I Visited The Scohy Bros’ Flashback Arcade and Was Almost Brought To Tears (Of Joy)

At the time of writing this, it’s 11:33 on a Saturday night. I’ve driven over 5 hours today round trip, my neck and back are sore, and I’m drained from being on the road most of the day.

What would drive me to endure a day’s worth of mild discomfort like this? (images ahead!)

Scohy Bros’ Flashback Arcade. I planned on taking the trip for almost a month and boy, it was worth every mile. This place is a time capsule that harnesses the full arcade experience of the early to mid-1980’s. Nothing I had heard or seen had done this place proper justice. Someday, it will be a West Virginia landmark and a hotspot for retro gamers nationwide.

My wife and I pulled up to this nice two-story home in a seemingly normal neighborhood, not really knowing what to expect. The sign outside and a couple of non-operational cabinets sitting on the deck was an indicator that something special was inside. The windows of the place are hard to see through and it makes the suspense that much stronger.

We walked around to the side of the house where the entrance was and opened the door. The second that door opens, 2017 is gone and 1983 is here with a vengeance. The dim lights, accompanied by the racket made by the pinball machines in collaboration with the noise from the arcade cabinets hit you right between the eyes and overload your senses in the most awesome way.

Owner Stephen Scohy greets you at the entrance for fees. It’s 10 bucks a person and that 10 bucks allows for unlimited plays on every machine in the arcade. It’s a killer deal and up until the time we left we more than got our monies worth.

For the first ten minutes we were there, my wife and I didn’t play anything. We spent the time just taking in everything around us. It’s so overwhelming that you don’t really know where to start. The arcade easily doubles as a gaming museum. So many classic games fill up every room and run as good as they did in their prime.

Aside from the games, you have a lot of little touches that strive to make this place as amazing as possible. 5-foot statue of Freddy Krueger next to the Nightmare on Elmstreet pinball machine? Check. 80’s movie posters of greats like The Breakfast Club and Back To The Future throughout the arcade? Check. Flatscreen TVs hooked to an intercom system blasting tunes from live Journey concerts? Check. A model train that runs along the ceilings as you’re playing? Check! Mr. Scohy put a lot of love into this place and it shows.

Speaking of which, during out walk-around, Stephen came and checked on us and asked us how we liked the place. I was honest and told him it almost brought a tear to my eye, which got a laugh out of him. I asked him how long he had been collecting this stuff and he said over 20 years and that he had more machines at home! He was surprised when we told him how long we had trekked to be there and was really appreciative of us being there. The man and his arcade are West Virginian treasures.

He was kind enough to let us take pictures of every nook and cranny of the place and encouraged us to share. The pictures don’t do this place justice and I encourage people within reasonable distance to make the journey here at least once.

After the shock wore off, I finally started playing some games. I left no stone unturned and played everything the place had to offer. A lot of these games have, by now had some sort of home console release but the home console releases don’t favor these classics like their arcade releases do.

For example, Q*Bert. I know Q*Bert is a classic but aside from the mobile remake, I never could play the NES version and get past the first stage. The D-Pad would send me flying off the edge anytime I got near the sides or bottom of the map because I never could master the controls.

Q*Bert with a joystick however is as smooth as butter and I even made it to level three! A new personal record.

Another example, I’ve always been a fan of Centipede and a couple of its home ports like the Atari 2600 version. All this time, I had been using joystick controls or a circle pad thinking I was getting the full experience. Centipede is nothing without a trackball controller. The freedom of movement is beyond the reach of joysticks and you haven’t lived until you’ve used a trackball controller to play Centipede.

While Q*Bert’s home console release went from smooth to rough, you have a game like Donkey Kong that does the opposite. I always done well on home ports of Donkey Kong. The arcade version however? Madness. I had trouble clearing the final board. They’re so many darned fireballs everywhere that chase you, I died twice just trying to clear it. Much respect to the world champions of this game.

