Flack's 2005 OVGE Pictoral Review

[Flack]

Originally posted on robohara.com -- cross posted on Digital Press, Atari Age, and Particles.

 

June 18th marked the third annual Oklahoma Video Game Exhibition (OVGE), held in the Tulsa Mariott Southern Hills Hotel's ballroom. Dozens of vendors and exhibitors showed off thousands of games and systems to hundreds of gamers both young and old.

 

[ Pre-Show Excitement ]

 

Last year I decided I had so much fun exhibiting a table that I would do it again this year. Phosphor Dot Fossils came up with the perfect theme for my table this year -- Star Wars. It was perfect timing, due to the release of the last Star Wars movie (Revenge of the Sith) less than a month ago. PDF and I began planning and working on the theme, but unfortunately my wife threw a wrench into our plans. She's pregnant, and our ultrasound predicted the the due date as (you guessed it) June 18th. I sadly relinquished my tables and any hope of attending OVGE.

 

On our next trip to the doctor, he changed his mind and moved our "due date" to the 4th of July. That meant I could now attend OVGE, but my tables had already been resold. Instead, this year I would be attend OVGE as just a spectator. I was looking forward to doing that for a change. I got my camcorder and digital camera ready for the show.

 

As fate would have it, someone ELSE cancelled (the day before the show -- tacky), leaving Jesse "Crossbow" Hardesty (OVGE organizer) with empty tables. Jesse called me at home, asking me if I could still put together a table.I didn't get the message for a couple of hours, and by the time I was able to get back with Jesse, it was 6pm. I decided to take the tables, only 15 hours before the show's doors opened.

 

I frantically began throwing systems, games, and random Star Wars collectibles into tubs and loading them into my minivan. I finished loading around 3am. That left me two hours to sleep before making the two hour drive to Tulsa, which would give me just under an hour to get everything set up. No problem!

 

 

Here's the minivan, circa 3am. Tubs, a dolly, sacks of crap and two lone helmets (Stormtrooper and Boba Fett) filled up the back of of the van.

 

 

Yoda, strapped in and ready for the ride.

 

[ OVGE Review ]

 

Unfortunately my wife and I didn't arrive at the show until about 8:10am, with doors set to open at 9. I ran into several people who came by and said "Flack! Hi, I'm ..." but I was in such a hurry that I didn't have much of a chance to stop and talk to people at that point. Fortunately for me, Icbrkr had already set his table up the night before so he and his wife Ginger gave me a hand in carrying piles of crap in from the van and getting everything set up.

 

 

Here's how my table (with the red table cloth) ended up. I dug some old Star Wars cutouts out of the garage which brought a lot of attention to the table. On the left hand side of my table I had my Atari 2600 (Vader model, of course) with all four official Star Wars carts. I also had Ewok Adventure on a flash cart as well. I had an Atari joystick hooked up, but most people who played the system swapped the joystick out with my Genesis controller. In the middle of my table I had my SNES hooked up with all three Super Star Wars games, and the new Jakks Star Wars joystick. On the right hand of the table I had all three current gen systems (Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox) with a variety of Star Wars games rotating through them. Lego Star Wars got the most game play, followed by Rogue Squadron. The table was covered with almost every Star Wars console game, the Star Wars helmets, and of course Yoda which got a lot of attention.

 

 

The far end of my table had kids battling the Empire in Lego Star Wars (Xbox), with Boba Fett overseeing the festivities.

 

 

Here is me with my "Yoda balloon hat", courtest of Balloon Boy. Ah, Balloon Boy. I don't know who he really is, but Balloon Boy (a name I gave him) is a guy who comes to OVGE, wanders around and makes balloon animals for people and kids. As strange as the idea sounds, the guy is really talented. For the record, I wore this Yoda hat for exactly ten seconds (long enough to take a picture) and then stuck it on the Stormtrooper hat. Late in the day, I had a five-year-old kid come by and play on the Jakks stick for almost half an hour. I awarded him the "Jedi of the Day" award and gave him the hat, which he proudly wore the rest of the day.

 

 

The Mario balloon hat was equally impressive.

 

 

Here are Albert and Andrew Davie manning the AtariAge table. I had not met Andrew in person before and was surprised when I first heard his Australian accent! Andrew and I talked a bit about his love of programming Atari 2600 games. Later that day, someone informed me that Andrew worked on several classic console games as well including the Three Stooges game! It's a good thing I didn't know that in advance, as I probably would have spent the rest of the day following him around asking him questions about it. In the foreground of this picture you can see some of the various books AA had for sale.

