Ok, not real as in
dark, marquee lit dungeons of the late 70's and early 80s but something better
than the storefront warehouses of conversion hell of nickelcade. I was really
jonesing to play some games at an arcade so I took the family to Nickel Mania in
Murray over the weekend. I had driven by several times over the last couple
years but the redemtion games area that is visible from the street really turned
me off. I finally decided to give it a try anyway. The place was packed on a
Saturday afternoon lots of "new" games for the young ones but the thing
that got me was a very respectable classic collection of about 40 games
and 15 pins in their orignal cabinets that A: actually worked and B:
appeared to be well maintained (Tron still had complete side art and the
black lights and marquee were lit) I think the only faux pas was Galaga in a
Galaxian Cabinet. Nickelcade it was not. Most classics were set to 2
nickles and the pins were set at either 3 or 4 nickels. I didn't talk
to the people at the desk but it seemed like it was a family run business.
Anyway, we blew 2 hours and 80 (yeah, big spender) nickels most
of which went to redemption hell via my 4 year old. But it was good to find an
arcade with a lot of the 80s staples that weren't painted black
and actually had capped their monitors since 1985. It wasn't perfect but
it's the best arcade in Utah and the maintenance of the classics was close to
the quality of GroundKontrol in Portland (only 600 miles closer). There was
nothing to get excited about collecting wise but you never know what you
might be able to dig up by talking to them.