The Video Game Critic

Anyone going to Retro World Expo in CT tomorrow (October 3)? It's the first year of this convention. The convention is dedicated to retro gaming, and it has vendors, panelists, tournaments, freeplay areas, a collector's auction, video game-related bands, etc etc. (Personally, I'm looking forward to the NHL '94 tournament.) It's about time New England got something like this. When it was announced earlier this year, I was worried at first that it would mostly just be vendors. But it's really developed since then, and they seem to have a lot of good ideas. Hopefully there is enough turn-out tomorrow to encourage them to make it even bigger in future years.

Anyways, figured I'd give a heads up, just in case certain members live in this area and hadn't heard about it yet. Looks like it's worth checking out. Hopefully it lives up to expectations. Here's some links to the websites:


http://retroworldexpo.com/

https://www.facebook.com/retroworldclassicgamingexpo

Man, I wish I had more time and money. I would have loved to go to that. Its only a few hours away from me.

Here's my follow-up...

For those that live within a few hours of Connecticut and missed Retro World this year, don't make the same mistake next year! The convention was amazing; loved it. The best part was the atmosphere... just being surrounded by an entire convention center full of games and passionate retro gamers was a great experience. It is almost 100% about retro games, unlike most of the other cons that try to incorporate tabletop gaming, comic books, etc etc. Those hobbies were represented at Retro World too, but minimally. And I don't care about those other hobbies, so this was perfect to me.


Some of the highlights:

- The tournaments were great. I placed 2nd in the NBA Jam: TE (Genesis) tournament, which was my personal highlight for the day. The funny part is that I played NHL '94 for weeks preparing for that tournament. I didn't plan to play in the NBA Jam tournament, because I didn't think I could win it. Well, that was a bad move. Despite my prep for NHL '94, I got knocked out in the second round. Meanwhile, I signed up for NBA Jam at the last minute on a whim, played one quick practice game, and then beat out the 24-player field to take 2nd place. If only I had practiced beforehand... (P.S., The tournaments were free; how can you beat that?! For placing 2nd, I won a Retro World t-shirt, 2 DVDs, and a $25 gift card.)

- Deals were tough to come by, since most of the vendors were dealers. As a result, most things were at eBay prices, but at least you could haggle a bit, especially if you bought a few. I did get a great deal on some Saturn NetLink stuff though (NetLink, Netlink mouse, Netlink Gamepak, etc.). All nice and boxed. I love Saturn collecting, so that was my second highlight.

- The console freeplay and arcade area was better than expected. I had most of the consoles there, but not a Neo Geo AES, so it was cool to try that out.

- The collector's auction was fun to watch, although I didn't bid. Collectors got some great deals on some of the items.

- My girlfriend has absolutely no interest in games, and yet she was able to stick it out with me for over 10 hours, so that says a lot about the place.


Areas to Improve:

- Mortal Kombat II and NBA Jam were good tournaments, but hopefully some of the others get swapped out. NHL '94 unfortunately had the smallest turn-out.. I'd love to see Tecmo Super Bowl in its place next year.

- The most boring part of my day was watching the Game Chasers panel. There were several panels and I only had time for one, so I picked that one. The Game Chasers show is interesting, but not so much the panel, which was just a Q&A session. It's not their fault-- the problem is the people in the audience asking questions. I have absolutely 0% interest in what the Game Chasers think about the Retron 5 or the "future of gaming". Those are stupid questions to ask them and a waste of everyone's time.

- The bands went too late. The convention started at 10 am, and it was packed early. Fatigue set in by evening, so most people were gone by 5:00 or 6:00 pm. Yet, from like 8:00 to 11:00 pm they had 3 video game related bands there. By that time, everything else was shut down (including vendors and food/beer), so there was little reason to hang around. I think in the future the bands should be earlier, and maybe have less of them. Save the money and put it elsewhere.


Overall, though, that was an excellent production for a first year convention. Everything happened on time and without a hitch. I will definitely be back next year and recommend it for anyone else in the area. On the VGC reviewing scale, for a first year convention, I would give this one an easy A+.