 

 

Just a collection of some of AA's wares they had available. AA's display looked more professional than some of the actual stores' tables.

 

 

Forum member SteveW casts away at Go Fish, one of the games AA had for sale at OVGE. I can't decide which is more wonderful -- a little kid (background) playing Atari, or that many Commodore monitors all together in one place.

 

 

The Atari Flashback 2.0 made its debut at OVGE 2005. It's a nice little piece of hardware, although apparently this unit was a beta unit and only contained 10 of the 40 promised games. Unfortunately Curt was not at the show -- I was looking forward to meeting him after seeing him interviewed on the BBS Documentary DVD (bbsdocumentary.com).

 

(continued)

[Flack]

 

The OVGE tournament had people lined up to play games both old and ... older.

 

 

GameXchange had some cool swag to show and play, including those new USA model Famiclones which finally accept original NES controllers. I had planned on buying one at the show, but as luck would have it I ended up winning one in a drawing! More on that in a bit.

 

 

Brad Prillwitz always has killer stuff to show off. This picture of these flat panel monitors don't really convey just how beautiful they are in real life! I played some two-player space game (I forgot the name of it) on the Jaguar on these babies and learned that in space, there is no mercy. After getting shot in the back several times, I moved on.

 

 

You want retro? Check out Brad's Atari Lynx collection. There were also two Lynx's here, hooked together for some head to head action.

 

 

Earl "Phosphor Dot Fossils" Green usually corners the market in "old" cool stuff, but this year he had enough newer stuff to attract people from both crowds! Earl not only has a collection of vintage computers and gaming consoles, but vintage televisions as well. You think you know old? Earl knows old.

 

 

I don't know how much it will take, but some day I will own that PSX joystick. Earl's mammoth pastel joystick panel gets some lovin' from a random Dig Dug fan.

 

 

Earl "Phosphor Dot Fossils" (center), with co-conspirators Kent and Mrs. Dot Fossils.

 

 

Another shot of some of Earl's booth.

 

 

Brian "Icbrkr" Green and his wife Ginger had an awesome import theme going on, with several games running for people to play. Icbrkr also ran the official OVGE webcam directly from his table, thanks to the hotel's wireless internet access!

 

 

Ginger and Icbrkr look on as Jason Simpson throws down a round of Mr. Driller.

 

(continued)

[Flack]

 

The Joust cocktail made it back again, along with several other vintage (and very nice) video games. There were very few moments while this machine was unoccupied.

 

 

SteveW talks with MegaManFan (in blue). MMF's table was split between his love for MegaMan and his love for the Atari 2600. MMF ran a DVD video which had MMF footage combined with a rockin' audio track. There's only one of these, and I have it. Thanks again, man. My son is watching it right now!

 

 

GameRush's Halo 2 tournament brought in the hardcore gamers. I got shot just by standing too close to the televisions.

 

 

 

 

Trade-N-Games hade a HUGE amount of stuff packed into the corner. Lots and lots of boxed games and systems. I brought basically four plastic tubs of stuff and three televisions, and I am sore this morning from moving it all. I would hate to imagine how these guys moved all this stuff to and from the show.

 

 

Cecil Thompson's collection, including this beautiful Atari 2600 kiosk, towered in the corner of the room.

 

 

More of Cecil's systems.

 

 

If you had Pac-Man fever and it was driving you crazy, Jeff Cooper's table was the place to be. Not only did Mr. Cooper have a nice selection of Atari games, he also had this killer collection of Pac-Collectables. His son is also a Star Wars fan, and spent a lot of time at my table.

 

 

Scott Huggins brought this awesome mini-MAME Cabinet which certainly attracted a lot of attention throughout the show. Scott programmed the ColecoVision homebrew port of Astro Invader, and Scott had the cabinet there to show the comparison between his version and the original. Unfortunately, most people just wanted to play MAME games on it. I can relate -- I had my Xbox out to show Star Wars games and came back more than once to find people had rebooted it, got into the emulators and were playing various other games.

 

(continued)

Edited June 19, 2005 by Flack

[Flack]

 

 

These were the final two pictures I took while standing in my booth, looking out across the sea of people. Just like every year, I thought I had a picture of every booth and now looking back I can see that I missed a lot of groups and people. I have a few minutes of camcorder footage that my wife shot, so hopefully I can get that online shortly as well.

