The flyers said ‘Press Start to Join gets Bigger, Much Bigger’ and with a record attendance of over 160 Press Start to Joiners’, a great night of gaming was had by all.
This was the third event we had hosted at Sussex’s premier gaming venue – The Martlets Hall, Burgess Hill. It was also the first time we had gone into the main hall.
An array of consoles were on offer for gamers of all ages to come along and enjoy. We had the FIFA tournament projected on stage and, due to phenomenal interest, ran two knockout competitions during the event which was open from 5pm to 10pm. Daytona USA on Sega Dreamcast, with double steering wheels, was alongside FIFA on the stage and was one of our prize challenges on the night, with the winner getting a fantastic sub-18 second lap time.
Other challenges included top score at Rad Racer for the Nintendo Entertainment System running on a Retron 5 and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat proved a very popular challenge, with the winner getting over 637 beats on the Gamecube’s Bongo drums.
But the busiest challenge of the night was MX2002, using a Moto X handle bar peripheral. The off-roading action was immense and no-one wore a crash helmet once.
Guests came from far and wide (Eastbourne, Maidstone and Reading were just some of the exotic places gamers had travelled from) and we also had a selection of familiar faces returning to see what gaming delights we had in store for them.
In total we had 40 consoles and a bank of 8 PC’s available for everyone to enjoy. Particular highlights based on the feedback we had was that it was good to get Horace on his Ski’s again, epic to sneak Toad over the line against Bowser, great to see Tim Henman win a game on Virtua Tennis and fabulous to tame the Streets of Rage.
New additions to this event were a Spectrum +2, a Commodore 64 and an Acorn Electron as the Press Start team have expanded the selection of home computers. With over 60 consoles to choose from now, you can guarantee a nostalgic trip down memory lane or the chance to pop one in the net past Joe Hart on FIFA 16.
We now have over 1000 games in the library so if there is something you fancy next time, send us a request to pressstarttojoin@outlook.com
Next Event
Our next event is back at the Martlets Hall on the 21st May from 2pm – 7 pm. This is FA Cup Final day and the football will be shown. So come and enjoy the big match with us and plenty of other games to play too.
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Have you attended any of the Press Start To Join events? What games have you enjoyed playing on? What would you like to see at future events?
Press Start to Join – Event Blog 16th Feb 2016
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