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Prestigious Art Gallery To Exhibit Video Games
dipfan writes "Anyone passing through London (England) in the next few months should check out Game On - the history, culture and future of video games, an exhibition at the prestigious Barbican gallery, which opens on May 16. The exhibition publicity says: "Game On will trace the 40 year history of computer games from Space War, which was made way back in 1962, right up to the latest, as yet unreleased games from the likes of Nintendo, Sony, Sega and XBox." Cool. Exhibits include the first home games console (the Magnavox Odyssey from 1972), special sections on the influence of anime and manga, and lots of playable games, from Pong onwards, and a whole lot of other interesting stuff. The Barbican cinema is running a games-related film festival to go with the exhibition: Tron, The Matrix, etc. Even if you can't make it to London, the exhibition is going to tour the US and Japan."
Since submitting the story, yesterday I went to the press launch of the exhibition, and it's extraordinarily good. Basically, imagine dying and going to videogame heaven, because that's what this is like.
The exhibit doesn't have much in the way of "how games are made" filler - this is about games, games, games: 150 playable games! Woo hoo! If you're looking for an excuse to go on holiday to London, let this be it.
Going in the door there's an actual DEC PDP-1 unit on which the original Spacewar! was played. Then it's a gentle stroll through the development of games and the consoles, with almost all of them working models, some of which are hardly seen outside of Japan (the Nintendo Famicon, for example). There are some games looked at in-depth: sections on GTA3, and the making of the Sims, as well as Pokemon - there are copies of ancient GameFreak magazines - and some incredible Final Fantasy lithographs by Yokshitaka Amano. The "sound" of videogames also gets some recognition, and obviously the influence of Japan (including a couple of working Pachinko machines). The multiplayer section's cool, with a five-player playable Bomberman set-up.
Criticisms? Well, not many, unless you want to know how games are actually developed, but who cares? The "new release" section is a bit weak, with just PS2's Harry Potter game and XBox's motogp, neither of which are cutting edge. And there's no Doom, which is a serious omission given the game's historical importance in the growth of the industry (although there is Wolfenstein 3D). It would have been good (from a personal point of view) to have had the whole Metal Gear series on show, rather than just MGS2, but hey.
Strong-points: the exhibition is "platform neutral" - it's not sponsored by Sony or Nintendo or Microsoft (the organisers told me they resisted a bit of pressure from the console makers to get involved - at the cost of pushing out their rivals), and the consoles themselves are dealt with even-handedly.
The exhibition's in London until mid-September, then goes to the National Museum in Scotland. It's signed up to go to Helsinki next autumn/fall - and negotiations are going on with venues in the US and Japan. All the games are free, it's £11 entry (about $16), and at the moment it's all-day entry, but they are talking about a two-hour time limit - so get in there before the school holidays kick off. There's also a £20 exhibit guide book, but it's not worth the money (or indeed the paper it's printed on).
The Guardian newspaper had a review here.