Today again, we journey through the Twin Cities in search of arcades. This time, we’re going a bit further than usual. This is an arcade that somehow escaped my sight for years. I happened to stumble upon it by pure chance while searching for bowling alleys that I’d forgotten to mark on my map. It was one heck of a bus ride to get out here.
That’s right; I took the local shuttle directly to the Mystic Lake Hotel and Casino, way down in the Indian reservation. It’s on the very edge of town, at the limits of where the buses travel.
It’s a bit fancier than the Indian reservation casinos. I’m used to it, but nowhere near as posh as the ones in Atlantic City or Vegas. I’m not much of a gambling man, but I did have some time to kill, so I hit the cheapest slots I could find. I still managed to lose 5 dollars in a few minutes and remembered why I don’t gamble. I’ll save my luck for better endeavors.
Oh, did you think we were going to the Mystic River arcade? Nah, they’re way too fancy to have one of those. Instead, we’re headed a few blocks down to the Trail of Dreams. (I’m not being poetic, that’s what this street is called)
Ah, Playworks! The local childcare center where parents can leave their kids while they gamble. Surely the arcade must be here if the casino didn’t have it? Nope. There are a few arcade games here, but I’m not going to try to talk my way into daycare to photograph a couple of common ticket games. The arcade must be somewhere else.
Here we go, the Dakotah Ice Center! This has to be the place, right?
The Super Chex sitting in front of the ice rink is amusing, but this doesn’t seem to be what we’re looking for, either. There doesn’t seem to be anything in this building but empty hallways. I wouldn’t have come all this way if there wasn’t an arcade. Let’s look a bit harder.
After a bit of searching, I finally found this elevator tucked away next to one of the side entrances. It’s in such an odd spot that you could come here to play hockey all the time and never even notice it. It says it’s going to the Dakotah Bowling Lanes, so I guess we have no choice but to take it.
I was expecting many things on the other side of this elevator, but this wasn’t one of them. It looks more like a staff-only storage area. If not for these signs, I’d have honestly thought that I was in the wrong place. Well, we’ve come this far; let’s see it through.
Welp. It looks like the arcade does exist. Surely now you can understand why I didn’t know it was here for years. Hell, I’m not sure if most people who work here even know it exists. Well, it’s only eight bucks for an hour of unlimited play, so let’s see what they got.
This is a “bowling alley” in name only. It’s only got these four coin-op lanes…
And these three more standard lanes. I honestly don’t know what to make of this place. Do people actually come here regularly? It was completely empty for me, aside from the one bored-looking high school kid working the counter. I had a chat with him on the way out to get some information, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
This is the machine that compelled me to come all the way out here. This is Sega Bass Fishing, a very popular game from Sega’s heyday. It’s not just your standard sports game like Big Buck Hunter. This game combines Sega’s fast-paced arcade gameplay with a unique control scheme for a truly unique experience. It reminds me a bit of Jambo Safari, but with fishing. Unfortunately, that unique control scheme is also the reason this game has become so rare in recent years. It requires specialized knowledge to keep it running, which the technician at this arcade didn’t seem to have. The kid working the counter tells me that he’s only seen this game working once. He assured me they were getting a new maintenance guy who might be better than the last one. Maybe there’s still hope for it?
If you can’t tell by the Sega Bass Fishing, this arcade has a LOT of games from the late 90s and very early 00s. Just going by that alone, I’d say it was opened in 2003-ish. The newest game in the room is the Avengers Pinball (not photoed) from 2012, so it’s likely they were still adding a new game every few years up until then. While we’re on the subject of pinball, that Batman machine is, by far, the oldest thing in this game room. It was released in 1991 to tie into Tim Burton Batman films. Everything else here was released after 1996 and still sold until the 2000s.
Enough of trying to carbon date this arcade. Let’s see what other random relics they have sitting around from the turn of the millennium. If Sega Bass Fishing is any indication, this is gonna be good.