A couple new gems I had never played but fell in love with were Wizard of Wor and Tron. Wizard of Wor plays kind of like Pac Man, except you’re the ghosts and you shoot the enemies. Tron took some time to get used to but once I got the hang of it’s joystick + twist-knob controls I had a blast. I can also say that Tron has the most beautiful cabinet i’ve ever seen. It’s lit up with a blacklight and the art on the cabinet is complemented by the blacklight to give off a glowing look. I wish I had got more pictures of it.

Let’s not forget the pinball machines. I LOVE pinball and it’s a rare treat that I don’t get to enjoy often. My favorite was easily the “KISS” machine and the much older “Butterfly”. I played more pinball than arcade games, surprisingly. Pinball is so addictive, the sounds, the art and mechanics are all things of wonder that I hope never completely go away.

I feel the need to mention that this age of arcade gaming always has gimmicks like tickets and prize walls and all of that junk. It’s ok for stuff like Chuck E Cheese but it was so refreshing going into this place and seeing that the games and high-scores were the main feature and games didn’t simply serve as a means to earn tickets for cheap prizes.

Every game, every pinball machine was all about high scores. You had your daily high-scores, then you had your all time high-scores, in which Mr. Scohy would proudly immortalize your name and score and place it at the top of wherever you made your achievement. I was able to get a couple daily high-scores but I am just a mortal and I couldn’t reach the heights of some of these feats that those before me had pulled off. The spirit of competition is alive and well and I loved it.

On our way out, I shook Mr. Scohy’s hand and thanked him for the experience. I was so bummed that I almost went back in, once we got near the car. I had a blast and I hope this place grows bigger than what it is. If you’re in the area or are bored and wanna take a road trip one weekend, give it a visit and tell the owner I said “hey”.

[Scohy Bros’ Flashback Arcade on Facebook]

[Nintendroid on Facebook] 

How Billy Madison, Mortal Kombat and Donkey Kong Are Related

In the film Billy Madison, Adam Sandler’s character has a small “debate” with a third-grade classmate on what video game was the best ever. The kid says Mortal Kombat and Billy says Donkey Kong.

Billy’s love interest in the movie is his 3rd grade teacher Veronica Vaughn, played by actress Bridgett Wilson.

Who went on to play Sonya Blade in the Mortal Kombat movie seven months later (Billy Madison was released February 1995, Mortal Kombat in August of ‘95)

20 years later, the movie “Pixels” is released. A movie about Adam Sandler fighting off a race of aliens that appear in the form of video game characters.

The final battle takes place between Adam Sandler’s character and Donkey Kong.

Billy Madison has the deepest video game-to-film lore. He hooked up with Sonya Blade from Mortal Kombat and destroyed Donkey Kong in Pixels, which was tragic, because In Billy Madison his favorite game was Donkey Kong and while he thought Mortal Kombat was very good, he clearly doesn’t share the same affinity for it as Donkey Kong.

Billy Madison, Mortal Kombat and Pixels is the greatest video game-to-film trilogy of all time.

Of all time.

Nintendroid’s Lazy Boy No-Chew Review: Muscle March (WiiWare)

Muscle March (WiiWare)

Bandai-Namco

2009

Proof-positive that even the funniest jokes get old after a while.

Muscle March has a lot going for it in terms of it’s premise. Thong-wearing bodybuilders and a polar bear chase random thieves to recover their stolen protein powder in surreal surroundings to an uber-kawaii soundtrack.

If you laughed or at least smirked reading that, good. Now read that paragraph over and over for about five minutes. Gets old pretty quick huh? That’s Muscle March in a nutshell.

The first time playing it, I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen in a video game. After playing two levels of the game and hitting a wall with it’s ridiculous spike in difficulty, the joke gets old and the game gets downright frustrating.

Before the game begins, you’ll select a character at the select screen. The options are purely cosmetic, with no stats that I could tell. So if you ever wanted to be a oily heartthrob with a long, curly mustache or a polar bear in a speedo, here’s your chance.

After selecting a character, a short cutscene will play showing a thief (ranging from a football player to an alien) stealing your precious protein powder. The bodybuilders yell out “THIEF” and the game begins.

