International Video Game Hall of Fame Event Linked All Eras of Gaming

As I write this, I am still recovering from an incredible and historic weekend of video gaming in Ottumwa, IA, as the International Video Game Hall of Fame had it's Big Bang event to kick off the Iowa town's reclaiming of being the Video Game Capital of the World.

It did just that.

I was busy running contests at the Twin Galaxies World Championship area of the event and due to that had to miss much of the historic events that took place outside, but not one thing managed to go unknown within the Bridge View Center in Ottumwa.

The faces were a literal who's who of video gaming history.  In addition to seeing some of gaming's all-time names again, including Walter Day, Todd Rogers, Steve Wiebe, Triforce Johnson and Paul Dean, I was amazed to meet so many others in person for the first time.  Billy Mitchell.  Steve Sanders.  Tim McVey.  Ben Gold.  Mike Klug.  Joel West.  Tim Balderramos.  Mark Robichek.  David Race.  Andrew Furrer.  Phil Day.  Brian Ho.  Mark Kiehl.  It was unreal. 

Billy stole some attention with the announcement of his regaining of the Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior World Records, something I knew about as early as Tuesday of last week but was unable to announce at that time.  Sadly, I was forced to miss the already famous moment, which I just wrote about in another article, including the handshake between Mitchell and Steve Wiebe.

The Twin Galaxies World Championship was set up with a series of modern video games for all three platforms, side-by-side for contests in a classic arcade contest style.  A ton of excitement came through the area as well, including battles for many world records currently announced on the front page of the Twin Galaxies website.  I lost one of my own records during the event, as a youngster named TJ Wilt managed to get the fastest victory ever on UFC Undisputed 2011, the only one to best my record time in the whole event.  Legendary Pac-Man gamer Tim Balderramos came to the area to play Pac-Man Championship Edition for a while, as did Pac-Man himself, as the official Namco mascot costume came up to the area to startle the gamer playing.

I was given the honor of officiating two games of Pac-Man Championship Edition for Ottumwa Mayor Dale Uehling. 

Ottumwa is a fun town and not like I'd expected.  Several of us hit a local bar called Uncle Bucks a couple of the nights after wrapping up and I personally wish I could have had more free time to get to know and hang out with more of gaming's legends.  I still owe Mitchell a challenge to his eating contest title that I accepted but was unable to get away to do.  Perhaps by next year I can challenge one of his other titles now, too.  I'll be catching up with local Hall of Famer Ben Gold for a beer here in North Texas soon.

2011's Big Bang event has already been announced.  Based on this first one, anyone who doesn't plan now to head up to the Video Game Capital of the World in 2011 is going to regret it later.

Tons of photos of this event can be found on my Facebook page.