June 18th marked the third annual Oklahoma Video Game Exhibition (OVGE), held in the Tulsa Mariott Southern Hills Hotel’s ballroom. Dozens of vendors and exhibitors showed off thousands of games and systems to hundreds of gamers both young and old.
[ Pre-Show Excitement ]
Last year I decided I had so much fun exhibiting a table that I would do it again this year. Phosphor Dot Fossils came up with the perfect theme for my table this year — Star Wars. It was perfect timing, due to the release of the last Star Wars movie (Revenge of the Sith) less than a month ago. PDF and I began planning and working on the theme, but unfortunately my wife threw a wrench into our plans. She’s pregnant, and our ultrasound predicted the the due date as (you guessed it) June 18th. I sadly relinquished my tables and any hope of attending OVGE.
On our next trip to the doctor, he changed his mind and moved our “due date” to the 4th of July. That meant I could now attend OVGE, but my tables had already been resold. Instead, this year I would be attend OVGE as just a spectator. I was looking forward to doing that for a change. I got my camcorder and digital camera ready for the show.
As fate would have it, someone ELSE cancelled (the day before the show), leaving Jesse “Crossbow” Hardesty (OVGE organizer) with empty tables. Jesse called me at home, asking me if I could still put together a table. I didn’t get the message for a couple of hours, and by the time I was able to get back with Jesse, it was 6pm. I decided to take the tables. 15 hours before the show’s doors opened.
I frantically began throwing systems, games, and random Star Wars collectibles into tubs and loading them into my minivan. I finished with everything around 3am. That left me two hours to sleep before making the two hour drive to Tulsa, leaving me just under an hour to get everything set up. Somehow, I pulled it off.
Here’s the minivan, circa 3am. Tubs, a dolly, sacks of crap and two lone helmets (Stormtrooper and Boba Fett) filled up the back of of the van.
Yoda, strapped in and ready for the ride.
[ OVGE Review ]
Unfortunately my wife and I didn’t arrive at the show until about 8:10am, with doors set to open at 9. I ran into several people who came by and said “Flack! Hi, I’m …” but I was in such a hurry that I didn’t have much of a chance to stop and talk to people at that point. Fortunately for me, Icbrkr had already set his table up the night before so he and his wife Ginger gave me a hand in carrying piles of crap in from the van and getting everything set up.
Here’s how my table (with the red table cloth) ended up. I dug some old Star Wars cutouts out of the garage which brought a lot of attention to the table. On the left hand side of my table I had my Atari 2600 (Vader model, of course) with all four official Star Wars carts. I also had Ewok Adventure on a flash cart as well. I had an Atari joystick hooked up, but most people who played the system swapped the joystick out with my Genesis controller. In the middle of my table I had my SNES hooked up with all three Super Star Wars games, and the new Jakks Star Wars joystick. On the right hand of the table I had all three current gen systems (Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox) with a variety of Star Wars games rotating through them. Lego Star Wars got the most game play, followed by Rogue Squadron. The table was covered with almost every Star Wars console game, the Star Wars helmets, and of course Yoda which got a lot of attention.
The far end of my table with kids battling the Empire in Lego Star Wars (Xbox), while Boba Fett oversees the festivities.
I don’t personally know who he really is, but each year “the Balloon Guy” comes to OVGE, wanders around and makes balloon animals for people and kids. As strange as the idea sounds, the guy is very, very talented. Here’s the Yoda balloon hat he made me. For the record, I wore this for exactly ten seconds (long enough to take a picture) and then stuck it on the Stormtrooper hat. Late in the day, I had a five-year-old kid come by and play on the Jakks stick for almost half an hour. I awarded him the “Jedi of the Day” award and gave him the hat, which he proudly wore the rest of the day.
The Mario balloon hat was equally impressive.
Here are Albert and Andrew Davie manning the AtariAge table. I had not met Andrew in person before and was surprised when I first heard his Australian accent! Andrew and I talked a bit about his love of programming Atari 2600 games. Later that day, someone informed me that Andrew worked on several classic console games as well including the Three Stooges game! It’s a good thing I didn’t know that in advance, as I probably would have spent the rest of the day following him around asking him questions about it. In the foreground of this picture you can see some of the various books AA had for sale.
