When was the last time you saw a couple of kids play the original Street Fighter?
Doing my best to get my mind away from disgusting things that come out of little kids I decided to look around and see what else Game On had to offer. Beyond the Japanese section they also had an area for simulators, sports games, fighters, racers and even multiplayer games. There were only a few games at the exhibition to represent each genre, but just from playing what they had you would have a good idea of where the genre came from and where it's going. Unfortunately this was not true about all types of games, the fighting game section of Game On featured mostly 2D fighters like Street Fighter II and The King of Fighters. Virtua Fighter was represented, but it stood all by itself as the lone 3D brawler. Where's Tekken, Soul Calibur or even Tobal 2?
Perhaps the most depressing section at Game On is what they were calling Cinema. Barry, our own personal guide, explained that when it comes to the cinema video games don't have a lot to brag about. Very few (if any) video game movies have been worth paying attention to and our history is littered with terrible games based on Hollywood movies. The display featured posters for Super Mario Bros.: The Movie and Tomb Raider as well as two games you could play (GoldenEye 007 and Harry Potter). Enclosed in a case was Maneater, a coin-op that was designed to look like the shark in Jaws. These five things made up the entire Cinema section, which is kind of depressing when you think about it.
There are very few people who will go out of their way to defend video game movies or games based on Hollywood films, but like it or not they are a part of our culture. If anything this section should be used to show
The cinema section could have used The Warriors, Chronicles of Riddick or even Enter the Matrix. Okay, maybe not Enter the Matrix!
the Game On visitors the ill effects of our game culture. It can be a display that explains the good and bad that comes out of video game licensing, since this type of cross-media synergy isn't going to go away any time soon. Simply tossing up a couple of movie posters and featuring a Harry Potter game misses the entire point of the section, of all the sections found in this fascinating exhibit it's the Cinema section that feels the most half-assed.
Thankfully more effort was put into other aspects of Game On, including an impressive display on the importance of sound and music in games. All along the walls were listening stations that allowed you to sample some of the most memorable tunes from your favorite games. There were also a few rhythm games set up for people to play, as well as a cool display for Rez, Tetsuya Mizuguchi's crazy musical shooter. This was probably the first exposure many of the visitors had to Rez and they appeared to be eating it up. Every time I walked past the display I couldn't help but notice that somebody was playing Rez; people of
Not every game featured at Game On is worth standing up for!
all different ages were enjoying this trippy little action game. And best of all, unlike trade shows like E3 you could actually hear the songs in the background without cuddling up to the speaker.
But like so many other sections in Game On this music section just wasn't large enough. Many of the biggest music hits were completely absent from the event. There's no PaRappa the Rapper, no Amplitude, no Vib-Ribbon and no Guitar Hero (though not from lack of trying). Instead we got Konami's Beatmania, a game that is hugely popular in Japan but failed to draw any attention in the United States. Game On does feature Dance Dance Revolution, but it ended up being featured in the Kids' Section (their spelling, not mine) along side the Nintendo DS and Speak & Spell.
This young boy prepares himself for another Call of Duty sequel!
In my one day at Game On I was able to observe all kinds of different visitors attending the event. As you might expect there were a lot of children at this exhibit, a lot of them under the age of 13. There were a few adults (mainly parents) and a couple of teenagers looking to play some games, a nice cross section of about two or three dozen different people. Although it's always hard to tell who the real game collectors are, the hardcore gamer market wasn't well represented on the day I visited the exhibition. This is not a bad thing; the people that did show up were given an entertaining history lesson on the trials and tribulations of the video game industry. They learned all about our industry's rocky beginnings and could map out how we got from Pong to the Xbox 360. At least they could if they were paying attention.
As I observed the children running from one game to the next I couldn't help but overhear some of their uninformed conversations. For example, as one kid was looking at the Dreamcast his friend incorrectly stated that it was a Nintendo 64, a system he said he used to own. None of the kids seemed to know how to hold the seventeen-button Jaguar control. And more than a few kids wondered how anybody could enjoy the games on the Famicom. But that's just part of the process, this exhibit may not teach these young gamers everything they need to know, but it will plant the seeds in their heads so that as they get older they will realize that the video game industry didn't start with the Sony PlayStation.
