{"id":14923,"date":"2016-04-08T00:01:55","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T00:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=14923"},"modified":"2016-04-06T20:37:52","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T20:37:52","slug":"the-national-videogame-museum-opens-in-frisco-tx-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/08\/the-national-videogame-museum-opens-in-frisco-tx-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The National Videogame Museum Opens in Frisco, TX: Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FRONT\"<\/a>Yesterday we went over the exhibits in the newly-opened National Videogame Museum in Frisco, TX. If you haven\u2019t read that article, I encourage you to go back and read it, too.\u00a0 But the museum is more than just exhibits; it\u2019s just as much of a video game art museum as it is a history museum.\u00a0 So today we\u2019re going to look at the artwork in the museum, all of which was hand-painted by super talented local artists.\u00a0 We\u2019ll also look at the museum\u2019s awesome arcade and some opening day fun and shenanigans, too!<\/p>\n

Even before you enter the museum proper, you\u2019re greeted with a huge sculpture before you buy tickets. This piece of art has monitors with all sorts of ever-changing video game themes, along with a bunch of home consoles painted gold (they were ones that were donated but beyond repair).<\/p>\n

\"SCULPTURE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you enter the museum, on the right side you\u2019ll see this gigantic mural featuring all sorts of popular video game characters. It\u2019s one of my favorite pieces of art in the entire museum.\u00a0 If you look on the bottom you can see a row of TVs with consoles connected that you can play. \u00a0This is called the Head to Head Hall and features consoles from the NES, Sega Master System, SNES, all the way up to the Dreamcast and PS2!\u00a0 It is one of the more popular exhibits in the museum, and I think the giant mural helps attract people to it.<\/p>\n

\"MURAL1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a shot of the mural from the opposite site of the wall. I love the fact that Robo from Chrono Trigger is five times the size of Sonic!\u00a0 Take that, you cocky blue hedgehog!<\/p>\n

\"MURAL2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a wall with all sorts of video game controllers, with a background painted to look like Galaga.<\/p>\n

\"CONTROLLERS\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The room with all the handheld games has a really neat perspective piece of art. The National Videogame Museum has a cartoon mascot named Blip, and he\u2019s a robot made up entirely of video game parts like controllers and cords.\u00a0 Although personally I think he looks a bit like Clank from the Ratchet and Clank games (can\u2019t wait for the movie).\u00a0 When you first walk into the handheld room and look up, the painting is supposed to look like you\u2019re a handheld game and Blip is holding YOU!\u00a0 I sure hope Blip is playing a happy, friendly game like Loco Roco, and not a scary game like Resident Evil!<\/p>\n

\"HANDHELDART\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you play every game and read every marker in the museum, you could be there for a long time! Maybe even two hours or more!\u00a0 So let\u2019s just say you\u2019re bopping along having fun at the museum, and then it hits you.\u00a0 Ya gotta go potty!\u00a0 What do you do?\u00a0 WHAT DO YOU DO?\u00a0 Well luckily there are restrooms at the museum, and all you have to do to find them is look for the Dragon\u2019s Lair mural.\u00a0 Dragon\u2019s Lair was a laserdisc arcade game in the 1980s, with animation from Don Bluth (The Secret of Nimh, The Land Before Time, An American Tail, etc.).\u00a0 It was like nothing seen at the time for an arcade, and always drew in a big crowd.\u00a0 The exhibit at the museum even has a Dragon\u2019s Lair arcade machine.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t working when I took the picture, but I\u2019m sure the owners will try to get it up and running as soon as they can.<\/p>\n

\"DRAGON1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When you turn into the hallway where the restrooms are, the ladies\u2019 room has Princess Daphne on the door, while the men\u2019s has Dirk the Daring. I hear that Don Bluth has a kickstarter to try and get a 2-D Dragon\u2019s Lair movie made.\u00a0 I hope he succeeds!<\/p>\n

