Mid-South "Gaming Expo" -- May 28/29, Arkansas

[icbrkr]

Sure, it's a bit late to post this but ...

The Mid South "Gaming Expo" will be held at my large and roomy single family house here in wonderful Bentonville, Arkansas May 28th-May 29th. Activities include:

* Playing Games
* Eating junk food
* Reminiscing about old video game stuff
* Using said old video game stuff
* Sharing old video game stuff
* And eating more junk food

If attending, of course, please let me know so I can mail you directions, etc. Also be prepared to chip in a few bucks for pizza or whatever. People are welcome to crash on the floor though it will get cramped if for some strange reason a lot of people show up.

Here's a review of the last one:
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47577

[grimbal]

Sign me up for the 28th.

Wife at work....
Kids at grandparents....
30 minute drive....

I'm there.


I can bring the following:

SMS Store Demo Unit
SMS 3-d googles

I can also bring my Xbox so we can link up.

If you need another tv I've got a 15 inch one I can bring.

I'll even bring some Genesis/N64 boxes to give away to everyone that show up.

[icbrkr]

Sign me up for the 28th.

Wife at work....
Kids at grandparents....
30 minute drive....

I'm there.


I can bring the following:

SMS Store Demo Unit
SMS 3-d googles

I can also bring my Xbox so we can link up.

If you need another tv I've got a 15 inch one I can bring.

I'll even bring some Genesis/N64 boxes to give away to everyone that show up.

I'd love to see the SMS 3D glasses in action since I have all the games but *no glasses*. Grrr. You can try the Xbox link up thing if you want, but I can't say we'd use it :)

I think Rob is debating what to bring. I'd suggest his A500 again so we can test out more games and such on it now that we have more time. If I'm lucky, I can get an order of 100 floppies in before the event.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Sadly, this falls right on top of an insanely busy time at work for me - I've gotta sit this one out. I might send a videotaped acceptance speech or somethin' though. Assuming I'm accepting something. Like...Mastercards...or something.

[Flack]

No biggie Earl, we'll catch with you at OVGE (which is what, two or three weeks after this meeting!)

Last time I brought WAY too much stuff ... I'm not too sure what I'm bringing this time, but the Amiga 500 and maybe some of my console copiers might make the trek.

[grimbal]

Flack:

Bring a list of Genesis/N64 carts that you need boxes for. I'm bringing 100-300 empty boxes that you can pick and choose from.

[Flack]

Flack:

Bring a list of Genesis/N64 carts that you need boxes for. I'm bringing 100-300 empty boxes that you can pick and choose from.

Cool, I sure will. I have quite a few loose Genesis games.

Brian said you might be interested in an Amiga 500 system? I saw one for sale yesterday for $35 (computer and power supply only). If you're interested let me know and I can pick it up for you and bring it.

[grimbal]

I wish. I'm just slighty north of broke right now as far as my gaming budget goes. :(

Thanks for the offer though. :)

[icbrkr]

I ordered a 100 pack of 3.5" DDs (that's double density disks.. not what you're thinking). Doubt that they'll be here by this weekend, but I can use some of mine so you guys can take home whatever you need.

Rob: if you have any extra GC controllers or Xbox controllers bring em please :) I only have 2 for each system.

[icbrkr]

Bump! Couple days left for you to drive to this :D

[Flack]

I bought 100 DS/DD diskettes from VulcanJedi a while back so I can bring those too. It's the day before and I still haven't packed or planned what I'm going to bring yet.

I only have 1 Xbox controller and I'm not even sure if I can bring it because my kid will throw a fit if he can't play Lego Star Wars for a day. I really need to pick up 3 more s-type controllers. I think I have 3 GC controllers, one Nintendo brand and two GameXchange brand. :)

[grimbal]

Ahhh...GameXChange that brings back memories. I wonder if Jerry and Brian Cherry still own the OKC store?

Hey Flack any luck on my request?

Also I will bring my extra Xbox, Cube and Ps2 controllers tomorrow.

I planning on bringing my Sega stuff I mentioned before plus Spikeout Battlestreet for the Xbox.

Also so rare stuff.

[icbrkr]

It's today! The disks that I ordered came in. This is a "good thing" for getting you some Amiga stuff Rob.

Heath: Brad is going to show up for some hours as well. This should be an interesting bunch of people :)

[grimbal]

Cool. I haven't seen Brad in awhile.

I've got all my stuff packed up and ready to load in the truck.

