www.urbis.org.uk/page.asp?id=3332

Going to pickup tickets for all but one of them. If I can be arsed I'll write something up on them.

This one looks particularly cool...

Retro revival: Jonathan Cauldwell

You may think the much-loved Spectrum is dead. Not so. Join Jonathan Cauldwell as he sets about producing a brand new Spectrum game from scratch live at Urbis throughout the day. Then hear about what motivates him to continue producing games for a system many believe had been consigned to memory. Jonathan continues to push the boundaries of the Spectrum and you can see just how he does it. It's a perfect chance to discover how the games of your childhood were made – and a great way to show children the importance of pure gameplay, addressing whether photo-realistic graphics are key to a good game.

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To be honnest, these talks make me pretty hungry for that kind of material right now, I could fly to Manchester as the exhibition looks pretty sweet too and we don't have any of that kind of sweet crap in France...

I'm trying to find the ones that get me more excited... You guys have any idea how I could get from Paris to Manchester through another airport ? Seems to me that the flights aren't direct to there and I never took the train in england -_-

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ooh I might, I'll be in Manchester at the time so might as well.

I particularly like the look of: introversion: independent's day, start a revolution: charles cecil, and maybe a couple more. I have wanted to go to something like this for ages but haven't been geographically close enough before.

To be honnest, these talks make me pretty hungry for that kind of material right now, I could fly to Manchester as the exhibition looks pretty sweet too and we don't have any of that kind of sweet crap in France...

I'm trying to find the ones that get me more excited... You guys have any idea how I could get from Paris to Manchester through another airport ? Seems to me that the flights aren't direct to there and I never took the train in england -_-

I think there are flights to a Liverpool airport but you would have to get a train, It is a fairly simple journey I believe, being only about an hour. There are also coaches from most other airports in the country

Coaches

Trains

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Oooh! Thanks for pointing it out MonkeyWrench, I just happen to be in Manchester for Futuresonic at the moment. I'll take a look tomorrow.

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I'm trying to find the ones that get me more excited... You guys have any idea how I could get from Paris to Manchester through another airport ? Seems to me that the flights aren't direct to there and I never took the train in england -_-

Manchester is one of the biggest international airports in Britain so there should be plenty of direct flights from Paris. I flew from Paris to Manchester via Air France on my return from Japan. But yeah as Patters said, Liverpool airport is probably 2nd best.

Going to check out the exhibition on Sunday and pick up tickets for the talks. Really looking forward to it.

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Cecil's one seems really awesome, I'll definitely check that one, anybody else interested ? If I fly to your third-world country we might meet up and have something to drink together :)

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I'll definitely be at the Independent's Day talk, and hopefully one or two other's.

Word of warning to Ossk, if you use trains at all in the UK, especially on a Sunday, don't expect them to be on time. Or suitable for human transportation.

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I'm definitely up for meeting up at any of these talks, I'll be going to all but the Jon Hare one (I never digged Sensible Soccer).

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I think I'll be at the independant days too I guess as a start.

Question is, will anyone provide shelter (a tree in your garden would be enough)

Found a 34,5€ Friday 5, 30 minutes Paris-Liverpool + Coach for like 55 min and 5£ pretty neat liverpool Manchester.

The way back is like 20,7€ saturday evening or sunday, same way + 5£ coach...

Are there any not-too-expansive hotels in Manchester ? :)

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Ooh, will have to check this out if I'm back up in Salford between those dates. Urbis is a good space, their equivalent exhibition for last year was about Manga, which was pretty good (even though I nitpicked the hell out of it at the time).

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I went this afternoon, it's smaller than I expected but there are a lot of playable games, including some old ones I could remember but had forgotten the names of, like Renegade.

One of the biggest things that stuck out for me was how bad game design could be in the 80s :)

I'll post a few photos tomorrow.

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Oooh playable Renegade? What format? I used to love that on my old Spectrum +2. I'll take my camera and post up some photos tomorrow also.

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Just got back. It was ok, it did bring back lots of memories, but there were what I thought were major omissions...no sign of an Amiga, but plenty of mentions of the Atari ST?! :erm:

What was there was great though. Getting to see some of the original design documents and artwork for games I adored was very cool, such as the whole map for Dizzy sketched out on graph paper with each sheet being a single screen. There was also plenty about Elite (and Braben/Bell), which is one of my all time fave games so it was great to see that in action again.

