If you grew up on a steady diet of Mario, Pokémon, Zelda and other classic videogame franchises, you'll feel right at home at the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Texas. The NVM is a fully interactive nostalgia trip with particular emphasis on the 1970's and 80's as the Golden age of the video game industry, when Atari and then Nintendo ruled the landscape. It continues through the 90's and concludes with the present day of PS4 and Xbox One, as well as the resurgent interest in board games. I remember seeing a similar exhibit as a kid, but back then I was much more interested in playing Frogger than in learning the history of one of my favorite hobbies.
As soon as you enter the main exhibit hall, you might be in for a sensory overload when you see the giant (and playable) Pong game and the wall of every system ever made since then, including the Atari 2600, NES, Sega Genesis and every generation of PlayStation. Interactive screens provide more information on every single one of those consoles, including technical specs and facts about the time period in which each was released. Moving on, you'll see stations devoted to controllers, handheld gaming, early computer games, modding and video game music. If you enjoyed PaRappa the Rapper, or want to hear what the Chrono Trigger theme song would have sounded like with an Atari or Sega Genesis sound chip, you'll enjoy the music exhibit. You'll see display cases full of limited edition consoles and games, including almost every Pokemon game ever released for Nintendo GameBoy or DS.
There's plenty of opportunity to do some gaming, including an IBM computer running The Oregon Trail and a line of consoles set up for visitors to play Halo and Mario Kart 64, among others. Visitors are even given tokens to play in the (very warm) arcade that's stocked with Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede, Joust and other classic machines. Still, the main objective here is education as you learn about the development of gaming technology and the people who developed it, including Ralph Baer, the inventor of the Magnavox Odyssey and creator of the ping-pong video game that would inspire Pong. Baer's "Brown Box" prototype is on display in the museum. One thing I knew little about was the crash of 1983, brought on by, among other factors, the oversaturation of poor quality games (including Atari's infamous E.T. game) and the growing popularity of computer games. Nintendo gets the credit for reviving the console market in 1985 with the Nintendo Entertainment System.
A mock-up of an 80's kid's bedroom, complete with Duck Hunt (a personal favorite).
It'll take you at least two hours to get through the entire museum, maybe longer if you take lots of pictures and stop to read every placard in the place. Between the educational elements and the playable games, there's plenty here to engage visitors and amuse your inner child, as well as actual children.
