Round two of our own little Mid-South Gaming event took place on Saturday, December 4th, 2004. This time around Icbrkr and his wife Ginger hosted the festivities in their northwestern-Arkansas home. Digital Press regulars Phosphor Dot Fossils and Flack (me) attended the event.

I spent a couple of hours Friday night loading up my mini-van with lots of gaming goodness. I was convinced that we were going to run out of stuff to do over the weekend, a fear that not only turned out to be completely unfounded, but exactly the opposite of what happened. Each of us broke out a week’s worth of crap to show to the other two, and we had less than a full weekend to do it in. In the back of my mini-van I had two 30-gallon tubs overflowing with controllers, games, cartridges, movies, and other toys. In addition to that I brought my laptop, my SX-64 setup (complete with one VERY attractive monitor, despite what Icbrkr says!), my Amiga 500 setup, and some other odds and ends. In addition to that, I knew that both Icbrkr and PDF collect TI 99/4A stuff, so I brought the large TI collection that I inherited to divvy up between the two of them.

I could tell the three of us were all on the same wavelength Saturday afternoon when PDF and I both pulled up to Icbrkr’s house at exactly the same time. Good timing! After a quick tour of Ice’s home, we began unloading. We turned his garage into a staging area of sorts – before long however, we had stuff strung from one end of his house to the other, literally. I know I had stuff in the computer room, stuff in the game room, and stuff in the living room, not to mention the stuff that stayed in the garage! Between all three of us we made three or four trips just to unload my stuff, and another couple of trips each to get all of PDF’s. How I ever thought we might actually run out of stuff to do is beyond me.

After some tasty Mexican morsels that Icbrkr’s wife was gracious enough to pick up for us, we decided the first item of the day would be the division of the TI 99/4A items I had brought.

For those who don’t know the story, I ‘inherited’ a large Texas Instruments collection from a man I never met before (want to know more? Read the link at the top of the page). I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t collect for the TI computer, but I made it a point to find people who do, and offload this collection off to them. I figured having Icbrkr and PDF both in the same place at the same time was the best it was going to get, and so I brought the entire pile (about ten mid-sized boxes of items)

As you can see, it was no easy task. The collection consisted of everything from TI computers themselves (about half a dozen or so, some still mint in box) to software (unopened), loose carts, cassette tapes, cassette drives, peripherals, newsletters … you name it, there were probably half a dozen of them in the pile. After dividing up the dupes, we settled on a system involving alternating picks. The first pick was decided by a virtual coin toss on Ginger’s Palm Pilot.

This process literally took a couple of hours. I’ll bet there were literally a couple hundred games, not to mention all the other stuff. I felt like my mission of distributing the collection to people who would truly enjoy it has been completed.

But we didn’t come all this way to work – we came to game! And so we did, relocating the party to Ice’s game room.

Connected to Icbrkr’s 27″ television are at least a dozen gaming systems, with many more ready to go at a moment’s notice. One thing I had really wanted to see ever since PDF mentioned it was Pac-Man VS. Three players using Gamecube controllers get to control ghosts, while the fourth, using a Gameboy Advance, controls Pac-Man. While Pac-Man can see the entire maze via the GBA’s screen, the ghosts can only see their immediate surrounding area. This was a lot of fun! PDF started off as Pac-Man but I caught him before long. PDF traded back and forth a few times and I asked Icbrkr if he actually knew how to play Pac-Man. He did, and answered by catching poor Packie a few seconds later.

Behind the couch we were sitting on sat Ice’s latest finds, Altered Beast and Gondomania arcade cabinets that he found on eBay. As Ice and PDF blasted away on Gondomania, I grabbed my camera and captured the Kodak moment.

I then balanced the camera on Icbrkr’s television, set the timer, and ran back across the room just in time to jump into this picture and pretend like I had been standing there watching the entire time.

While the two of them wrapped up their arcade antics, I broke out the next item on the menu – Propeller Arena. Ice broke out a couple of Dreamcast controllers, and the three of us engaged in some frantic aerial dog fighting. I don’t mind saying that I won the first three or four games, mostly because the two of them had never played the game. Once Icbrkr began winning games, I knew the two of them had learned the controls so I quickly suggested we play something else.

