This year the wife and I are heading back to the Midwest Gaming Classic. This game-show happens each year and is a celebration of retro gaming, pinball, and current gaming. It is located at the Milwaukee Sheraton Hotel filled with hundreds of arcade machines, pinball machines, video consoles, and computers. Vendors now are in a huge tented area that also has live music. The whole set up has grown over the years and now has over 10,000 visitors.
The road trip takes us from Ohio roughly 6.5-7 hours depending on the route we take and traffic. We drove straight through and got there at 2 am or thereabouts. We went on a Thursday afternoon this year so it gave us Friday to relax before the weekend show. That was smart and helped us to not be cranky!
Saturday came and we started the madness of checking it all out. I drag my wife around so I can see all these great old gaming consoles of yesteryear and relive my youth. She smiles and puts up with me but I know she doesn’t see why I have such an interest. But being the loving person she is….she just looks forward to going to lunch soon and relaxing her feet after a while in the room.
My wife Erica
I enjoy heading to the arcade room, packed full of cabinets you can play for free. I grabbed the “Outrun” machine and remember loving that game! I have always enjoyed racing games but time has not been kind to most of these machines. What was once state of the art is now just janky and clumsy. Still, I play for a while with a big stupid grin on my face. I find an Apple 2c to mess with, a Sega Saturn, which I did own at one time. There are systems that I have never heard of and other old greats that make me feel like it is Christmas for my old ass! We pass the board game area where there are people playing, learning, and enjoying all kinds of different board and card games. They have instructors to even teach you how to play. How cool is that??!!
We head to the vendor’s tent and this year we hear music. For the past few years, Joel Sherfinski of “A Band of Gamers Podcast” fame has been vetting talent to perform at the show. It is an awesome addition to the show as the bands he has picked play mostly video game themed music! It makes it all feel like an amusement park setting with vendors selling all kinds of old games and systems, tee shirts, and gamer aid power drinks! This is my people indeed being the geek I am! I get to hang with my friends and really enjoyed the time spent with people I talk to often but most I have never met.
They have a cos-play contest now as well and that was great fun to see how much work went into these outfits.
We head to the cafe in the hotel to listen to speakers, sometimes game developers sometimes pinball experts or people who have worked for Nintendo and Sega back in the day. Some year I will spend more time seeing who is speaking as I always forget to really get a schedule for that and they have some great speakers I usually end up only catching part of their presentations.
Sun we make an effort to see everything again and make sure we missed nothing. We plan on buying shirts but of course …again we forgot. Guess that means we have to go back again soon and remember to get some swag dammit !!!
I would say if you are even mildly interested in retro gaming or pinball machines this show is a must. It is a big event in a great city with plenty of places to pick to eat. Everyone is happy and enjoying their time and it is a great, low-cost escape I truly enjoyed!
Images courtesy of “Midwest Gaming Classic’s Facebook site“.
Gamer for 40 plus years starting with Pong, consoles and pc gaming. It has been a hobby I have enjoyed over the years for my stress relief and continues to be fun even at my older age. This site is for a lite impression of games I enjoy.
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