Videogame Nation; A Museum Exhibit in Manchester
Videogame Nation is an exhibition being displayed at the Manchester Urbis centre. Myself and Chelsea a.k.a. Nintendoll headed into town earlier today to poke our noses around and take some pics.
The whole exhibit is on single floor and takes you through several themed areas. From the bedroom set up through to a darkened arcade game area. There was a sports game section complete with fake grass and stadium seats around a copy of Sensible Soccer. On the way out was a small, but interesting 18+ area dealing with the more mature themes in gaming.
With all of these pics I’ve shrunk them down from the original, clicking on each will open a larger copy for you to look at. Also of note something that Nintendoll noticed more is that this is a very UK centred exhibit, as the name suggests.
Most of the pictures are fairly self explanatory, and more pictures are included at the bottom.
As you enter to pay your £3 you pass the quote above. Very fitting. Below the quote are two screens with various videogame art on rotation.
The exhibition is totally aimed at us.
All my practising with Lotus II totally paid off.
The above two photos show some of the design “documentation” on show. Seeing the hand drawn characters, and how they were translated into the pixelated forms we’re used to seeing, was really rather cool.
One thing that amazed us about video games is how they and their ideas develop over time, Pac Man is a great example of just that.
As you walked around, the walls are covered in some great quotes and statistics.
I bet that’s a past Codemasters would rather move on from.
Me and Nintendoll thought we could do much better than these poor efforts at alternative game front covers.
So we did.
Do you recognise the above advert? We were surprised at how refreshingly up to date some of the things in the exhibition were. Some of the articles on this section about health were from March ’09. Also, it was very surreal to see Sarcastic Gamer in a museum.
If you want to see more, have a look in the thumb-nailed gallery below:
The whole exhibit was very nicely set up (as you can tell from some of the pics above). Whilst there was never any crowding (of walls or people), there remained a lot to see. We happily spent over an hour walking around, watching the films and listening to some of the audio tracks, and probably experience less than half of what was on offer.
Advert:
Pac Man is definitely one a game that’s made its way into the video game history hall of fame. Throughout the years Pac Man has been enjoyed in arcades, restaurants and even casinos. I’m sure it won’t be long before you can play Pac Man at an online casino as well, to pass the time between eating a pot noodle and starring at some virtual avatars. This exhibit is a Pac Man board game, one of many board games coming after the videogame, unusual at the time.
Some of the art and exhibitions really do capture games that we love and some get your mind working; is this a scrabble board or a game of Tetris? We weren’t able to find the bingo set up, perhaps because people are too busy playing online bingo too see the true art behind the numbers. To be honest, I’m sure that with time that will change as well.
hurray for space channel 5 :)
Over here in berlin we have a gaming museum, but I have yet to visit it, but now I’m motivated to do so
That’s very cool content. The codemasters history lesson was very interesting(jeez I’m looking forward to Fuel).
What was the attendance like? It doesn’t look like you had to beat anyone away to get clear shots.
Man, a few things that struck me;
Lotus is awesome!
Darwinian Jacket is awesome!
I actually have on my bed right now those very same space invaders covers. They freaking glow in the dark.
Looks like it was a surpsingly good exhibition, especially given the subject matter. Though Sensible Soccer and the Bulldog Blighty would’ve made it perfect. Damn I miss that.
I wanna go there now, it looks so interesting!
Sounds like you had a nice day out.
Looks like a cool exhibit. The only thing I’ve ever really heard of similar to it around me is that thing they do in Orlando.
I really like that “ZZZOOM Sonic Innit” drawing
Hi there, glad you liked the show. Thanks for the great blog post!
Do you mind if i link to it from our website so other users can read your review?
E3 pah!
Game Genie ruined TMNT.
Does anyone remember how cool the Robocop sounds effects were in the arcades? I was born in glasgow but i grew up in southend on sea and was an complete arcade brat :D
Whoever drew that Goldeneye picture must be erased from time.
Nice I might go and see that.
The surgeon fact is a good one to throw at people.
I’m going this afternoon – looks really good.
Man, I’ve lived in Manchester for the past 4 years and I didn’t even know this place existed despite walking by it probably hundreds of times. I’ll be going there in the next few days, definitely!
i went there today and i was in heaven! it was a spectacle walking around the various themed sections, the whole thing flowed very well! What really impressed me was the original documents for various games, it really added an extra dimension to the exhibit. I was amazed that they aired an episode of Gamesmaster, to me that was perhaps one of the greatest things they did, it demonstrated real passion!
I definately plan to go again, its just a shame that I went the day before the visit from the Oliver twins!