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.
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The owner of Tendril here was willing to let him go for a meagre forty dollars, making it the best deal I found.
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The Star Wars dealer table got a little more love than usual thanks to the buzz surrounding Episode VII.
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Came with an old record!
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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.
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A Winner Is You, Pro Wrestling.
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The game to end all games. You can still find copies everywhere. It’s very common, but historically very, very significant.
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Bet you’re wishing you held on to that old Duck Tales game now, right?
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There were many surprises, like this Bonk game for the NES. Over two hundred dollars!
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One I’m sure I’ll never see again. The Last Starfighter for NES. At first glance, I thought it was a DVD.
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This booth had both customized consoles and games on display.
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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.
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One of the better cosplayers in attendance. TheVCubeSolver loves Proto Man, er… Woman?
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TheVCubeSolver meets one of his favorite YouTube celebs, Norman Caruso aka The Gaming Historian.
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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!
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The pixel art vendors were probably my favorite. Loved this stuff.
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If only. I would have killed for this as a kid.
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Just beautiful. Very vivid.
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Of course, retro or not, the MLP gang was well represented.
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Time for some action. TheVCubeSolver warms up before the Mario Kart tournament.
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The Street Fighter II tournament. I might have entered that, if I didn’t have to keep an eye on the kids. Heh.
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Head to head Mario Kart 64 action.
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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…
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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.)