I did try and buy tickets for the talks but the staff there knew nothing about it, so I'll have to buy them online.

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Dizzy?! Holy shit, that brings back memories. Like accidentally cycling the swimming goggles out of my inventory while underwater. That was awesome. Fast Food Dizzy, too, was cool.

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The reproductions of hand drawn Dizzy maps were one of the highlights for me, and the big wall made from screenshots of Beneath a Steel Sky :tup:

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I think I had that for my Amstrad. Wasn't it a Pac-Man clone or similar?

Yeah that game really has aged well, I've got an urge to play it again.

It's freeware now, isn't it?

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Disk swapping could be a massive problem in exhibiting games on the Amiga and early PC, but not insurmountable. No Amiga seems like a glaring omission. I didn't look closely at Sensible Soccer or Cannon Fodder; anyone see what platforms they were running on?

I was also a wee bit disappointed that Operation Wolf was running with a joypad and not a lightgun. I didn't notice a single lightgun in the whole exhibit, alas.

Still a fun show though, with some very nostalgic things gave me the warm fuzzies instead of not living up to memory. Some well picked stuff in there. I've put some pics up on Flickr, a few other random game pics from my phone went in the same batch. The draw your own game cover wall is begging for some IGN pullquotes, but I just didn't have the heart or balls to scrawl "This game will rape you in half and shove you through a mailbox" across some poor kid's creation.

Also:

3539806301_6690f0a10e.jpg?v=1242600552 - IGN.com and this on a pub about a mile away.

Edited by Nachimir

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The food literally exploded in the reviewer's face?

The Science Museum in London had an exhibition about the history of gaming on a year or two back, and whilst it didn't seem to have much in the way of analysis (to be fair, I wasn't really seeking it out), it was great to play on some of the old arcade machines; particularly those which did things that couldn't be accurately reproduced on a modern computer. I'm thinking in particular of Asteroids, which used a vector display, meaning that all the lines were extremely bright, and even more intense where they (imperfectly) met. I'd never realized that it was like that, and while it's a pretty cosmetic observation, it really enthused me for some reason. It got me and the friend I attended with wondering why there isn't a more permanent establishment around here where you could pay for entry then play a bunch of old arcade machines at will. I guess it wouldn't make money or would descend into anarchy or both. And judging by the number of systems that weren't working when we attended, those things take some maintenance. Still, it would be nice.

Anyway, I don't know how similar all that was to the thing in Manchester. I don't think there were any talks or anything, so I guess it was a much less impressive affair. I'm not sure whether I can motivate myself to make the trip to Manchester, though.

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Also:

3539806301_6690f0a10e.jpg?v=1242600552 - IGN.com and this on a pub about a mile away.

haha I wish I had noticed that before, I walk past there fairly often. It's brilliant

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Disk swapping could be a massive problem in exhibiting games on the Amiga and early PC, but not insurmountable. No Amiga seems like a glaring omission. I didn't look closely at Sensible Soccer or Cannon Fodder; anyone see what platforms they were running on?

I think some of the games were emulated, so they could have gotten around it that way.

I was also a wee bit disappointed that Operation Wolf was running with a joypad and not a lightgun. I didn't notice a single lightgun in the whole exhibit, alas.

Operation Wolf wasn't a light gun game in the traditional sense. The gun on the coin-op was basically a joystick. It would have been nice to see the old Sinclair light gun...and the Predator gun I seem to remember owning.

The draw your own game cover wall is begging for some IGN pullquotes, but I just didn't have the heart or balls to scrawl "This game will rape you in half and shove you through a mailbox" across some poor kid's creation.

I did see a funny one of Sonic with a walking stick that said "Sonic 86, just let me die!" :)

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The reproductions of hand drawn Dizzy maps were one of the highlights for me, and the big wall made from screenshots of Beneath a Steel Sky :tup:

If you or anyone is interested and do owns the original game licence I can send you a link to an OSx compatible version of that game. I've been depressed since intel came along and classic would not run anymore... But now all my old games work it wooorks it's aliiiiiive !!

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If there is a thumb meeting there, the lack of pullquotes / awesomness might be blown away to a whole new level of boxarts... I know I'm not making any sense but you got the picture.

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