[FSPA] Arcade Fun: Chicago burbs, IL and Brooklyn, NY

[ethan at 757.org]

So after the fun trip on Saturday to Ocean City and Rehoboth Beach, DE I 
had a work trip to Chicago IL. Got home Thursday night then Friday I was 
headed to NYC for a weekend computer security conference type thing. Like 
Defcon but 110 people not 15,000.

Chicago:

So a friend had told me about an arcade I should see on my next visit. 
It's the first one Namco built in the USA, a prototype. I was kind of 
confused, never heard of it, but it was out in the burbs. It's called 257, 
after the PacMan kill screen -- which confused me. I thought the venue had 
been around some 20 years or something and it was a failed Dave and 
Busters idea. I didn't think the kill screen was heavy knowledge until 
after the Kings of Kong documentary. It turns out 257 is pretty new, and 
AFAIK it's the only location of it's kind in the USA.

I met up with my fellow IT professional friend to discuss tech stuff and 
do some gaming out in the burbs of Chicago. He warned me a few times that 
I would probably be disappointed by the place, but I explained it didn't 
matter, arcade. There was some remodeling and some of it he said was 
better than his last visit. You enter on ground floor and there is a giant 
Pacman made of legos, and a bunch of Pacman history. Awesome carpet of a 
Pacman board was on the floor, and some memoriabilia like the Buckner and 
Garcia album on the wall.

Headed upstairs, and got another warning about potential disappointment.

Hit a bunch of classics. Qbert, Robotron, Tron, 3 vector games, millipede, 
Tapper, Burger Time, NBA Jam, Sipsons, Tetris.... a lot of others. Holy 
shit! A really really solid amount of classic games on the right side of 
the space. Payment was by card system.

Pinballs? Yea. One or two or maybe 10+. Paragon, Kiss, Ghost Busters, GOT, 
TAF, TZ, BK... JJ! Dialed In (finally played it!), WoZ AND Hobbit!

They had two sets of bowling lanes, one was normal and one... so there is 
a projector, projectors? with a short throw lens above the lanes that 
projects pac man and galaga stuff onto the bowling lanes. The balls going 
down the lanes are tracked and it projects flames and stuff coming off the 
back of the balls on the floor. Pretty neat!

On the other side of the projected bowling alley from the classics is the 
moderns. More Raw Thrills ticket classic games using the LED pixel walls, 
and other redemption.

There is display cases of old PacMan memoriabelia and arcade PCBs that 
actually are Golden Tee and Maximum Force/Area 51 not Pac Man. There is 
also a lineup of PacMan machines separate that include most if not all of 
the titles. Didn't look too close, ran out of time!

So that leaves one other place on the Chicago arcade to-do list... would I 
have time? Thursday hit and my work was done for work.... so hit the uber 
and headed out to Bloomfield IL! Round One. Round One is the largest 
Japanese arcade company over there and they are opening locations in the 
USA. I was excited to finally check this out, although there is now one 
about 3 hours away in PA outside of Philly that the kids from DC are 
driving to in order to get their game on.

The mall is ... it's out there. I guess all malls feel like Dead Malls now 
even if they aren't, and I was there mid-day on a Friday. Got some mall 
lunch and hit the arcade. UFO Catchers galore, photo booths. Redemption as 
always to pay the bills. Bowling lanes, fried food bar that didn't seem to 
be operating, and... imported games!

Zero pinball at Round One. Although given the Stern games I wouldn't be 
surprised if places like D&B and Round One actually get some. Don't stop 
reading though! Don't turn up your nose, fellow pinheads! It's important 
to know what's hot? Right? Plus pinball at the next place, I promise.

Round One was pretty dead, which gave me the chance to buy a Konami 
eAmusement card and play a few credits of the latest Dance Dance 
Revolution machine. This machine breaks the trend of preventing the USA 
from participating in the Japanese based eAmusement system that has linked 
the arcades in scoring battles for ages. The system also controls content 
availability for licensing music and crap so when people in the USA and 
England reverse engineered it and stood up their own Konami eventually got 
upset and served a cease and desist. So they shut down that network. But 
now it's sort of in the USA.

Other games on the floor included Initial D arcade stage 8, Maximum Tune, 
Musica, Pop N Music, Pump it Up Fiesta and Prime, a guitar and drum game, 
some Groove Coasters, Sound Voltexes, reflecbeat, ReRave 2, and probably 
others. No JuBeats (heard there are issues getting the music licenses 
cleared to bring it over in a location like that?) All and all it KILLLS 
Dave and Busters. And oh man I can't navigate through the menus to get 
games started for the life of me! It's all in Japanese! I think I spent 10 
minutes going back and forth between a start menu and some other menu. 
Next time, google translate will be used.

Round One is awesome, in that segment of games. I don't know what pricing 
is like since I was in a mega rush. I was terrified of not being able to 
get an uber from way out in the suburbs back to the airport for my flight 
out so I only had two hours or so.... I will visit the PA location after 
things calm down a bit.


Off to NYC!

Computer security conference yada yada nerdcore show yada yada Charred 
Resistors says "You better be going to the laundromat!" "Whaaat?" I didn't 
think I would have a chance but I had a chance Sunday morning before my 
flight to swing over to the Sunshine Laundromat & pinball. It's a 
laundromat that up front has 5 or 6 pins (PoTC, BDK, FH, DE Simpsons, 
Cactus Canyon) and then a lot more and a bar in the back. But the downside 
was, the bar area opens after 4pm M-F and at noon Sat/Sun so I wasn't able 
to make it into the bar area since I was there around 10AM Saturday. 
Flight was to leave at 2PM and I was doing the worst job of navigating the 
Subways the whole weekend, wasn't taking chances!  At Sunshine Laundromat 
out on top of the laundry machines there was a AF, NoFear, Bride of PB, 
and NBA FB sitting on top of the laundry machines for storage. Amazing! A 
very cool location, I played through about $10 (75 cent a game) and bought 
a T-Shirt. Will be back, someday!



--
Ethan O'Toole