DISCLAIMER: This was one of my earliest blog posts. Forgive the fact that I had no idea what I was doing.
I tried to get a better shot of this building, but the children they mark, and the children they know, the place where the sidewalk ends. This one ends abruptly, right before I get a good angle. Of course, I COULD have just walked all the way around, but it wasn’t worth it. Plus, the sidewalk to nowhere was more interesting, anyway.
But before we get into what’s in that building, let’s take a moment to look at the unsung heroes of the mall. There’s a merry-go-round with an elf on it that makes sense during the Christmas season but is completely baffling during the rest of the year. On the other hand, there’s a generic firetruck and three other things I can’t quite make out because a kid was riding one of them, and I didn’t want to get him in the photo.
But most important is Jungle Jive, a 4D experience. You not only travel across all three axis but TIME as well. Unfortunately, it’s too small for anyone over 2 feet tall to harness these incredible abilities. However, my curiosity got the better, and I decided to peek in and uncover its secrets.
But the attract screen transitioned right as I was taking a picture. We were never meant to understand the mysteries of 4D technology.
Where was I? Oh yeah, this place. The building in the first photo is the AMC theater, which is connected to Southdale. This is the mall entrance. It’s pretty flashy.
Just off-camera to the right is Minnesota’s only “Cheesecake Factory” store, or so this place’s website told me when I looked up places to eat earlier.
Into the theater we go!
Here it is, in all its glory—the third arcade of Southdale Center. I’ve come here many times but never knew it was there. I rarely even check theaters for machines these days anymore since they usually have 1-2 standard machines at most. Not this place. This is probably the largest theater arcade I’ve ever seen. (unless you count arcades that happen to be across the hall from theaters, like Electric Rainbow or that big-ass arcade with the ITG machine between Sioux Falls and Omaha)
I’m just going to dump them all since I don’t have much to say about them. The RollerCoster Tycoon pinball machine’s neat, and Police Trainer 2 is always fun. Otherwise, I’ve got nothing. Still nice to know about, in case you get bored at the other arcades.
This ice cream place wasn’t here before (the blue one in the middle; I should have edited some of these). Let’s check it out.
They just set up a booth in the doorway of an empty shop. I don’t know if this is amazing or awful.
Also sprinkles.
The girl working there didn’t seem to like being photographed and wasn’t sure if I had taken a picture of her, but I didn’t want to say anything. It was awkward. Hence, the first picture is a blurry shot taken quickly while she was in the back.
Honestly, many of these places were extremely hard to get a good shot of because my phone has no zoom function. There’s a big gap between the store and me, so my options were to stand right in front of the place or stand way back here.
This is basically a gas station convenience store that was added recently. I’m surprised at all of the new stores coming in lately. It’s probably because of the…
We’ll get to that in just a sec.
This gas station convenience store knows what the hot franchises are. Granted, I’m pretty sure some of those plush toys were meant to tie in with the Sylveon short released three years ago, so they’re not exactly “current.”
By the way, if you’ve never seen the Sylveon short, halfway through, the writers run out of plot and pad the rest with trippy visuals like flying through the solar system.
I’ve been neglecting to mention them, but there are these big Orwellian signs all over the place commanding you to do things like “Drink. Play. Watch.” If you’ve spent 5 minutes in this building, you can probably guess what they’re for.
Dave and Busters are hellbent in letting you know they’re in here.
There they are, sitting atop a flight of stairs. The way it’s framed makes it look like some church or roman architecture.
The first thing you notice in Dave and Buster’s is that arcade game makers seem to be in a pissing contest over who can make the most giant, most obnoxious-looking machine. It’s hard to see in these pictures since there’s not much of a scale reference, but all of these are about twice as tall as every other machine in the building. The first one nearly touches the ceiling. While the others aren’t quite as tall, they make up for it with their big, flashing lights.
I just noticed the middle ones look like “08”.
If you choose to enter through the side door instead of the massive flight of stairs, these are the games you’re greeted with. There’s kind of an odd corner near that door filled with weird-ass games nobody cares about that only glow faintly.
Here we see a wall of Mobile Games turned ticket machines, with Frogger awkwardly crushed between them. In the other photo, we see a version of Galaga converted into a ticket game, much like Frogger. Machines like this are why I don’t spend much time at modern arcades. It’s always the same handful of games.
Here we see a crazy-ass game of air hockey with like a million pucks flying around. I’m not sure if it’s meant for four players or if you’re supposed to dual-wield.
