Replay Events’ Play Expo returns to Manchester’s Event City, on the 12th and 13th of October, and the North’s premier gaming event is going to be bigger and better than last years. Play Expo covers four areas of nerdtacular pop culture, re.play, now.play, pro.play and cos.play.
For fans of retro gaming there simply isn’t a bigger, more comprehensive show than the re.play event at Play Expo. Featuring the most expansive and varied celebration of video games history ever seen, this year’s re.play will have even more freeplay arcade and pinball machines, retro consoles and vintage computers as well as an increased number of features, traders and special guests. This year re.play will be creating a PC LAN zone consisting of approximately 100 machines featuring classic games from the FPS, Realtime Strategy and Driving genres. One of the most popular features of Play Expo, the classic arcade, is confirmed again for the 2013 expo. We will once again be working with JAMMA+ – the Arcade Video Game Collectors forum – to bring you an unparalleled selection of classic arcade games, all set to free play for the duration of the weekend. This year we will have over 100 machines on show, the most we have had to date.
now.play brings us up to date with a host of upcoming releases. Namco-Bandai games will be exhibiting at Play Expo 2013 and will be bringing the eagerly anticipated action RPG Dark Souls II to the show a full five months ahead of its UK release date. Nintendo will be back again this year showing off their latest releases and upcoming titles including The Legend of Zelda: A link Between Worlds, Pokemon X/Y and Super Mario 3D World.. Ubisoft will be previewing Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, which sees the free-running stealth adventure series take a swashbuckling twist, playable on the new PS4. Also exhibiting is the Oculus Rift, a state of the art virtual reality headset. Let’s hope things have come along since the days of Games Master, eh?
The most ‘colourful’ aspect of Play Expo has to be cos.play – where some of the most dedicated, creative gamers congregate to don costumes and props in tribute to their favourite characters from the world of video games. cos.play will feature a range of costume competitions, parades and skits for pros and beginners, groups and singles alike. Further planned features include talks and workshops/panels, dance and drumming games, trading card/tabletop games and more. cos.play will will also play host to a whole range of other dealers/traders. Play Expo are also hosting the UK heats of the World Cosplay Summit with a chance for a pair of entrants to win an expenses paid trip to Japan for the finals.
This year’s pro.play event at Play Expo will see a much greater emphasis on tournaments and competitions for casual gamers. With an vast increase in the number of free to enter tournaments across both retro and modern systems, you can battle it out on games such as Street Fighter, FIFA, Mario Kart, Halo and many, many more.
Tickets are still available from https://www.playexpo.net/ and for even more updates and info you can Like Replay events on Facebook. There’s also an after party if all that wasn’t enough, details of which are also on the website. HCF will be attending and we hope to see you there too.
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