The gameplay is motion-based and simple (at first). You mimic the pose on screen to fit through the hole in the wall that the thief has left behind. If you fail to make the right pose, you crash through the wall. If you crash three times, you restart from the beginning. Once you get close enough to the thief, a quick-time event will require you to shake the Wiimote and Nunchuk as fast as you can to dash and tackle the thief. Once you catch the thief, another thief comes along, takes up the protein powder and the chase begins again.

Sounds pretty simple at the beginning, the first two stages are fairly easy, then the game becomes all about luck. The motion controls in this game are decent but when the action picks up and the thieves start posing unbelievably fast, the motion controls simply just can’t keep up. So once you hit the third level of the game, it becomes nearly impossible.

Once you hit the game over screen about three times, and have to play the first two stages all over again the joke becomes stale. Muscle March has no multiplayer, two modes of play (story mode and “endless run”) and from what i’ve watched on Youtube, the game only has 6 or 7 levels altogether. Simply put, the novelty factor isn’t worth the money. 

 Muscle March is good for a laugh but I wouldn’t pay for it. It’s like buying your friend a 20 dollar blow-up doll for his bachelor party. It might be good for a hearty chuckle, but at the end of the day, he’ll probably throw it in the garbage and you’re out 20 bucks. Jokes on you.

My Grade: D

Nintendroid’s Lazy Boy No-Chew Review: Wreck It Ralph (Wii)

Wreck It Ralph (Wii)

Activision

2012

Wreck It Ralph makes his “IRL” debut on the Wii. Touted as a video game heavyweight in the movie, does that star power transition to the actual video game?

The short answer is not really. If I can compare the Wreck It Ralph video game to anything, it’s CM Punk’s MMA career. Let me explain, CM Punk the pro wrestler was one of the best. Multiple championships, classic matches, the guy was the best at what he did. While not an actual fighter, he played a darn good one on T.V.

Leaving his wrestling career behind, CM Punk goes to UFC to fight. Could the guy that fictitiously took down the likes of John Cena and Brock Lesnar in the wrestling world, translate that over to an MMA career and leave a trail of competitors in his wake? Nope. He was beaten within a minute by a kid named Mickey Gall and hasn’t been heard from since. Except on Twitter.

In a strange way, that speaks to Wreck It Ralph’s situation. In the movie, Ralph is the main antagonist in a fictional arcade game called Fix-It Felix Jr. The game is held in high regard the way that we look up to the likes of Donkey Kong and Pac Man. While Fix It Felix Jr, wasn’t a “real” game, it played a darn good one in the film.

After seeing the movie we all wanted a real Wreck It Ralph video game. Fix It Felix Jr got a mobile port of the game featured in the movie, but we wanted to play through Ralph’s adventure. A game with racing segments, platforming and on-rails shooter segments spanning across the worlds seen in the film, maybe some cameos thrown in for good measure. We don’t get any of that with this game. While Ralph and Felix look like legit video game stars in the film, their ACTUAL video game debut was straight bargain bin fodder. Does the CM Punk comparison make any sense now?

Wreck It Ralph isn’t a terrible game. It controls well, and I feel like I found myself enjoying it in short bursts. The game’s biggest problem is that it plays it TOO safe. No creativity, nothing that made the film stand out is featured here. This is as bare-bones of a side-scrolling platformer that you’ll get.

All I can remember of the story is that it takes place after the events of the film. Ralph drops a Hero’s Duty bug egg into a swamp in Sugar Rush, birthing a bunch of bugs to wreck havoc in the worlds featured in the film. Now it’s up to Felix and Ralph to hunt the bugs down and destroy them.

All you do is get from point A to B, by solving some very simple puzzles and stomping out bugs. Some puzzles can only be solved by Ralph or Felix, so the game allows you to switch both out during gameplay. Felix has a double-jump for reaching high platforms and Ralph has a ramming attack, useful for busting through obstacles. It breaks up the monotony slightly but not much.  

