We started off our Saturday at Phoenix Comicon 2016 only slightly later than we had started our Friday, given that we already had our badges, so we didn’t have to worry about Registration. However, we still wanted to arrive before 10:00am, which was when the Exhibit Hall was scheduled to open, and beat the traffic.
When we got there, it was just a couple minutes to 10am by the time we headed down the escalator toward the Exhibit Hall. Just maneuvering to the escalator was noticeably more crowded than the day before. Then as we went down the escalator, we saw that the floor was packed with people waiting to be let into the Exhibit Hall, way more crowded than Friday had been. But this was to be expected, as most Saturdays at comic conventions are the most crowded.
Our first panel of the day was Billie Piper (who played Rose Tyler on Doctor Who), whose panel was scheduled to start at 12:00pm, so we had some time to kill. We started to wander the Exhibit Hall again, though we had already done so on Friday. But then I realized now would be a good time to go check out the Cobra Arcade Bar Classic Video Game Lounge. So we found our way over to West 103AB and went inside.
There were about a couple dozen arcade games set up around the room that were all set to free play, so you could keep playing as long as you wanted, and didn’t have to keep feeding the game quarters every time you died, like in the olden days. We started off by playing Joust, considering neither one of us had ever played it before, and had only heard of it from having read Ready Player One. We soon gave up on it though, because it seemed like the faceplate on it belonged to a different game, and like the controls did not behave properly. We soon moved on to Donkey Kong. Josh started getting frustrated that he couldn’t get past the first level, which he used to be able to do easily back in the day. He refused to move on to another game until he beat the first level, which he did, and he was then able to pass the second level without dying. But then once he died, we moved on (I never passed the first level, in case you were wondering). We then played Ghosts ‘n Goblins for a bit, which Josh remembered playing as a kid. We saw Tempest next to it, which we also remembered from Ready Player One, but it was occupied. We took a stroll around the room to see which games were open, and settled on Space Invaders.
But then when we saw that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had opened up, we abandoned our game in the middle and rushed over to play. Ah yes, I fondly remember the days of playing that game during birthday parties at Peter Piper Pizza. I have no idea how many quarters I lost to that game throughout the years… Josh played Leonardo and I played Donatello. Another guy came up and played Raphael. We had a great time taking down Bebop and Rocksteady, skating around on our skateboards, and saving April O’Neil and Splinter. As much as I wanted to stay and beat the game, thereby accomplishing a childhood dream, time flew by quickly, and we soon had to head up for our first panel of the day.
Oh, other games I remember seeing at the Cobra Arcade Bar Classic Video Game Lounge were The Simpsons (also spent a lot of time playing that one as a child), Street Fighter, and Pac-Man, just to name a few.
Click here for our recap and photos of Billie Piper’s panel!
