For the second year running I decided to make the 350 mile journey north to attend North East Retro Gaming, what is rapidly becoming my favourite retro event in the calendar. After a five hour train journey went quite pleasantly, I arrived in Newcastle early afternoon on the Friday, the day before the event. I was met by fellow Maximum Power-Up podcasters Phil and Paul (Phil kindly providing his house Friday & Saturday nights as our base) and we made our way into the event to observe the setup, get an early look at the bargains, and generally be under people’s feet.

Arcade Games

As usual with these events, there was a great selection of free to play arcade games setup. Included a few photos of some of them here, taken during the setup when you could actually see them without people in the way.

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Games

Along with the arcade, there was also a huge selection of pinball tables and various classic games consoles. I somehow managed to barely take any photos of those, although Phil & I did play a bunch of Pinball.

Digital Pinball

This custom digital pinball cabinet was one of my favourite things at the event. So very cool, and great fun to play.

Maximum Power Up grudge match

I think lessons had been learned after last year, and there was no 3 player Bomberman with me. 🙁 However, Phil & Paul did find time to go head-to-head on some PlayStation 2 football game. It wasn’t Sensible Soccer though so I left them to it…

Other games

While the football was going on, I spent some time with my old friend Virtua Cop. This PS2 collection of the first two games is a great package. Almost makes me think about getting a CRT Television so I could play it with light guns at home. I think I’ll stick to my collection of light gun games I can play on a modern tv though.

Also really nice to see TxK playable here, via a lesser spotted PSTV.

Vendors

Flash House Brewing Co

As usual Flash House had produced an official pale ale for the occasion, very much enjoyed a few pints of NERG 2019. The Oro Honey Pils was pretty good too.

Allan’s Japanese Retro Games

The ever pleasant Allan was in attendance, for what I believe was his first appearance at NERG. He specialises in import Japanese games and hardware and always has a huge amount of the more rare titles. Always nice to see Allan, even if I only tend to buy controllers from him.

North East Retro Den

As per last year, these guys were present, and this was also where I spent the majority of my money. Most of the stuff I picked up below was from their stall. Particularly fitting was the 5 Game Boy games, as I bought my Game Boy from them at NERG last year.

The last of my highlights, (although there were certainly many other cool stores there), Sore Thumbs Retro Games were also at NERG. To be honest though I saw much more of Lee in the pub Saturday evening, and when we retired back to Phil’s to watch the wrestling. Well, I gave up trying to follow what was going on at 2 am, but I understand Phil, Lee and co made it to 5:30 am.

I did find time on the Saturday to join my good buddy Shaun Holley, from Ten Pence Arcade podcast fame, as he recorded a short walk-around audio clip at the event, if the audio is serviceable I’m sure Shaun will include it in their upcoming episode.

Sunday

While I’d booked up to be at NERG the whole weekend with my train home being Monday morning, just before I headed north I found out I had a job interview at 9:30 am the following Wednesday. I thus called the Sunday a bit short, and headed to my hotel a little after 2 pm where I proceeded to develop the presentation element of my interview. Fortunately I managed to secure the job, so it was worth the effort!

Summary

For pure enjoyment and atmosphere, NERG is almost tied with Play Blackpool as being my favourite retro event. Blackpool tends to just about have the edge for me because more of my friends tend to be able to get there. However Blackpool seems to have moved to take place in October now, which is already taken up by Eurogamer and the London NFL games for which I’m a season ticket holder. So I think maybe NERG steals the crown by default, even with the combined 10 hours of trains in the round trip.

See you next year NERG!