PLAY Expo Manchester, EventCity, 10/11 October '15

[Treguard]

THE JUDGE COSTUME IS TO DAMN HOT!!

To quote Karl pilkington for this year

'Its proper **** ain't it'

Terrible year. Only here for 2 hours so far with a weekend pass and already contemplating going to hotel early. It's like 70% vendors 30% games. And no Killer Instinct arcade either.
Not happy this year

Must of been walking about not paying attention then, loads more games than vendors

Were you in the Street Judge costume on the Sunday as well? The one I saw then was very cool.

Went along with my missus and my lad as my mate and his kids who usually come couldn't make it this year. My thoughts- totally ignored the modern stuff, the vendors were ok if a little generic (I'd have loved more 8bit and 16bit home micro stuff) Liked the choice of games available on the home machines (completed Road Avenger on Mega CD again!) and had the interesting experience of trying to play Outrun and Daytona with my nearly 3 year old steering and doing the gears while I worked the pedals. He needs better reactions. We crashed a lot. Just wish there was a way to stop people hogging certain machines so you could get on them.

[Slick2097]

Second day was better than the first, I think I just don't like too many people.

Enjoyed the Cosplay Masquerade, got to play a few things that I missed out on on Saturday. Everything was laid out well (as someone mentioned above) this year and it didn't feel cramped. The vendors were ok.

As I said, I didn't enjoy it as much as before hand, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, because I did, just not as much as previous events (if that makes sense).

Roll on the next one.

Ste.

[Antiriad2097]

On the mention of cosplay, do we have any pics from the event?

[MikeFishcake]

I was there for both days, and it was mostly positive from me - the only thing I was disappointed with was that I didn't get chance to play on the arcade machines or pinball tables on the Saturday because it was too busy, but hey; that's good for the event

The only suggestion I'd like to make which I think could be changed would be to have more multiplayer options in the console areas.

But, things I liked:

- The indie zone. Oh crikey. Absolutely, utterly fantastic. The best part of the weekend for me, and I was so glad to see it bigger than at previous events. I don't know if the choice of games was curated by the organisers (or it was just a case of whoever applied first got a spot) but the quality of many of the games there was phenomenal. It really makes me optimistic about the future of indie games to see the sort of things that the smaller developers are producing. And what makes it even better is that there was loads of interest around a lot of the games too from kids to adults. Highlights for me being Jump Stars, Gang Beasts, Friendship Club, Team Tractor Beam, 88 Heroes and Super Adventure Pals 2. These are all on my "to buy" list. And and and and and I think it's fantastic that so many of them are doing local multiplayer too.

- The queueing system. Top marks. It worked, we got in really quickly. Nice one

- Plenty of retro computers and consoles. There was always something to play on, and they were a bit more spaced out than in previous years, without it seeming like there were fewer devices there.

- The atmosphere. I'm really confused about people saying the atmosphere wasn't as good this year. For me, it's the best it's ever been at any Replay Event (and I've enjoyed them all). I must have spent a good couple of hours in total over the weekend just walking about, soaking it all in. Some friends who have never been before said that they thought it was going to be brilliant, but it even then exceeded their expectations. Nice and loud in the retro/arcade area. Loads of cheering and general frivolity around the multiplayer games in the indie area. And lots of enthusiastic kids being shown around by enthusiastic parents. The cosplayers seemed to be enjoying themselves during the parade as well.

- Mr Biffo's talk. The first talk that I've actually been to at any retro event. So many brilliant moments, and I was crying with laughter at several points. Especially at the screenshot of Mr Biffo's goodbye message

- Hardly any empty areas. Expanded again, to include almost all the space.

- More traders. Nice to see a wider variety here this year. Not all of them really my thing, but it got a lot of interest from many people, so it's obviously a good 'un.

So yeah, a big cheesy thumbs up from me!

[samhain81]

On the mention of cosplay, do we have any pics from the event?

Only a few, but they're only from the female cosplayers, and not from angles of their fronts either

[DPrinny]

On the mention of cosplay, do we have any pics from the event?

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... t-10238903

SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT ME!!

[flatapex]

i've held back a bit on commenting about this year, i wanted to see what everyone else thought.

