Long Island Retro Gaming Expo draws thousands to Cradle of Aviation

As he hunted for new video games to add to his vast collection, Doug Zuhoski referenced an app on his phone that tracks his inventory.

"My memory is good but not that good," said Zuhoski, 40, of Brentwood, as he scanned a table of PlayStation 2 games Saturday at the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo.

He was soon in luck. He found the second in a trilogy of games called TimeSplitters, a first-person shooter game released in the early 2000s. After a brief negotiation with the vendor, Zuhoski's collection of old-school video games expanded.

The second day of the three-day expo at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Uniondale drew several thousand people, some in cosplay, to step back in time before 4K-resolution graphics and life-like images of modern day consoles.

"I've always been more into the retro stuff," Zuhoski said.

Amid the museum exhibits showcasing America's aviation history, game enthusiasts sat at rows of tables set up with a vast selection of video games available to play. Others browsed the games and memorabilia sold by vendors, and the museum's main theater hosted a series of panels led by video game experts.

"There's so much to explore," said Joel Albino, the expo's organizer and founder. "There's so much to learn, too. … It's not just the games. It's the history behind it."

This year marks the expo's 10th anniversary, although one year was cancelled due to the pandemic.

On the museum's second floor, gamers could experience the full history of video games at the Console History Exhibit. The timeline began in the early 1970s with Atari Home Pong and featured dozens of games up to the Nintendo Wii U, released in 2012.

The expo attracted gamers from far and wide.

Friends Aurora Bragdon, 25, and Allison Peneff, 26, traveled from Ohio to spend the weekend on Long Island for the expo. They played Pong, "which was actually super fun," said Bragdon, who dressed as the Yellow Pikmin from the strategy and puzzle video game.

Peneff, an avid arcade fan, tried her luck at Pac-Man, tallying a score of 12,620 — a ways off the game's high score of 76,450.

"It's like an adrenaline rush," Peneff said. "I like games where you're trying to run away from something."

Melissa Barry, 41, of Plainview, played Tetris with her 7-year-old son, Jack.

"Brings me back to my childhood," she said.

Greco Maldonado, 43, of Floral Park, brought his two sons, ages 9 and 6, and said he attends the expo every year.

"It's a great show, it's fantastic," he said. "I'm trying not to buy so much stuff."

The expo reopens for its final day at 10 a.m. Sunday and ends at 5 p.m. Gamers can show off their skills on high-score tournament challenges for Towering Inferno, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Tetris Attack.

A series of panels range from the history of 3D gaming at 10:30 a.m. to video game historian Leonard Herman's 3 p.m. discussion on the history of video games.