Modern and Retro Gaming at Florida Supercon 2013

It was like finding an island oasis in the middle of another oasis. Florida Supercon 2013 featured a ton of awesome comic books, comic related merchandise, guest stars, Cosplayers and yes oh yes, video games, modern and classic.

The video game section was away from the main convention hall right next to the band stage so you could listen to bands rock out while playing everything from League of Legends to Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker. On the other side of what I called the gamers hall was the concession stand so we had video games nestled between music and food, it doesn’t get much better.

Over at the Origin PC video game station we found our friends showcasing more of their awesome video game PC’s. We never get tired of seeing their tri-screen display that is any gamers dream. We also got a look at the powerful, but compact Chronos machines and I got to try the Nvidia Shield hands on. By the way, the Shield was playing Borderlands off of one of the Origin PC machines and it looked and played great.

ORIGIN PC also featured a live demonstration of Intel’s insanely fast “Thunderbolt” technology with their high-performance systems and showed a full video explaining all of its amazing new features! Don’t know what Thunderbolt is? You can learn all about it here: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/io/thunderbolt/thunderbolt-technology-developer.html

Origin PC had a lot of systems set up so gamers could come and play as they wished on them, but they also held some tournaments where the best of the best could win some cold hard cash. I got a chance to take a look at the League of Legends tournament and as always it did not disappoint. It was great to see them there and keeping PC gaming going strong.

Now we already talked about Stealth Mobile Gaming and their awesome outdoor mobile gaming stations, but there was more retro gaming inside. Right across from Origin PC was the Florida Arcade & Pinball Exposition which featured classic arcade cabinets of many of your favorite retro games. These are original arcade cabinets and were all free to play. They featured games including Donkey Kong, Asteroids and Pac-Man. In addition, they had both classic and modern Pinball machines including, Spider-Man and a cool new one called AC/DC.

We had a chance to talk a little about the games and the group of collectors who shared their awesome arcade and pinball machines so fans could get their fill. You can check out that interview on our upcoming podcast.

 Last but not least we found another retro gaming heaven within heaven itself. To the left of Origin PC and across from the console gaming tournaments we found a table featuring a ton of incredible classic games from NES up to N64. You could pick out any game you wanted and play it on one of the many television screens and console systems setup behind the table. I saw people playing Mario Cart, Strider and an awesome game of Smash Bros.

Now I am not sure if you have seen Jace Hall’s ultimate game machine, but it look as if we found its brother or sister depending on your view. In the back center was a breathtakingly beautiful arcade cabinet that allowed you to play a multitude of games off of the M.A,M.E emulator platform. This machine looked awesome with all the bells and whistles that would make any gamer smile. You could literally surround yourself in classic gaming all day for no additional cost.

It was great to see so much classic gaming at a Comic Convention. Everyone I talked to was surprised at how many people turned out to play these classic games. I was not surprised. Classic gaming is in all gamers and sure, we love the modern games, but classic games have a special place in our hearts and always will. I can wait till next year to see them expand on it.

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