Last year I came to Blackpool and there was a storm so horrendous I couldn't even stand on the seafront to talk to you. This year it was glorious sunshine — and I spent the entire day indoors. Worth it, though. Play Expo is still one of the best events on the calendar, and my only real regret is that I didn't book the full two days.
The honest headline is this: it was busier this year than last. Noticeably so. I suspect the storm kept numbers down in the previous year, but even allowing for that, it's become so popular that it's almost a victim of its own success. There are loads of arcade machines, loads of consoles, loads of PCs — and it was still hard to get on things. We queued for the Out Run deluxe cabinet. I never got on the Star Wars pod at all, which I did manage last year and absolutely loved, because the queue was just too big. Even sitting down at a console took some patience. There's a queue for your lunch too.
You can't really grumble about it, though. It's busy because it's good. That's the trade-off.
The people are half the reason to go
I met the Oliver Twins, which was the thing I'd been most looking forward to. Two of my gaming icons from the eighties — I sank an enormous amount of time into the Dizzy games as a kid, and of course they've done far more than Dizzy over the years. There's a bit of footage of that in the video.
Then on the Sunday came the announcement, and it's a bigger one than I realised at the time. Dizzy turns 40 in 2027, and to mark it the twins revealed Ultra Dizzy live at the show: a remake and reimagining of Treasure Island Dizzy that lets you switch versions mid-game — the original ZX Spectrum build, the NES one, a brand new Mega Drive version that never existed, and a modern 2027 edition on top. Codemasters are behind it, and it isn't the only Dizzy thing in the works. From what I understand they're going back to their roots and working from home, the way they did from their bedrooms back in the eighties. Fingers crossed.
Funny footnote: we were staying at a Premier Inn outside Blackpool, went down for breakfast, and there were Andrew and Philip Oliver having theirs. I said hello and left them to it.
I also finally said hello to Gemma from TheGebs24 — I'd seen her up in Birmingham and hadn't gone over, so I made a point of it this time. She was doing really well; it was rammed in there. And 8-Bit Boy UK was running a Kong Off, a high-score Donkey Kong competition. I didn't even manage a thousand points. Absolutely hopeless. I love that cabinet and I am terrible at it.
The other highlight was Dominik Diamond. For anyone who doesn't know, GamesMaster was how a lot of us got our gaming news before the internet existed — Channel 4, all the way through the nineties — and his Q&A was genuinely funny, an easy hour to sit through. Then at five o'clock he came out and did a music set, singing about video games. Not what I expected at all, a bit odd, but good fun, and it mostly held together despite a few technical hitches. I held my camera up for half an hour of that and somehow have none of the footage. No idea what happened.
The haul
I can't help myself. There's a big old pile of PS3 games, which fits with what I'm covering this month. Mostly things I already own digitally or on PS4 but wanted on the original hardware — The Last of Us (I think I've got three copies now), a couple of the Uncharted games despite owning the collection, that sort of thing. I did accidentally buy a second copy of LittleBigPlanet 2 because my game library told me I didn't have it. Annoying.
I meant to take my Spectrum Dizzy tapes to get signed and forgot them, so my wife dashed off to a stall and found a copy of Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk that I didn't already own — and in immaculate condition. The Oliver Twins signed it. Really pleased with that.
Some Game Gear games, four for a tenner. Nothing amazing, but I picked up that refurbished Game Gear with the new screen earlier in the year and I want an excuse to play it more, because that screen is wonderful.
It's not the best quality one ever. It's a bit busted, a bit scuffed — let's call it well loved. But it's brilliant.
That's the Game & Watch Donkey Kong, finally. I've wanted one for ages and always baulked at eighty or ninety quid. This one's scratched, someone's engraved their name on the front, and the clip is missing — so it was cheap. It works perfectly and the game is so much fun. I've already been playing it. And it's a nice thing to end up with given how much time I spent earlier this year on the man who designed the Game & Watch in the first place.
A couple of PlayStation Move controllers too, since mine went to my nieces along with the PSVR. They can be pricey now; these weren't.
But my favourite thing is a book: The Arcade 1971–1999 from Bitmap Books, which had genuinely only just come out — it was announced a fortnight before the show. It's Paul Drury of Retro Gamer and Edge, 408 pages, 120 coin-ops, told largely by the people who made them, with a foreword by Nolan Bushnell and an afterword by Eugene Jarvis. Beautifully printed, lovely colourful spreads, proper articles and facts about individual games, running from Computer Space and Pong through the eighties and nineties classics. I opened it at random on Gauntlet. People say Bitmap's books are expensive — they're not, for what they are. Honestly, if I had the space and the money I'd buy the lot.
What's next
Another road trip at the end of the month: the Oxford Gaming Market, one of my favourites, and unusually it's in October this time rather than the spring — Saturday 31 October, on Halloween, at the King's Centre, run by the same Replay Events lot behind Play Expo. It's one of the better markets, far less chaotic, plenty of space, a relaxed affair rather than a manic one. If you're local, get down there.
And I'll be back on the PlayStation 3 next week, starting with the launch — it was a rocky start and it very nearly got beaten by the Xbox 360, which I think is an interesting story.