I'm planning a Sunday out in a few weeks for the Manchester Derby, and as there are only 3 or 4 lads turning out (school night) we're kicking off the shenanigans at lunchtime with a couple of hours in the arcade club in Bury before hooping on the tram into Manchester.
I don't know if anyone has had the pleasure, but this place is incredible!! It used to be the top floor of a fairly run-down mill but over the past few years they've expanded floor by floor and now occupy all four floors! The top floor is still wall to wall with banks of arcade games from the 70s, 80s and 90s but there are now loads of the more modern cabinets, the really enormous ones like the full size cars for the racing games.
I can't believe how excited I am, as a 41 year old man, by the prospect of flashing lights... but I cannot wait!!
Come on, regardless of generation (I shan't ask!) what are some favourites?
I'm dying to get on House of Dead and Point Blank (shooting), Mario Kart and Outrun (driving) and... for some reason...frogger!! Hahaha. The excitement is real.
I went to the Club in Leeds a couple of months ago.
Wow! What a step back in time. Absolutely loved it and need to take my brother along.
Point Blanks 1 and 2 were a highlight for sure along with Gauntlet and numerous others.
Having been brought up on the doorstep of Cleethorpes the arcades were an integral part of my teen years.
Enjoy the trip down memory lane!
Tanks was always my favourite in the 80s RAF NAAFI
I figured out most manoeuvres and could play for hours for just 10p
We also had Asteroids and the obligatory Space Invaders and one where they used to peel out of the pack and attack you but I don’t recall it’s name.
I’m too far from Bury to go visit sadly.
Enjoy your day
One of my favourites Glaxains or GalagaOriginally Posted by barreti
Thanks for that, we're off to Manchester in a couple of weeks for my lads 14th. Just booked in for the Friday.
Used to love Golden Axe, Double Dragon and Operation Wolf as a kid.
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Ahhhh you're gonna have a top time, there are loads of this sort of place popping up now but this is the biggest in the UK and one of the biggest in Europe!
Golden Axe, what a blast from the past, I think my Sega megadrive came bundled with that and Shinobi both on one cartridge. That reminds me, last time I went they had a separate room for really weird, obscure Japanese stuff. Sadly all the instructions were in Japanese so I had little to no idea what was going on, but I'm having a good stubborn go at those this time!
Galaxians, Lunar Lander, Phoenix, Scramble (completed all levels) then Tanks. Hours with mates at 10p a go, happy days but not sure it was time well spent!
I've really slept on Tanks, seems to be in a lot of favourites lists but I've almost certainly never played it.
I was a Space Commander on Galaxians in my younger days!! :0)
When I visited a couple years back they had my favourite pinball, The Adams Family, fantastic and LOUD.
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Outrun... I can still play that music back in my head like it was back then.
The place sounds fabulous!
Cheap !!! our local machines were 20p a go or 3 credits for 50p. This was 1979 !!!
Ah the memories !! A local lad figured out that if he used the piezzo system from an electronic cigarette lighter and gave the coin slot a wee electric shock you got free credits. It took the owner a good few days to figure out what was going on.
maseman
When I was a kid in the 80s, Astron Belt and Dragon's Lair were cutting edge.
https://youtu.be/roCbZXqBDaE?feature=shared
Don't ever recall a multiple of games for 50p but I vaguely remember Battlezone being 2 coins so that would be 20p. Once you got the hang of that it lasted ages!
Sounds more like “Gorf” with the lightup ranks on the cabinet fascia itself “ Ha Ha Ha… Space Cadet!” cool
sounds.
I’m taking my boy and his friends to Four Quarters in Peckham…not sure who is more excited 🤣
Think this thread is worthy of a link
https://www.arcadeclub.co.uk/bury/
I’ve always thought about setting up something like this… used to go to place years ago when I went to uni in Bournemouth called Sega world (30 years ago ffs!) they did a free play night on Thursdays from memory. Brilliant fun it was as well!
Last edited by Anygreg; 20th October 2023 at 13:08.
"INSERT COIN!"
A couple of us went to one on Baldwin St in Bristol the other Friday night. It was around 23:30 by the time we got in there and surprisingly busy.
Really enjoyed the hour or so we had in there, nice to be able to get a pint while playing the games.
I spent far too much time and money playing Defender. I had all the all time leaderboards in our arcade.
Later moved on to pinball when I started frequenting pubs. No pubs have pinball now.
For anyone interested, there is also a huge retro arcade at the National Film and Science Fiction Museum in Milton Keynes (which is excellent by the way):
https://www.thepixelbunker.com/
and
https://nationalfilmandscifimuseum.com/
So clever my foot fell off.
For me in the early '80's it was Phoenix (at the sit down tables), Galaxians, Defender, Asteroids (at the swimming pool) & Space Invaders (at the chip shop)!
Another huge Asteroids fan and it was so addictive.
Showing my age but Gorf, missile command, asteroids, centipede, defender, galaga, 1942, pacman, bubble bobble and pinball would be my top 10
That Christmas when you spied a large rectangular box under the tree, could only mean one thing… Atari 2600, thus marking the dawn of consoles that would change our lives forever.
We also learnt about frustration and getting a numb arse sat in front of the telly. Dert der dert der ….
Ahh yes, had the pleasure of visiting Arcade Club a couple of times. They do have a superb selection of machines, my personal favourites being Progear, Metal Slug and Street Fighter II. They also had a brilliant 4 player Darius Burst cab for you shoot 'em up fans.
I took my son and 4 mates up there at the weekend, they loved it and so did I, it has reminded me of the games I loved when I was his age (it was a treat for his eleventh birthday). I am now investigating rebuying the games /systems I once owned.
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