Retro Video Game Arcade Road Trip!

My video game crazed son is turning 12 this week so on his birthday (Wednesday) we are taking a road trip to a "retro" arcade here in New Jersey called "Billy's Midway." They have an extensive collection of vintage video games and pinball machines, and no quarters or tokens are needed - all the games are set to "free play" so you pay a flat fee of $10 per hour when you come in the door, and you can play as many games as you want in that time.

https://billysmidway.com/index.html

This place looks like a blast, we're really looking forward to it. Yesterday we were looking thru the lineup of games on their web site and I'm going, "Oooh, check it out, they got a Burger Time machine!! Q-Bert? Hell yeah! Daaaaamn, Galaga was my JAM!" haha.

I said to him, "Don't get me wrong, your Playstation is nice and all, but I want you to experience what video games were like when I was 12."
I'm not sure who's more excited about this, me or my son, haha.

https://billysmidway.com/games.html

I'll report back on our trip later this week!

Gorf and Joust are great games. Galaga was my game also. I used to kick some serious ass on that game. Have fun, looks like a blast.

Very cool!!! I hope you and your son have a great time.

Galaga and Joust. There was at least the need to be around people back then to play, now you don't have to leave your room.

Man that sounds like a blast!  I wish there was something similar around here. 

I OWNED Galaga back in the day but does this place have Xevious????  I might actually drive to Jersey to play that game again.

What a cool idea for a business!  I hope the guy who owns it gets rich!

Dude, that sounds AWESOME!  The oldschool arcade is going the way of the dinosaur sadly. 

Show that young fella that us old farts grew up with the best shit! 

This thread got me into looking for something similar in my neck of the woods. Found one that sounds promising, but it's 40 miles from me. It's called Captain Cutaneum's Arcade '85 and I guess everything there is from 1985 or earlier. Only open during the cooler parts of the year, so I'll have to wait a few months before I venture out that way. Might be a fun day though. Guess he blasts all 80's music over a vintage stereo too. Hope he plays some good shit, and not that new wave or pop rock crap lol

That sounds awesome! I'd love to have something like that around here.

There is a retro arcade near where I live.

https://www.sugoi.fi/

I've been there once only.

Holy crap! There IS such a place here and it's only about 10 miles from me; it's in the town where I used to live before I bought my house.

https://theneutralzonestl.weebly.com/games-list.html

tohostudios wrote:

Holy crap!  There IS such a place here and it's only about 10 miles from me; it's in the town where I used to live before I bought my house.

https://theneutralzonestl.weebly.com/games-list.html

Do THEY have Xevious? Cuz it appears that the place I'm going to does not.

Nor do they have "Xenophobe," a cartoony "Alien" style shoot-em-up that I remember fondly from my college dorm's video game lounge. Too bad. I would love to play that game again. Back in the day I smoked all challengers on that thing, the high score leaderboard display was all my initials!!  


I am looking forward to playing the Burger Time and Simpsons games the most!

...also, I love that they have a "Fix It Felix" game from the movie "Wreck-It Ralph." I had no idea that there were actual arcade cabinets made for that one.

Yep!  They have Xevious.  Unless I've permanently lost my touch I'll end up having to pay for multiple hours.  Back in the day I could go for almost an hour on 50 cents on Xevious.  I'm sure I'm rusty but once I get the hang of it again I could spend 3 or 4 hours playing that game.  I hope the shift control on it isn't shot; even when that game was popular certain machines had a sluggish control that would get you killed because it didn't react fast enough.  My friend and I found a great one in Nashville in a Laundromat of all places so we'd make a night of it going to the best pizza place I've ever been to, downing a pitcher or two of beer and heading to this laundromat to play Xevious for about 3 hours.  The year was 1984 or so and man those were good times.

That sounds cool and your son has a great birthday, nudge nudge wink wink.

I'd play Gauntlet for days.

^^^^ Yeah man! Gauntlet was excellent. Another one I really liked was Crossbow.

