We’re here at yet another Chicago arcade. Tom’s still around, too.
A Pac-Man themed barcade. Not the most innovative idea but they executed it pretty well. There was a staggering amount of Pac-Man merchandise and history here.
This isn’t a barcade! This is a sports bar arcade with a bowling alley, similar to Gameworks, Dave and Busters, and Round 1! This is level 257, Namco’s attempt to cash in on that market.
I didn’t realize it was actually owned by Namco. That makes the amount of Pac-Man stuff there way less impressive.
You really didn’t realize this was an official Namco arcade?
Nah, I thought it was owned by some locals who wanted a way to make their arcade/bar/bowling alley stand out.
I’m sure you don’t know this, but Namco is one of the very few who stayed in the traditional arcade business in America. A good chunk of the mall and theater arcades that still exist are their Time Out arcades.
Wakka wakka.
Yes, Wakka Wakka, indeed. As you can see, this place’s arcade looks pretty standard. It reminds me of a casino arcade.
The lighting, the carpet, the general atmosphere, yeah, definitely a casino feel. The arcades at the Station casinos in Vegas were extremely similar in ambiance, I wonder if those were operated in partnership with Namco.
I THINK I noted that they were probably Namco arcades by the Pac-man on one of their signs back when I was doing the Vegas blog posts, but I could be wrong. (EDIT: I never forget an arcade)
I once spent 20 bucks trying to pluck a Knuckles the echidna doll out of a claw machine in a Station casino arcade as a little kid. Rigged as hell, those stupid machines. Grip strength of a 90 year old stroke survivor. I did eventually get it though.
You know that claw machines are set to fail until around 30-ish fails, right? They’re probably even stingier in Vegas…
One armed bandits have nothing on those damn claw machines. There was a “stop the spinning light” game there that snookered me too. The promise of winning a Tamagotchi was just too good to pass up. Those places are just soft-selling kids into a life of degenerate gambling…
That light-stopping game is similarly rigged to be impossible to win until you’ve lost enough times. I tried hard to win a Blastoise from one at Sam’s Town as a kid…
Anyhow, as I mentioned, they had a bowling alley.
Bog standard offering, didn’t really have a lot of Pac-Man themery happening.
There’s a term for these places that’s slipping my mind at the moment, but they’ve been popping up everywhere since around the 2010s.
Arcade-slash-bowling alleys you mean?
Entertainment Centers! Basically, big, upscale bowling allies that offer a lot of other stuff. If you remember, the first time you came to Minneapolis, we went to a local one then.
That’s a terrible name. In my vocab, an entertainment center is the shelf where you have the TV, video game consoles, movie player, etc.
That’s precisely why I had to double-check the term. Those things have always been around, but I noticed a big influx of them this decade. They usually have things like sports bars and laser tag alongside bowling and the arcade.
It’s a little funny how such different things all kind of occupy the same mental space for a lot of people. I guess arcades and bowling alleys share some of the same historical DNA, in terms of how they came to exist in their modern form. But combining laser tag and sports bars into some kind of chimera with a bowling alley and an arcade is a little weird, even if it somehow makes sense.
Whatever keeps arcades alive.
When it comes to the quality of an arcade, the atmosphere is just as important as the games, I think.
This place definitely had atmosphere. I enjoyed myself even if the selection wasn’t the best.
Modern games, ESPECIALLY ticket games, have an overload of bright neon lights, so I liked how they had all of the sequined walls and disco balls to emphasize that.
It really is like stepping into another world. It shocks the senses in a way, the bizarre and unnatural lights/noises. An arcade with a good atmosphere just feels so different from anywhere else in the world.
Did you know that the movie Blade Runner’s atmosphere was largely based on the atmosphere of early 80s arcades? They’ve always felt like stepping into the future.
That’s true. A whole of of the cyberpunk aesthetic is kind of like “what if arcades were real life”
It’s nice to see that even modern arcades can keep that feel, even when consumer hardware has caught up to the actual games.
