Retro Gaming Expo
On Saturday I took my motorcycle down to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Here are some of the things I saw: (warning! blurry camera phone photos incoming!)
PEOPLE SELLING CRAP Most of the expo looked like the best garage sale ever only with really ugly carpets. The merchandise comprised Atari 2600 and NES games mostly.
FIERCE COMPETITION. Actually I didn’t compete in anything but come on man look at these people they’re playing donkey kong I mean seriously.
RARE STUFF. Sweet God, it’s “Mother!” The only game in this series to make it to the US is “Earthbound” for the SNES. For those not in the know, Nate Page describes it as: “They wanted to make Peanuts the RPG but couldn’t afford the license…” Also right next to this table, a dude had a sealed copy of Suikoden 2 for $300. Those are literal American dollars.
I hoped (but didn’t necessarily expect) to stumble upon something rare and shockingly cheap but it didn’t happen. These were the hardest of the hardcore retro gaming nerds gathered here and all were equipped with laptops or smart phones. At one point I spied a bare “Persona” PS1 disc with no price tag—I asked the dude how much and he said he didn’t know. I thought surely I could swoop in with a ten-dollar-bill and lay claim to this treasure but several keystrokes on his laptop later and he spit out “90 dollars.” Truly this is a post-Antiques Roadshow world we live in.
The one thing I did walk away with from this show that I can take pride in is—holy crap awesome—A BROKEN POWER GLOVE.
Yes I know—IT’S SO BAD. If anyone has any requests of things they’d like to see me karate chopping with my Power Glove, by all means let me know at (bradleykerr @ gmail.com) and I will do my best to accommodate.
NOW I’M PLAYING WITH POWER.
