Review: Game On Exhibition

I went and checked out the history of gaming at the Barbican's "Game On." Here are my thoughts.
2002-05-18

Wow. Game On. 'The History , Culture and Future of Video Games." Cool.

Been waiting to get in since I heard about it in Edge magazine. And after getting kicked out after closing, I am thoroughly impressed. Actually I'm more than thoroughly impressed, I'm foaming at the mouth and ready to buy a lifetime Barbican membership.

I could go on about how video games are such an overlooked cultural icon of the times, how they're more important than mainstream press could ever understand. I could spout on about how video games are art and not just technology. But really it's just beside the point, and the people who made the Game On exhibition know this.

The exhibition space is two floors of some of the best games ever invented. IMHO they've hit most of the biggest and best. The classics up to modern day:Super Mario Bros., Zelda64, Street Fighter 2, Robotron 2084, Tron, Galaga, Breakout. They're on display and waiting to play. And some games that I though I was the only disciple of turns out to have a much bigger following than I thought. FlashBack is one of the best games I've ever played, plus Secret of Monkey Island, and the Atari classic Adventure. And the modern games that really push the limits of technology like Metal Gear Solid and Rez.

The first thing my flatmate said to me was, "Man, I don't know about you but I had more fun playing the older games than the new ones." My natural retrogamer response in my head was,"like, Duh!" The layout of the exhibition was well thought out, with a natural historical progression at first, then moving on into different genres, a gallery of original artwork, and original works by video and game fine artists scattered throughout the exhibition.

There is little pretense about elevating videogames to a 'higher form.' The exhibition is very unbiased, with most videogames simply on display without any critical commentary. Each videogame was simply labeled. Name. System. Release Date. Possibly a couple hints as to how controls work. Generally they left it up to you to figure most things out with a vague ' move joystick to move character and pick up powerups.'

Randomly placed pieces of 'video game art' reminded you aren't in Flynn's arcade, but a highly respectable art gallery. Aside from a couple pretentious Space Invaders rip-offs, the artists really pushed the medium. Ping was a three-player game which created sound and rhythm from player's bouncing balls around in a pong style fashion. One piece presented the viewer with a joystick, and you could walk around London in a giant 3d level.

Generally the focus was on older games and some notable newer games were missing. Halo was nowhere to be found, and out of 150 games, there was ONE Xbox. New PC Games were almost non-existent, no Quake, no Doom, not even Wolfenstein.

But I couldn't get enough of the games. We ran around from game to game, trying to play a little bit of everything. Certain games had us hooked. Flashback on the Genesis looked Fantastic. My first chance to really chomp into a good Rez rhythm. Super Monkey Ball was a blast. Frantic ball-spinning energy abound from Crystal Caves and Centipede.

I realised that my transition from joystick-based console games to keyboard and mouse computer games had softened my thumbs. Although noone noticed, I was thoroughly humiliated. Only two hours of button-pushing knob-twiddling action and thumbs were sore. I looked at other players doing combos at Street Fighter and realised how far I'd fallen. I moved on.

Oh god. I drop to my knees and excuse myself while I kiss the sky. Original game art. TONS of original game art. I'm an original art junkie. Original character designs for Grand Theft Auto III. Gorgeous acrylic and ink paintings by Yoshitaka Amano for Final Fantasy. And my absolute favorite: crayola drawings of Mario and Donkey Kong by Shigeru Myamoto.

Overall the exhibition is all I hoped for and more. For me it's not an art exhibition. It might be an attempt to make video games more culturally relevant, and widen awareness of our electronic history. For some that history lesson might be their first, and it makes me happy to think someone somewhere might get the inspiration he or she needs playing Donkey Kong to unravel the Human Genome, But for me it's just a chance to live in that history, my carpal tunnel inducing history, and revel in it.