Speaking of a neon light overload…
This was that insane racing game where there’s like, an erupting volcano and a dinosaur that chases you right?
Yeah, although you picked the most boring level of it possible. I LOVE the Singapore level so much.
Why’s that?
Imagine a cross between rainbow road and what we just talked about, except in a thunderstorm.
You should have told me to play on that level!
You selected it before I could… But don’t worry, Cruis’n Blast is at every fucking arcade ever. I’m sure you’re familiar with the series as a whole.
It’s from the Cruis’n USA series right? Like a spinoff?
No, this is the 7th game in the series. Cruis’n USA, Cruis’n World, Cruis’n Exotica, The Fast and the Furious, The Fast and the Furious DRIFT, and the Fast and the Furious Super Cars
Is it one of those things where they just keep trying to one up themselves with every iteration?
This is the long-awaited return of the series with its proper name, so they went all-out with the spectacle.
I think you mentioned in another write-up how the series veered off into using the Fast and Furious name even though it had nothing to do with the movies.
Yeah, Midway made the Cruis’n games in partnership with Nintendo. When Midway shut down its arcade division, and the remnants of it formed Raw Thrills, they obviously couldn’t get the license. They did manage to get the F&F license, so that’s how they continued the series until they very recently lost that. Fun fact: The Wii port of Fast and Furious is called “Cruis’n.”
Such a weird diversion to the series. It’s cool they got the rights to the old name back, and I have to say, they know how to make one hell of a return. It was one of my favorite racing cabinets I saw on the trip.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. Despite my misgivings about this series, I do love how flashy this one is.
Here’s one I’ve known about but never seen in person.
TMNT?
Yeah, the new one.
I forget this one. It’s a beat em up like the old one, or something different?
Yeah, it’s meant to be a throwback, but it uses the (2012) modern cartoon as a basis. You know we have the Nick theme park here in Minneapolis, right?
Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Does it have this cabinet or something else that this cabinet reminds you of?
Well, the 2012 TMNT show is on Nick, so they have a lot of it in their park. They even had a custom cab of the 90s arcade game for a while, except it was covered with images of the modern characters.
I’m glad a new generation is getting exposure to TMNT. Everyone needs some pizza-munching karate turtles in their lives.
The 2012 series was extremely, extremely popular with kids while it was airing. When I worked in the Ice Cream Truck, I had to tell the manager to start ordering the Ninja Turtles Popsicles. Once he did, those things always sold out.
Look at you. Finger on the pulse of youth fads.
See? I told you it would come up again later.
I like that they’re sticking to metric on all the signage, even in the American market.
As you can see, Bandai-Namco finally caved in and brought the series back stateside. It’s even got BaNaPass functionality available for any arcade that orders it, unlike SOME series. The BaNaPass is Bandai-Namco’s universal game login for all of their games that use online functionality (although I think this is the only game in the states that uses it, I could be wrong).
You tried to use your BaNaPass here as I recall — but there was some kind of problem with it, I think.
No, I tried to buy one. I managed to get all of the major cards EXCEPT this one when I was in Philadelphia. I couldn’t get one here either because it only accepted 1s.
That’s right. How weird in this day and age, you’d think they’d take fivers.
Tekken 7, I think?
Was never a big Tekken fan.
I’ve said before that I’m not big on fighters, but this game and Wangan are pretty hard to come by outside of Round 1 in the states.
Typical story of the company holding on tight to their IP, I guess?
No, the reasons are more complicated than that. But for now, I just wanted to point out that Level 257 likes stocking the latest Namco arcade games. They even had Point Blank X for a while. This was the ONLY arcade that had it for quite a while.
I had to look it up, since I’d never heard of it. Looks kind of like a modernized version of that other light gun minigame collection we played… the one with a strange name I can’t recall right now.
