Arcade Vaults - Player Nation

We at Fanagram want to give a huge shoutout to Chris and the team at Arcade Vaults for inviting us to their fantastic gaming event on 24 March, including a glut of retro video games, a small mountain range of board games (courtesy of Rules of Play) and a selection of appropriately awesome bands.

It was, as always, fun to see Bridge Simulator there and as is usual the game was fully booked so I've still not had a chance to play yet! One day Bridge Simulator... one day we will make it so!

We did get to play a bunch of games - memorably some Double Dragon 2 on the SEGA master sytem (bonus trivia: Double Dragon the live action film was released in 1994 and set in the far future of 2007) and several NES games, to name but a few.

The stark contrast between the graphics and gameplay of games across the decades is just as striking as the difference in the controllers. Human interface devices have certainly evolved since my early forays into computer gaming and I was immensely appreciative of the opportunity to acknowledge this. It also made me realize that my numerous complaints over the cost of contemporary controllers may be misplaced when we consider just how much better they are than their trailblazing predecessors.

Rules of Play Cardiff represented analog gaming offering a multitude of wonder filled cardboard boxes of varying sizes. I took my maiden voyage with'Deep Sea Adventure', a micro board board of titanic difficulty. Although every single player had their ill-fated submariner drown in the hunt for riches and glory resulting in a reluctant tie our spirits weren't dampened. We concluded our boardgaming with a game of the classic Splendor. I scored last place but had a blast getting there.

And as if all that wasn't enough, we got to listen to Atomic Superman and Happy Fun Time Game Band blast out some great tunes. Truly impressive technically, musically and for those sweet sweet member-berries - we loved hearing live renditions of classic video game soundtracks including Sonic, Pokemon and one of my all-time favorites - Streets of Rage. I used to play Streets of Rage (2, mainly), with my dad when I was but a wee lad and hearing that song took me right back to some of the most special times in my life.

We had such a good night, can't wait to do it again, strongly recommend you go and would be totally remiss if we didn't say a massive thank you to Arcade Vaults, Rules of Play, Atomic Superman and Happy Fun Time Game Band for making the whole thing possible!