Arcades

[Golgo]

The missus told me that we're visiting her friend in Manchester this weekend.

My gears start clicking and I asked if it would be incredibly rude if I went out in the evening, to which I got the green light.

So, this Saturday, I'm finally going to Arcade Club in Bury. I'm so hyped!

You're doing a truly honourable and selfless thing, making yourself scarce so the ladies can enjoy a girlie chat.

[Wools]

The missus told me that we're visiting her friend in Manchester this weekend.

My gears start clicking and I asked if it would be incredibly rude if I went out in the evening, to which I got the green light.

So, this Saturday, I'm finally going to Arcade Club in Bury. I'm so hyped!

You'll love it, can't wait to hear your impressions and see any pictures!

I went with my Brother last year for a 2 night stay up in Bury, and it was so good, we're considering going again this year. Might add another night on, too!

[QualityChimp]

I live to give, chaps.

Yeah, I'll give a pre-emptive 56k dial-up warning for all the pics I'll post.

[QualityChimp]

Gang, I'm at work and pretty busy, so will try to put something on at lunch, but Arcade Club was amazing.

Here's a quick vid of their Candy Cab room:

View this post on Instagram

[wakka]

It's really an amazing looking place. I know that's just one little part of it too.

I went to an arcade not this weekend gone but the one before - it's been posted about in here before, it's Chiswick's Chief Coffee.

A fraction of the size of the mighty Arcade Clubs of course, but a really, really cool little place. Most of my pics feature my mate and his little boy so can't post them but here's one with some random strangers cranking out a bit of MaiMai:



So the gist here is that it's on three levels. The ground floor is a nice coffee shop, the basement has a selection of pinball tables, and the upper level is all Japanese imported arcade games.

On the pinball side, you've got about six tables total, with a mix of classic Williams/Bally like Medieval Madness and Monster Bash and recent Stern fare like Godzilla. Tables are really well maintained and we had great fun down here. I particularly enjoyed Cactus Canyon, which I hadn't played much of before, and which has a great playfield toy in the shape of a cowboy that you have high noon showdowns with (by bashing him with the ball, naturally).

The only thing I would love to see them add is one of the Sega pins like Apollo 13 or Baywatch. I really like those ones and you don't see them too much.

Upstairs, I really liked the selection of Japanese arcade machines. The focus is very much contemporary, which for me is very welcome as the vast majority of modern arcades in London tend to have a retro focus (and do also tend to emphasise the same handful of very popular machines from the late 90s/early 2000s).

There are several rhythm/Bemani titles - Taiko no Tatsujin, MaiMai, GrooveCoaster, Sound Voltex, Nostalgia. Then a couple of racers, in the shape of dual cabs for Mario Kart Arcade DX and Initial D Zero. Then you've also got a couple of more knockabout games, with Bishi Bashi Channel and a game I can't remember the name of but essentially costs of bouncing ping pong balls into a goal on a time limit.

For me, it's actually a really ideal selection. I love Bemani stuff and also hugely enjoy the Initial D racers. Then Mario Kart/Bishi Bashi/the ball bouncing game are ideal for knockabout fun in a group.

Really cool stuff and a great place. You can tell it's all been put together with real passion. The Japanese arcade room has some very cool NeoGeo pennants and posters decorating it. All the machines are on their original coin mechs, interestingly - there's a machine which changes UK notes into 100 yen coins. Very much recommended. A slight trek for me (about an hour total door to door) but very much worth it, and I'll def be back.

EDIT:

One thing I would just add about Chief Coffee as well is it's a really pleasant environment. You can kind of see above it's a nice building with wooden beams and there's plenty of natural light too. I do genuinely appreciate that as to be honest you do sometimes have to tolerate some pretty crap sweaty/seedy rooms in order to play arcade games in the UK. Having quality coffee on hand is brilliant as well.

[Tobal]

Any recommendations for Southend on Sea/Essex area that isn't the awful sea front?

[QualityChimp]

Arcade Club

Sorry, not sorry for all the pics.
Going to break this down to floors as there's a lot to talk about.

So, we were supposed to stay with friends in Manchester, but my wife mixed the dates up, so I jumped in the car with my son for a road trip as I'd already booked the tickets.
It's about 90 minutes away from the Midlands, so not an unholy trek.

Got there at 12:30 and we were there until closing at 11pm!

