Walking through the doors of this exhibition, you are immediately greeted by the PDP-10 - the gigantic mainframe computer that was used to program SpaceWar, considered by everyone except extreme computing history pedants to be the first recognisable video game. Next to it, on the left, a bright yellow working Pong arcade cabinet from 1972. Puck Man (later Pac-Man) and Space Invaders cabinets stand side by side just beyond. These are very familiar sights to anyone with a knowledge of gaming history, and they set the tone. If you’re a keen (or, let’s be honest, old) player then it’s highly unlikely that you’ll learn anything new at Game On, but you will nonetheless have fun.
Beginning in 2002 at the Barbican in London, the Game On exhibition of video game history has been touring the world for all this time, only ever packed away entirely during the Covid-19 pandemic. It first came to Edinburgh later that year. Twenty-two years ago I dragged my dad along to this exhibition; this time I will be dragging my kids and encouraging them to have a go on the now-ancient games I loved when I was their age. Crucially, you can play almost everything at this exhibition, from Donkey Kong to Guitar Hero, Farming Simulator to Soulcalibur. One section pairs each console in gaming history with a defining game, another groups games together by genre, and a third is devoted to multiplayer, with four-player Halo 3 set up around a pillar. There are more than 100 games to sample and they form a well-curated nostalgia trip, focused primarily but not entirely on the 80s, 90s and 00s.
