Zombies, massages and going retro at i49

It's not all about the latest and greatest hardware, or the big tournaments at events like Multiplay's Insomnia  49 gaming festival, sometimes it's about the smaller ones; and sometimes, it's about the stranger ones.

Everyone knows that gaming can be a strenuous activity. Hunched over the screen for hours on end, it can be a strain on even the broadest of gamers' backs. So what can you do, two days into the latest mega LAN and your back starts to give out. Get a massage of course.

This booth has been impressively popular throughout the day. Something tells me that might be down to several factors: only one of them being the skill of the masseurs.

However, you might need more than a massage if you bump into one of the guys from Zed Events. Wandering the halls is their resident photographer and his trained zombie.

I'm quite glad I didn't wear my Zed Events thirt now. Don't want to look too much like a shill.

These guys work at a company that stages live-action zombies experiences, where you can test your skills as part of a staged zombie apocalypse. There's an abandoned shopping centre in Reading and a manor house near Manchester and at both locations, you're equipped with pump action airsoft shotguns and sent out to face  hoards of actors, doing an incredibly good job of being zombies.

It's legitimately scary and I can tell you first hand, as I've visited the  mall myself. It's not cheap, but I'm not exaggerating when I say it's the most fun thing I've ever done. If you like zombies in even a small way, check it out.

Also, these guys are sponsoring the Call of Duty tournament here at i49, so if you want the chance of winning some free tickets to the Manor House experience, see if you can stop by  and have a play.

But enough about zombies. Let's get on to a real passion of mine: retro gaming. I'm no enthusiast with hundreds and hundreds of games  on tens of systems, but  I have a real affinity for a lot of the games from my youth, so over the past few years I've collected a Megadrive II, Saturn, Game Gear, PS1, N64 and Gamecube and a decent number of games for each of them.

With that in mind, it's no surprise why I was excited when I saw this  booth at i49:

Once I've finished up my quota for the day, I know where I'll be hanging out before heading home.

On top of the gaming area however, there's also an impressive retro games shop. There's crates and crates of Megadrive, N64, Dreamcast, NES, SNES games and hosts of little boxes filled with handheld cartridges.

Did I buy anything though? You get your ass I did.

I didn't even know there was a sequel to Vigilante 8. I'm playing the crap out of that when I get home.

Kitguru Says: This is what's been one of the cooler parts of i49 for me: that the smaller, more niche stands are pretty interesting. Often at tech trade shows the smaller booths just  do bland mobile phone accessories, but not here. 

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