Retropalooza

Yesterday I took the kids to the amazing Retropalooza convention in Arlington, Texas, and boy did we have a blast! There were loads and loads of dealer tables with some very cool nostalgia items on display, classic and rare games galore, cosplayers, and even a few YouTube celebrities. Take a look at some of the fun things we discovered.

The owner of Tendril here was willing to let him go for a meagre forty dollars, making it the best deal I found.

The Star Wars dealer table got a little more love than usual thanks to the buzz surrounding Episode VII.

Came with an old record!

This was my pick-up at the convention. I’ve been searching for a copy of Dungeon! for years now. Wizards of the Coast apparently bought the rights and recently re-released it. Thanks a million! One of my most fondly remembered board games from back in the day. Anybody ever played this? It’s sort of like a simplified version of HeroQuest. All the fun, without as much of the boring setup.

A Winner Is You, Pro Wrestling.

The game to end all games. You can still find copies everywhere. It’s very common, but historically very, very significant.

Bet you’re wishing you held on to that old Duck Tales game now, right?

There were many surprises, like this Bonk game for the NES. Over two hundred dollars!

One I’m sure I’ll never see again. The Last Starfighter for NES. At first glance, I thought it was a DVD.

This booth had both customized consoles and games on display.

These are all customized games, made by fans and packaged for play on your old consoles. The market is pretty good for these games, I understand.

One of the better cosplayers in attendance. TheVCubeSolver loves Proto Man, er… Woman?

TheVCubeSolver meets one of his favorite YouTube celebs, Norman Caruso aka The Gaming Historian.

I recommend you check out his YouTube channel. His videos are very well produced and educational, to boot, which is not surprising as he’s a history teacher in real life!

The pixel art vendors were probably my favorite. Loved this stuff.

If only. I would have killed for this as a kid.

Just beautiful. Very vivid.

Of course, retro or not, the MLP gang was well represented.

Time for some action. TheVCubeSolver warms up before the Mario Kart tournament.

The Street Fighter II tournament. I might have entered that, if I didn’t have to keep an eye on the kids. Heh.

Head to head Mario Kart 64 action.

Both kids competed in the Double Dash tournament.

Unfortunately, they lost that one, despite TheVCubeSolver clearly being the better driver in the race. Got torpedoed by a red shell right before the finish line. That’s how it goes in Mario Kart…

Still, though, he won the Mario Kart 64 tourney. I was proud, he was excited. For prizes he took home two t-shirts and two games. Not bad!

(If you’re interested he got Chrystalis for the Game Boy Color and Noddy: Adventures in Toyland for the Gameboy Advance, which was something of a nostalgia item for him. He loved that show when he was little. I even dressed him up as Noddy one Halloween.)