There's no denying that London lacks retro gaming stores or experiences. The best ones seemed to be scattered across the UK, usually hidden in a random town somehwere as we'eve shown in our The Retroad Show series on YouTube.
When these retro gaming stores/events are there, they're either on for a limited time or pretty much kept secret, just like the retro gaming exhibition hidden in an art gallery for just 30 days.
However, one new experience for retro gamers that has opened in London's Science Museum welcomes customers to over 150 video game consoles to explore, in what feels like a phyiscal walk through time, and each console can be played on in person with real hardware.
It's called the PWRUP Experience, open to everyone over the age of 5+ and is just £12 for a day pass or £18 for the entire year... yes the entire year!
When I arrived, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of this experience, with hundreds of consoles, lots of gaming PC’s, and vintage accessories to get your hands on.
It’s a museum, literally, allowing you to experience the history of gaming with your own hands. The most incredible section was at the back, a physical timeline of gaming consoles, all in immaculate condition, ready for you to experience with authentic controllers.
It started with the Binatone TV Master from 1976 all the way up to the Playstation 3 in 2013, that’s 43 years of history, even more if you count the PS5’s just around the corner.
I can’t comprehend the amount of controllers that the Science Museum will get through because as I left at about midday, the place was absolutely rammed with children, and you know as well as i do that some of these controllers are incredibly fragile… I'm looking at you, Nintendo 64 thumb stick!
In the centre of the room, you’ll find a 16-player Halo ring, hooked up to 16 different Xbox 360s all in the same lobby, allowing you to jump on with friends or strangers to compete in an all-out LAN War.
It’s stuff like this that made me really enjoy this experience, not for the fact that its Halo, one of the greatest multiplayer games of all time, but the fact i was set next to other people playing together, shouting at each other, teabagging other dads, watching some kids mum get bazzoka’ed out the skie and an unstoppable amount of laughter from other kids.
The £18 was worth that alone, and to think that these kids can come back with their friends every week if they want to makes it an incredible experience for great value.
Putting the Halo ring to the side, the rest of the room was filled with areas focused on specific genres. For example, there was a 4-player area featuring GameCube, a two-player area with Nintendo Wii, a racing area with classics like Gran Turismo on PlayStation 1.
There are even handheld areas with chairs allowing kids to experience the original GAME BOY’s or a SEGA Game Gear for the first time.
There was a section for retro Disney games, retro LEGO games and an area to experience retro Pokémon games too, with even a limited edition Pokémon Nintendo 64 out in the wild, which costs well over £200 here in the UK.
It’s just there to play on, which I think is awesome, but a part of me is also nervous because… these things are valuable, but that’s the magic of this place, everything is there to experience and not locked behind bars with 3rd party controllers that don’t feel anything like the real deal.
It’s London’s take on video game history, and I believe this part of the museum is here to stay for a while, considering the sheer investment they’ve had to make in making the room feel like you’re inside a video game.
There was a handful of modern consoles and PC’s allowing people to use it as a place to play with their friends, face to face, which, if you ask me, is a healthier way of playing video games, but the majority was retro-focused, which was cool, as that’s what you want from a retro gaming museum.
Between this and the exhibition, it was a fun day in London exploring retro gaming things.
London unfortunately has very few retro game stores in the central area, apart from some arcade bars and the Science Museum, it is a little scarce, but I am hoping with this awesome PWRUP Experience and creators and artists testing the waters with retro gaming themed events, this could be the start of more things happening in the city, making it a gret day trip for those of us outside of the city.
Make sure to check out the Science Museum's PWRUP Experience this year, and snag yourself a year's pass to take full advantage of the incredible selection.
Our video tour of PWRUP in London's Science Museum
