Portland Retro Gaming Expo (Part Uno)

This post is about six months overdue. My sincerest apologies to those I interviewed in September.

What do you think of, when you think of Portland, Oregon? Hippies hugging trees and eating Free Trade granola? Hipsters drinking Starbucks and ironically wearing vintage band tees? I do too, and I live here. The last thing I ever thought I would hear about, in Portland, would be retro games… Really? Old, clunky machines with bare-minimum 8-bit graphics and early synth music are still beloved? Why, yes, indeed! Every year, in late September, an entire exposition featuring such things, properly named the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, is held.

This hidden coin of an expo was a surprise to me, kind of like when you found out Samus was a girl. Held at the Doubletree in downtown Portland, it was a retro hub of classic systems from decades past, from Atari to Nintendo, and from Sega to original Xbox, Playstation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. Those last three consoles don’t seem to make one byte of sense, do they? According to the website (retrogamingexpo.com), classic video game is any from a system released prior to the most recent generation by any game manufacturer.” With that loose definition, the three last consoles do, in fact, count; however, their presence was overwhelmed by the much older machines that are more affiliated with the term. Keeping that in the back of my mind, with my press pass around my neck, I gingerly entered the bustling market-like area. My first experience was an olfactory overload with the funk of a few hundred eager nerds who took this expo more seriously than personal hygiene. It was apparent that I was in the right place. I practically tiptoed around the different booths, drinking in the bright colors of the arcade machines surrounding me, and enjoying the familiar sounds of games that had long been forgotten by the people at large.

Anthony Dandrea, at the Ground Kontrol booth

My first stop was the Ground Kontrol booth. I had the esteemed pleasure of speaking with Anthony Dandrea, one of the co-owners of the twelve-year-old establishment. He explained  to me that “[Ground Kontrol is] a retro arcade with [a] bar… basically an arcade for the arcade generation, all grown up.” An adult gamer’s paradise! What better way to spend your Friday than drinking and rediscovering old favorites on even older systems? The wild popularity of the arcade, located on NW 5^th and Couch, didn’t happen overnight, though. According to Dandrea, back in 1999, when it started, “[It was] just a small store, selling ‘80s memorabilia, like Mr. T bubblegum cards, 8-track tapes… and it had a few arcade games.” Those arcade games became so popular, that the focus shifted from selling memorabilia, to being an arcade itself. Today, with arcade games being so hard to acquire, it’s incredible that Dandrea, and the other owners, were able to fill a 3,000 sq. ft. space. Since Ground Kontrol’s infancy, the owners have been finding people to buy, sell and trade games with, building a rapport with the small, but enthusiastic retro gaming community. “We’ve gained a reputation for taking good care of arcade games, understanding their importance, and generally appreciating them, so people are happy to bring [their] games to us.” (To know more about them, visit: groundkontrol.com Making a mental note to see the wonder for myself, I forged on, continuing my two-day retro gaming journey.

The art of 8bitcraft.com

As I wandered further into the labyrinth of cartridges and cosplayers, I stumbled across something I did not expect: 8-bit art. Decorative magnets, depicting cherished sprites from fan favorites such as Super Mario 2, Legend of Zelda, Bubble Bobble, all the way through Final Fantasy VII. I remember these plastic beads from my childhood: You lay them out in a pattern on a small pegboard, and then with a piece of parchment paper over the top, you iron it to fuse the beads together. This would usually result in a piece of “art” that was most of the time, for me, completely obscure. Was it a flower? The Blob? I could never tell. Until I saw the “bead sprites,” made lovingly by Josh and Lydia England of 8bitcraft.com, I could never imagine that such pixelated beauty existed. I immediately bombarded the couple with questions about their wares, which they were happy to answer. According to them, their inspiration to create these pieces came from a Flickr page they stumbled upon about five years ago, which featured the sprites they remembered from their youth. After trial and error, they mastered the craft, and expanded their palette. The couple has been selling these off and on for about five years at the Retro Gaming Expo, and the Last Thursday street fair on NE Alberta Street. The website itself, however, is only a few months old. “[After taking a break,] we decided to get back into it, ‘cuz my husband thought it would be really fun… and this time we would make a web store, instead of just selling them at expos. We can reach a bigger audience [that way].” The magnets vary in price from $4 to $12, and kits to make a sprite yourself, are also available. If 8-bit is too small for you, they take commissions up to 32-bit (check the website for the form to fill out)! As I continued my expedition, I wondered if 8-bit art could be accomplished on another medium… I quickly found out at the next booth.


Stay tuned for Part Dos!


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Data Can Be a Real Boy!

On G4's Attack of the Show (AOTS) today, I saw a snippet of the new release of Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG) on Blu-Ray...

I'm all for improvement of technology, (I upgraded to an Samsung Galaxy S II...) and Blu-Ray is supposed to make the movies and/or TV shows come to life, but seriously, how much more real can CG from 1987-94 get without seeing the lines to cover up the green screen? Having to buy new copies of movies you already own is annoying, isn't it? Maybe I'm just retro-fashioned, but I like my DVD drive in my laptop, and my XBox just fine. The graphics are MADE to be blurred so the general populus has a more difficult time discerning reality from the fantasy.

Did it ever occur to anyone that, perhaps, people might LIKE the fuzziness and the less-than-adequate special effects? In my opinion, I think the original release of the first three Star Wars movies (and by "first three", I mean 4, 5, and 6) was good enough. The special effects were COLOSSAL for 1977, and they still made the world of "a galaxy far, far away" believable in 1997, when my fourteen-year-old self was watching them for the umpteenth time on VHS. (I like BOTH Star Trek and Star Wars. Don't judge me.)

The realism that Blu-Ray produces is almost eerie to the point that I don't even want to watch, anymore, and that's just the demos I see in the electronics section of Fred Meyer (NW chain of one-stop-shop stores)!! I can't be alone here. Leave a comment, and tell me how you feel about Blu-Ray in general, or what you think about ST:TNG on Blu-Ray.

WHAT SHOULD I TALK ABOUT NEXT?

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Same Nerdy Chick, Moar Nerdy Stuff...

OMGFHQWHGADS...

I am Selenetaron (sel-EEN-EH-tron), your host for this blog. I'm here to proclaim that there are, in fact, women, girls, chicks, grrrrrrrrrls, bitches, hos, skanks, WHATEVER YOU WISH TO CALL THEM, that love the same nerdy things that boys, men, (boyzIImen? haha), dudes, bros, bras, bastards, sons-of-bitches, whatever you choose to address THEM as, love and hold near and dear to their widdle hawts. <3

Now, that all that silliness is out of the way. I plan to give my opinion on, maybe review different nerdy-type things everyday of the week. Perhaps, I will throw in one book review a month. How 'bout that? This is all for now. Until the future...

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