Hmm, well. It seemed like a good idea at the time...
The Good: I arrived just in time (7PM on a Wednesday) to get the half-price "Manager's Special" admission ($23). Apparently this is quite common on weekdays, but it's not a every-day thing. There's always a chance the place will be full enough to where they don't have the evening sale.
The game selection was really quite good by today's standards. There were around 40-50 (this is just an off-the-cuff estimate, I didn't actually count) classic-era games. Pacs -Man, Ms. and Super were all present, along with Frogger, Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Missile Command (a great cabaret), BurgerTime, Tron, Discs of Tron, Arkanoid, Moon Patrol, Jungle Hunt, Centipede, Millipede, Donkey Kong (and Jr. and Mario Bros, and I think a combo unit that included DK3), Dig Dug, Kangaroo, Spy Hunter (!), Galaga, Galaxian, Space Invaders/Qix (combo cab), several mulitcades (I didn't play any of them), Make Trax, and many more. I'll post some pictures later.
As far as newer games, there's a Star Wars Trilogy Arcade squirreled away in a corner of the top floor. All games are set on free play, and that one in particular is pretty awesome with unlimited lives (I did give the game up as soon as another older guy started hanging around). There's a HUGE Pac-Man Battle Royale pedestal (as well as a couple of tabletop versions), which is a blast to play with 4 people. I also played Star Wars Racer for the first (and likely last) time. I didn't really mess with any other "current" games other than Sea Wolf, and in that case, I think I prefer the old version with the periscope. There are a TON of newer games, though, if you're into that sort of thing.
The pinball area was relatively limited, all new games (Tron Legacy is really fun) plus a couple of digital pinball cabs, which are neat in a "this would do if real pinball were banned" sort of way.
The Bad: Of the classic games, I'd guess less less than ten are in good working order. Almost all of the monitors need to be capped. Moon Patrol, Arkanoid, Centipede, Millipede, Super Pac-Man, Kangaroo, Missile Command, Space Invaders/Qix and Burger Time were about the only games I saw with bright, clean, correct-colors screens (the Ms Pac/Galaga combos may have had good screens, but I didn't play any of them). Virtually every other game had video issues, ranging from discoloration to static to burn-in to... well, you name it, really. There were also many games with odd breakdowns. For instance, the Tron on the third floor had no music (although it did have sound effects). Sound effects in Asteroids Deluxe were distorted (I'll post a video later). Asteroids had a terrible monitor, you have to lean in to the nose-on-the-glass point to see anything other than your ship or your bullets (which, to be fair, look as awesome as only Asteroids bullets on a vector monitor can). But that wasn't the worst of it.
The Ugly: So many broken controls. So. Many. Broken. Controls. I mean, the vast majority of the games have broken controls. Some examples:
Discs of Tron: spinner only works in one direction (it spins in the other, but the cursor doesn't move). Thumb button doesn't work.
Tron: Two cabinets, both have replacement joysticks without the diamond restrictor, so light cycles is unplayable. And this is a Disney "signature" franchise that they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars to resurrect? One Tron also had "strobing" video, and no marquee or control panel lighting.
Spy Hunter: Shifter doesn't work for "high" speed, making the game unplayable (gaaaaah).
Robotron: "fire" joystick doesn't work in all directions.
Galaga and Galaxian (separate cabs): Joystick sticks.
Karate Champ: right joystick non-functional.
Missile Command: this one killed me. Beautiful Atari "bowling ball" trackball, which moves effortlessly and perfectly controls the cursor. But the fire buttons don't work.
Even one of the Pac-Man Battle Royale tabletops had a missing balltop--for the yellow Pac-Man.
I could go on, but the point is, most of these games just flat don't work. Moon Patrol stands out as a counter-example: it looks and works great. So does Kangaroo (presumably because nobody plays that crappy game, so it doesn't get worn out). But finding a working machine beyond those is tough sledding.
It's really dispiriting. I could understand a struggling mom-and-pop arcade out in the boonies having old, broken games and lacking the wherewithal to fix them. But this is freaking Disney World, and a building that's specifically intended to house arcade games! Yeah, I get it--because of the free play settings these games get the crap pounded out of them, but come on! It's just not THAT hard to repair an arcade game! Thousands (well, hundreds, anyway) of schlubs like us do it all the time, for free! And it's not like it costs a fortune to put in a cap kit or replace a joystick and/or pushbuttons--which is all most of these games really need.
Hey, Disney--you've got people who can do this. Have them do it! What you're doing now is ripping off folks who are paying to "play" broken games. That's a disservice to both your customers and to the games themselves. Either put out games that actually work, and keep them in repair, or don't put them out at all!
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Topic: Disney Quest Orlando--worth it? [updated with review] (Read 5913 times)