I'll start with the negatives: and its one big one for me. Its a games expo, its not a geek culture expo. Why were there so many stalls that didn't sell games? will sound slightly hypocritical for me because the most expensive thing i bought was a bag (and was £25 of the £41 I spent) I would have spent more if there were more games stalls. It seemed that the vendors were concentrating on trying to shift consoles and high ticket items. The pinball machines seemed to fail quite a bit though but they are fairly unpredictable though.

Ok thats enough negativity, the atmosphere was great, it was a shame that I didn't get to meet any forum members for the first time, but the ones I met again were their usual awesome selves, have to give massive shout outs to archaic koala and nakamura, easily 2 of the nicest guys in retro gaming. Got some freebie games from archaic koala which were awesome and much appreciated. My friend saved me a space at the front of the queue on sunday so headed straight to the arcade and managed to play turbo out run which was a ball ache to get on and also had a blast on daytona both on arcade and on the saturn. I loved the retro board games as well

I'll be redesigning my website and have come up with some ideas, thinking of writing an article about nostalgia for budget games

[GigaPepsiMan]

It was my first time going this year and I thought it was absolutely boss. I actually went to play in tournaments so I never got to spend much time with the actual gaming attractions, despite that though I just loved the atmosphere and feeling of being in this hall full of people playing all kinds of different games. I actually like all the different types of stalls, even the ones that weren't video game related, it felt like a big celebration of the culture. It wasn't exclusively a retro event but that is what happens when these kind of events expand, it wasn't like they were forgotten though, people were clearly enjoying themselves, I was glad I got to play some pinball because it is something I sadly can't do up here in North Wales.

[ArchaicKoala]

First of all I just need to throw in that my brain is absolutely fried, I seem to have gotten the yearly post-expo lurgy so I apologise that this will probably be an incoherent mess

Having attended all of the Manchester events and the organisers seemingly listening to all criticism over the years, my expectations this year were set high. I found very little to complain about last year bar the terrible Saturday queuing so how did this year fair?

We arrived at Event City for about 10:10am (after a quick Boost stop in the Trafford Centre ) and despite the large queues, we were both pleasantly surprised to see the queue moving, I think we were in the building for 10:25am at the latest. Well done for finally getting the queuing sorted!

Upon entering we both made our way up to the arcade section but were quickly distracted by my highlight of this year... the board games! First stop Hungry Hungry Hippos! I don't recall seeing this last year so this was a great addition and we both returned to this section many times for some Screwball Scramble time attack, I seem to have lost of skill at it but it was still fun.

Now to the arcades, we both split up at this point so this is all from my perspective. I was amazed by the sheer number of Arcade and Pinball machines and the layout worked perfectly, there was never any crushing as there has been in previous years and the selection overall was great. I spent way too much time on Midnight Resistance as normal I'm not a huge pinball fan but I do enjoy a quick game every now and again, the amount of machines available meant there was very little wait for a game which is always a positive.
Whilst I'm talking about this section, initially I felt that the Retro Collect booth was some what pushed into a corner this year with many people not knowing they were there. In hindsight though this actually worked pretty well as it worked as a good section to go to escape from the hustle and bustle and just to sit and chill with a beer, chat and play some of the challenges available. I found myself returning here quite often just to relax a bit (Also playing Ridge Racer with a DDR mat never got old )

Retro consoles... hmm... This is where things seemed to slip a bit for me, whilst there was a good mix of systems to play, I just felt a lot of the staple games were missing. It was great seeing Micro Machines reappearing as per usual but where was Smash Bros Melee (I'm not counting the Pro section as I want a chilled game) and Mashed? The sections dedicated to particular games series were a nice touch and better laid out than last year so well done on that

Shopping... A great selection of items available but the layout was atrocious! I felt like I was at a cattle market, everything was so cramped this year! Regarding games prices, although I didn't pick up much this year I was always able to haggle a bargain from many of the stores so I kinda feel the people complaining about prices didn't attempt any haggling...

Although I never attended any of the talks this year, I did notice in passing all of the stages that there was very little in the way of sound clash between them so again congratulations on that! The Cosplay was fun as ever with some fantastic costumes on show! I did see DPrinny in his superb Judge costume but never got the chance to chat with him this year (Sorry dude!)