\"DRAGON2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On another wall is a mural made to look like Super Mario World. The displays on the wall have all sorts of video game pins and patches.\u00a0 Back in the Atari 2600 days, if you got a high score on an Activision title, you could take a picture and send it in to them and get a patch.\u00a0 The museum has all those patches on the wall!\u00a0 In Activision Anthology on the PS2, if you get a high score on some of the games in the collection, you could get a virtual patch just like it!\u00a0 That\u2019s a very good collection and I highly recommend it, by the way.\u00a0 Anyway, do you see that pipe on the far right of the picture?\u00a0 That\u2019s actually painted on a door, and inside is a room that\u2019s empty right now, but later on the founders of the museum are thinking of using it like a classroom.\u00a0 For instance, a local game developer could come in there and teach a class on game design.\u00a0 Heck, I bet even I could teach a class in there! Maybe about the history of Pac-Man!\u00a0 You think anyone would want to take that class?\u00a0 Yeah, probably not.\u00a0 But it\u2019s fun to think about and imagine anyway.<\/p>\n

\"MARIOWORLD\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Even one of the pillars has a painting on it. It\u2019s of an old game called Crazy Climber, where you\u2019re a man scaling the side of a tall building.\u00a0 I remember seeing it in arcades everywhere when I was a kid, but I was never good at it. \u00a0Right next to it is a mural about Duck Hunt.\u00a0 This was a very popular mural and I took lots of people\u2019s pictures in front of it on opening day!\u00a0 Folks would pose in front of it with their hands positioned to look like guns aiming at the ducks, while others made rude hand gestures at the laughing dog!\u00a0 Even little babies loved the painting, and would point to the ducks and say, \u201cDuck! Duck!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CLIMBER\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is a picture of Ralph Baer, one of the founding fathers of video games. So yeah, he\u2019s kind of a big deal.\u00a0 The neat thing is that this piece was made entirely out of Rubix Cubes, and created by students at SMU!<\/p>\n

\"BAERRUBIX\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Heck, even the gift shop has some hand-painted art in it. The back wall of the checkout is made to look like some sort of item shop from a role-playing adventure game.\u00a0 As the shopkeeper says in the old NES Legend of Zelda game, \u201cBuy somethin\u2019, will ya?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GIFTSHOPART\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But you know what one of the coolest things about the National Videogame Museum is? Right before you leave and enter the gift shop, you walk through a real life working arcade with classic games from the 80s and even some from the 90s!\u00a0 When you buy your tickets at the front, you\u2019ll get a few tokens to use at the arcade, so hold onto them until the end!\u00a0 This arcade has both popular mainstays and true rarities.\u00a0 For instance, check out this cabinet at the front (sorry for the glare).\u00a0 It\u2019s a sequel to Q*bert called Q*bert\u2019s Qubes!\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard of the game before, but I\u2019ve never seen a cabinet of it out in the wild.\u00a0 And the National Videogame Museum has it!<\/p>\n

\"ARCADE1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another row. You can see the Rally-X machine pretty clearly.\u00a0 I hardly ever saw Rally-X in arcades when I was a kid for some reason.<\/p>\n

\"ARCADE2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh no! It\u2019s Sinistar!\u00a0 When I was a little kid and first saw this game, it scared the stew out of me!\u00a0 In the game, you are a spaceship and must destroy a robotic space station with a demonic face and an evil digitized voice.\u00a0 It would say things like, \u201cBeware, I live!\u00a0 Run, coward! RRRAAAAWWWWRRRR!\u201d\u00a0 And run I did, back to my parents and hid behind them!\u00a0 Still kind of creeps me out to this day.\u00a0 And look what they did here!\u00a0 They put Zoo Keeper and Ms. Pac-Man, two of my favorite arcade games, right next to it!\u00a0 Joe, John, Sean! What are you trying to do to me?<\/p>\n

\"ARCADE3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Aw, yeah, it\u2019s Mappy! I love this game!\u00a0 If I ever get a chance to play it at the museum, I\u2019m going to try and get the high score.\u00a0 I\u2019m kind of good at this game.<\/p>\n

\"ARCADE4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here\u2019s Spy Hunter. When my brother Jeff was very little, I had one of those arcade collections and he loved to play Spy Hunter on it.\u00a0 He\u2019d play it for hours, laughing maniacally.\u00a0 And he was only like, five years old.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fun game, for sure, but I don\u2019t know why he liked it THAT much!<\/p>\n

