BadBoyBill
07-21-2008, 08:20 AM
I had the pleasure of attending the California Extreme classic video game and pinball show this weekend with Brian Hoffman and PaulStevens.
The event was held in San Jose, California at the Parkside Hall. It was about a 4 hour drive and was well worth it. Just walking up to the place you could immediately tell there were a lot of enthusiasts by their retro T-Shirts and others with trucks full of game parts and empty trucks ready to be driven away with new purchases. It's a 2 day event plus a preview day on Friday, but not being sure of what to expect we only went for one day.
Once we got past the sign in area we entered the main hall which was loud and full of people. You could really just walk any direction and start playing games immediately which were all set to free play. So we went left and right away we found ourselves stuck playing Street Fighter 2 HD remix in a modified Alpha 2 cab. Since this game isnt released yet for the Xbox 360 we were suprised right away and very excited to jump right in. The cab was amazing because the team creating the game went all out to creat the cab with an Xbox 360, HD monitor and hacked 360 controls wired to Happ competition joys and buttons. They went as far as to create an awesome CPO and marquee that looked very professional. The graphics were extremely crisp and they did a very good job of bringing classic Street Fighter game play into a newer era of graphics. We talked to the lead graphics guy for a while and he explained to us that the game is built on dreamcast code and that they are simply just redoing the graphics and not adding much new to the game in an effor to keep the gameplay exactly as how you remember it. There are no added frames so you will might notice that it is not as smooth as you would expect but this was intentional so that the game play would be as close as possible to the original. I personally didnt notice anything wrong at all. Not only did they redo the characters but the backgrounds, the floor and menu's. I could talk about a whole lot more on what we learned of the game but that can be later.
There were several items for sale also. One table was having a dollar marquee sale. I bought a Super Street Fighter 2 marquee and a MK2 marquee which I cant wait to have in my gameroom. Unfortunately I dont think anyone had a chance to buy any marquees since Brian bought the guy out! They also had huge stacks of NEO GEO carts for sale also. If I had a board I might have picked up a few of my favorites.
Another game we found ourselves stuck on was a game called "The Grid" by Midway games. All I gotta say about this game is "Nice". Fast paced and exciting. They had 6 or 7 of them hooked up in a half moon shape and they were constantly filled. The graphics are typical Midway along the lines of their arcade sports games like Blitz. Basically you choose a character from about 8 or so choices and you enter the arena where you run around grab a variety of guns and ammo and just let loose on all the other players. I got a chance to blow Brians torso off a few times and at one point I grabbed a flame thrower and just started torching people like there was no tomorrow. There were several levels in the open playing field with trampolines and various power ups. There are guns every 20 feet it seems so your never without some kind of crazy weapon. Overall I could tell people had a great time on this game because of all the screaming that was going on.
I did finally find the Donkey Kong 2 machine after accidently walking by it a few times throughout the day. This game was pretty interesting and well made but very very very hard. I was in the middle of dying when a member FrizzleFried from BYOAC walks up and schools us on how to play. I think he went through the entire first level(about 5 or 6 rounds) without dying before he went on to level 2 and conquered a couple rounds there no problem, until he reached one of the new levels where he pretty much wiped out all the rest of his lives trying what seems to deceptively appear to look like a simple move without success. He was very good and it was obvious he played this game alot. He flew all the way from Idaho to the event and hopefully he found it worth the trip.
I hate to say that I never had a chance to play Robotron before. PaulStevens challenged me in about 6 rounds of 2 player play. He was way better than I was but I think I'm going to be addicted now. If you havent played it before I highly recommend giving it a try. I kept dying before the fifth level since it gets pretty hectic. I hope you have good hand eye coordination if your gonna give this game a try because its fast and you better be good and dodging and shooting. Don't let the graphics fool you because this game is waaaaay hard. This game is truly one that you want to just keep trying over and over again to beat your old score.
