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FunSpot 2007 Tournament
Nick - writer - posted on Wednesday, 06/20/07 3:55:47 EDT
Well, last weekend was my first time to a classic gaming tournament, and let me tell you I had an awesome time. I don’t think I’ve played that many pinball and arcade games in a single weekend since I went to Disney World as a kid.
Since we went to FunSpot in January I thought there wasn’t going to be much new to see, thankfully I was wrong. During the course of the weekend they kept bringing in and taking out games. Every time we would leave the classic area to take a break for Mini Golf, go to the drive-in or just to grab a bite to eat, something new would pop up.
I was most excited to see Space Ace. While they had Dragon’s Lair, I’m still more of a fan of Space Ace because I love how Dexter has a personality rather than how Dirk the Daring doesn’t speak unless he messes up. Due to the fact the game was old it didn’t register tokens correctly, so I must have dumped at least eight dollars into the machine over the course of the weekend. While the “game” is really hard, it’s great fun to keep playing it to see how far you can get.
While I didn’t meet anybody from Retro Gamer, I did get a chance to meet and talk to a lot of gamers. Friday afternoon I saw Todd Rogers and Morning Dove playing Super Pac-Man and I went right over with 2600 and said hello. Todd’s a really awesome guy in person and he was nice enough to do an interview with me. As you can see from the YouTube video my interviewing skills are lacking, but I had a great time talking to him nonetheless.
When Todd was asking me who else in the classic gaming community I’d like to meet I said “That guy who plays Crystal Castles with his foot” and then he said “Him! Mark! Come here!” So then I met Mark “The Sock” Alpiger. Once again, a really nice guy to talk to. I wish I would have gotten a video interview with him, but we talked for a good while. Mark’s an interesting guy. While he loves arcade games to death, he doesn’t own any of the home systems. It was funny when they took out a slim PS2 to put a DVD on. “THAT’S A PS2?! GET OUTTA HERE!!!” While we were talking to him he also gave us two great ideas that we’re planning on turning into comics.
The big thing on everybody’s mind at the tournament was “The King of Kong”. Last year a film crew came to FunSpot, videotaped everybody who played and they were going to do a documentary on the two guys battling it out for the world record in Donkey Kong. Just about every conversation I overheard was about the movie. People say the one guy who they make to look like the underdog is enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame by going to all the premieres, getting all the interviews and what not. Meanwhile the other player, Billy Mitchell, is made to look like the villain.
I myself am going to hold my judgment back 'till I see the film myself, but from what a majority of the players were saying, they were none too happy about it. I’ll try to see the film from both sides, the way the director makes it out as well as the players’ sides.
The biggest thing I noticed during the course of the weekend is the relationship that everybody has. It’s not just a tournament; it’s a gathering of friends. It was like going to a high school reunion. When Walter Day of Twin Galaxies came out and sold the record book, it was like classmates signing year books. “Hey! What page are you on? Awesome! Sign it for me!”
There’s a real sense of community between the players. It was like Cheers, were everybody knows your name!! ::snicker:: What I want to see is if places like the NYC Gaming Meet-Ups would be like that in ten or fifteen years. Will those guys still keep in touch? Will they still be friends? I doubt it.
So that’s what I thought of the tournament. While I didn’t do well in ANY of the games I think I came in around 35th overall. I still had an excellent time and I will do it again next year. It was great fun getting to meet a bunch of nice people while playing tons of games I have never played before.
As I’ve said before. Even if it’s not during the tournament, if you’re a fan of classic pinball and arcade games you owe it to yourself to visit.
2600 Adds:
I found the tournament was managed very well. I liked having the freedom of playing any of the tournament games anytime you want. When you received a high score all you had to do was raise your hand and a score keeper would come over and take down both your name and your score. This allowed for multiple plays on the various games for practice and the noting down of only your best scores. I unfortunately learned the hard way that you should have the score keepers write down what is your "current" best score. I received a couple of scores that I figured "pfft, I can beat that with a little practice." The problem was I never did match or surpass these scores. Because of this my high score for some games like "The Harlem Globetrotters Pinball" was not really my best score for the weekend. The tournament staff were really nice and helpful throughout the weekend and allowed us to take both videos and pictures.
The crowd that turned out for the tournament was not huge, but was a decent amount. Mark Alpiger told us that it can be hit or miss with high score holders trying to break their records. Apparently last year saw a ton of people with video cameras set up trying to break some high scores and get into Walter Day's book. We did have two people at the tournament to both flex their muscles and to break a world record. First there were a couple of boys (could not find their names) who were competing for the Super Mario Bros. speed record. Next was Lori Baker, a 31 nutrition educator who broke the world record for the Gameboy game TETRIS DX. Her high score is an outstanding 841 lines and was done at the tournament with both Walter Day and an extra referee watching. There is a full interview over at the Twin Galaxies site.
