Yesterday I talked about my visit to Barcade in Jersey City, NJ to play Spooky Pinball’s new Ultraman pinball machine. What I didn’t touch upon in that post was just how awesome that Barcade location was overall.
I had visited this Barcade on family day with my wife and sons pre-pandemic (the first Sunday of every month). To me, the version of this arcade that they brought out of the pandemic was even better than the earlier one. Their pinball game was SUPER strong. Check it out:
2021 Stern Pinball Avengers Infinity Quest Pro
1995 Williams Congo - with Color DMD
2017 Jersey Jack Pinball Dialed In
1993 Williams Star Trek the Next Generation - with Color DMD
1993 Williams White Water - with Color DMD
1981 Bally Vector - very uncommon for location
1981 Bally Spectrum - very uncommon
1993 Data East Rocky and Bowinkle
1990 Bally Dr. Dude
1997 Williams No Good Gophers - with Color DMD
2021 Spooky Pinball - Ultraman Collector’s Edition
And if you want to count it as a pin 1991 Williams Slugfest
Come on. Now that’s a lineup. So much diversity between era and manufacturer. So many Color DMDs. I was there on lunch so I didn’t get to play many different games, but what I did play worked perfectly (unlike someplace like YESTERcades). The newest pins cost 3 tokens aka $0.75. That’s a good price for a new game in an era when they cost so much to buy.
I arrived at the location almost exactly at noon, when it opened. When I walked in an employee was cleaning all of the games. They looked great. The bartender was friendly and the beer was plentiful. I didn’t have any food this trip but the Barcade food that I have eaten in the past has been pretty good. Having the option to grab a snack or a meal at an arcade is always a good thing.
Besides the pinball, Barcade JC had a ton of arcade machines. All the classics were there, from Donkey Kong to Qbert to Galaga. Besides the classics there was some really neat uncommon titles like the underwater shooter The Ocean Hunter and another shooter called Golly Ghost! that I’ve never seen anywhere else but this location. Every Barcade seems to have the obligatory linked Daytona racers, which are always good fun. Another driver was the unique animal wrangling game Jambo Safari.
I could go on, but I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking for me. Here’s a bunch of them. I’m still taking these on my iPhone 11 Pro. I’ve been thinking about upgrading but I may wait until the 14 comes out.
Make sure to follow the Knapp Arcade Facebook and Instagram pages or bookmark the new knapparcade.org website because we have a bunch of awesome stuff planned for this fall. This weekend Rob and I are hitting up an arcade auction. We’ll get to see if those Banning Museum of Pinball prices were an aberration or if they are the new normal for auctions. I’m curious to find out.
Thanks for reading!