\"ARCADE5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s pretty much all that\u2019s in the museum arcade. Pretty cool, right?\u00a0 Lastly, I\u2019d like to share with you some pictures I took at opening weekend, which was on Saturday, April 2.\u00a0 It was super crowded and there was a two hour long line to wait to get in!\u00a0 Inside, there was even a waiting room with games to try, a DJ playing music, and coloring pages featuring video game characters for the little ones. \u00a0But don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m sure when you visit the museum, it won\u2019t be THAT crowded again for a while.\u00a0 At least I don\u2019t THINK so.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a picture of the line that wrapped around the building outside.<\/p>\n

\"LINE1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here\u2019s another picture of the line outside. Check out the old train cars behind it.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s part of the train museum.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have to check that out sometime, too!\u00a0 Looks cool!<\/p>\n

\"LINE2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They even had a food truck outside to serve folks waiting in line. I\u2019m not sure what kind of food they had, but I like the panda on the side of the truck.<\/p>\n

\"FOODTRUCK\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes at video game, comic book, cartoon, and anime conventions, people like to dress up as their favorite characters in a practice known as \u2018cosplay.\u2019 I\u2019ve even seen some do it at amusement parks!\u00a0 On opening day at the museum, they had a few cosplayers roaming around.\u00a0 Here are some folks dressed as Rosalina and Wario from the Mario series.\u00a0 Someday I\u2019d like to try and cosplay as Kirby, but I don\u2019t think I have the body for it.\u00a0 Plus I\u2019m probably too old to be doing stuff like that anyway.\u00a0 Oh well!<\/p>\n

\"COSPLAY\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But you know what my favorite part about opening day at the museum was? Video game legends Garry Kitchen and David Crane came down and I got to meet them!\u00a0 Garry Kitchen made games like Keystone Kapers, and David Crane is known for titles like Pitfall and A Boy and His Blob.\u00a0 In the background you can see the Pong machine, so you can tell how big it really was.\u00a0 I do apologize for the blurry picture.\u00a0 I usually snap multiple shots when taking pictures, but I just couldn\u2019t get a clear shot of them this time.\u00a0 Maybe my camera was tired of taking pictures, or maybe I was so excited to see those two that I couldn\u2019t keep still!\u00a0 Again, sorry for the blurriness.\u00a0 Just remember, nobody\u2019s perfect!<\/p>\n

\"CRANE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all of the museum! I hope you enjoyed my articles and pictures!\u00a0 Before I post some information on the location and hours, I wanted to ask you all if you would please pray for the museum and that it would do well and be a lucrative venture for the founders and anyone involved.\u00a0 I\u2019m really glad that it\u2019s so close to where I live, and I want it to stay there for a long time to come.\u00a0 Also, I wanted to share that I\u2019ve already been volunteering at the museum a few times, and hope to continue to do so a bunch in the future as well!\u00a0 So if you come to the museum, you might even see ME!\u00a0 I\u2019ve had so much fun helping out visitors, and I\u2019d love to see as many of you all as I could, and we could share video game stories and have fun!\u00a0 There are a lot of other great volunteers, too!\u00a0 It\u2019s definitely worth the trip, so if you\u2019re in the Dallas\/Fort Worth area in the future, please look it up!<\/p>\n

OK, so here\u2019s some info on the museum\u2019s hours and location and such. The address to the museum is:<\/p>\n

8004 North Dallas Parkway<\/p>\n

Suite 300<\/p>\n

Frisco, TX 75034<\/p>\n

General admission is 12 bucks, which is a good deal since you get some tokens to use at the arcade as well. Children 10 and under can get in for 10 bucks, as well as seniors, teachers, and military with a valid ID.<\/p>\n

Hours of Operation:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monday: Closed<\/p>\n

Tuesday \u2013 Thursday: 10 am to 5 pm<\/p>\n

Friday \u2013 Saturday: 10 am to 8 pm<\/p>\n

Sunday: 12 pm to 5 pm<\/p>\n

If you have any other questions or need more info, you can check out their Web site at www.nvmusa.org. \u2013Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday we went over the exhibits in the newly-opened National Videogame Museum in Frisco, TX. If you haven\u2019t read that article, I encourage you to go back and read it, too.\u00a0 But the museum is more than just exhibits; it\u2019s just as much of a video game art museum as it is a history museum.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14923"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14925,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14923\/revisions\/14925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}