Quote :

Yep!  They have Xevious.  Unless I've permanently lost my touch I'll end up having to pay for multiple hours.  Back in the day I could go for almost an hour on 50 cents on Xevious.  I'm sure I'm rusty but once I get the hang of it again I could spend 3 or 4 hours playing that game.

I was the same way with Galaga. I could go for 45 mins. to an hour on one quarter. It was one of the few arcade games I was ever truly "good" at when I was a kid.

A couple of years ago I picked up one of those "plug & play" joystick/controller thingies that had a bunch of the old school Bally/Midway games pre-loaded on it (Pac Man, Galaga, Galaxian, and a few others I can't think of now) and I played so much Galaga on it that I literally killed it. I went to fire it up one day and...pffft. Nothin'. I have yet to buy a replacement but if I see one cheap enough I would do it all over again, haha.

I used to be pretty good at Galaga and Galaxian too.  But Xevious was my go-to game.

Today's the day! I'll be crushing some high scores on Burger Time and Galaga this afternoon

I found this one near me but it's a bit of a drive.

http://www.pinballpa.com/

Well, we had a blast at Billy's Midway this afternoon, and we will definitely be back. It was totally like stepping back in time to the early 80s - a dark room full of loud, beeping video games, Rush's "Tom Sawyer" cranking from a jukebox in the corner... I felt 12 again.

After an hour of various games, I learned that I still suck at Donkey Kong and Q-Bert, but I kicked some ass on Burger Time and beat the hi score on Galaga. I did pretty well on Moon Patrol too.

My son the birthday boy fell in love with a shoot-em-up game called "Area 51" that I practically had to pry him away from when our hour was up, and my older son discovered how cool vintage pinball machines are. He spent most of the hour in the pinball area playing an old Gottlieb pinball called "Chicago" with a '30s gangster theme.  

We stopped for a slice of pizza in a restaurant across the street afterwards and my son said it was "an awesome birthday," So I guess I win the Cool Dad trophy for this week.

I bet it's cool to see your kids get into the same type of games you enjoyed when you were their age.  That sounds like a great day.

That's awesome, glad you guys had a good time. Think I found a possible arcade closer to me that's open all year long . Might go this weekend and check it out.

What was you Galaga score? I'm gonna beat it lol

Wrecked Neck wrote:

What was you Galaga score? I'm gonna beat it lol

I'm way outta practice so it wasn't that impressive - around 60,000 I think. The hi score on the machine was only 41K when I got to it, so I was like "Pffft, I can beat that with one hand behind my back," haha

Fat Freddy wrote:

Wrecked Neck wrote:

What was you Galaga score? I'm gonna beat it lol

I'm way outta practice so it wasn't that impressive - around 60,000 I think. The hi score on the machine was only 41K when I got to it, so I was like "Pffft, I can beat that with one hand behind my back," haha

Haha! That probably about all I'm good for these days too. I have it on Xbox, and that's about what I get before it's game over. Haven't played it in years, maybe I should get some practice in before I try the real thing.

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Haha! That probably about all I'm good for these days too. I have it on Xbox, and that's about what I get before it's game over. Haven't played it in years, maybe I should get some  practice in before I try the real thing.

When I had that plug-n-play arcade joystick thingie for my TV a few years back, I was untouchable on Galaga. I think my high score on it was almost 200K at one point. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Haha! That probably about all I'm good for these days too. I have it on Xbox, and that's about what I get before it's game over. Haven't played it in years, maybe I should get some  practice in before I try the real thing.

When I had that plug-n-play arcade joystick thingie for my TV a few years back, I was untouchable on Galaga. I think my high score on it was almost 200K at one point. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I'm afraid that's how I'd be at Xevious these days.  I mean, I haven't played the thing in over 30 years!.  I'm afraid I'd start a game, see the familiar graphics, hear the familiar music and before the waves of nostalgia finished washing over me it would be "Game Over". 

But I may check it out tomorrow when I run across the river to Sam's Club; the arcade place is only about a mile away from there.  If it's not too pricey for an hour of play time I might wander around in there for a bit.