 

I almost forgot to mention -- OVGE once again had drawings throughout the day, and I won one! I ended up winning one of those new super cool Famiclones (the USA version, that uses actual NES controllers!), a complete set of the Burger King Activision handhelds, a $20 gift certificate from Vintage Stock, a Digital Press Advanced Guide, and a Yars' Revenge cart autographed by Howard Scott Warshaw. How cool is all that?!?!?!

 

As always I had a blast. It is always fun to get together, play games, and talk to people about playing games.

 

Thanks to everyone who spent a moment (or more) of their time chatting with me, including Earl "Phosphor Dot Fossils" Green, Brian "Icbrkr" and Ginger Green, Mr. and Mrs. MegaManFan, AltairBoy, SteveW, Jeff Cooper, Al and Andrew Davie, Greg (2600Lives), Jason Simpson, Brad "PureEnergy" Prillwitz, Max and Dustin, Josh Risner, and anyone else I'm forgetting at the moment. And of course, super extra special thanks to Jesse Hardesty and his family for putting on the best darn convention Oklahoma has ever seen.

[Dan Iacovelli]

nice pics Flack,

I noticed a certine magazine by the one jaguar in the picture wonder what that was

(for those who didn't know that was the final Jagfest issue, I told brad

he dsiplay it at the show,since he is AVC representive for OVGE)

[CPUWIZ]

Thanks for the pics and captions.

[Dones]

Great pictorial! Thanks for the pics Flack.

[uosipa llamxew]

I almost feel like I was there. Thanks Flack... your posts are never boring!

[ScottHuggins]

Yeah, dangit! People figured out how to get out of the current game (Astro Invader) and back to the main menu. I would leave for 2 minutes and come back and see 8 kids plaing Donkey Kong or something. Ah heck, no biggie. People enjoyed it...that's cool.

 

Flack, good luck with the (very soon) new arrival to your family! I purchased a boxed Turmoil from your booth and will be firing that thing up soon.

 

Scott

 

 

 

 

The Joust cocktail made it back again, along with several other vintage (and very nice) video games. There were very few moments while this machine was unoccupied.

 

 

SteveW talks with MegaManFan (in blue). MMF's table was split between his love for MegaMan and his love for the Atari 2600. MMF ran a DVD video which had MMF footage combined with a rockin' audio track. There's only one of these, and I have it. Thanks again, man. My son is watching it right now!

 

 

GameRush's Halo 2 tournament brought in the hardcore gamers. I got shot just by standing too close to the televisions.

 

 

 

 

Trade-N-Games hade a HUGE amount of stuff packed into the corner. Lots and lots of boxed games and systems. I brought basically four plastic tubs of stuff and three televisions, and I am sore this morning from moving it all. I would hate to imagine how these guys moved all this stuff to and from the show.

 

 

Cecil Thompson's collection, including this beautiful Atari 2600 kiosk, towered in the corner of the room.

 

 

More of Cecil's systems.

 

 

If you had Pac-Man fever and it was driving you crazy, Jeff Cooper's table was the place to be. Not only did Mr. Cooper have a nice selection of Atari games, he also had this killer collection of Pac-Collectables. His son is also a Star Wars fan, and spent a lot of time at my table.

 

 

Scott Huggins brought this awesome mini-MAME Cabinet which certainly attracted a lot of attention throughout the show. Scott programmed the ColecoVision homebrew port of Astro Invader, and Scott had the cabinet there to show the comparison between his version and the original. Unfortunately, most people just wanted to play MAME games on it. I can relate -- I had my Xbox out to show Star Wars games and came back more than once to find people had rebooted it, got into the emulators and were playing various other games.

 

(continued)

877131[/snapback]

[+Cafeman]

Thanks for the awesome pictorial!!!!!

 

From the apparent size of the OVGE (does that sound like the feminine version of OKGE? ), it reminds me of the early days of the Philly Classic, where things were a bit smaller and more cozy.

 

That Joust cocktail ... drool, I'd love to find one of those.

[Trade-N-Games]

It was great to see everyone! The event was great for us at Trade-n-games. Thanks Everyone. The event was perfect and thanks for donuts in the morning and subway at lunch and then some cookies for a snack. That was very nice and thoughtful for the vendors who were busy. I would love the show to be even bigger next year but still have this great atmosphere again.