Pac-man game counter: 1
Pump It Up, my mortal foe. Unlike the one in Gamerheadz, this one serves a practical purpose. Dave and Buster’s machines can go online, while other machines can’t get into the network. Even though they’re the same version, most PIU players prefer to gather at this machine and leave Gamerheadz empty.
It’s worth noting that this machine is the reason we didn’t get DDR A in Minneapolis. Dave and Buster’s opted to upgrade this machine rather than order DDR.
This one came out blurry. If I remember right, it’s Time Crisis 5, Terminator Salvation, House of the Dead 4, and… I can’t remember what the other two are. If they’re interesting, I’m sure I’d have taken another picture of them. This row of shooting games fills Southdale’s obligatory House of the Dead quota.
This is a four-player Pac-man. Four players race across the map to see who can eat the most dots without getting killed. I came here with some friends once, and we played a lot of this. I won every time. It reminds me of the four-player Pac-man game for the Gamecube, except not really.
Pac-man game counter: 2
Six-player trivia. We also played this game, but the questions are so damn hard that it’s nearly unplayable. Most of the time, you have to guess and get lucky since they’re multiple-choice. I feel you can win many tickets from this one, but I could be wrong.
This was another hit-and-run photo. They get mad if you take pictures of the people playing the games, so you must do it from a distance. This game, Mario Kart DX, is never, ever unoccupied. If I understand correctly, every Dave and Buster’s in the country has this game. It’s a big step up from previous versions of Mario Kart arcade. I’m still not a big fan of this game.
Pac-man is playable in this one. Does it count?
Dave and Buster’s is full of modern, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art games. And these fossils, for some reason. These games are at least two decades older than everything else in the building (okay, maybe 15 years). This new location just opened last year, so that they couldn’t have been sitting here that long. Where did these come from? Did someone find these on Craig’s List cheap and decide to put them in the store? That theory isn’t all that farfetched, considering massive games like Daytona there has horrible resale value because it’s so damn hard to find a buyer who has space for it. You can get a full-sized Time Crisis for a couple hundred because the owners are usually desperate to get rid of it.
Obligatory Jurassic Park. That Transformers game was all over Vegas. This whole wall is full of those shooting games that you sit in. What’s that on the left, though?
Luigi’s Mansion Arcade! To my knowledge, Dave and Buster’s is the only place in the country that carries this game (EDIT: It’s absolutely not). I believe they have some kind of deal with Nintendo for that kind of thing (or is this Nintendo-Namco like the other Nintendo arcade games?). This and Pokken Arcade were location tested around the same time. This game made the cut, but that one didn’t. They’re probably kicking themselves for that decision after the recent Pokemon resurgence.
Anyway, the game is exactly what you’d expect. It plays more like a Ghostbusters game than Luigi’s Mansion. I played it a few times when it first came out, but it didn’t leave much of an impression. I’ve heard that it’s a real quarter-eater.
Dave and Buster’s exclusive Rock’em Sock’em Robots. Thankfully, a person is walking by in the background of this photo, so you can see how damn big this game is. While not the tallest game in the store, it probably takes up the most space. I don’t think anyone but Dave and Buster’s would have room for it.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but Dave and Buster’s is a spin-off of Chuck E Cheese.
Pac-man reimagined as a ticket game. This is a common enough practice. Even games like Pop’n Music and Super Monkey Ball, of all things, have had ticket game incarnations. It makes sense to turn a familiar game into a ticket game. What bothers me is that this machine glows as it does. I know arcades are infamous for being poorly lit, but this place dials it up to 10. Dave and Buster’s is like some kind of neon dreamland.
Pac-man game counter: 3
Angry Birds arcade is next to a game with nothing to do with Angry Birds. Can you tell which is which? One has you slingshot balls at pigs, while the other appears to be some light stomper variation. Angry Birds was so wildly popular that, for a while, nearly every arcade was flooded with Angry Birds. I think we’ve moved passed that.
Then again, most claw machines are still full of the things, aren’t they?
Against this wall are ball-throwing games. You know, “hit the targets,” “play basketball,” etc. It’s easy to forget this wall is even there since it’s rare to see anyone playing these. I think they keep them around as decorations.
Oh boy. This one. This is Kung Fu Panda.
