Intro
A productive week around these parts with several things posted which we'll get to later, which was great. Its cold again though, which is rubbish. Can we get to Spring now?
The Doyle Boys Hit Bristol
So last year me and the boys went to the History of Video Games experience in Bristol, and decided to go again this year.
Now, the situation with local video game venues has changed a bit since last year with the full opening of the The Cave in nearby Stroud which opened to the public last March and now has a dedicated arcade space. The Bristol one is, however, a bit easier to get to and bit easier on the youngest being as its right smack in the shopping bit of Bristol near a Burger King.
So did we have fun? Yes we did; there's a decent selection of arcade cabs from different eras and games consoles to play. This year the space had opened up a bit with an area for several of the recent mini emulator consoles like the NES Classic and even that Amiga one. There were a couple of sofas with N64 and Gamecubes in front of them, both loaded with controllers for lots of people to play with. Here’s some photos:
Which is great! Just being in an arcade is brilliant, playing arcade cabinets is just a brilliant thing.
But.
If it was close to me I'd be banging on their door to volunteer as there's lots of niggles with it; everything is laid out haphazardly with no real flow to the cabs. Its billed as being an immersive video game experience, but everything is just...there. You have nice displays going through the history of games, but they're next to a blank table with a Master System on it with a turned off TV. Those previously mentioned mini consoles? Just on a bank of desks, no instructions on how to get to the main menu to choose other games or about the console itself ot anything like that. And look at the filter on this retro arcade emulator cab:
Thats why, without even going there, I'd say if you had a choice then you should go to The Cave. From following its growth on the YouTube channel you can feel the love behind it, the cohesion behind how things are laid out and presented to people. The Bristol venue needs some serious cable management and more organisation. Its a great space, its in a shopping arcade so there's plenty of room to move things around and create that immersive experience that they're aiming for. It just needs a bit of, I don't know, care? That sounds really harsh as the people there are brilliant and just keeping that many machines going must be a labour of love. But there's a load of potential there still to be realised, you almost want someone like Arcade Club to come in and sort it out a bit.
But anyways. Its still brilliant fun, and thanks to this place I had a photo of me and my eldest son playing on a Simpsons arcade cab for the first time since 2009:
Just thinking about that makes me want to collapse into dust.
Productivity Part 1
Got a video posted!
Its another John Rand one, this one about Commando. Hopefully, with sorting out capturing game footage I can crack on with some of the Mean Machines videos. I think they need a bit of a refresh, something that maybe works with the algorithm a bit better but we'll see. Anyways, on to the next one which I need to decide on. Something about the Authority movie? Finally doing the 300 sub celebration video on Zardoz? Starting a repair series on my Spectrum?
You know what, I think I can add a poll so lets see how many of you read down this far:
Have fun with that!
Productivity Part 2
Got a podcast posted!
Episode 50! Most likely we've hit that years later than we should have done but never mind eh? Hopefully this year we can keep to a regular schedule a bit more, but previously it took a global pandemic for us to do that. Fingers crossed for the rest of the year, amirite?
Outro
Thats more than enough content for this week, I'm off to make bacon rolls for breakfast.
Bye!