Why can’t more museums be like this?
Day 2 of my trip (Thursday, 22 January) started off with a visit to The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. But not for some run-of-the-mill collection of pictures. From the moment you get to the exhibit area, you can tell this is going to be a bit different.
You just know an exhibit’s going to be good when the sign at the entrance looks like this:
For those of you who don’t recognize it, it’s a “D-pad,” the standard Nintendo control interface born over 20 years ago.The exhibit was called “Level X” and was all about the history of videogames – 20 years’ worth of history. I think the TMMoP was an odd location for it, since there weren’t any photographs in the exhibit. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I was thrilled when I found out the show would still be running during my trip. There were lots of games and consoles, though, many of which had big historical significance. (Well, if you’re a big geek, like me, they do.)
Right inside the entrance was this gem:
The original Metal Gear, complete with design documents! And in the same area of display cases was something even more historical that that.
Original design specs for Mario! From Donkey Kong, not any Mario Bros. game. This shows just how far character design has come. I can’t imagine anybody trying to do character art on graph paper nowadays. Of course, they had the big guy too:
Also in the “art” section was a storyboarded battle sequence from Pocket Monsters (Pokemon in other parts of the world):
And to go with that one, they had some of the original design documents:
The date’s a little fuzzy in the picture (it was not a well-lit exhibit), but this page is from 1990. Has Pokemon really been around for nearly 15 years?
O.o
I thought the different name was interesting as well.As I said, the exhibit was kind of dark. In addition to all the old design stuff, they were showcasing hundreds (maybe thousands – there were a lot) of old game cartridges in their original packaging, and nearly every game system from the last 20 years. They had a couple dozen systems from different eras set up so people could get in touch with their roots. These included the biggest Xevious setup I’ve ever seen:
Xevious is my favorite old-school shooter, so playing it on a 10-foot high screen was pretty frickin’ sweet.And speaking of getting in touch with one’s roots:
TESTIFY!!!
Ahem…Yes, that’s the granddaddy of modern gaming (the post-2600 era, anyways) – the Nintendo Famicom, know as the Nintendo Entertainment System in the US. What’s especially trippy about this is that you can still buy these in Japan. Even though Nintendo has stopped producing them, they’ve licensed their manufacture to another company. For about 3300 Yen, you can still buy one brand new in many game shops. Try going into Gamestop, Electronics Boutique or Toys ‘R’ Us and asking for a new NES.This entry also marks the introduction of original video content to the site. If you click on the “Movies” link up top, you’ll find my videos above the old ones I’d posted. My videos will all be in Quicktime format, so there shouldn’t be any problems playing them. Also, I’ve got more pictures from the exhibit, but this entry is getting a tad long. I’ll most likely be adding a new page to the site some time this week and throwing up a gallery of sorts. So stay tuned! There’s lots more geekery to come. (And more non-geeky trip reports as well.)