Magazine #12.1 8/01

Classic Gaming Expo 2K1
Part I

August 2001 saw the fourth year in a row that Las Vegas played host to an exposition dedicated to all the fans of classic videogame systems. Saturday the 11th and Sunday the 12th over 1000 visitors attended the Classic Gaming Expo at the  Jackie Gaughan's Plaza Hotel & Casino in downtown Las Vegas, right next to the Fremont Street Experience. Although a bit dated this hotel offered decent accommodations at very reasonable cost and the location is unbeatable! Las Vegas is always fun if you don't mind the heat (110 degrees F) and the hordes of eternally addicted chain-smokers.

This year a large group of NorthWest Classic Gaming Enthusiasts (Lee, Rob, Joe, Steven and I) attended and Lee and I shared a booth with Chad (of Intellicart and Cuttlecart fame) and Lissa. I arrived late afternoon on Thursday and enjoyed the day off from work. Friday I met up with Lee and Chad and Lissa and set up the NWCGE booth while checking out some of the other booths in progress. I met John, Joe and Sean, the organizers of the Expo and Keith Robinson from Intellivision Productions. Keith showed us what happened to an Intellivision console which was supposed to be heat tested at 150F to simulate being inside a car in the sun. Somehow the oven was not properly adjusted and ended up heating the console to 300F (= 150 degrees Celcius), the results can be seen here:

Saturday morning shortly after 8:00 AM a long line began to form outside the entrance to the CGE hall and at 9:00 AM the doors opened!

Hundreds of fans lined up!	The doors open!	Bummer! I hope he is doing better!	Wtf? I doubt this would hold up...
Jerry, Joe and ?? (I wrote down the name but can't find the paper)...	...from Atari2600.com in their awesome booth filled with...	...treasures galore (super size pic!)...	...even prototypes for the Odyssey2!
More goodies at Atari2600.com	Chris and Lissa (guardian of the NWCGE booth - thanks!)	Atari 2600 jr.  with S-Video modification by Chris	Later signed by Joe Decuir :)
Lee in our NWCGE booth	Chad Shell's Cuttle Cart and the unofficial official mascot!		Our booth: Chad on the left, Dan on the right

In case you haven't heard of the Cuttle Cart: check it out here. Having done some testing on the Cuttle Cart myself and being a happy owner of it I can only highly recommend it, this thing really rocks!

The booth next to us: forgot the name but they were cool - they had Mr. T gold chains!

Dan Kramer's official button to the Cosmos handheld!

'Mr. Trackball': Dan Kramer. See below for the background story of the poster!

A real fan after a visit to Dan's booth!

During some CES show the Atari engineers went over to the booth section of the then emerging adult VHS tape industry. Dan got the poster of 'Seka', the writing says: 'To VCS eng - keep the HARDware cumming - Seka' and 'Lustfully Yours - Seka'. Dan told me that the favorite of the Atari engineers was a fiery redhead who they kept visiting in her booth :)

Marc Oberhaeuser at the Roxstar booth.	Marc's booth had tons of rare stuff!	Most of it was PAL but who cares?	Yummy!
Obelix in nice box!	A new GBA-game: Roxstar: kind of like Boulder Dash on steroids - very nice!		More rarities from Marc's booth.
The 'Mr. T' booth	The Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club (Tim Arnold).	Tim Arnold raised quite a bit of money!	Tim Arnold in green, this years raffle was for the pinball museum
Some lucky winners digging through the pizes	More lucky winners...		Free buttons from Seth and micromusic.net.
Keepers of the flame: the Digital Press booth	Darn, forgot to buy one of these! Digital Press' new collector's guide!	Rob at the Digital Press booth!	The Digital Press alien...
My god! They chopped his head off!!!	The media (Electric Playground?) at the Digital Press booth.	Good Deal Games and Classic Gamer Magazine	Classic Gamesource booth: is that an Xbox magazine and a Lamecube-squishy?
Scott Walkers and the always helpful Carl Forhan at the Songbird booth playing the  'Varuna's Forces' prototype.	Leonard Herman showing his superb videogame history book 'Phoenix' - a must have. Order it here!	The console game stations had many classic games set up for play.	Lee playing Allia Quest - great game!
	Keith Robinson showing off an Intellivision  prototype.	Keith Robinson at the Intellivision Productions booth
Steve and Geoff!
Arcade PC: very nice and...	...a killer joystick setup!	Ultracade was nice too!
The NGS-USA booth.	NeoGeo setup at the NGS-USA booth
Also at Marc Obehaeuser's booth:	Scratch-LP with Vectrex-design - cool!

Booths/Exhibition Hall

Arcade Games

Both sides of the exhibition hall were filled with classic arcade machines set on free play. Favorites like Tempest and Zaxxon and many, many laserdisc machines like Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Cliffhanger and Cobra Command. Steven Hertz had brought most of these (plus a few more in the Blast From The Past booth from Damon Claussen) and it was my first chance to play Badlands (definitely not one of my favorites but interesting to see it in action). It was also the first time in many years that I could spend some time on a Thayer's Quest machine - thanks Steven! If you're into laser games check out the Dragon's Lair Project for more laser-specific CGE2K pictures.

Jeff Kinder unpacking the good stuff!	Badlands: nice cover!	Getting the laserdisc games ready!	Laser-mania: Bad Lands, Cliff Hanger, Bega's Battle, Dragon's Lair, Thayer's Quest and Super Don Quixote!
The arcade games (on free play!) were popular as always.	Inferno, Mappy, Bubbles, Krull, Juno First, Dragon Spirit and Reactor! Walter Day of Twin Galaxies on the left.	Never played this one before: pretty cool game!	Battlezone, Paperboy, ??, ??, Carnival, Defender, Missile Command!
Blast From The Past and Damon Claussen's games: Mrs. Pac-Man, Space Duel, Gorf, Mad Planets, Us vs. Them and Cobra Command!

Other games included Star Rider, San Francisco Rush, Tempest, Space Ace(?), Donkey Kong, Time Pilot, Astron Belt, Robotron 2084 and more!

Rick Dyer giving an interview

Continue with Part II

Thanks to:

The CGE2K staff - great show!
Lissa and Chad for watching our booth!

Pictures and texts © 2001 by CyberRoach™ Publishing, no content may be duplicated without the written consent of the author!
Classic Gaming Expo, World Of Atari and others are claimed and/or registered trademarks of their owners!