Here in the corner is Mo-Cap Boxing. It uses the same motion-sensing technology as the Police 911 games. Much like Silent Scope, released around the same time, these games were pretty common back when they were released due to their novelty. And like Sega Bass Fishing, the strange controls require specialized knowledge and parts to maintain. It seems the technician didn’t know how to fix this one either. Too bad.
Life didn’t find a way this time.
A week or two after coming to this arcade, someone asked me if we had a local Arctic Thunder machine. With all of the rare novelties this specific game room had, Arctic Thunder completely slipped my mind. It was even one of the few games that was still working! They even have Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, which is rare in the Twin Cities. I think we’ve only got two of these in the Twin Cities, and they’re both in such weird places that I might be the only person who knows where they both are. We’ll get to the other one someday, assuming it’s still there. Mini-golf, anyone?
I mentioned some of those games from the latter half of the 2000s. I’ve run into Blazing Angels before but never bothered to play it. Since it was freeplay, I decided to give it a shot. The game was okay, but the machine makes a loud, irritating clicking noise whenever you take damage. I’m pretty sure this results from the seat-shaking feature being broken. It made the game so annoying that I had to quit after a couple of minutes. Well, that’s another game that’s not functioning right.
I legitimately thought I knew every DDR machine in the Twin Cities. I guess not. This Supernova Machine is in pristine shape on the outside. The decals are almost perfect, and the pads are surprisingly clean after a decade. Just look at how clear the shine on those metal “speakers” is. The only problem is, you guessed it, the maintenance guy doesn’t know how to fix this machine, so the sensors have gone dull. If not for that little detail, I’d come down here to practice all the time. The casino shuttle is free and pays by the hour, so this would be the best practice machine in the area. Let’s hope the new guy can fix it. I need a practice spot.
Wait, are these multi-cades newer than the Avengers Pinball? I don’t know. I don’t keep track of multi-cades. They’ve got Guitar Hero, though, if you’ve ever wanted to play the arcade version without having to pay per song!
I can’t believe this actually works. This here is Sega’s Harley Davidson and LA Riders. Much like The Lost World beside it, this is one of those games that was produced for quite a while despite releasing in 1996. I thought it would be in the worst condition here, but it was mostly serviceable outside of the controls being a bit loose (it wasn’t bad enough to be a dealbreaker).
I don’t think I’ve ever actually talked about this game before. It’s a classic Sega racing game, complete with difficult-to-master drifting mechanics. The Deluxe version of this game, the one you see here, has a rather unorthodox control method. The way the physical motorcycle tilts is tied to the handlebars. If you turn to the left, the motorcycle you’re sitting on will quickly jolt to the right. It’s a bit strange and hard to get used to, but it’s one of the better motorcycle control schemes. A lot better than trying to play Hang-On without putting your feet on the floor, anyway.
Last but certainly not least is a game I’ve been looking for since I stupidly ignored it in Vegas. This is The King of Route 66, the strangely rare sequel to American 18 Wheeler. At first glance, it seems more of the same, but once I played it, I realized how damn different it is from the original. The truck physics are mostly the same, but the map layout is nothing like the first. In the original, all levels involved racing down the freeway without much interaction besides avoiding cars. This game has a far more complex level design. You often find yourself driving through small towns and finding alternate routes to get through, so there’s a lot more to this game. There’s also a new system where you can befriend allied truckers by responding to them when they talk to you over the radio, who will then do things like try to cut off the enemy truck or give you hints. Overall this is a much, much better game than the first. Now, if only the gas pedal on this machine didn’t get stuck in the full blast (it makes driving with a precision impossible, so there’s no way to get past the third level in time).
There you have it. It was a small arcade and a short blog post, but I had to see it in person. It’s full of rare games, even if none of them work. If by some miracle, they get their act together, I’d probably wind up a frequent customer. There are so many great games I’d like to practice. Oh well.
By the way, the next blog post will be a long, interesting one. Look forward to it.
