Arcades

[Nu-Eclipse]

I really, really cannot imagine going back into an arcade during COVID times.

[speedlolita]

I took a bunch of photos when I went to Freeplaycity actually, I should upload them and share here.

https://imgur.com/a/61Dazcy

[monel]

I really, really cannot imagine going back into an arcade during COVID times.

Not the packed ones or when it's busy, but the larger ones would be OK with a mask. It's not like a restaurant or whatever because, well you can wear a mask. Not that there's many decent arcades left near here.

[chopemon]

Does anyone know of any arcades that have Sega's The Lost World light gun shooter? I loved it as a kid and really want to play it again.

[fuse]

Does anyone know of any arcades that have Sega's The Lost World light gun shooter? I loved it as a kid and really want to play it again.

I'd suggest verifying this before making the pilgrimage, but going by public listings, your best bet might be Heart of Gaming in its latest Croydon home. Old Town Amusements in Hastings might have had one (in 'unknown' condition...) but doesn't appear to have any recent reports of being open again.

[chopemon]

Oh awesome! Looks like they have some HOTDs as well

[MrKirov]

I caved over covid and bought myself an arcade cab from a local company.

arcade-base.com- they’re only 30 mins from me, and a discount code meant it was only £750. All custom built cabs, fitted with a Pandora’s box DX. There’s obviously some emulation issues here and there, but an obscene amount of games and a great build quality. As I was close, he delivered it and chucked in led sticks and buttons too.

Now it stares at me from my office computer .. tempting me

[QualityChimp]

That's amazing!

MrKirov never does things by halves!

[importaku]

Does anyone know of any arcades that have Sega's The Lost World light gun shooter? I loved it as a kid and really want to play it again.

I know arcade club leeds has one, or at least one jurassic park lightgun game no idea how many were made so it could be another jurassic park game but it's upstairs on the retro floor.

Edit just googled to see and yup it's that one but the one at leeds arcade club is not the sit down model but the standing one. If leeds is too far mancherster arcade club probably has it too they usually double up on a lot of games apart from ones that will only fit in one venue like the sega hydraulic motion stuff as they chose leeds for that due to the floors in mancs to been able to support it.

[QualityChimp]

56kbit dial-up warning!

I went to NQ64 in Birmingham yesterday. They opened in 2019 and planned to go and then, y'know...

They're still open so me and my mates who kept in touch during lockdowns 1 through 12 via online gaming ventured out for some IRL gaming.

There are locations of NQ64 in Liverpool, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow and two in Manchester. We went to the one in The Custard Factory in Birmingham, which is an absolutely amazing place with loads of boutique places with things like boardgames, craft beer, crazy golf, street food, VR experiences, vinyl markets, indie cinema, shuffleboard, baseball and lots of other activities.

The place itself is great with blacklight decor with videogame influences. There's a bar serving a wide selection of drinks, but no food, which is probably for the best so the machines don't get grubby and there are loads of other places to eat, so they're focused on what they do here. It's 18+ only, so no kids in there either. For a Tuesday night, it was pretty busy with enough people for an atmosphere, but you could still get on everything. There was a nice mix of people there too.

It's £7 for 15 tokens and some games require 2 tokens, but others give 2 credits for one. The consoles are all free, but they ask you at least buy a drink (fair enough).
At first I was a bit miffed that you had to pay, but realistically it's a good system because it means people aren't hogging a machine like I've seen at retro shows when they're on freeplay.
Also, we were there for a good 2 1/2 hours before we'd used up all our tokens.

There are 3 pinball machines by the entrance - AC/DC, Star Wars and Batman (I am soooo bad at them).
Then there are a selection of consoles.
There's a side room with some older cabs, Mario Kart DX, Guitar Hero and Halo 4-player.

The main room has loads of machines, all in good condition, none broken and a good selection of cabs, gun, driving and dancing games.

I played Streets of Rage, Street Fighter II, TMNT, Track & Field, Guitar Hero, AC/DC pinball, Gunblade NY, Time Crisis 3, Point Blank, Outrun SP and Tekken II.

It's a great night and I'd deffo go again.

Maybe for a Bordersdown meetup...

Sorry (not sorry) for all the pictures

[wakka]

Looks awesome. The Custard Factory sounds really cool.

[QualityChimp]

Looks awesome. The Custard Factory sounds really cool.

Yeah, it's a brilliant place to visit.
Pisses me off when people slag off Brum but haven't been for decades, if ever.

The Custard Factory is a particular hotspot with loads to do there.
If you can't have a good night out there, there's something wrong with you!

Ghetto Golf is brilliantly inventive crazy golf course with the course going through a house, Blockbuster, sex shop and old man's pub!

[monel]

Is there a dislike button? QC has never mentioned this place. Can I down vote him and all his posts, thanks.

[CMcK]

That looks better than the Edinburgh branch of NQ64. Looks like a better layout and range of systems. Shame the home consoles and TVs are really needing the settings tweaked. Weirdly the Edinburgh bar seems very popular with ladies in for cocktails that don’t seem interested in the games.

[wakka]

That looks better than the Edinburgh branch of NQ64. Looks like a better layout and range of systems. Shame the home consoles and TVs are really needing the settings tweaked. Weirdly the Edinburgh bar seems very popular with ladies in for cocktails that don’t seem interested in the games.

Looking to bag themselves a man with a fully calibrated BVM setup no doubt.