Jason

[bradjewell]

Awesome pics..

 

Thanks for sharing, flack.

 

Makes me wish I could've been there...

 

 

Brad

[MrsMegaManFan]

Thanks for the pics, Rob! MMF and I have some of our own pictures yet to post - but we won't able to post them until we get back home tomorrow evening. (We left the cable for the camera back home.... )

 

I had a great time at this year's OVGE - saw a lot of familiar faces (Albert, Rob & his wife, Earl & his wife, icbrkr & his wife, Billy Eno, DJ Badger, Paul Slocum, Crossbow & family, Jason from Trade-N-Games) and met some new ones (Binary Goddess, 2600Lives, SteveW, Stingray) as well! If I've missed anyone, I'm sorry!

I'm looking forward to coming back to OVGE next year - but I think we might need another table!

[Stingray]

It was good to meet a few of you folks who I know from this board. I intended to stay longer, but at about 1 PM that Vectrex I bought started calling my name. I had to get it home and plug it in!

 

Lots of good stuff to see & good people to chat with. I'm already looking forward to next year.

 

-S

[classicgamingguy]

Flack:

 

Great shots and editorial! Glad that I could at least see the goings on in Oklahoma, since I live so damn far away as to make attendance virtually impossible. Sigh...not something my wife would like to go to, but perhaps NEXT year I can convince her to take a vacation during that time and we can both go..

 

Steve

[Big Player]

Great set of pictures. I notice that Lord Helmet and family seem to be in the background of about every other shot.

 

How big was the show compared to last year?

 

This is just making my classic gaming show withdrawl that much worse. Why can't Philly get here sooner? Argh!

[+Random Terrain]

Thanks for posting those pictures for many reasons. One reason being that some of those pics are great motivation for weight loss. I refuse to look like a huge classic gaming pig-man any longer. Those damn Satanic kettle cooked potato chips keep calling me. Must resist. . .

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

huge classic gaming pig-man

878014[/snapback]

Man, I didn't think we were boaring.

[SteveW]

Thanks for posting those pictures for many reasons. One reason being that some of those pics are great motivation for weight loss. I refuse to look like a huge classic gaming pig-man any longer. Those damn Satanic kettle cooked potato chips keep calling me. Must resist. . .

878014[/snapback]

 

That first picture of me (the one where I'm playing Go Fish) makes me look like a doughy serial killer....... I have to be lit just right, or it makes me look like my chin flab is hanging down to my adam's apple. Plus, I really needed a shave, so the stubble makes me look even stranger in that shot. I also look a heck of a lot taller than I really am in those pictures for some reason, which is good.

 

I was planning on bringing my digital camera with me, but I knew I'd be too distracted by everything that's going on to actually use it.

Edited June 21, 2005 by SteveW

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Flack:

 

You have no idea how grateful my wife and I are to you and your wife for literally taking those tables so last minute like that. Not only that, but you went well above and beyond the call to put together an absolutely fantastic display to fill the gap!

 

We really do appreciate it, and hope that the new addition to your family becomes a future gamer as well.

 

Thank you both again!

[maibock]

Thanks for sharing the pics!

[Albert]

Thanks for posting all these great pictures, Flack! I have a whole bunch I need to post, but that's not going to happen before the weekend. Was good seeing you and your wife at the show, as well as all the wonderful Star Wars goodies you brought along for everyone to ogle over. I love the picture of Yoda strapped into his seatbelt! I bet that gets a few stares on the highway..

 

..Al

[keilbaca]

Thanks for sharing the pics and the comments. Makes me want to be there more... I'll make it to one, I swear I will.

[Lord Helmet]

Great set of pictures.  I notice that Lord Helmet and family seem to be in the background of about every other shot.

 

How big was the show compared to last year?

 

This is just making my classic gaming show withdrawl that much worse.  Why can't Philly get here sooner? Argh!

877966[/snapback]

 

Dude...we were EVERYWHERE

[Stingray]

Great set of pictures.  I notice that Lord Helmet and family seem to be in the background of about every other shot.

 

How big was the show compared to last year?

 

This is just making my classic gaming show withdrawl that much worse.  Why can't Philly get here sooner? Argh!

877966[/snapback]

 

Dude...we were EVERYWHERE

878215[/snapback]

 

Why is it that I never managed to meet you? Turns out there were so many people at that show that I wanted to meet, but only actually met maybe four or five.

 

-S