A Day Out At Magna

Today I took a visit to a special gaming exhibition at Rotherham's 'Magna' museum, entitled 'Games Britannia - Replayed. Housed in one of their conference rooms there were more games consoles hooked up to small CRTs than you could shake a stick at with over a hundred games from the Spectrum and Atari, via the NES, SNES and Mega Drive through to the current and previous generations. In fact, think of a console, and it was probably there, even including handhelds.

Alongside that there was also multiplayer areas for games such as Halo and X-Box live games, a CBBC area for kids and even an Acorn to program on. There were regular games challenges for prizes and an area selling games from all years amongst other merchandise.

When I arrived there, after two train journeys and a bus ride, I headed straight for the Nintendo stand who were showing 'New! Super Mario Bros 2', the new Kingdom Hearts game, 'Beat the Beat' for the Wii and showing off Kid Icarus with the new 3DS XL, which looked sexy and the screens massive, and if I didn't already own a normal 3DS I'd be tempted by it.

'New! Super Mario Bros 2' was playable in demo form with three levels and though it was fun to play and the coins mechanic placed everywhere, it wasn't a huge departure from previous games and the 3D effect wasn't that astounding, just offering a distinctive between the background and foreground and not as noticeable as in 3D Land, for instance. Though looking very much like the DS game, it's difficult to notice the graphical upheave to the 3DS, it's still worth a play just don't imagine anything different. I can't help feeling that Nintendo's recent milking of the Nintendo franchise might not be good news for the portly plumber.

Though I only got to play one round of 'Beat The Beat' that played well and was challenging, with the music as catchy as the DS version.

I also took the opportunity to play some of the retro Tomb Raider games, tackling a few levels of 1, 2 and 3 but the lack of memory cards in the consoles meant no real progress could be made. It did remind me, though, that even if they can't compete graphically the older games are far better than the newer ones.

I also had a go at the first world of the SNES classic 'Donkey Kong Country' and trying to win a prize on the 'Bubble Bobble' competition. I did get the lowest score, though, of the people who entered, not surprising when you consider I'd never played the game before and thought it was 'Puzzle Bobble', a game I have played.

Overall the event was interesting. A left after two-and-a-half hours as a lot of the games were occupied and I was balanced between the young kids there and the slightly creepy adults hanging around and didn't want to appear too far into the latter category.

A worthwhile event with games for all ages and a timely reminder on how good some of the older games are. It's just a shame it had only been me from my circle of friends who had come along as it was an event made for sharing with friends, but there was plenty to enjoy.