EVENT PREVIEW
Southern-Fried Gameroom Expo. June 20-22. Three-day passes are $45 for participants 13 and older; $25 for children 2-12. Daily passes also available. Atlanta Marriott Century Center, 2000 Century Blvd. NE. www.southernfriedgameroomexpo.com.
Hey, buddy, got no plans this weekend? How’d you like to shoot the stars, save a dame, hop a cab with a hot number in a red dress?
Yes? Well, pal, make plans to do all this, and more — figuratively speaking — at the first-ever, guaranteed-it-ain’t-going-to-be-the-last Southern-Fried Gameroom Expo, taking place Friday through Sunday in Atlanta.
The expo will feature more than 100 games. They range from pinball machines to the latest video stuff, with a neon array of other games — think Pac-Man, Frogger and Donkey Kong; remember them? — tossed in. Imagine a big room filled with machines that boop and fwing and clang, with lights that blink, with silver balls that ricochet like bullets fired in a cave. They have themes: space exploration, slaying monsters, and, yes, hitching a ride with a babe.
And then thank Joel and Dana Reeves. They, and a handful of like-minded friends, are the brains behind this thing.
Earlier this week, the Reeveses and their son, Taylor, readied to load some of their games to make the trip from their home in Marietta to Atlanta. They own nine pinball machines in a house designed for none. The family room, dominated by a flat-screen TV not much smaller than a basketball court, is flanked by two pinball classics: Space Shuttle and Jungle Lord. A third machine is undergoing repairs on the patio. The rest are in a space where most families eat dinner.
“They’re works of art,” said Joel Reeves, 44, who grew up playing in arcades in Omaha, Neb.
He nodded at Space Shuttle, whose upright glass front featured a surprisingly accurate image of the NASA spacecraft. It spit fire from its tail, illuminating a softball-sized planet that resembled Earth. Then he looked sort of sheepish. The room, he admitted, was kind of crowded.
“They just needed a home,” he said.
His wife, 47, narrowed her eyes. "He talked me into letting pinball machines into the family room."
He didn’t need to talk much. Dana, who “spent a lot of quarters” playing in arcades in her hometown of Montgomery, Ala., freely admits that she’s as hooked as her husband. As Joel likes to point out, who begged to buy that first pinball machine?
“I like the bells and lights,” she said.
Pinball is not new; the first games that used springs to propel balls across a surface date to the late 1700s. Pinball really lit up in the 1930s, when manufacturers began building coin-operated machines that featured electrical lights and sound.
It wasn’t long before city councils everywhere banned the machines, worrying that pinball was a new playground for Satan. Atlanta, for example, outlawed pinball 75 years ago, though that ban has long been lifted. New York didn’t get around to legalizing pinball until 1976.
This weekend’s convention will celebrate arcade games’ legacy, as well as promoting their future. The expo also will feature some of gaming’s giants: Billy Mitchell, a Donkey Kong world champion; Barry Oursler, who designed Space Shuttle, a machine whose debut 30 years ago introduced pinball to a new generation of gamers; and John Trudeau, the brains behind the game Creature From the Black Lagoon. Even Richie Knucklez will be there!
Uh, Richie who?
Find out for yourself, pal. And while you’re there, maybe you can shoot the stars. Or slay a monster. Hey, that lady in a red dress needs a ride …
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