It will take me a little longer than I thought to get there. I've got to go drop off the kids and then come back to the house and load everything up.

I should be there no later than 11:30. I remembered to load the GBA-Gamecube connector so that you can use for Animal Crossing.

[Flack]

Everybody left or went to bed and I have no one to game with. :( Party poopers. :)

[grimbal]

Sorry I couldn't stay later today. I had a blast and thanks for the stuff Flack.

Pac-man Vs. rules!!!

I'm going to try and go track down Ribbit King tomorrow that game is strangely addicitive. :)

[icbrkr]

I'll post some pics later, but I'll just say this get together was fun as hell.

Heath donated an incredible of amount of boxes to me, I'd say well over 100. Though I don't have the games to fill em, I'm going to have to start trying now :)

The Pacman Vs thing was so much fun that I'm going to really have to pick up a GBA just for gaming sessions of that.

More later, right now I need to go take a nap.

[icbrkr]

I just woke up from about 3 more hours of sleep - I suck in staying up late anymore (and yes, midnight is late to me now). I'm old and stuff. But let's get on with the overview!

The get together started off at about 10am with Sangdrax (Andy) showing up first. He brought a large collection of TG16 stuff which unfortunately we didn't go into too much and donated a MK1 controller to the collection! I haven't tried it out yet. We ended up playing my Aero Fighters arcade cab for about 30 mins... the conversation during the game went something like this:

"If you die, I won't take your POW.. no really"

"You bastard! I didn't take YOUR POWs! Don't mess with mine!"

"How the hell did you get all that firepower? I got this freaking paintball gun attached to the front of my jet now!"

"It's nice that we can defend Japan from aliens and blow up their commuters at the same time"

Grimbal (Heath) showed up after this with a truckload of boatload (buttload?) of N64/Genesis/Super Nintendo boxes for the taking and a SMS Demo Unit. All in all I think he brought about 7 boxes of... boxes.

About 12:30 we were all sitting in the game room playing Toilet Kids on the PC Engine (the object is to.. well.. avoid the frogs and various other items turding on you) wondering where the hell Flack was. I checked my computer and saw that I had an email from him that essential said he was about 30 mins away and that he was emailng me from someone's wireless access point that he "borrowed" some bandwidth from.

Grimbal proceeds to show us his Sega 3D Master System glasses. I'd always wanted a pair.. but I wasn't sure why. After using them, I decided I really didn't need to bother any more. Headache city! Andy tried them on and suddenly looked like an old lady who can't see above the steeringwheel.

http://www.particles.org/events/mayexpo/sms1.jpg


http://www.particles.org/events/mayexpo/sms2.jpg

1:00PM shows up with Rob. While out in the garage I announced that someone WOULD be taking all my old Mac stuff away before they left whether they liked it or not. Feeling hungry, we all run the local Pizza Hut for some grub. While ordering, we keep asking the waitress to say "hand tossed" for us as many times as possible and I can't say she really caught on. We hit the salad bar which consisted basically of lettuce, dressing, vanilla wafers and pudding. No really.

Back at the homestead we hire a forklift and start bringing in Heath's boxes so we can divvy them up. Heath said that "we can take what we want but he'd take whatever was left home with him". Well we couldn't have that! I think I came out with about 100 or so empty boxes.

http://www.particles.org/events/mayexpo/boxes.jpg

http://www.particles.org/events/mayexpo/boxes1.jpg

http://www.particles.org/events/mayexpo/boxes2.jpg

http://www.particles.org/events/mayexpo/boxes3.jpg

Afterwards, we did a little trading which sent me up to the attic looking for stuff from Grimbal so I could snag his Paper Mario 64 cartridge from him.

About this time Akoostics (Brad) shows up with his kid. Taking a cue from Earl last time, we brought out Pac-Man Vs and played this for an insane amount of time.


http://www.particles.org/events/mayexpo/pacman.jpg

During this, Dekay (Dean) shows up and announces to the bunch that we should all play some Ribbit King. Andy groans, mutters something about "that game is flaming" but in the end Dean wins out. Flack and Heath aren't sure what they're in for, and I sit this one out. Heath naturally picks Frolf for his main guy. Needless to say, if you've ever played the game you know the comedy factor this dude brings to it. Let's just say he's a bit more femmine than he should be. After ever hole in one there was much commenting on his lisp.

http://www.particles.org/events/mayexpo/ribbit.jpg

After some rounds, Heath got ready to take off so we boxed his .. boxes up and messed with a dead VB that Rob was trying to trade off to Heath. It ended up in my trashcan at the end of the day.

