The weather forecasters were spot on - it was 37C/98F in Washington today. In the shade. After wondering where I could go that would be cool, I decided that a museum would be the ideal place to go, and fortunately, the
Smithsonian Institution has a lot of those in Washington DC. I've already visited the Air & Space Museum on a previous trip, so I wanted somewhere different.
In the end, I went for the American Art Museum - not just because its entrance is right next to the Gallery Place subway exit, but they had an interesting exhibition on called
The Art of Video Games.
This had a series of room exploring some of the key games that pushed boundaries of game development since the 1970s, introducing new game genres and styles. They also had some giant playable games, shown in this picture, but there were large queues to play on those, particularly for Pac-man, so I didn't get to have a go.
The exhibition was more about the development of the genres and the advances that each new generation of technology had enabled, rather than how the artistic look of the games was achieved, although that was part of it too. Some displays showed how various aspects of gameplay had evolved across five generations of consoles, looking at how jumping, climbing, flying, landscapes and cut-scenes amongst other things looked at each generation.
There were a number of displays showing interviews with modern game designers, talking about what influenced them and what they thought the most important games of the past were that broke the most barriers and pushed the state-of-the-art forward.
Then there were a series of kiosks with different gaming systems through the ages - starting with this familiar-looking system and going through most of the major consoles all the way up to PlayStation 3 and Xbox360. Each kiosk had 4 videos that you could play on the screen to the left all about the games shown on the right, discussing why they were important games. The Atari one had one all about Combat, with the tanks that fired around the mazes and had the bi-planes in the clouds, and Space Invaders marching down the screen. It was interesting to see that they had an instruction booklet for Missile Command as a prized historical relic on display here too. When state-of-the-art equipment that you have used earlier in your life starts turning up in museums as a monument to the past, it makes you feel a bit older.
One final part of the exhibition shows the names of all the supporters of the exhibit. In return for my small voluntary donation to the SI, my name will now also be on the list! The size of your name in the display depends on how much you donated - so mine will not be the smallest size, but also not a full-screen just to myself!
In the end, I went for the American Art Museum - not just because its entrance is right next to the Gallery Place subway exit, but they had an interesting exhibition on called The Art of Video Games.
This had a series of room exploring some of the key games that pushed boundaries of game development since the 1970s, introducing new game genres and styles. They also had some giant playable games, shown in this picture, but there were large queues to play on those, particularly for Pac-man, so I didn't get to have a go.
The exhibition was more about the development of the genres and the advances that each new generation of technology had enabled, rather than how the artistic look of the games was achieved, although that was part of it too. Some displays showed how various aspects of gameplay had evolved across five generations of consoles, looking at how jumping, climbing, flying, landscapes and cut-scenes amongst other things looked at each generation.
There were a number of displays showing interviews with modern game designers, talking about what influenced them and what they thought the most important games of the past were that broke the most barriers and pushed the state-of-the-art forward.
Then there were a series of kiosks with different gaming systems through the ages - starting with this familiar-looking system and going through most of the major consoles all the way up to PlayStation 3 and Xbox360. Each kiosk had 4 videos that you could play on the screen to the left all about the games shown on the right, discussing why they were important games. The Atari one had one all about Combat, with the tanks that fired around the mazes and had the bi-planes in the clouds, and Space Invaders marching down the screen. It was interesting to see that they had an instruction booklet for Missile Command as a prized historical relic on display here too. When state-of-the-art equipment that you have used earlier in your life starts turning up in museums as a monument to the past, it makes you feel a bit older.
One final part of the exhibition shows the names of all the supporters of the exhibit. In return for my small voluntary donation to the SI, my name will now also be on the list! The size of your name in the display depends on how much you donated - so mine will not be the smallest size, but also not a full-screen just to myself!
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