Yo really? nobody could pick up my phone when i called it six times last night ?! Anyhow let me know who is going into the arcade and when so i can grab it !
word up for snowstorms that make it so i don’t have to go to work! Also, Killer Instinct and Blitz were super hilarious. Mines was filled with fun and hilarity. next week we’ll break out at the experimental stream and go global!
what time do people want to go to the arcade saturday
Can i please have confrimation that my phone is at your house Lawtown?! If so can we meet up or can i swing by when where et c lemme know, ill go anytime saturday, but im hearing bad thinigs thus far 
Yea its here. Ill be around tomorrow afternoon if you want to get it after work tomorrow. I can check it out for a couple hours saturday morning around 11. Hearing bad things already? dammit.
You think you could just throw it in my mailbox or something or whatever, ill be home all day after 430, but i dotn wanna wait till tommorow to get it if thats possible 
Also im expecting some pretty important phone calls as well, and doing business on the road urks a problem with no cellphone :{
who wants to just go to nyc and hit china town fair for the day saturday instead…? eh eh any takers
i would!
I think a couple of other peeps from Mass are planning on leaving in the morning, hitting it up all day, and then going back when they close. as for me, i’m busy all day saturday. I will, however, be leaving for the nh arcade in a few minutes and i’ll post up my impressions and reactions when I get back.
i’m seriously down to go to nyc if anyone else is.
nevermind, wife says no this weekend…>_<;;;
Ok so my impressions of Pinball Wizard Arcade (from the outside to the inside):
It’s located right on as major a thruway as Pelham is gonna have, I think, and there is plenty of parking. It also has the fortune of having a truly GIGANTIC sign on the building that it’s in. Seriously, it’s a big sign. The sign is over an empty part of the building though so when I initially drove up I thought the place had closed lol. Little did I know that the space is actually in the corner unit (way big). When I walked in I was greeted by Stephanie the Manager at the front desk/ticket reclamation booth/token machine (yes, tokens). She was quite nice and I wandered around the place before actually breaking any bills. Right across from the desk and token booth there are actually a couple of pool tables, which I was not expecting. There is no eatery or drink-dispensing (adult or otherwise) guy there so it’s really just a place to go play games. The space is pretty big and there is definitely a lot crammed in there. If you remember the press shot, you could see a TON of pinball machines. I can tell you that there are waaaay more pinball machines than that and that, yes, the machines, in general are pretty close to each other. Pinball aside, there was a lot of hilarious cabs I hadn’t seen in FOREVER, like BurgerTime and StreetSmarts, Area51/MaximumImpact (took all my money not spent on fighters as a kid), Return of the Jedi (the one where you pilot the vehicle the whole time) and the original MK. There is a big ass ddr machine in the back corner for two people (though it isn’t ddr, i forget what it’s called), crazy taxi, and other, bigger, ride machines. The last two rows house all the fighters. MK I-IV, SF:WW and CE, SFA I-III, SVC Chaos, MvC, x-men v sf, tekken 3, soulblade, a Neo Geo machine wth kof 96 and 98, CvS2, and a couple others that weren’t working. Actually, with regard to things working, it really seems like this place will need some time to get to working smoothly. My three tokens were eaten by the 1p and 2p side of the CvS2 cab so I played some MvC then went up to the front to tell Stephanie. She actually seemed really interested. She walked over to the cab with me, opened it up, tested it with a few tokens, and then put 8 credits on the machine for me. Ball top sticks, Happ buttons, but really solid feeling ones, nice to the touch with a nice depress on the CvS2 cabinet. The right kick button on the player one side of Tekken 3 was sorta busted so that ended pretty quick for me. Then the Neo Geo cabinet ate 2 of my tokens so I walked to find a random game to spend the last of my two dollars (I should mention here that like… every game only costs 1 token–25 cents) and I stumbled upon a SAILOR MOON BRAWLER. Yeah, that’s right, Sailor moon. Cabinet was so weird, it was for like… lefties (with the stick to the right of the two buttons) and there was a button on top of the stick itself you had to press. Seriously… game was hilarious and I did not last long once I had to engage more than 3 baddies on the screen as they all viciously attack you at once without remorse. So then I went back to Stephanie and informed her of the issue with the Neo Geo cabinet (someone had forcibly shoved the 2p insert token slot too hard and that was stuck as well) and she came over again and asked me if I wanted to play the machine. I said I didn’t really care about the two tokens and that I had to go. She told me that, like the other machine, she would fix it and then gave me 7 tokens for the road. Basically I made money when I went there.
