An evening of acrade games

This week, a group of us visited the Arcade Club in Bury. The club claims to be the largest free-play arcade in Europe. Stretching over multiple floors in a former mill building and featuring more than 300 acrade games, we can well believe it.

The venue is arranged into different themed areas across its floors, ranging from retro 1980s acrade games through to Japanese imports and rhythm games. As you make your way around the building, you’re almost guaranteed to discover something from your youth that you had completely forgotten about. In that sense, we weren’t just paying to play the machines, we were paying for a slice of childhood nostalgia.

Thinking back to childhood, it’s hard not to remember how expensive many of these machines once felt, especially when you only had enough money for a few credits. Growing up in Brighton, a trip to the arcade usually meant a visit to the pier, or getting to play Streets of Rage or Metal Slug after a swim at the King Alfred Leisure Centre. At Arcade Club, though, you simply pay once for your session and everything is free to play after that. Past me would have been insanley jealous!

The food is simple pizza and burger type stuff, but excellent value. Honestly It may well be the best budget £5 burger we’ve had. Let’s face it £5 doesn’t really get you much anywhere else these days. So you really can’t complain given how reasonable the prices are. The only thing missing was chips, as it seems they don’t have deep fat fryers in their kitchens. The venue has multiple bars, with well-kept beer alongside plenty of soft drinks and snack options. All the staff were friendly too so no complaints there.

Most of the games were in decent working order, although a few machines here and there were missing parts or had issues. It must be a huge task to keep so many machines in working order. One machine had no 3D glasses available, and one pinball table was jammed. Speaking of pinball, there’s also a good selection of tables, as well as basketball, ping-pong, and other arcade-style games alongside the video game machines. There’s even a large row of sofas where you can sit and play consoles.

It’s fantastic to see so many of these arcade machines being preserved and people still getting huge amounts of enjoyment from these classic games. One especially nice touch is that the club has a searchable online library of all the machines available at the venue. We visited the Bury club, but they also have venues in Leeds and Blackpool. Having been to the Leeds Venue as well the Bury club seems the larger of the twp. I guess though it’s tough luck if you live in the South!

Overall, Arcade Club earns a solid 9/10 from us as a place to visit. With a great selection of games, free play, free parking, and good value food and drinks. One word of advice, though: it can get very busy at weekends, during school holidays, and on bank holidays, so we’d definitely recommend booking ahead.