National Video Game Museum - Sheffield

The National Videogame Museum - Sheffield

If you're a sucker for a museum, an absorber of popular culture and have grown up loving video games or having at least one or two firm favourites from your youth (Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 and Tekken, if anyone wondered) then you will love the National Videogame Museum in South Yorkshire. 

The NVM is a relatively new addition to Sheffield as it recently relocated from its original home in Nottingham. Based on Angel Street in the city centre, the museum is home to a range of different video gaming set-ups based around particular themes such as 'gravity and 'made in Sheffield', to name but two. It also houses some of the world's best loved video games from the industry's beginnings through to our modern day and all of these are completely free to play once you have paid for your admission.

There are old school consoles and games, newer consoles and games, arcade machines, multi-player set-ups, differing editions of particular games such as Super Mario, Sonic and Donkey Kong. There are also displays of familiar gaming memorabilia and artefacts from over the years.

The museum also has a lab area where you can test out a number of design, creation and development facilities and there is also a café and gift shop on site too.

Admission to the museum *costs £11 per adult, £9 per child or £35 for a family of four and after that, you can come and go as much as you please throughout the day with your wristband and can play on all the games for free. At the moment there is also a Groupon** deal on the museum with a significant discount on tickets on certain dates so be sure to check that out should you wish to visit soon. It is super easy to find from the train station and no more than a 10 minute walk, if that. The museum is *open Friday, Saturday and Sunday but all week during school holiday periods.

*At time of posting, please check out the NVM website for most up-to-date pricing and opening hours

** Limited time remaining Groupon offer, check availability

I recently took my 11 year old brother as a birthday treat and we both loved it and totally lost track of time, playing on every game there was to offer and snapping pics with the huge Sonic. Our favourites in the NVM were the Sonic set-ups, (particularly the original), the Street Fighter arcade machine, classics like Tetris and Space Invaders and a funny little snowball game that I've totally forgotten the name of but it had us giggling our faces off, trying to pelt each other's player with pixelated snowballs.

It's definitely worth a visit and I only hope that it can build more funding to expand further, acquiring more games and more artefacts as although me and my brother absolutely loved it, we both saw it as more of an arcade than a museum. Would love to see more of the history, info and timelines of video games, how they've adapted and developed and how our relationship with them is altering. 

But still, a proper little gem in the heart of Sheffield, go forth and check it out!