There's not really much else around and it's in a bit of an industrial area. There's a tiny car park and a bigger overflow, but that was full by the time we arrived, so did some perilous parking. The building itself is pretty unassuming, but contains so many treasures!



Ground floor had a few bigger cabs like Time Crisis 5, Initial D: The Arcade, Guitar Hero Arcade, Dance Dance Revolution and Euromix, Virtua Cop 3 and some other racers, plus a bunch of other random cabs like TMNT.





I missed it at the start, but there's also a 16+ area with a bar, with loads of pinballs and some retro machines. There was an ancient bagatelle machine that regularly had some heated competitions. A few machines weren't working (ball stuck), but the newer machines were all fun, but if I'm honest, Godzilla blew them out the water (with a heat ray), although Iron Maiden's ability to choose songs was ace.

[QualityChimp]

First floor is more of a social area.

They have a load of big cabs here too. The biggest being the 4 player Mission Impossible where two teams face off to beat a mission with better stats than the other.
There's a Luigi's Mansion, House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn, that Sega 4D horror thing, Star Wars Battle Pod, Daytona 4P, Outrun2 SP, basketball hoops, TANK TANK TANK and my son's fave, Dancerush Stardom.







Then there's a section with a load of comfy leather sofas that are running stuff like Minecraft.
There's also a ring of Xbox consoles where you can play some massive LAN games of Halo and the like

[QualityChimp]

Second floor is primarily rhythm games and there are so many!
Just before that is a glorious room full of candy cabs.
I didn't spend much time in here, which surprised me, but I was trying to play a lot of bespoke cabs that you can't play at home, so despite being there all day, this beautiful room took a backseat.




So there were some other cabs dotted around in here - no room has a cast-iron theme to it, which is fine.
Really enjoyed playing Pac-Man Jr, which I've not seen in the wild for decades - the one with the pinball table.
Didn't play the clay pigeon simulator as that was pretty busy.
There were a bunch of cabs down the side like Dariusburst Ex, Chase H.Q. 2, Initial D 8 (or infinite?), OutRun 2, Panic Park, Time Crisis 2, Silent Scope, Quick & Crash, Smash TV, a bunch of Tekkens (3, 7, Tag) and some more candy cabs with Macross and stuff on.

[QualityChimp]

As for the rhythm games, I knew Guitar Hero, DDR and various manias (Guitar, Drum and Beat), but there was a load I didn't know of.
Played Taiko no Tatsujin and did that song where the mascot on drums goes all beast mode.

[QualityChimp]

Third (top) floor has the café area. We had pizzas, but they had burgers, hot dogs and nachos too. Not bad value - cooked onsite and you can change the toppings.

The other section is the retro arcade section.
This was a lovely nostalgia fest for me and found myself gasping to myself as these machines not seen since the 80s/90s were available to play.

There's a massive row of those standard UK arcade cabs, but they had some brilliant choices on them like Aliens, Superman, Salamander, Nemesis, G&G and so on:



I played a bunch of these because I couldn't resist, but tried to limit myself to focussing on still I couldn't play at home with bespoke cabs like Super Sprint, APB, Ninja Warriors, Chase HQ, Spy Hunter and Star Wars Arcade.

[QualityChimp]

Rather than bombard the threat further, you can browse my whole album here (the order is messed up, though):

https://ibb.co/album/p0JkvS

I think my fave games were Godzilla pinball, which has so many great moments and nods to the series, Initial D: The Arcade, which told the story parts in B&W like a manga then switched to colour for the races and it was genuinely exciting trying to beat the other cars.

I also loved Dancerush Stardom just because it melted my heart seeing my son so enthusiastic about it.

Realistically, it was a phenomenal day out and I absolutely loved it.
I'll definitely go again, but try to play games I didn't go on this time, of which there were hundreds.

[wakka]

What an absolutely insane spot it is. Got to be one of the best arcades in the world. The fact that it’s a flat fee then free play makes it all the more bonkers.

Really need to get up there.

Thanks for the great photos and write up.

[Atticus]

That looks absolutely class QualityChimp … thanks for sharing 👍

I want that Sopranos pinball

[mjbrooky]

Fantasic write up and amazing pictures QualityChimp. What an insane and wonderful place it is. I really should make the effort to get up there - wife is from Bury with her family still living up there (we live in Telford). Us and the kids really should go and visit her mum, then I can 'excuse' myself to leave them to catch up.