Byte-sized wisdom: A gamer’s guide to Liverpool

Back in the 1980s when fashion crime was rife and computers typically had less memory than a pocket calculator, Liverpool was home to some of Britain’s most renowned video game studios. The companies behind some of the biggest early releases on the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 have links to Merseyside and PlayStation maker Sony maintained a presence here until 2012. Your Move has put together a gamer’s guide to Liverpool, rounding up the most famous titles to come out of our city, venues where you can play for free and the best places to buy and trade.

Words by Mark Langshaw

Trading places

So you’ve pillaged ‘Tomb Raider’ for all it’s worth, won the league more times than Celtic on ‘FIFA 16’ and are hungry for new gaming experiences. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One titles rarely come cheap, but there’s a way you can get the latest games on a shoestring budget.

Offering up your unwanted games as makeweights can make a considerable dent in those hefty price tags, and there are places on the Liverpool high street where you can offload the titles you’ve played to death.

Lord Street is your best bet as CEX, Granger Games and Gamestation lie within a stone’s throw of each other. All three are more than happy to take those old games and electronic devices off your hands, offering cash, store credit or part-exchange deals for them.

If you can only scoff at the pittance one of them has quoted you for your barely-played copy of ‘Uncharted 4’, you can always take it next door and see if they’re willing to table a better offer.

Best of yesteryear

They say they don’t make them like they used to, and this is definitely true in gaming. Those of a certain generation will have cherished memories of shunning the sun in favour of an epic Sega Mega Drive session or squandering an afternoon waiting for a ZX Spectrum tape to load.

If you think it’s all been downhill since controllers sprouted more than two buttons, there’s a place in Liverpool that can help you relive your misspent youth.

Located in the depths of Grand Central alongside an assortment of alternative shops, Level UP! is an independent retailer which specialises in all things retro, spanning hardware and software from the 8-bit era right up to current-generation machines and the latest blockbuster games.

Level UP! is an Aladdin’s cave of computing history and this nostalgia emporium also stocks a range of other collectables, including vintage comics, DVDs and Blu-rays, trading cards, and figurines.

Free for all

Owning your own console isn’t a prerequisite to enjoying a thumb-numbing gaming session in Liverpool as there are places where you can play for free.

A firm favourite among local students, the Font pub on Arrad Street hosts numerous consoles and two golden age arcade machines for customers who enjoy a side helping of ‘Super Mario Kart’ or ‘Street Fighter II’ with their pint.

On the other side of the city centre, situated on the doorstep of Lime Street Station, the Dough Bar pizza parlour also provides on-site gaming from across the ages, with a Super Nintendo, N64 and various coin-op machines tending to your retro needs.

Those who the nostalgic delights of yesteryear are wasted on won’t be left on the sidelines at Dough Bar as there’s an Xbox running ‘FIFA’ so customers can enjoy a post-pizza kickabout.

Offering a more family-friendly vibe, Liverpool Central Library features a huge sound-attenuated box called GAME where visitors can partake in free Xbox 360 sessions, with titles including ‘FIFA’ and ‘Minecraft’ on offer, and borrow video games for £2.50 per week. Here you’ll also find iPads and PCs to tinker about on.

Gaming fests

If a quick pint and a ‘FIFA’ session is too low key for your tastes, Liverpool plays hosts to larger scale gaming events where you can showcase your skills and mingle with fellow console addicts.

The iPlayGaming festival, a celebration of console culture and food, is on its way back to the Baltic Triangle’s Constellations venue on 25 June so attendees can eat, play and party the night away.

Dispelling the notion that most gaming sessions take place in a bedroom or the basement of somebody’s parents’ house, the festival includes competitions, multiplayer and team gaming sessions, retro arcade action and more edibles than a ‘Pac-Man’ maze.

iPlayGaming will also return to Merseyside early next year, but if you can’t wait that long to upstage your friends in public, the Repetitive Game Injury group meets in Maguire’s Pizza Bar on Renshaw Street on the fourth Monday of each month for retro gaming hijinks, quizzes and tournaments.

5 games made in Merseyside

1 – Manic Miner 1983
Wirral local Matthew Smith’s magnum opus was a giant leap for the platforming genre, singlehandedly putting it on the map in an age before ‘Super Mario Bros’ and ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ had left the drawing board.

2 – wipeOut 1995
One of the most definitive titles of its generation and a key game for the original Sony PlayStation, futuristic racer ‘wipeOut’ was developed by Liverpool’s Psygnosis before they moved to Wavertree Technology Park.

3 – Project Gotham Racing 2001
Developed by Speke-based Bizarre Creations, ‘Project Gotham Racing’ was a petrol-fuelled hit for the original Xbox which went on to become the second-bestselling game on the console after ‘Halo’ and spawn a successful series.

4 – Geometry Wars 2003
Fiendishly addictive shooter ‘Geometry Wars’ began life as a mini-game in ‘Project Gotham Racing’ before receiving a standalone release on Xbox. It was at one point the most downloaded game on Xbox Live Arcade.

5 – Run Sackboy! Run! 2014
The once Liverpool-based Sony still maintains connections to the city, enlisting the help of city centre-based studio Firesprite to create a mobile spin-off from its ‘LittleBigPlanet’ series. ‘Run Sackboy! Run!’ is available on iOS, Android and PS Vita.