Soon, PDF began breaking out some of his wares, including his awesome PSX joystick that I have long drooled over. It’s like an arcade control panel, but plus-sized. There are two joysticks, each with eight buttons, plus two select and pause buttons. This is the joystick to play Crazy Climber with, and I did. I’ve played Crazy Climber on so many different systems and with so many different controller variations over the years that I’d forgotten just how fun (and initially, awkward) it was to play using two joysticks (one controls your left hand/foot, the other controls the right). Someone mentioned that it would be awesome to use the stick on Robotron. We didn’t have that handy, but PDF did pull out Arcade Party Pak for the PSX, which includes Smash TV. After plodding through the menu several times, all I was able to do was configure the right joystick to control shooting for player two – then it hit me! I reconfigured the sticks so that the left one controlled player one’s shooting directions, while the second stick controlled player two’s! Then I started the game and simply rotated the joysticks, killing everything in sight! Believe it or not I beat the first level this way! Unfortunately, after you beat the level you have to walk to the exit. I had forgot to configure a way to do that! Oh well. We all laughed a lot during this. Before retiring PDF’s awesome joystick I dug out the Capcom Collection disks and played some Commando and Gunsmoke with that stick. Too awesome.

This was around the time we broke for dinner. I had envisioned the three of us going to some cool restaurant and hanging out for a while, but by this time we had all realized just how little time we had for this shindig, and so we opted to make a quick run to Burger King, home of the screechiest metal chairs I’ve ever heard (a fact I displayed repeatedly). For those who don’t know, Bentonville, Arkansas is the home of Wal-Mart. Imagine my surprise when we actually had dinner on S. Walton Blvd!

After we returned from dinner, focus of the evening shifted from consoles to computers as we huddled around Icbrkr’s wicked Commodore 128 setup. Ice and I spent a couple of hours digging through both of our old Commodore collections, showing different games off to PDF (who was an Apple user growing up). We tried copying a few games for PDF but due to some floppy incompatibility I don’t think we got it to work.

While we messed around in the computer room, PDF showed us a few of his retro audio CDs he’s picked up, including the 8-Bit Weapon CD which is full of old Commodore 64 tunes, remixed. Those CDs were just one of many things I could have spent hours going through. We simply just ran out of time.

By this point in the evening, due to a lack of sleep and the long drive, PDF was fading fast. Eventually, we helped PDF load up all of his stuff along with all his newfound TI booty. This is kind of a crappy picture, but since I took so few I’m including it. This stuff in PDF’s backseat is the stuff that wouldn’t fit in the trunk.

Ice and I didn’t make it too long past that. My plan was to crash at Ice’s house, get up on Sunday, and hit the road around 8am.

Yeah, right.

Sunday morning after breakfast, we wandered back into the game room and since I own a Gamecube with only one stinkin’ game, Ice showed me a couple of killer Gamecube games including Ikaruga and True Crime, two games that really made me rethink my “Cubes are for Kids” stance. After that, we blazed through some Galaga ’90 on the PC-Engine. Around this time I called my wife and told her I wouldn’t be leaving until around 10am. While playing Galaga, one of us (I forget who) mentioned the CD32. Before long we were back digging through my tubs, trying out a few random CD32 games I had brought. When I mentioned that the CD32’s graphics don’t look as good as I remember the Amiga looking, Icbrkr said, “we forgot to look at your Amiga!” I bought an Amiga 500 a few years ago but have had no idea on how to use it. Before long, Ice was hooking up his Amiga 1200 in the living room floor and I was connecting mine to his living room television. I called my wife and told her I wasn’t leaving until noon. She said I had better. After an hour or so of Amiga gaming, we had better call this meeting of the Mid-South Gaming club officially over. The one thing my wife really liked about this trip was how much less stuff I came home with, after giving Icbrkr and PDF the TI collection. This also made it a lot easier to pack up – this time we only had to make three trips each.

Before long I was back on the road again, making the four-hour drive between northwest Arkansas and central Oklahoma. I always enjoy gaming with other people, but gaming with people who you talk to regularly and have the same interests as you is even more fun. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I laughed this much, and I think PDF and Icbrkr will say the same thing. The minute I pulled out of the driveway I began making a mental list of things to start looking for on eBay, games to buy and systems to pick up.

The MSG club is quite elusive and very sneaky. The next unofficial meeting is planned for this spring (all meetings are unofficial – there are no official meetings because it’s not even officially a club). Who’s house is still up in the air, but one thing’s for sure. More fun will be had.