I had a lot of fun competing in the old school pinball tournament. I was never a HUGE pinball fan. I generally liked only a handful of machines that I have played. This was before I got a chance to play some of the older pinball machines. I am now hooked on old school pinball and can't wait till next years tournament to play some more. I basically played nothing but pinball this year and loved every second of it.
CyclopticInsight's Take:
The Captain and I got up to Funspot a day after Nick and 2600 did, so we didn't get the Friday experience. For that matter, neither of us bothered to compete in any of the games - in my case, I didn't have much money to throw around, I'm not good enough at any of the classic games to rank up with world record holders (particularly those in the tournaments this year). Further, while I love pinball and might even have a remote chance during a lucky game, the games featured were the older style of pinball...and as I said in my previous review of Funspot, I prefer more recent tables. Instead of competing, I took advantage of a coupon that Nick provided to get a ton of tokens for $20, which lasted me the entire weekend.
Not competing gave me a different experience entirely. I spent most of Saturday playing Bosconian, one of my favorite classic games and certainly a hard one to find outside of Funspot. Other than Bosconian, I played few of the classic games upstairs - don't get me wrong, I love the classics, but I spent almost all of my time and $20 on the pinball. I pumped quite a few tokens into Grand Lizard and Big Guns, which is a great game from 1987. Again, just like last visit, I also spent some quality time with the Addams Family. One thing I've always enjoyed about pinball - if you know the table well, you'll consistently get the replay, and thus will spend only half the amount of money you would've spent playing video games instead. Then again, if you can play video games as well as some of the guys we met at Funspot, you're probably getting a few hours of game for each token.
So while I'd like to talk about the arcade in more detail, my experience wasn't entirely different from last time, and you can read that review here. Instead of rehashing this experience, and since 2600 and Nick have already covered what you'd want to know about the tournaments, I'll instead talk about the road trip in general. I sense a pattern of supplemental reviews coming from myself here, perhaps I'll actually talk about the arcade in question next time!
I started out on Friday, which was a frantic day involving packing and getting ready at a rapid pace. I started out to pick up the Captain, and promptly got caught in traffic, which continued well after I reached his apartment and delayed us a good 2-3 hours. The drive up was fairly uneventful, other than one point where we got lost during a stop for coffee. We found that nearly every gas station along major roads in New England has a Dunkin' Donuts, and thankfully, the one we found also had Jolt Cola, which I hadn't had in awhile. We picked an extra can up for John, who stayed up to wait for us in case we needed directions to the hotel.
On Saturday, we spent almost the full day at Funspot after an awesome breakfast at the Tilt'n Diner, located in Tilton NH. We also were going to play some bingo, but arrived too late due to a quick stop at another local arcade at a mini-golf course - their sign advertised an arcade, but it featured redemption games, a few old pinball tables, and not much else. They did, however, have a great bowling simulation game, which featured a bowling puppet. Your degree of control in this game is limited to the angle of the ball - a lever is moved forward to bowl, but you cannot control the power, curve, or anything else. The pins are on strings, held in place by weak magnets, and for 50 cents you get a full 10 frames of play. While the game was fun, the rest of the arcade was disappointing. This was an arcade ruled by redemption games in close proximity to the center of classic arcade gaming, which struck me as somewhat ironic.
Though we missed out on bingo, we did take in a movie at the drive-in theater, which is an experience I have missed out on for quite awhile. Unlike Nick, the last movie I saw at a local drive-in was Problem Child, which doesn't quite match the screen as well as Independence Day. This time, I figured I'd make it worthwhile - so I grabbed a few pints of Blue Moon at the bar with the Captain, and handed John my keys. 2600 and Nick wanted to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3, but the rest of us hadn't seen 2 yet, and instead got tickets for Spider-Man 3. The Cap'n and John had already seen the movie, so we spent our time heckling the movie. While it looked great on a nice big screen, the movie is somewhat dark to begin with and wasn't always 100% visible - also making it interesting is the fact that 5 minutes before the movie started, rain started belting against the roof of my van hard enough to make it difficult to hear. This didn't matter one bit, as we were drunk enough not to care.
The most interesting part of the drive-in experience, however, was the arcade - that isn't to say that the movie wasn't worth it, as I felt that I got more than my money's worth. It's just that I have never seen a drive-in theater with an arcade fully set to free play. It was weird to be in the arcade ruled by redemption games, but far moreso to be in an arcade on the same road as Funspot which had Captain America and the Avengers sitting next to Sega's Spider-Man beat-'em-up, a Neo-Geo MVS, and (to 2600's horror!) a Baby Pac-Man which had been converted to run The Combatribes instead. In a way, the drive-in represents the perfect complement to a Funspot trip: in my previous review I mentioned wanting to play some beat-'em-ups, and for less than twenty bucks you can play them all you want less than five minutes away by car. Highly worth visiting.
Sunday was quick, and there isn't much left to say. We got some breakfast, did some candlepin bowling, and hit the road home with a rainstorm racing us the entire way.