The rest of us wound down the day by playing some 4 player Cel Damage, Alien Homind, Katamari Damacy, and various other games. The wife made some delicious enchilladas and everyone cept Rob left. Before I crashed for the night, he wanted to see what a 3DO looked like. Check out the horror on his face:


http://www.particles.org/events/mayexpo/3do.jpg

I randomly picked out a handful of games and let him enjoy the FMV goodness. After about the 5th game he decided he didn't want anything to do with it ever again.

All in all, great day and we need to do it again!

[Flack]

Icbrkr pretty much summed up the activies. Here are my additional notes and pictures.

Like Ice said, I arrived about 1pm and was met at the door by three hungry gamers. Before even settling in we were back in my car, heading toward Pizza Hut. Ice wasn’t kidding about the salad bar – it literally had less than a dozen items to choose from. Pizza Hut had two arcade games (Area 51 and Marvel vs. Street Fighter) and one pinball machine (Invaders from Mars?) but we didn’t have time to play any of them.

http://www.robohara.com/junk/mwgc3-1.jpg

Here’s a picture of Grimbal and some of his boxes of boxes. I’m quite sure I’ve never seen so many empty boxes in one place before. I have about 30 loose Genesis carts right now, and Grimbal hooked me up with boxes for over 20 of them.

http://www.robohara.com/junk/mwgc3-2.jpg

Pretty much every gathering we’ve had so far as ended up with someone dumping tons of crap in the middle of Brian’s living room floor for the taking. I’m not sure if you can tell just how big those boxes (of boxes) were, but I’m pretty sure Grimbal brought nine or ten of them in the back of his pickup.

http://www.robohara.com/junk/mwgc3-3.jpg

Here, Sangdrax practices his Outrun skills as Icbrkr looks on. There’s nothing more nerve-racking than playing a solo game in front of four or five other gamers. Make one mistake and you’ll get advised by some and heckled by the rest.

http://www.robohara.com/junk/mwgc3-4.jpg

Like Ice said, Vs. Pac-Man made a comeback again this time and was as popular as last time. Here, Icbrkr (as the red ghost), Akoostic’s son Jason (as the purple ghost) and Sangdrax (as the green ghost) chase Grimbal (as Pac-Man), who turned out to be really good at the game. Not even Akoostic’s power pellet camping technique could destroy him. At some point during the gameplay I pointed out that the game’s voice seems to be a combination of Mario and Jar Jar Binks. We got a lot more mileage out of that joke than we should have.

http://www.robohara.com/junk/mwgc3-5.jpg

Vs. Pac-Man action from another angle, with Akoostic looking on.

Ice was right about the 3DO … it’s a level of crappiness you really have to experience first hand. Fortunately between the 3DO and bed time we also played a few Jaguar games, which cleansed the craptastic FMV taste from my mouth.

Once again the party was a success. It’s always fun to get together with other gamers, see games you’ve never played and talk shop with new friends you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. I know OVGE is just around the corner, but I expect the Oklahoma/Arkansas crew will be getting together again, maybe sometime in the fall!

[grimbal]

With all those boxes I gave Icbrkr and Flack I still only manged to empty out one box of boxes. LOL

I indeed took ten boxes of boxes out there and returned with nine.

One thing that Icbrkr didn't mention was being introduced to the horror of Yoshi's Story and Donkey Kong 64. IMHO two of the worst and most annoying game intros I have ever heard. I took both of those games there just for that reason alone. LOL

Fortunately for Flack he missed out.

That poop game was definitely different. I expected we'd be sitting around shooting the s**t but I didn't know we'd literally be doing it in a video game.

As far as trades go I came out with several EGMS and Nintendo Powers mags, along with Drakken for the SNES from Flack. From Icbrkr I got a complete Starflight (minus map), a Saturn Stunner, and a Mac.

I was really wanting that VB but sadly the left side didn't work. :(

A very enjoyable time and I can't wait for the next time. If I had a real house I would offer to host it next time, maybe next year.

[Flack]

Yup, the Virtual Boy went into the trash. I think Icbrkr saved the games. Guess I should've test that one a bit more in the store.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Am I seein' this right? The arcade cabs are out in the garage now??!? :eek 2:

(Sorry, maybe it's just me remembering freezin' my feet off out there last December. LOL )

[icbrkr]

Yep.. .they're going to part of my "new arcade". I'll have more details on that later.