Yeah, it’s the long-awaited third entry in that series that I thought the other game we played was. Some Round1s carry it now, but it was exclusive to this place for a while. I was looking forward to it, but it wasn’t there.
It’s too bad. I liked the one we played, felt like a good pick up and play sort of game that rewarded good play without absolutely requiring it to have a good time.
They also had a handful of older games mixed in, though not many
A place like this has to throw those in since they ultimately traffic in nostalgia. I mean that’s the whole point of the Pac-Man theme to begin with.
Yeah, but there’s something else I noticed. Take a look at this list of their games made around a year ago.
Taking a look, but what should I be paying attention to?
Doesn’t anything about that list jump out at you?
I dunno. A lot of Atari games.
A LOT of those games, especially the older ones, weren’t here anymore.
Broken down or phasing them out on purpose you think?
Honestly, I have no idea. I’m especially baffled by Point Blank X’s disappearance since it’s so recent. For some reason, it seems like they phased out a LOT of arcade games in 9 months.
I wonder if that might bode poorly for this location’s future.
Maybe. I’m especially disappointed that Baby Pac-man was gone. It’s a pinball machine, but when you shoot it into a certain hole, you start playing Pac-man on the top screen until you enter another hole and re-enter the table. So you constantly alternate between Pac-man and Pinball.
That’s actually a really cool gimmick.
Yes, but also a machine that’s special to me. I once found it in a VF Factory mall in high school. It was the first time I saw a machine, and I went, “this thing is rare; why the hell is it here!?”
Anyhow, I’m sure this is what you were most interested in.
Well, it was an impressive collection. More impressive when I didn’t know it was just Namco pulling a bunch of junk out of storage and dusting it off. I thought this was an organically collected collection.
It probably is. I doubt Namco had a bunch of Pac-man stuff lying around that they could just put here like this.
See? They had like Band-aids and stuff.
I think there was Pac-Man breakfast cereal too. I’d try it. Cereal never goes bad, I think. Maybe.
The guy who runs Dinosaur Dracula would disagree with you on that point…
Well I’d definitely try it before that green can of botulism.
On an unrelated note, whatever happened to Kinky? I don’t think he’s been seen since like 1996.
It’s a rough era to have the name Kinky. Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Choke Me Harder Daddy
Kinky was cool, though. He could fuse with the other ghosts and make them stronger, but you could kill him just by touching him. You had to hunt him down immediately or else.
Maybe that’s really why they phased him out. People don’t like upsets to the status quo. When you play pac man you expect it to play like it did in 1980.
Pac-man Arrangement was one of the better attempts to modernize the classic formula. Shame it’s so obscure.
Here we have 5 Pac-man games, none of them Arrangement.
Can we talk about how absolutely horrifying the original cabinet art of Pac-Man is?
Come to think of it; the ghosts look a lot like that early Pac-man design when you take their sheets off…
Pac-Man wouldn’t have had nearly the same cultural impact, I think, if they hadn’t quickly switched to the art we all know and love.
I think most people know him as the sprite, anyway.
Maybe but the art on the cabinet is a big part of what draws people to the game.
It was goddamn Pac-man. People were drawn to it regardless. By the way, take a look at the machine on the left. It’s a bit unusual, don’t you think?
No art on it, for one.
Right. That’s Level 255. It’s a hack of Pac-man where, exactly as the name suggests, you start on level 255.
that way you get to actually experience the kill screen.
Exactly.
Pretty clever.
And not something you’d typically find at any arcade. This will likely be the only time you’ll see that machine in person.
More overpriced merch in another gift shop!
…this was the ticket redemption room.
It all kind of blends together. In fairness, ticket redemption is just a roundabout path to overpriced merch.
It is, but it says a lot about how few arcades you’ve been to that a whole room of ticket prizes is unusual. Then again, Gameworks’ was twice this size.
It’s not unusual, I just forgot that it was a place to redeem tickets rather than to buy things outright. Another arcade we went to had an actual gift shop I believe.
