Show Report: Nottingham Video Games Expo 2022

The weekend of 17 & 18 December 2022 saw the inaugural Nottingham Video Games Expo take place in...er...Nottingham. The city of Nottingham, England for the uninitiated, is the ancestral home of such luminaries as fictional horse jacker Robin Hood, painfully unfunny comedian Jon Richardson, professional face puncher Carl Froch, and Manchester United legend Andy Cole. It now also has its own gaming festival in the form of NottsVGE.

Naturally, The Dreamcast Junkyard took the opportunity to represent at this brand spanking new event, and it was a pleasure to be able to meet fellow Dreamcast enthusiasts, exhibitors and event visitors to spread the gospel of the Dreamcast to all who would listen.

Punters puntering

Several members of the editorial and podcast crew from the 'Yard manned our small but perfectly formed area, with Tom, Jaz, Andrew, Lewis, Kev and Lozz all taking turns to stand around and bore anyone who happened to wander near on the intricacies of the Dreamcast's genetic makeup or the splendour of the system's library and range of peripherals. Poor souls. The public, I mean.

Lozz, Lewis, Jaz, Andrew, Tom and Kev

It wasn't all fun and games though (or was it?), as we had a rather special competition to run. As alluded to in a recent post, our friends at Bitmap Bureau supplied us with several copies of the excellent Xeno Crisis to give away to those who were hardy enough to register a high score on the superlative Smash TV 'em up using the Dreamcast Twin Stick controller. 

Around 30 people took to the hotseat to test their mettle, including both Dan and Nick of WAVE Game Studios, and Dean Mortlock of SEGA Powered. Alas, the ultimate winner turned out to be none other than Aaron 'The Gagaman' Foster, a man who assisted in the early days of both the DCJY blog and DreamPod. It wasn't a fix, honest.

Elsewhere, anyone who visited our little section of the expo floor was able to sample some lightgun action with Houe of the Dead 2 and Confidential Mission, or the traditional delights of Sega Rally 2, Power Stone, Virtua Tennis, Cosmic Smash, Crazy Taxi, Yu Suzki's Gameworks and a range of other titles when they were available/the Dreamcasts were behaving and not throwing up random issues such as controller ports not working or AV ports refusing to play ball with the screens.

NottsVGE was a much more intimate event than previous excursions (Play Expo Blackpool 2018 was probably our largest, with around 15 Dreamcasts available for people to play), but what was especially nice was the abilty for all of us from The Dreamcast Junkyard team to actually hear and engage with visitors, and have some audible conversations (other events tend to be quite loud due to the size of them). 

It was also quite fascinating on a personal level to see how the younger visitors approached the Dreamcast and the peripherals on offer, many of them having never seen the console before. The impressions were overwhelmingly positive, showing that the SEGA brand can still bring a smile to the faces of kids who aren't as au fait with the brand's hardware as us old farts are.

The next generation of Dreamcast gamers.

Paul, Marc and Dean from SEGA Powered.

NottsVGE offered a range of sellers who were hawking their gaming wares, along with a couple of teams you'll no doubt be familiar with if you're in any way interested in the Dreamcast. First up, and as mentioned, WAVE Game Studios were in attendance selling and demonstrating a range of titles from their impressive stable, with Intrepid Izzy, Alice Dreams Tournament, Rush Rush Rally Reloaded, Shadow Gangs and Postal all popular. 

Dean was forced at gunpoint to autograph a copy of SEGA Power.

Our friends from both SegaMags and SEGA Powered were also at NottsVGE and it was really nice to be able to meet the legendary journo/editor Dean Mortlock in the flesh for the first time. Matt and James from Shenmue Dojo were also in attendance, as were Get Well Gamers, YouTuber TootyUK, and community magazines Evercade Evolution and Amiga Addict.

Tom and Lewis with Dan and Nick from WAVE Game Studios.

On the main stage, the team from The Retro Hour interviewed a trio of guests from the golden era of Rare's time as Nintendo's third party development darling; while later a Q&A session was hosted by Paul Drury from Retro Gamer Magazine. 

The Retro Hour introduced guests from Rare.

Tom with Skilljim and Matt from Shenmue Dojo.

A rather popular Mario Kart 8 tournament was facilitated by Nottingham Nintendo, but the real coup de grâce was a battle royale between WAVE Game Studios and The Dreamcast Junkyard. In a true test of guile and skill over the course of two games of three rounds (Power Stone 2 and Virtua Tennis), these two behemoths went toe to toe...only for WAVE to trounce us 2-0. Naturally, the blame was levelled at Lewis' cack-handed Power Stone 2 skills and Tom's controller port only working intermittently. Um.

At least someone was having fun...

Liberties were taken to be honest.

The final insult of the event came when James 'Jaz' Harvey unironically subjected several hundred paying event-goers to a disgusting display of hubris, with gameplay from Spirit of Speed 1937 being displayed on a giant projector screen. If NottsVGE don't invite us back again, I'm confident this act of wanton terrorism will be cited. Oh, and there was Kev wandering around offering people cupcakes of questionable origin.

Would you take a free cupcake from this man?

Congratulations and thanks to both James (ItsMuchMore) and Alex (gamesreup) for inviting us to be a part of their successful debut event. It all ran smoothly and they should both be immensley proud for putting on such a great expo and generally just being top blokes. 

Overall though, it was just really nice to meet people and talk face to face with fellow gamers who either have a passion for the Dreamcast; or who had never even seen one before. Here's to the next Nottingham Video Games Expo, whenever that may be.