Video Game Central

For the months of August through to October SZ hosted a video games exhibition at OCT creative exhibition center.  Just head to the giant UFO style silver building at OCT BAY and it’s there.  Now I’ve been let down in the past by exhibitions in SZ, so I went here unsure what it would be like, but it was FANTASTIC.  I was like a kid in a candy store.  The organisers did a superb job in putting this together and producing something different.  It’s 3 floors and has a lot to see and interact with so a full afternoon/evening will be needed Id say.  I was there for around 4-5 hours.  weekday time will be quieter than the weekends and the evenings which is a better time to go IMO. Also, weekdays will have no kids there which is also a bonus.  So what’s there exactly?

Nostalgia overload

Now with this being in one of the coolest buildings in all SZ you expect something special.  And it does not disappoint.  The 1^st room you enter will blow you away.  Neon colours, strobe lights, mirrors and pictures of classic video game characters.  It’s a feast for the eyes and a bit of an overload for the brain. We spent around 20 mins in just this room taking pictures!  There’re so many great photo opportunities here, any instagrammer will be in heaven. And tons of little nods to video games, movies, and TV that most millennials will smile when they see it.  The 1^st floor has mainly classic arcade games, the 2^nd floor has the consoles and the 3^rd floor has the interactive games and the VR games.

Geek out

Pretty much any classic video/arcade game of the 1970’s onwards are here.  From Pong to Donkey Kong, Mario Kart and Pokémon.  You can play Atari or Gameboy, arcade Pacman or Halo 3 on the Xbox. Pretty much any game you liked to play at any point from your childhood will be here.  Most of these are available to play in 1 or 2 player and you can just pick up a pad and play for as long as you like. It is actually a really impressive collection and are all in full working order and fully playable. One thing I realised though, either I wasn’t as good at video games as I remember, or these games are a lot harder then I remember. Either way the afternoon was full of frustration as well as fun, with me shouting at arcade screens asking why why why!?  As someone who had most of his childhood in the 90’s it really brought back a lot of good memories for me, especially playing Sonic on the Sega.

Group games.

There’s also a lot of fun to be had for small groups of friends. Not only are at least 2 players always better than 1 with these video games. There were interactive games like Nintendo switch, Rock Band and a dancing game on a Huge screen which was a lot of fun and very cool! Seeing a group of 6 people dancing to a big screen Ed Sheeran was pretty surreal.  And of course, with this being China there’s an abundance of VR to play around with too.  One of the pleasing things was there was no pressure to rush through, staff were happy for you to take as long as you wanted on each game and were super friendly and shared a joke or 2.