Game Over and Portsmouth City Museum are proud to present Game Over: The Future of the Past, Portsmouth’s first retro-gaming exhibition. The exhibition will be the largest single private collection of TV games, home computers and consoles on display in the UK.

Showcasing machines and games from the first Pong TV game to the latest Playstation console, this new exhibition spans over 40 years of home video gaming. Visitors can practice their retro-gaming skills on a hand-picked selection of playable consoles and explore the history of the video game with over 100 machines on display, spanning 8 generations of gaming technology.

Founder of Game Over, Portsmouth’s only retro-gaming café, Steve Lowe has been working hard on the exhibition, which features part of his own private collection spanning machines from 1972 to 2014, “I want to take people on a journey through the evolution of gaming. A couple of years ago I started visiting exhibitions and displays of gaming in the UK and realised there was nothing really out there for people interested in the history of gaming. That’s when I got the idea for both the café and the museum exhibition.”

Steve wants both the Game Over café and The Future of the Past exhibition to be experiences people can move between, particularly as the two sites are located so close to one another. Visitors to the exhibition can walk through four decades of gaming machines and games, pausing to play on a selection of hand-picked machines reflecting the evolution of gaming. They can then walk for five minutes to the Game over café to play their way through more than 30 playable consoles and over 1000 games spanning a wide range of genres including classic arcade, multiplayer and racing.

Steve has invested his own time and money into both Game Over and The Future of the Past exhibition, but could not have achieved either without the help of many people along way, including friends, family and local businesses. He’s hoping to build on that community by recruiting an army of Game Over volunteers to support both the Café and the exhibition over the summer.

Steve says, “I’ve experienced first-hand how incredible the gaming community really is. I’m looking for gamers and retro gamers who are both passionate about gaming and have experience in playing a wide variety of games. There are opportunities to work from home helping with our social media, or to get really hands on helping with visitors to Game Over and the exhibition.”

Volunteers will need to be reliable and available for at least one 4 hour shift between 10-5pm one day a week. More details are available by emailing Steve Lowe at booking@gameover.cafe

Steve will also be on hand to chat to visitors and potential volunteers at the launch of Game Over: The Future of the Past at Portsmouth City Museum this Saturday 28^th May between 10am and 5pm.

The exhibition is found in the Game Over Gallery on the 2^nd floor of Portsmouth City Museum, Museum Road, Portsmouth, PO1 2LJ.