two months ago a private arcade called
for amusement only openend not too far away from me (about 1 1/4 hours one way). they are open for the public every first saturday of each month. entry fee is 5 euros, all the games are set on freeplay, have a credit button or can be credited by hand and DRINKS ARE CHEAP
yesterday, i went there with a friend to check it out. here's only a couple of pics. note that most of the pics were taken with flash PLUS we arrived pretty late and didn't have a lot of time to test everything!
upon entry, in the smoking lobby, the first thing you see are four non-working video games: missile-x, pole position (who would have guessed it would be working), battlezone and lock'n'chase
then you enter the first "real" room and once again there are a lot of non-working video games stacked on the left, amongst them a marble madness, a centipede and a tank
highlight of those non-working games is definitely a
virtuality su 2000 simulator which i was told is almost up and running. can't wait to try this on a later visit
more non-working video games on the right
still in the first room a couple of em games
which were all working but one - the space pilot
the absolute highlight of the evening (for the both of us) was the crane game
junkyard in which you have to maneuver a crane with the help of a joystick (you can rotate it and move that slide back and forth) and with a lever you move the grabber up and down (opening and closing it with an additional button). the object of the game is to grab as many junk cars at the bottom with your crane and drop them in different chutes. the more cars your get within a certain time, the better your ranking is. you can score extra time when you drop the cars in an illuminated chute! as a bonus there's an 8-track recorder with cool junkyard sounds running in the background which you can check out
here!
unfortunately, the scale (which weighs the tons you've dropped) wasn't working properly and there was also a slight problem with the crane itself, but considering that they got it just the day before, they did the best they could to get it up and running. this game is
kicking ass and from now on on my wanted list
there were two more em games on the right, one of them HAUNTED HOUSE which is also in my top 3 em game list. those sounds from the 8-track recorder are simply awesome. unfortunately, not all of the targets were working and from what i could tell, the targeting was a little bit off on the bonanza
in the room on the left there are tons and tons of pinballs, newer ones like pinball 2000 star wars and some old em versions as well, but once again i realized that i'm not into pinballs at all - in fact i pretty much hate them, because to me there's no variety in "flippers" at all, all you have are your two paddles! nevertheless, i did take some pics for your guys
in the last room, which also has the bar, two couches with cocktail tables (running time pilot and bomb jack), there were more video games (all of them working except one)
two of my favorite games: (rootbeer) tapper and 720 degress. unfortunately, the latter wasn't working
and the first had such a horrible monitor picture and you had the feeling you were going blind!
conclusion: if you are into pinballs, this is definitely a place worth a visit. if you are into video games, better wait a couple of months until they have more games up and running (they showed me a storage area where they had frogger, dig dug, missile command and some other game i can't remember now). it's a great place to spend a couple of hours though, the people there are extremely friendly and open PLUS - as i've said before - DRINKS ARE CHEAP!!!