Pinball would be the biggest part of this show since theres like a million of them there. I'm talkin old and new, and rows and rows of them. They even had a pinball high score competition that I didnt enter because it was a 2 day competition and we were only there for the one day. I played a few and definitely want one. The new Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull looked awesome sitting next to the older Indy pin. I wouldnt mind having both of them since I'm a big fan. I met a guy that claims to have 200 pinball machines in his loft. They say its like dominos and once you get one you better have some self discipline to not buy alot more.
There was one Ultracade cocktail and one stand up GlobalVR Classics there which was up for a prize in a raffle. Again you had to be there on Sunday to win the GlobalVR so I didnt bother joining the raffle, otherwise I would have. They didnt have an Ultrapin to try out which is one thing I kinda wanted to at least play. Brian and I went heads up against a guy named Chris in Mortal Kombat on the GlobalVR machine for a good 40+ rounds. He pretty much stomped us to the ground, fatality after fatality. I kept explaining that it wasnt fair because he had the 2 player side where the controls were better as a joke and he kindly switched up with me where he continued to break me off. I did beat him a few times but overall I was humiliated. But I did feel better later when we came back and I proceeded to stomp Brian into the ground quite a bit.
A couple other cool things we saw were a miniature NEO 19 4 slot candy, a minature battlezone, an Adams Family pinball machine that was pedal powered from a gaming bike, some chicken shooting game(forget what it was called) that blew feathers into the area between the monitor and screen when you beat a round (hard to emulate according to PaulStevens), and much more.
Another highlight of the day for us was that we go to meet Circo from EmuMovies.com. What a great and motivated guy. He's really into his project and is doing great. I think we spent a couple hours just talking about games, playing with HS, and discussing his movies and his other projects. He finally got a chance to see HS for himself and I'm sure he'll give his opinions. We found out that we live very close to each other and will probably spend some time doing work together or plain ol just hangin out.
Overall I recommend going to this event. We already agreed that were definitely going again next year. If your going to particpate in any major raffles or competitions make sure you do the 2 day deal instead of 1 day. They did offer a good deal on the hotel which was only 90 bux instead of the normal 150 price. We'll have a couple pictures in our gallery soon. See ya next year!
The event was held in San Jose, California at the Parkside Hall. It was about a 4 hour drive and was well worth it. Just walking up to the place you could immediately tell there were a lot of enthusiasts by their retro T-Shirts and others with trucks full of game parts and empty trucks ready to be driven away with new purchases. It's a 2 day event plus a preview day on Friday, but not being sure of what to expect we only went for one day.
Once we got past the sign in area we entered the main hall which was loud and full of people. You could really just walk any direction and start playing games immediately which were all set to free play. So we went left and right away we found ourselves stuck playing Street Fighter 2 HD remix in a modified Alpha 2 cab. Since this game isnt released yet for the Xbox 360 we were suprised right away and very excited to jump right in. The cab was amazing because the team creating the game went all out to creat the cab with an Xbox 360, HD monitor and hacked 360 controls wired to Happ competition joys and buttons. They went as far as to create an awesome CPO and marquee that looked very professional. The graphics were extremely crisp and they did a very good job of bringing classic Street Fighter game play into a newer era of graphics. We talked to the lead graphics guy for a while and he explained to us that the game is built on dreamcast code and that they are simply just redoing the graphics and not adding much new to the game in an effor to keep the gameplay exactly as how you remember it. There are no added frames so you will might notice that it is not as smooth as you would expect but this was intentional so that the game play would be as close as possible to the original. I personally didnt notice anything wrong at all. Not only did they redo the characters but the backgrounds, the floor and menu's. I could talk about a whole lot more on what we learned of the game but that can be later.
There were several items for sale also. One table was having a dollar marquee sale. I bought a Super Street Fighter 2 marquee and a MK2 marquee which I cant wait to have in my gameroom. Unfortunately I dont think anyone had a chance to buy any marquees since Brian bought the guy out! They also had huge stacks of NEO GEO carts for sale also. If I had a board I might have picked up a few of my favorites.
