Visit to an arcade on the Isle of Wight.. Complete with REAL arcade machines!!

[citizengodden]

A few weeks ago myself and my wife took the 2 children (aged 6 and 12) out to the Isle of Wight.

For those of you who don't know (which is probably 99.9% I'm guessing!) - the Isle of Wight is the small diamond-shaped island off of the direct south of the British Isles. Kind of looks like it will float off into the Atlantic at any moment. 

Well we travelled to Portsmouth and took the only commercial hovercraft service in Europe to the Island. We arrived at the seaside town of Ryde - and man - am I so glad we did.. I found a treasure-trove of awesome (if a little unloved) arcade machines in the back of the main arcade on the seafront.

It's called "Arcadia". In the front of the arcade it's the standard modern-day fare of dance-dance-revolution games, toy grabbers and penny pushers. Head to the back though and there are a few retro beauties to be discovered.

The list of games I found and played (whilst my wife patiently looked after the kids) were:

1942
Ms. Pacman (semi-broken control panel)
Asteroids
Mr. Do!
Pang (glitchy soundboard)
Hard Drivin' (Sit-in/upright)
Operation Thunderbolt
Outrun (sit-in!)
Kung-Fu Master - Coin mech didn't work - I tried and tried to load in cash, but wouldn't register it =(

..3 other's I hadn't heard of

When I arrived in the arcade and saw these gorgeous arcade machines hanging about in the back, I got quite emotional.. I felt tears welling up! This was like being home. The arcade was finally how it should be and always was... I played and played and played. After every game I took a picture of my "highscore" and uploaded it to Google+. Not because I thought it was good a score, but because I wanted to capture ME playing the games

One of my proudest moments was with my 6-year old daughter, Kayleigh. There was a Ms. Pac-Man game in the corner. She spotted it - it was in a generic cab, replaced I guess from the original - or maybe it was a bootleg? Either way - it just had "Pacman" on the marquee. My daughter sees it and says "Wow! Pacman! Dad, can I play it?" She wanders up to the cab, looks at the attract screen for a nano-second and says, "No wait! It's Ms. Pac-Man! Dad CAN I PLAY IT PLEEEASSSE???" Of course I couldn't refuse as it's her favourite arcade game. "That's my girl" I couldn't help repeating to myself in my head with a big grin on my face as I watched her play it

So, all in all a great day and an amazing find on the Isle of Wight. Pay it a visit if you're in the area!

View pictures here on Google+! Feel free to add me as a friend if you're using G+ too 

[davhuit]

I'm in France so it would be hard to pay a visit there, but seems fun

[citizengodden]

Well next time you visit the South of England - remember this post!! An awesome arcade that needs as much cash spent in it as possible to keep it alive!

I noticed a lot of arcade machines behind the playable ones - poor cabs that had slipped into disrepair.

They were in a section called "retro arcade" so it seems as though the owner had tried to get into the retro scene as much as he could, understanding that there IS a market out there with retro gamers like ourselves. Unfortunately I guess the money just wasn't coming in, and the punters just didn't know about the place, so the machines were like a graveyard - they were almost used like a wall to keep people out of the back of the arcade... Such a shame.

[davhuit]

I was already thinking of visiting england one day, so yeah, I will remember it if I really do it one day

Especially as the boat to go in England is only at 20km of my house  (only 4 hours of boat to reach NewHaven, and it's pretty cheap, 50 Euros for a round-trip ticket).

[mgalaxy]

Waow Paul! Thanks SO much for publishing this text and sharing it with us!!!

You have a talent to write I think...I really was "with" you while I was reading it...really well done and soooo pleasant to read!!

Thanks again for this nice moment, Paul...and be sure that it will be printed in our mind when we'll come in your country!!

[Aeliss]

Arrrrrrr, we have missed that. We have gone to london last years 

[citizengodden]

[quote="mgalaxy"]
Waow Paul! Thanks SO much for publishing this text and sharing it with us!!!

You have a talent to write I think...I really was "with" you while I was reading it...really well done and soooo pleasant to read!!

Thanks again for this nice moment, Paul...and be sure that it will be printed in our mind when we'll come in your country!!
[/quote]

No problem at all - and thank you for the compliment!

We all love the old arcade machines and to be able to share the feeling in this forum is thanks enough. Old stories of playing when we were kids is amazing, but to stumble upon something now where you can relive your dreams is priceless.

I thought I'd never see another Ms. Pacman or be able to sit at the controls of an original Asteroids again. And I mean that in an arcade that expects money - not a collector's home.

To do that was like sending my soul back 25 years - sitting my 13 year-old butt on an ageing barstool and being asked to "insert coin" by the futuristic machines in front of me. And it's nice to share that amazing feeling with everyone

[davhuit]

Personally, I never played on an arcade machine, though I saw a few of them irl as a kid but didn't got the chance to try them.

I'm 31, born in 1982 but here, in France, arcades machines were mainly in coffeehouse, and so, a place where parents wouldn't really let their 10 years old kids (the age I had when it was quite popular, in the 90') go there

I played and possessed a lot numbers of home systems (started video games with Atari 2600, and I even tried that pong black system) but no Arcade.

But maybe one day 

[Aeliss]

Same, I have same age than you and i m french too. In france arcade isn't developed : small salle, expensive, no vibes, ...
It s for that I like mame, now I can finish all this *** games where I spend all my money in coffeehouse for nothing when I was a kid ^^.


Ha yes, i remember my really fist arcade salle, really good placement , it was at 500 metre from my High School, really good for owner.