Game On Exhibition

[JTurner]

Has anyone else seen this yet?
It's at the Barbican in London until September (I think), then it's off to Scotland. Basicaly for ?11 (adult price) ?8 (Student) you get an exhibition of the last 40 years of video games, with plenty of consoles and old coin-ops to play.

It's pretty good, though there was less to read on the exhibited games than I'd hoped (particularly things like Elite and Final Fantasy), so it was more like visiting the arcade that time forgot than seeing a bona-fide exhibition. Though the bookshop has some pretty weighty tomes for anyone who wants to do more than punch buttons.

Surprisingly there were some odd gaps in the collection, X-Box is noticable by it's absence (PS2 features heavily), and I was saddened by the lack of a Gauntlet II machine. Also Tron, Star Wars and a couple of other machines had broken down (understandable). Most represented were the likes of the NES, 16bit Sega machines, but there was also an Atari Jaguar, and, sadly lacking much accompanying literature, The Hitchhikers Guide text adventure.

Again, if I had to level criticism, I'd like more background details on the exhibits and practitioners, but it's great for kids as well as retro heads.

7/10

[Art]

Very good book on videogames:

Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841151203/ref=sr_aps_books_1_2/026-1902694-6665230" target="_blank">Trigger Happy  by Steven Poole

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