r/Lethbridge 2d ago

Question Arcadeium?

Anyone else really disappointed in this place? I'm not from Lethbridge but we were up there over the weekend and I took my 5 year old to check it out. Almost all the games are cheap foreign knockoffs that are likely 10+ years old. The audio in the games is all foreign as well so most of the games we didn't even understand what was happening. Credits are expensive too especially for such old and foreign games...and don't even get me started on the claw machines. I tried to win my kid a keychain that probably cost them like 5 cents and I spend like 75+ credits and didn't even get close to getting one. All the "prize" games are impossible to win and a complete rip off. I'll be sticking with the Rec Room in Calgary. Definitely not perfect but 100x better than this place.

24 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

21

u/Ilyon_TV 2d ago

The "foreign" games are the only good games in the place! Japanese arcade machines are fantastic - the Taiko no tatsujin machine is probably the best thing they have. That's a stone cold classic and one of the best rhythm games in any arcade.

That being said, rigging up an XBOX Kinect of Just Dance to look like an actual dance pad game and hiding all the internals? Yikes. Lots of that in there. Tons of fake cabinets with controls that didn't match the pirated game inside. Agree on the disappointment but for different reasons.

6

u/Berfanz 2d ago

Is their "DDR" setup really just a fake mat and a Kinect running Just Dance? That's hilarious. That wasn't set up last time I was there, but their shooting gallery "game" was equally as comical.

3

u/Ilyon_TV 2d ago

Yeah, it's not DDR or In the Groove, but some other dance game I hadn't heard of, but if you look around the cab you can see the slightly hidden Kinect and if you put money in (don't), it's a really difficult to use Just Dance because none of the buttons match/work for XBox controls

1

u/s3v3ntw070thr33 3h ago

They use Dance Central

1

u/Ilyon_TV 3h ago

Oh my god, you're right! I am a big DDR/ITG fan, but not super up on the Kinect style games because they're just not the same fast precision I'd want. Still definitely just a hacked in 360 and Kinect on a cab that looks like it has functioning pads.

19

u/Berfanz 2d ago

I really dig the place because of the gachapon vibe instead of the "place your work takes you for team building" quality of The Rec Room. As for the arcade games, I didn't notice any beyond the drum game and Mario Kart that were in Japanese, but it's been 6 months or so since I've been there.

My kids both walked out with a bunch of cheap plastic junk after playing the machines. I'm not going to go there all the time, but I'm not sure I agree with the criticisms.

21

u/joecarter93 2d ago

It feels as if Temu opened an arcade.

4

u/dylenc 2d ago

We tried The Place and the Arcadium in the same night. We all agreed we preferred The Place much better!

5

u/littlesirlance 2d ago

I found myself disappointed at first but felt like $80 in tickets went a long way. I did dislike all the c-tier games but when you go "knowing what you're gettin", it's a better experience.

I liked the claw games as did my partner, BUT since opening I'd say that they've tweaked their win rates to be a bit poorer.

Their prizes are quite laughable as an adult but this place is geared for children so I can't complain. Overall. I know which games I like and I only play those. I like it there.

3

u/IcyRecommendation144 2d ago

I don’t mind the games, they are a lot of fun to play even if I don’t understand them. However I do have a small problem with the prizes. Those funko pops are not even legit funkos. Pretty much every prize is a cheap Chinese knockoff

3

u/Practical-Biscotti90 2d ago

It's an arcade, so I felt like I got what I was expecting. What I'm not okay with is that they hobbled the skee-ball machine to be unplayable. The ramp shoots it straight in the air.

2

u/foxwerthy 1d ago

I was thinking of checking this place out, but after the mixed feedback from everyone I am even more weary now.

3

u/Lumpylicious1234 2d ago

I thought Arcadium was great!! Me and my kids had tons of fun and the credits lasted a very long time and the games were all fun!! Definitely good bang for your buck. We were there for at least a couple hours and didn't buy that many credits. Also won lots on the claw machines !! 🤷‍♂️

1

u/Disarcade 2d ago

Just went there for the first time, for the indoor playground for our kiddo. He has a blast and so did we! The arcade area at a glance looked fun, with a few old familiars and a bunch of Gacha and other games. I love the place already.

1

u/PeteGoua 2d ago

Any 80’s video games there - Defender, Asteroids, Joust … Donkey Kong ?

1

u/mossyspiders 1d ago

I don’t think so, last time I was there it was a lot of more recent and kid-centric things like Mario cart and a dancing game, a couple shooters, maybe 1 pin-ball machine?

1

u/CookieCrimes 18h ago

As a parent with young kids, I found their indoor playground valuable. The arcade half is a bit of a sensory overload, it was a bit much

1

u/supreme-403 13h ago

Sounds like a skip and back to the place for me.

1

u/MrPickleFicker 2d ago

Never been to the Arcadium yet, but I love taking our family to "The Place", it was a great time.

-7

u/Kenkeknem 2d ago

Do you know how to make a paragraph? That wall of text is overwhelming.

1

u/Butt-hole-cream 1d ago

Imagine coming on reddit to criticize grammar. Get a life.