Atmosphere... This is a funny one, I can see where some are coming from in regards to the atmosphere or the seemingly lack of. My initial impressions were not good but as the Saturday afternoon went on it seemed to pick up, It doesn't help that nearly everyone is like a rabbit in the headlights upon entering these sort of events, they are always over whelming. So erm yeah, I'm saying the initial rabbit in the headlights that people suffer was to blame for this.

Food/Drink... I found the bar location odd initially and would have preferred it in the old location (at the back with the arcades) but again this made a lot of sense as it meant the machines would be spread out well with plenty of passing space. Drinks prices were typical of events like this at £4 a pint which I couldn't really complain about. Food prices again seemed reasonable but I decided to eat at the Trafford Centre instead, the few people I spoke to regarding food seemed happy with the prices.

As per normal though with all of these events, the highlights were the people, it was great meeting up with (albeit briefly) flatapex and various other people I chat with via Twitter.
I need to apologise to flatapex though as I seemed to completely lose track of him during the fighting tournament I hope I didn't appear rude at that point, it was just that bloomin' hectic!

So to quickly summarise.
Good:
- Entry queue issues have seemingly been fixed!
- Arcade and Pinball quantity and layout
- Classic board games!
- Retro Collect stand and subsequent competitions
- Drink prices reasonable for an event of this kind (and cheaper than some pubs!)
- Themed console game setups (good choice on Sonic 1 for MS over MD)

Bad:
- Shop layout too cramped
- No Rock Band!! (I didn't mention this above as I forgot and can't be arsed to write about it now)
- Retro console selection just didn't seem right, can't completely put my finger on what didn't feel right though...

That's about it really, a few more things will probably come back to me later but... yeah... I'll leave it at that for now.

edit: That is a lot of text! Sorry!

[sirclive1]

I'm surprised people are mentioning how many vendors there were. In past years people have complained that Funstock or whoever seem to have the 'rights' to sell games and others cant. Thought the huge range of vendors were great from samurai swords, to tons of japanese stuff, american chocolates, retro games and stuff. Loved it.

Think all the zones were well mapped out, knew to avoid that Dark whatever it was called (boardgame stuff), just dont get that. Plus a lot of the LAN competitions. I thought there was a huge range of consoles/games to use, particularly liked the way they showed Batman and Robocop games in a row, from the basic Speccy game all the way to the latest console version. Tons of retro machines to try on, there were a LOT and i'm surprised how well the old classic boardgames (Buckeroo, Mouse Trap, Battleships) etc went down

This year there seemed to be more arcade machines than before, and pinball machines, huge amount. Great to see some of the indie stuff being produced for iOS or Steam, X-Box etc

Chatted to David Rowe who did the artwork for Ant Attack and many others. Didnt realise he did the artwork for Knightmare as well. Chatted to David Prowse, legend. As always great to see Paul Drury and Martyn Carroll, jdanddiets choice of clothing was a bit 'different' shall i say.

Only could go for the one day, the price of the ticket was great considering how much i got out of the show. Gutted i couldnt go the second day. Once again i'm dying to buy one of those MAME bartops i saw which were great.

A top show, roll on next year

Was going to write my own post - but apart from me and my lad going both days - psj's post just about sums it up for me , really enjoyed it this year , lots of vendors , some barely linked to gaming but still good to see the event growing .

The arcade section was a lot quieter sunday , we managed to get on every game , even a five minute wait isn't so bad to play 18 wheeler or hyper sports is it !

[DPrinny]

JUDGEMENT!!

Next time have a set amount of poses rather than acting out a scene

[psj3809]

Was going to write my own post - but apart from me and my lad going both days - psj's post just about sums it up for me , really enjoyed it this year , lots of vendors , some barely linked to gaming but still good to see the event growing .

Arrrgh see thats whats annoying ! Not being able to meet up with everyone, didnt know you were going fella ! Have to say hi next time

[sscott]

JUDGEMENT!!

Next time have a set amount of poses rather than acting out a scene

I thought your old doom was censored prinny! But that looks really good!!

[DPrinny]

It was a rush job, took my time with this one, will redo bits (helmet could be better)

Also
ONE
TWO

Yet to s the pictures of me pointing a gun at people

[nakamura]

have to give massive shout outs to archaic koala and nakamura, easily 2 of the nicest guys in retro gamings

Thank you Andy. That's a lovely thing to say and cheered me up no end. Pleasure seeing you again too, sorry didn't get to talk much but the Junkyard kept me very busy!