Just a collection of some of AA’s wares they had available. AA’s store area looks more professional than some of the actual stores who attend OVGE!
Forum member SteveW casts away at Go Fish, one of the games AA had for sale at OVGE. I can’t decide which is more wonderful — a little kid (background) playing Atari, or that many Commodore monitors all together in one place.
The Atari Flashback 2.0 made its debut at OVGE 2005. It’s a nice little piece of hardware, although apparently this unit was a beta unit and only contained 10 of the 40 promised games. Unfortunately Curt was not at the show — I was looking forward to meeting him after seeing him interviewed on the BBS Documentary DVD.
The OVGE tournament had people lined up to play games both old and … older. :)
GameXchange had some cool swag to show and play, including those new USA model Famiclones which finally accept original NES controllers. I had planned on buying one at the show, but as luck would have it I ended up winning one in a drawing! More on that in a bit.
Brad Prillwitz always has killer stuff to show off. This picture of these flat panel monitors don’t really convey just how beautiful they are in real life! I played some two-player space game (I forgot the name of it) on the Jaguar on these babies and learned that in space, there is no mercy. After getting shot in the back several times, I moved on.
You want retro? Check out Brad’s Atari Lynx collection. There were also two Lynx’s here, hooked together for some head to head action.
Earl “Phosphor Dot Fossils” Green usually corners the market in “old” cool stuff, but this year he had enough newer stuff to attract people from both crowds! Earl not only has a collection of vintage computers and gaming consoles, but vintage televisions as well. You think you know old? Earl knows old.
I don’t know how much it will take, but some day I will own that PSX joystick. Earl’s mammoth pastel joystick panel gets some lovin’ from a random Dig Dug fan.
Earl “Phosphor Dot Fossils” (center), with co-conspirators Kent and Mrs. Dot Fossils.
Another shot of some of Earl’s booth.
Brian “Icbrkr” Green and his wife Ginger had an awesome import theme going on, with several games running for people to play. Icbrkr also ran the official OVGE webcam from his table.
Ginger and Icbrkr look on as Jason Simpson throws down a round of Mr. Driller.
The Joust cocktail made it back again, along with several other vintage (and very nice) video games. There were very few moments while this machine was unoccupied.
SteveW talks with MegaManFan (in blue). MMF’s table was split between his love for MegaMan and his love for the Atari 2600. MMF ran a DVD video which had MMF footage combined with a rockin’ audio track. There’s only one of these, and I have it. Thanks again, man. My son is watching it right now!
GameRush’s Halo 2 tournament brought in the hardcore gamers. I got shot just by standing too close to the televisions.
Trade-N-Games hade a HUGE amount of stuff packed into the corner. Lots and lots of boxed games and systems. I brought basically four plastic tubs of stuff and three televisions, and I am sore this morning from moving it all. I would hate to imagine how these guys moved all this stuff to and from the show.
Cecil Thompson’s collection, including this beautiful Atari 2600 kiosk, towered in the corner of the room.
More of Cecil’s systems.
If you had Pac-Man fever and it was driving you crazy, Jeff Cooper’s table was the place to be. Not only did Mr. Cooper have a nice selection of Atari games, he also had this killer collection of Pac-Collectables. His son is also a Star Wars fan, and spent a lot of time at my table.
Scott Higgins brought this awesome mini-MAME Cabinet which certainly attracted a lot of attention throughout the show. Scott programmed the ColecoVision homebrew port of Astro Invader, and Scott had the cabinet there to show the comparison between his version and the original. Unfortunately, most people just wanted to play MAME games on it. I can relate — I had my Xbox out to show Star Wars games and came back more than once to find people had rebooted it, got into the emulators and were playing various other games.
These were the final two pictures I took while standing in my booth, looking out across the sea of people. Just like every year, I thought I had a picture of every booth and now looking back I can see that I missed a lot of groups and people. I have a few minutes of camcorder footage that my wife shot, so hopefully I can get that online shortly as well.