This weekend I’ve been to Berlin with my friend NinjaBrite, we had a relaxing weekend with a lot of fun. One of the best things we experienced though was the Computerspielemuseum (Video Game Museum). It’s a permanent museum on Karl Marx Allee in central Berlin and it’s got a lot to offer!
They had loads of retro gaming consoles on display in pretty green boxes, all labeled with the name of the system. I photographed mainly all the ones I didn’t own, so I would remember what to look for next ;D There was only one game displayed in these green boxes, which was Atari’s E.T.! But there were lots of other games there that you could play in other areas.
They also had an arcade area with original old arcade cabinets that were free to play!! This was totally exciting for me since I’ve hardly ever gotten to play any arcade machines, except when I was in Japan. The coolest one was of course the original Pong arcade cabinet, and an old spacey green arcade cabinet with some kind of shooter. You only got the try these out on mondays though and we were there on a thursday :( but we got to play a lot of Donkey Kong, Space Invaders II, Frogger, Gauntlet, Asteroids and others ^^
There were a lot of cool things to see, read about and experience. For example they had 4 computers playing Ludo against eachother, a 5 player pong you could try out, a computer you could ask anything and another computer which was impossible to beat!
Immediately at the entrance there were life sized statues of famous characters such as Link from Zelda, Rayman, Jak & Daxter and Lara Croft ^_^
They also had a GIANT Atari Joystick! It was even working and hooked up to an Atari 2600 Junior and you could play Pacman with it ^_^ I of course had to try it out! It was difficult but worked well!
Another cool game we tried out was Rom Check Fail! This was a recently made game (don’t remember by who..) that was basically a bunch of old classic games merged together in one big glitch! Really hard but really fun to play ^^ One second you’re playing as Pacman in Mario world, the next your the Asteroids ship flying around in Hyrule haha ^_^
This was a GREAT museum! And I recommend anyone going to Berlin to go see it ^_^
Retro Video Gaming 
A really cool museum with lots of fun!!! ^^ 42!
Sounds Great! Five player pong is intriguing. I think I need to visit Berlin…
Wow! Now I got a reason to go to Berlin. Thanks Heidi for a great blogg :D
Berlin is awesome! You should totally go there ^_^
“an old spacey green arcade cabinet with some kind of shooter…”
Faint, THUD. That, my dear is Computer Space, the first commercial arcade game (not counting pinball machines and such found in amusement parks and other spots):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Space
There’s one here at a museum out in Queens (The Museum of the Moving Image, I believe), but it’s not working (boo!)….
I really do have a way with words, don’t I? ;D hahaha
Seriously, since it wasn’t monday we couldn’t try it out so I was just guessing what was on it, and I’ve actually never seen it or heard of it before.. might be a bit too long before my time ;D hehe
Thanks for the info though! It sure was the coolest looking arcade cabinet there :D I did think Pong was older though.. since it didn’t look as “futuristic” ;D
Heh. Yeah, those “space-age” cabinets are cool, aren’t they? I think they weren’t easy to manufacture and expensive, while Pong was mass produced once it became a hit, so cabinet design was secondary and simple (and why Pong cabinets remind me of outhouses for goblins or lawn gnomes)…
I’ve only seen them in that green (two-player model) and I think one blue one, so the purple model in the video is a nice variant and Wikipedia says a few more colors were made. CS is also interesting because the game can’t be emulated in a normal way unless you do this:
You’re very good at finding places to go with tons of Retro video game goodness.
Too bad this museum didn’t have a few things for sale.
I can’t believe that giant joystick works!
And ROM Check Fail seems like it might be crazy cool!
Great post :)
FYI – you can get ROM Check Fail (and Farbs’ other games) here:
http://www.farbs.org/games.html
You can even play ROM Check Fail at that site! What a wild and whacked game!
That’s a pretty fun idea for a good laugh. Great little game.
It sure is a crazy game! :D I’m glad geelw found it online so you guys could try it out ^_^
OMFG cool! Thanks geelw! :D :D :D
Thanks, I do make an effort in finding them ;D And I’m not always successful, my road trip in Florida can speak for that lol ^_^
They did have a store at the museum, but they only sold new souvenires, like refrigerator magnets, mugs, t-shirts, posters etc. No games :(
so awesome!
^_^