This past weekend I had the chance to check out the EMP for the first time in a little while, but especially as there are currently a handful of nerdy exhibits on, one on horror movies, one for fantasy and one for videogames. This was what I was especially excited for, and while it was a bit underwhelming compared to the other two, it still was informative and nice to have a refresher course in the history of the medium.
On the main level sits the room that the Art of Videogames resides in and as you walk in you are inundated with some familiar sounds, specifically from Pac-Man and Mario Bros. They have a timeline set up along the wall and it goes from pre-Atari games up till todays current console and includes a few of my favorites, specifically the Commodore 64. That "computer" holds a special place in my heart as the first gaming system that we had, and I played a lot of Pac-Man, Impossible Mission and Montezuma's Revenge on that little guy. Funny story, I had my C64 monitor for years and used it with my PSone and PS2 until it finally died as it had such a crisp picture, compared to a regular old tube tv that is.
For each of the consoles they had chosen four games; action, adventure, strategy and shooter. For each of those there was a blown up gorgeous screen shot giclee print and some of them looked fantastic, especially the 8 bit ones for things like Zelda and Wonder Boy. As well you could listen to some great info on each game and watch clips of the games. There as well were some videos going on with interviews with game industry vets like Warren Spector talking about games and a fair amount of original concept art, and even the infamous Halo 2600 cartridge.
Centered in the room were kiosks essentially with some of the greats including Mario Bros, Myst, Pac-Man, Monkey Island and Flower that you could play for a bit. Definitely felt great to use the old NES pad and jump on some koopas. All in all there was a great amount of history presented and cases made for some of the finest games of all time and to whether or not they are art and some great information to non-gamers to let them know of the full history of the medium. It was still a little small I thought, especially as compared to the Fantasy and Horror exhibits going on but it was still worthwhile to check out and hopefully helped to inform those who don't know too much about the industry about how creative and wonderful it can be.
Also, the choice for Mass Effect 2 for the 360 was spot on.
