The Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2019 took place last weekend in downtown Portland Convention Center. This year’s attendance was exceptionally high, and the content abundant and of quality. A special section of the exhibit floor was added, and the panel sessions were moved to the second floor.
When I arrived at 7:30 AM on Saturday, the queue to enter the exposition – opening at 9:00 AM – was already 100 people long! Wao! As a retro-computer aficionado, I didn’t find much to nibble upon. I’ve spotted a Commodore SX-64, and a Kaypro II, a Tandy color a Macintosh classic, few TI 99s, and that was pretty much it. Logically, the retro-gaming was terrific. The panels were also diverse and of quality. In particular, I attended the Secrets of Copy Protection in Video Games by Modern Vintage Gamer. It was fun to learn how some copy protections, ruined your gaming experience, in a very subtle way once it detected that it was an illegal copy. For example, by increasing the difficulty levels to unachievable, or by deleting your save files, or even introducing erratic behaviors while you were playing. Overall, this 2019 edition was superb!
And, it was the 30th anniversary of the GameBoy as well…