Another game we found ourselves stuck on was a game called "The Grid" by Midway games. All I gotta say about this game is "Nice". Fast paced and exciting. They had 6 or 7 of them hooked up in a half moon shape and they were constantly filled. The graphics are typical Midway along the lines of their arcade sports games like Blitz. Basically you choose a character from about 8 or so choices and you enter the arena where you run around grab a variety of guns and ammo and just let loose on all the other players. I got a chance to blow Brians torso off a few times and at one point I grabbed a flame thrower and just started torching people like there was no tomorrow. There were several levels in the open playing field with trampolines and various power ups. There are guns every 20 feet it seems so your never without some kind of crazy weapon. Overall I could tell people had a great time on this game because of all the screaming that was going on.
I did finally find the Donkey Kong 2 machine after accidently walking by it a few times throughout the day. This game was pretty interesting and well made but very very very hard. I was in the middle of dying when a member FrizzleFried from BYOAC walks up and schools us on how to play. I think he went through the entire first level(about 5 or 6 rounds) without dying before he went on to level 2 and conquered a couple rounds there no problem, until he reached one of the new levels where he pretty much wiped out all the rest of his lives trying what seems to deceptively appear to look like a simple move without success. He was very good and it was obvious he played this game alot. He flew all the way from Idaho to the event and hopefully he found it worth the trip.
I hate to say that I never had a chance to play Robotron before. PaulStevens challenged me in about 6 rounds of 2 player play. He was way better than I was but I think I'm going to be addicted now. If you havent played it before I highly recommend giving it a try. I kept dying before the fifth level since it gets pretty hectic. I hope you have good hand eye coordination if your gonna give this game a try because its fast and you better be good and dodging and shooting. Don't let the graphics fool you because this game is waaaaay hard. This game is truly one that you want to just keep trying over and over again to beat your old score.
Pinball would be the biggest part of this show since theres like a million of them there. I'm talkin old and new, and rows and rows of them. They even had a pinball high score competition that I didnt enter because it was a 2 day competition and we were only there for the one day. I played a few and definitely want one. The new Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull looked awesome sitting next to the older Indy pin. I wouldnt mind having both of them since I'm a big fan. I met a guy that claims to have 200 pinball machines in his loft. They say its like dominos and once you get one you better have some self discipline to not buy alot more.
There was one Ultracade cocktail and one stand up GlobalVR Classics there which was up for a prize in a raffle. Again you had to be there on Sunday to win the GlobalVR so I didnt bother joining the raffle, otherwise I would have. They didnt have an Ultrapin to try out which is one thing I kinda wanted to at least play. Brian and I went heads up against a guy named Chris in Mortal Kombat on the GlobalVR machine for a good 40+ rounds. He pretty much stomped us to the ground, fatality after fatality. I kept explaining that it wasnt fair because he had the 2 player side where the controls were better as a joke and he kindly switched up with me where he continued to break me off. I did beat him a few times but overall I was humiliated. But I did feel better later when we came back and I proceeded to stomp Brian into the ground quite a bit.
A couple other cool things we saw were a miniature NEO 19 4 slot candy, a minature battlezone, an Adams Family pinball machine that was pedal powered from a gaming bike, some chicken shooting game(forget what it was called) that blew feathers into the area between the monitor and screen when you beat a round (hard to emulate according to PaulStevens), and much more.
Another highlight of the day for us was that we go to meet Circo from EmuMovies.com. What a great and motivated guy. He's really into his project and is doing great. I think we spent a couple hours just talking about games, playing with HS, and discussing his movies and his other projects. He finally got a chance to see HS for himself and I'm sure he'll give his opinions. We found out that we live very close to each other and will probably spend some time doing work together or plain ol just hangin out.
Overall I recommend going to this event. We already agreed that were definitely going again next year. If your going to particpate in any major raffles or competitions make sure you do the 2 day deal instead of 1 day. They did offer a good deal on the hotel which was only 90 bux instead of the normal 150 price. We'll have a couple pictures in our gallery soon. See ya next year!