Insert Coin ‘09

Recently, myself and a few of the Ready Up team found ourselves in a wonderful place, there were arcade cabinets, a lot of them, and they were all free to play! I kid you not! Everything from classic fighting games to rare titles never before seen in our neck of the woods. Light guns, driving sims, pinball machines, this place had it all. People called it “Insert Coin ’09”, the single largest arcade expo in the UK for over 10 years, but me, I called it “Gamer Heaven”.

At 10am on the 18th of July, hundreds of eager gamers poured into the Northampton Saints grounds for the first day of an entire weekend filled with a generous variety of games, tournaments and a world record attempt. And not to forget Ready Up’s Cosplay Clash competition hosted by OXMUK’s Ben and our Fran, in her own original Ready Up themed Ulala outfit! Of course, before we got down to work we had to get some games in! Almost instantly Fran and I became engrossed in the classic fighter, Arcana Heart. Such a beautiful game,  I could have stared at it all day. But Fran soon figured out a few moves, and started kicking my ass, so I quickly moved on, looking for something with guns. I was completely spoilt for choice with scrolling shooters, platformers and light gun games including the Ready Up arcade meet favourite, House of the Dead.

Ready Up’s Cosplay Clash competition got underway with the entrants eventually being whittled down to three. Each cosplayer got to strut their stuff on stage backed by music provided by Radio Sega, who churned out the chip tunes and game themes over the whole weekend, adding to the incredible atmosphere of the event.

After much deliberation and cheering from the crowd we were down to our final two and the winner was chosen. The £100 cash prize was taken by Natasha with her amazing costume of Infy the Angel in Crimson Armor from Ninety Nine Nights. Second place was taken by Ready Up forumer Snozzeltoff with his very smart looking Reno from Final Fantasy VII.

We’d like to thank all those that entered and the crew at Insert Coin for a great weekend, and roll on Insert Coin 2010!