If you want to distract yourself from the monotonous platforming, each level features a Hero’s Duty medal and “Easter Egg” you can find to unlock bonus content like concept art and extra stages. Hunting medals and eggs was actually the highlight for me because you were required to explore the levels to find them. While there wasn’t much to really explore, it was a fun distraction from just running from right to left.  

Every level feels like the last one with a coat of paint thrown over it. While you do get to travel between the games seen in the movie, none of the characteristics that made those games look fun are actually featured. No racing segments, no shooting segment, just level after level of the same platforming you got tired of after the first world. Even the boss fights were underwhelming and slowed down an already bland game.

If I can give Wreck It Ralph credit for anything, they at least got most of the original cast to reprise their roles (minus Ralph’s actor John C Reilly). I think that’s where most of the game’s budget went to because the entire game screams “cheap” Save from the beginning and end game cutscene, which was actually well done, the rest are so embarrassingly cardboard, they hardly qualify as cutscenes. Personally, I think this game was a victim of rushed production to meet the release of the film. They’re glimpses of things throughout the game that hinted at different types of gameplay and between-stage segments (building cars in Sugar Rush, the elaborate voice acted cutscenes clashing with the low-end visuals) but due to time and budget constraints, this was what we got in the end.

I’m only being hard on Wreck It Ralph, because there’s a ton of wasted potential here. Wreck It Ralph could’ve been so much more, but instead of Activision taking their time and giving the public something of substance, they chose to play it safe and strike while the iron was hot and rush it out to coincide with the film’s release. I would only recommend this if you can get it cheap (5 bucks tops) and want something easy to play and complete in an hour. While it isn’t the worst thing i’ve played, it doesn’t do it’s source material justice. Stick to the mobile port of Fix It Felix Jr.

My Grade: C-

The Shovel Knight Amiibo Is Here!

I can’t recall a game in recent memory that captivated mine and countless others’ interest like Shovel Knight has. I’ve personally recommended it to friends as the perfect video game, a bold statement that I firmly stand behind.

Everything about it is so well done. It’s a beautiful, retro-style, adventure platformer with a fresh approach that doesn’t rely on heavy nods to gaming’s past like so many others have done before it. Loaded with fair but challenging gameplay, a fantastic soundtrack, a host of quirky characters and enemies, Shovel Knight belongs beside the greats such as Super Mario World and Ducktales.

So if you can’t tell, I am a big Shovel Knight fan. Naturally, when I seen the announcement trailer for the amiibo, I almost didn’t believe it but I was ready to throw my money at whatever unfortunate cashier had to ring me up that day.

I didn’t end up throwing money in anyone’s face, but I finally got my hands on the Shovel Knight amiibo!

Look at it! Even if you had no idea who Shovel Knight was, it would be awesome. The proud stance, that flawless paint job, I can see this guy holding his own against the likes of He-Man and Optimus Prime in combat. Maybe that’s a stretch but this is still an awesome toy!

With that said, how is his in-game functionality? I’ve used him a couple of times since having him and he’s a solid companion piece to the Shovel Knight game. You can level-up and customize your in-game character with cosmetic items, and new abilities. Although, I’ve not had a chance to play them yet, the amiibo also unlocks challenge maps that I’m excited to get to.

In addition to those features, it also unlocks a Wii U exclusive co-op mode. I was very excited for co-op play and had a playthrough with my wife manning the second controller. It plays well and I had a lot of fun tackling different stages with her. The difficulty does increase to accommodate a second player so it’s not the cakewalk that everyone feared it was going to be.

It’s also fun if you wanna take silly Miiverse screenshots like this one of my wife and I having dinner.

Unfortunately, The Shovel Knight amiibo is only compatible with the Shovel Knight game. I tested it on Yoshi’s Woolly World and Super Mario Maker just to rule it out, but Nintendo’s website promises future use with upcoming titles from both Yacht Club Games and Nintendo.

If you’re a Shovel Knight fan, picking this up is a no-brainer. If you’re unfamiliar with the Shovel Knight universe, I’d recommend picking up both the game and the amiibo, for around 35 bucks. It’s a worthy buy and you’ll more than get your money’s worth.