Personally, I like the place. I’d totally go play CvS2 for a quarter a match or UMK3 (most every cab was actually the original cab for the game–only the sf alpha games looked a little awry). I’m really not sure what would happen if we tried to make the owners get some new machines, but I imagine it wouldn’t be impossible. I didn’t really see any games that would have been running on a Taito X2 board either. If this place survives for a bit, though, there may be a possibility. I suggest we just go there once a month or something as an escape from the mines for some fun–oh, and they had 2 NFL Blitz machines…
^^ Did they have a game called The Grid there? if so how many cabs of it were there?
if you are talking about this The Grid, then yes. I’m pretty sure I saw at least one of those, but I could be wrong. Not sure how many were there. There’s a phone number on the website so I’m sure you could call. I think the door said they were open until 10 Sunday through Thursday and 11 Friday and Saturday. I may go back on Monday and if I do, I’ll check for you.
We are playing that Sailor Moon game until we can beat it on one token.
25 cents to play every game sounds awesome, but I don’t know if I can make it out on Saturday. Maybe I’ll hit it up tomorrow evening and file a trip report.
oh man if the number of cabs is 3 or up, ill make it there. and ill MM anyone in that game. anytime. thats a game that needs to be brought to XBL asap.
Damn I always saw that game and never once gave it a try, guess now is the time. Cool review Kraig sounds like it is atleast worth a trip. Did you notice any space that would perhaps lend itself to a game night, kinda like “The Break” on Tuesdays? We need an actual venue if there is any hope of growing and being in an arcade atmosphere would definitely see some new faces. Thanks for the effort in getting this info out to us.
Great summary of your time there. Like everyone else that has been there, you reported a lot of short comings of the arcade. But unlike everyone else, you really made me want to go because of how accommodating the arcade manager was. Also, everyone failed to mention the prices of the machines, but not you! I do look forward to going now even knowing that machines eat tokens and some of the parts are lack luster. I’ll probably be there in the afternoon of saturday.
tl dr, sounds rape though
Okay, just got back from Pinball Wizard Arcade. I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer because the place has potential, but it’s pretty clear the owner doesn’t really understand what we fighting game players demand. Some notes:
*All the parts are low-grade Happ. The sole exception is CvS2, which thankfully has the convex Happ buttons, but everything else has concave buttons. The sticks are whatever isn’t the Happ Competition series, and the diagonals are really, really dodgy. CvS2 is playable (keep in mind I am used to American sticks), but all the other games are going to strain your hands, especially those of you who have only played on parts of Sanwa quality.
*Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 were both unplayable. A2’s screen was completely messed, and down-back didn’t work on P1 side of A3.
*Medium Kick didn’t work on P1 side for MvC1, so that player can’t call assists.
*P1 side for MSH had an unresponsive fierce button.
*The A button on P1 side for the Neo Geo was also out of order. Kraig mentioned that the cabinet had KoF96 and 98; the other two games are SamSho2 and most importantly LAST BLADE MOTHERFUCKING 2. If the owner can keep that cabinet in working condition, I am always down to go there just for that game.
*There were quite a few people just randoming around in the various Mortal Kombat games (I believe they had MK1, MK2, UMK3, and MK4), and a few people on MvC1. The other fighting games went pretty much untouched. Also, people were abusing the crap out of the MvC1 controls. 
*Kraig misreported all games costing 25 cents; CvS2 costs 50 cents a play. I’m wondering if this is a secret conspiracy, given that it has the best controls.
*I am now the proud owner of the high score on the CvS2 cabinet.
*The dance game is Pump It Up Exceed 2, which costs a dollar to play but is still fun as hell. I don’t know if any of you guys play rhythm games, but I enjoyed it.
Even with all the busted parts, I did talk to the owner about them, and she said they repair the machines every night after they close. I made out a list of stuff for her to fix, so hopefully everything will be working well tomorrow. She was super cool and accommodating, so I actually have pretty high hopes if we can just keep giving feedback.
EDIT: I should also echo that the venue is super nice and easy to locate. Tons of space, tons of games (you can even play god damn Super Mario World there), and it’s right next to a Chinese takeout place and there’s a pizza parlor opening up right next to it too.