The National Videogame Museum

Aweh, guys!

It would go without saying that Hubby is a huge gamer. Back home he would build himself PCs from scratch making sure that they would accommodate his addiction. He loves spending countless hours playing Quake, Insurgency and Rust online with his friends back home. He also made it to the Netherlands as a senior software expert… I guess it would be natural that he wanted to visit the National Videogame Museum!

In Stadshart Shopping Centre in Zoetemeer, about 30 minutes away from home, is the National Videogame Museum. In fact, I had no idea we would be heading there. Our 30% ruling just kicked in meaning that since Hubby is on an exceptional skills visa, he gets 30% of his salary tax free, meaning more “oxygen” (read: money) for everyone (Biodome reference)!

We started our day at Midas in Woerden where they make amazing artisanal sandwiches. I had a smoked salmon sarmie on a pistolet with a thick smear of herbed cream cheese and capers and it was uh-mazing! Hubby had one including the world’s crispiest bacon, chicken and apples. It was awesome and really great value for money!

Zalm op z’n Best

We then decided to go to Amazing Oriental (there will be a future blog post about it) to get spices as they are expensive at regular sources like Albert Heijn and Jumbo. Once we were done, Hubby directed Google Drive to the museum, much to my surprise! He has mentioned it before, but I didn’t realise we’d be going today!

Once we arrived, we paid our fee of €11 each for three hours (1 hour is €7 and all day is €15 – if you are under 11 it is cheaper), had our hands stamped and were allowed to enter the velvet rope. What is really cool is that the museum is ordered in earliest attractions like Pong, Breakout and Space Invaders moving on to Mario and Pacman to more advanced games like Jurassic Park: The Lost World and Star Wars Podracing. They also had perennial favourites Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero and more modern Japanese games that I am unable to pronounce. We even played Air Hockey!

They even had likenesses

They also had display cases of gaming consoles as well as TV games you could play through the ages which was basically the only museum aspect to the whole arcade. That and the information about each game displayed above it in Dutch to the notice of practically no one. Perhaps normal arcades in Europe are all modern with no dated classics, but it did remind me strongly of the Magic Company at Monte Casino in Johannesburg but not in a bad way… Nostaliga grips strong when you are an expat. The biggest plus is that the games were unlimited and there were no tokens which made it a really affordable trip.

The thing that excited Hubby the most was the HTC Vive which is a virtual reality helmet with controllers. He actually considered requesting one when his gran went to the United States last year, but we knew that we were emigrating at that point so it was fruitless as we couldn’t bring it with us. Here was his opportunity.

The friendly supervisor strapped him in, making sure that the equipment was safe, before guiding him through the interactive menu. The game on offer was Beat Saber where you light saber coloured blocks to a song. As soon as he was done, it was my turn…

I got strapped into the headset and had the controllers handed to me and tightened one by one. What was cool is that I could see the “light saber” moving towards me in virtual reality. I had to select a song from the menu using the controller which was very intuitive before the game started. Once it began, it was all too easy. The blocks moved towards me at a steady pace and it was my job to slice them down. I didn’t realise at first that they were colour coded so I would need to match red to red and blue to blue, but once I got it, it was no problem. I hate to brag, but I have great hand-eye coordination (no jokes those snickering in the back).

I actually really enjoyed our time at the Videogame Museum even if it wasn’t necessary my cup of tea. There were loads of games to enjoy, a bit of history thrown in and I could list a few people who would definitely get a kick out of it if they visited (my sister, Caito, and Hubby’s little brother Wynand spring to mind). Definitely worth a visit if you are obsessed with videogames!