Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2009 > March > 15 > Entry
Old-school gaming
Remember “Pong”? How about “Duck Hunt”? You can’t go home again, but you sure can play your unreliable Nintendo Entertainment System in your basement again. At least that’s what Mountain Dew hopes.
One of the most popular exhibits at Screenburn Arcade has to be Mountain Dew’s games-through-time.
Four eras are revisited:
— the early-to-mid-‘80’s (Nintendo, Atari, Super Mario Brothers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tecmo Bowl)
— Late ’80s-to-early 90s (Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, NBA Jams, Sonic the Hedgehog)
— Late ’90s-to-early 2000s (Playstation, Xbox, Golden Eye, Star Wars Battlefront); as well as modern times (Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii).
One guy sat at a Super Nintendo for 45 minutes playing “Mario Kart” — a game he beat years ago.
Scott Holmes, an account supervisor for GMR marketing, took months collecting the gear. He went to thrift stores, borrowed games from friends and went on eBay.
People have the same response, he said: “Oh man, I played that with my brother [when I was a kid],” or “I feel like I came into my basement,” they say, according to Holmes.
Everything’s period-appropriate (so there’s no playing Atari on a HD flat screen). For decor, there’s a “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” movie poster, a 1997 NCAA Final Four jersey, dartboards and more.
“I’m not really into these (newer games); they’re too hard” says Tom Kita, a gamer by the Playstation and XBOX area. He prefers the older consoles: “I like simple games.”
They’re also offering free drinks — fuel for daylong gaming.
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