Blast from your gaming past

SMALL PRINT:DO YOU know what the first video game was? How about Nintendo's first games console? Or Pacman's original name?

These questions and more are being answered at the Ambassador theatre in Dublin, where a new exhibition dedicated to the history and culture of video games began last week.

Game Onis a touring exhibition that began at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. To date, it has toured across the globe and claims to have been seen by more than one million people. And now it's come to Dublin – where it will run until next January.

There are few people who would know, for example, that the first video game as we know it, Spacewar, was created in 1962 and played on a massive room-sized mainframe computer, a far cry from the today's compact consoles. The classic game Pongcame later in 1972, a year after Computer Space. From there, the rest is history.

Game Onis an exercise in nostalgia as much as education. Unlike some exhibitions, it's not a case of "look, don't touch". Almost every game, from the arcade machines to console games, can be played.

There are plenty of familiar names among the more obscure titles, with Space Invaders, Street Fighterand even the text-based game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Game Onattracts everyone from casual passers-by to games addicts and collectors interested in some of the tabletop games that are almost impossible to find.

Some visitors, such as Jean-Louis Shabani (22) from Dublin, were interested in seeing the games they had grown up with, like Mario Bros.

There’s plenty to see, with the room split into different zones yielding some long-forgotten gems. In one corner, you have proof that Apple wasn’t always known for its cutting edge design.

Another section highlights the differences between games culture in the US, Europe and Japan, while yet another corner of plays host to child-friendly games such as Pokemon, Sonic the Hedgehogand the classic Mario Brostitles.

You can browse through 10 of the top consoles, ranging from the 1970s Atari machine to the Commodore 64 and the Gameboy.

“There’s a Commodore 64 over there that I remember playing in my cousin’s house when I was five,” said Aongus Ó Maolán (25), who is student union president at NUI Maynooth.

"And I completely forgot about it until five minutes ago, but I'm unbelievably excited about the fact that Lemmingsis over there. I remember spending hours playing that game."

Like every industry, there is also a scrapheap; the consoles that never made it and the games peripherals that didn’t catch on, from the Nintendo Power Glove, to 3D displays that were probably a little ahead of their time – the MB Vectrex Imager springs to mind.

These were displayed near the Nintendo Wii, which has managed to crack the very market that the Power Glove was aiming for.

For some attendees, there was little interest in the more modern games, however.

Aisling Connolly (23) from Dunboyne was interested in seeing the older arcade games and consoles.

"You don't come to here to see the Wii and Rock Band, we have that at home," she said. "My dad always had some sort of console in the house. I grew up with the Sega Megadrive and Sonic– I love it. It was part of my childhood."

Game Onruns at the Ambassador theatre, Dublin until January 30, 2011. See gameon-dublin.ie