Yeah, but you also mistook Gameworks’ ticket redemption room for a gift shop in the last post…
As you can see, it wasn’t ALL Pac-man stuff. Just most of it.
Some cool stuff, but nothing I’d spend a lot of time or effort to win. Tickets or cash upfront, it’s not really worth the trouble.
You know there’s an entire sect dedicated to min-maxing Dave and Busters’ tickets. They can sometimes even make a (very minor) profit flipping prizes.
If you factor in incidental costs and opportunity cost, I’m sure it’s ultimately only D&B coming out ahead in the end.
D&B definitely doesn’t come out ahead if people are winning their Nintendo Switches for 50 less dollars than they paid. They usually try to kick those people out if they can get away with it.
Depends on what kind of markdown they get from the OEM. They can’t be paying retail for the prizes they offer.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they do, given how difficult it is for anyone to buy them without spending twice the cost on games unless they know how to play the system and abuse coupons.
Look down here!
Lego Pac!
I think this is where you’re SUPPOSED to enter the building.
Kind of a weird entryway though. It was only this prop in a downstairs area if I remember correctly. Seemed sort of barren, and tiny, leading to a set of stairs that actually took you to the arcade.
Right, it’s an entry hall. We, however, took the hidden entrance. And by “hidden,” I mean “a tiny-ass door in the back of the food court that took us like 10 minutes to find”
Yeah, this place was a pain in the ass to actually get to from inside the mall. The map had its location marked incorrectly. It’s like you’re really Pac-man trying to navigate the maze.
Over by Lego Pac-man, there was a timeline of Namco.
I suppose in retrospect this should have keyed me in to the fact that Namco themselves ran the place. Generally, the only people who commemorate a company’s history with a timeline like this is the company itself.
As I said, these kinds of places have been really popular lately. Last time we saw Sega’s take on the idea, we now get to see Namco’s. I wonder if they plan on expanding this place into a chain.
Time will tell. It was a cool place, but it really did lack in games. It’s the kind of place that’s better to go to if you’re interested in more than just the arcade games… like if you want to spend some time at the bar with friends or bowl a couple rounds too.
It’s not a place we stayed very long, but it was absolutely one I had to see when I was in Chicago!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I got the chance to see it too. Like you said earlier, atmosphere is important too. This place had it in spades.
Let’s have some closing thoughts before we finish the post since it was short anyway. What did you think of the trip so far?
Up to this point, it really all felt like a prelude, which it sort of was.
Really? I saw it as the opposite. All of the arcades I saw so far were amazing.
That’s definitely true, and I agree that each arcade had a lot of charm. But it all felt like it was ultimately leading up to the main attraction.
That’s a sad way to look at things.
I don’t think it’s sad at all! The excitement of each arcade we saw up to this point just upped the anticipation for the next place, which finally culminated in what was (imo) the best arcade of the trip.
By the way, did you ever get around to seeing Funset Boulevard?
As far as Funset Boulevard, no, unfortunately.
It’s a place brimming with 30 years of beautiful history. You should check it out before the next blog post. If it just had like ten more good games, I’d have given that place a coveted S-class grade.
It is pretty nuts to think an arcade with such a nice selection is just anonymously sitting in my backyard.
Yeah, why haven’t you been there? Its selection wasn’t as big as I’d have liked, but it was really, really unique. It even had games I hadn’t seen before. And to make it better, they’re games that had just been sitting there forever. It wasn’t like Garcade, where some of the magic is lost because it’s essentially a collection.
Usually if I go to an arcade, I go with someone as a kind of planned thing. I just haven’t had the opportunity to take a friend or family there.
Just go. Then read my blog post about it afterward so you can compare notes. I feel like this is important.
Aye aye.
As he said, the next arcade on the list is the big one. There’s only one arcade in Chicago it could possibly be.
It had such an unassuming facade I thought we were in the wrong place at first… but at least for me, it lived up to the hype.
