Old and new gaming tech at Spain's biggest gaming fair

Описание: (31 Oct 2016) LEAD IN:
Gamers are delighting in both the old and the new at Madrid Gaming Experience, Spain's biggest gaming fair.
Thousands of attendees are getting to grips with the latest virtual reality technology, but there's still time to enjoy retro consoles and dated arcade games.

STORY-LINE:
Gaming fans are strapping themselves in for quite a ride at Madrid Gaming Experience, Spain's biggest gaming fair.
Just like the industry as a whole, virtual reality - or 'VR' - is a top trend here.
There's almost 100 state-of-the-art VR gaming posts here which, organisers claim, make it the biggest virtual reality area in all of Europe.
22-year-old attendee, Luis is visiting the fair with three friends from Spain's southern city, Cadiz.
They jumped at the chance to play this shoot 'em up game on HTC's Vive headset.
"It's my first time with this sort of experience, wearing the glasses. It's really impressive," says Luis.
"You really immerse yourself in the video game. You're inside the screen, that is, enemies surround you, it was a 'shoot 'em up, you're continuously shooting the enemies and the enemies come to you, and they sometimes give you a fright, and it's a really good experience. I really loved it."
Another futuristic highlight of the show is an array of smart droids from Spanish robot retailer Juguetronica.
That includes this roaming Star Wars 'BB-8' droid and this talkative Pepper robot.
Juguetronica CEO, Daniel Bayon says increasingly people are buying small, toy-like robots as presents.
"Ours are mostly entertainment robots, although some also have practical uses, like telepresence or others," he says.
"We also try and have robots for educational purposes, we have a wide range of programmable robots, which can be used by six-year-old kids or by universities."
The sprawling event is crowded with racing and shoot 'em up games, plus manga-themed cosplayers and video game-related merchandise.
The event floor covers around 30,000 square metres (approx. 322,900 square feet), including around 1,000 gaming posts.
There are also e-sports competitions and video game premieres.
But it's not just the latest gaming technology on display.
In one corner of the event, visitors are embracing the chance to play retro video games and old arcade machines.
Alberto de la Iglesia is the president of a Madrid-based retro games club. He's hosting a stand which includes an old Super Nintendo with 'Super Mario Bros'.
"I play old and new video games. I feel they're very different," he says.
"In some old ones, the difficulty level may be too high, some of them were really hard compared to the new video games, but that doesn't mean they were less fun.
"You give a Mario or a Sonic to anyone and everyone likes it."
That's certainly proving the case with attendee Jessica and her friend. They're both enjoying playing this retro game.
"I thought it would be fun to come here to see the atmosphere, the people, the games, old and new alike, it's cool," says Jessica.
The five-day Madrid Gaming Experience runs from 28 October to 1 November.
Organisers say around 80,000 attendees were expected to visit the event Friday to Sunday.

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