Last weekend around 150 gaming fans converged on Leamington Rugby Club for Fusion 08, a two-day celebration of gaming old and new. I attended on Saturday with my good mates Rob and Rich and we provided a selection of machines for the masses to play on, including Rob's Bartop MAME cabinet, my Neo Geo AES and PC-Engine and all the kit required to play 10-player Saturn Bomberman.

It truly was a great day out and I met up with lots of friendly and like-minded people that show just how strong the retro community is. Personal highlights were my first ever go on Rock Band, where my vocal performance on the Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly" earned me a 100% rating, and showing off some of my old Shoot Em Up Construction Kit games to Andrew Fisher (Retro Gamer contributor and C64 guru) who was quite impressed with some of my 18 year old work!

Here's some photos from the event...

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There were several arcade machines in attendance including these two fine specimens.

You can't get more retro than this - former Crash! magazine tech guru Simon Goodwin's Video Genie, running a homebrew Pac-Man clone.

My Neo Geo AES was a big favourite with fighting game fans.

Typing of the Dead is always a winner at these events!

Rob's MAME bartop was rarely unoccupied during the day.

The ZX Specadore 64 takes Homebrew to a whole new level!

Impromptu competitions broke out throughout the day. This one is Sensible Soccer on the Amiga CD32.

It wasn't just about the retro games - here we have 8 XBOX 360's networked for multiplayer heaven.

Spectrum Homebrew God Jonathan Cauldwell created this game called Fusion especially for the event.

There were several Q&A sessions with special guests during the day. Here Paul Drury interviews Martin Hollis who worked on Goldeneye for the N64 amongst others.

The Saturn Bomberman tournament attracted nearly 30 entrants!

One of the highlights of the event was the fantastic Rock Band, which saw complete strangers joining together to ROCK day and night...