A group of super nerds who call themselves “AP” (Advantage Players, I think), who come to Dave and Buster’s to farm tickets, buy top-shelf prizes, and sell them on eBay. There’s very little profit to be made doing this. I think they see it as a game, trying to see if they can come out in the black. This game was notorious for having people stand at it for hours on farming tickets. From my understanding, it originally had farmable 1000-ticket jackpots. They quickly changed the game so that the bonuses would escalate more, making it nearly impossible to get the jackpot after a while.
Coin pushers. Put a coin in, push coins off, and earn tickets. Modern variations, like the Wizard of Oz one shown above, are programmed to drop cards on top of the coins (I think Wizard of Oz was the first to do this, but Spongebob, Star Trek, and others do it now). If you get all nine characters, you can exchange them for a set amount of tickets. The trick here is that the Toto card is much rarer than the others, so it’s hard to complete the set. Toto cards used to go for 20 bucks a pop on eBay (they’d go for much more if it weren’t cheaper to buy tickets). If a Toto card spawns, expect whoever’s sitting at the machine to sit at it until they get the damn thing.
You have to be super, super lucky to nab one of those things.
(for Spongebob, it’s the Gary card that’s rare)
Have some assorted photos of the place.
Remember how I said Luigi’s Mansion felt like a Ghostbusters game? Well, now there is a Ghostbusters game that plays more or less the same. The difference is that this one has face cutouts on the back that you can look through and take a picture.
Triple Fruit Ninja. It must be popular to have gotten a setup like this.
Or maybe this setup has been a variation since the beginning, and I’ve never seen it before? I don’t know. It’s late. I’m tired.
Sonic vs. Mario at the Olympic Games. Who would have thought a novelty Wii game would be popular enough to merit this? It took me forever to get a photo of this since someone was almost always playing it. I tried to play it so I could summarize how this game works, but it wouldn’t read my card for some reason. From what I gather, it’s a bunch of minigames involving the joysticks, and the floor acts as a “jump” button when you jump.
This specially modified version of Pac-man has a Make-a-Wish foundation donation box on the front. When you play it, your money goes into the box instead of the machine’s insides. You can choose from a handful of games, including Pac-man, Galaga, etc. The most interesting is Pac-Attack, a semi-obscure game from the late 80s that doesn’t usually find its way onto these collections.
Pac-man game counter: 4
Before we go, we have to check this out. Don’t worry; I got permission to take pictures. The kid working the counter couldn’t understand why I’d want to take photos of it.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I had a bunch of giant Pokemon plushes won from arcades when I was younger (Charizard, Blastoise, Pikachu, Poliwhirl, and two Bulbasaur, but the first two were bought at a swap meet for five bucks). It’s good to see that kids can still experience the thrill of owning a giant Pikachu. Or Mario!
I’m not sure which I want more, The Official Dave and Busters Pillow, The Official Dave and Busters Boxers, The Official Dave and Busters Miniature Drum Kit, The Official Dave and Busters Oversized Pillow, or The Official Dave and Busters RC Car.
Maybe I’ll settle for The Official Dave and Busters Stuffed Donut.
It’s good to know Pokemon is still a popular prize theme. I think Sun and Moon recently broke some records or something. I want that Pokeball desk speaker…
(I’ve got the tickets for it)
PS. I discovered today that there’s a new version of Pokemon Monopoly: Johto Edition.
Look at those disco ball headphones. If they weren’t so obviously made for girls, I’d wear the everloving fuck out of those. It reminds me of those Japanese raffle Transformers, where they take a standard Transformer and cover every inch of it in CHROME.
Candy prizes are generally for kids with only six tickets, but these are pretty high-shelf candy items. I feel sorry for any kid with only six tickets.
Here they are, the legendary “top shelf” items. To win these, you either need to be badass or a nerd with no life who wants to sell it on eBay.
I once had a friend who had been building up tickets for years and got a WiiU with it. I guess it’s not impossible if you have the discipline to save up for that long.
There you have it. A real-life mall with four(-ish) arcades, most of which are hidden away in parts of the mall that you wouldn’t even think to look at. You could quickly go through this entire mall and not notice any of them besides EAT. WATCH. OBEY. I’m glad I got a write-up on this place since arcades are fickle. Whenever I tell people online that my hobby is taking pictures of arcades, the response is, “do arcades still exist?” Of course, they still exist; you have to put five minutes of effort into looking for them.
Hey, isn’t there something else in this area if you head down that path over there? Maybe in the spring.
