Museum of the Game® & International Arcade Museum® Forums

I went to Crabtowne in Glen Burnie, MD today for the first time in a long time.

I thought I'd provide my observations:

TLDR:
This is a great vintage arcade with a lot of great games, most of them working well. Very noticeably better than years ago.
Even the food was noticeably better. I ate some.

More details:

• Both the restaurant and game area are much cleaner than I recall
• There are about 100 games, mostly classic era. There are a lot of games there I like.
• There is a really nice selection of pinball machines as well, some very expensive titles among them. Many fewer games had "credit dots" this time than did last time, so that's great.
  • All of the pinball machines I played appeared to be working properly. I played Getaway, High Speed, Addams Family, Twilight Zone, Fish Tales. There were a couple dozen others.
• Most of the games I played were working well.
• Some of the games looked outstanding, like Asteroids
• A couple of the games had minor issues that didn't really impact my gameplay, like:
  • one of the 2 coin mechs not working on multiple games. no problem, I just used the other one.
  • some corner-convergence issues on a couple games (I recall Q-Bert was an example)
  • one joystick on Tapper was working a lot better than the other, but I just need one anyway
  • the cardboard bezel for Gyruss had fallen down and looked odd but wasn't covering the screen so no big deal. I had an epic Gyruss game when I was there.
• 2 Games had a major problem, Spy Hunter and I can't recall the other.
  • Spy Hunter was pretty much unplayable because the car won't go fast enough to produce the flames. Can't enter a weapons van, etc.
  • I made a report in their formal reporting system about this
  • I love that they have a formal reporting system. I don't recall that from last time.
• Probably about 15-20 people playing when I was there around 1pm.
• I was bummed to see Ataxx is now gone. I used to enjoy playing it. But, there is still Klax, Tapper, Q-Bert, Tetris, Gyruss, Popeye, Mario Bros, and a bunch of other games I like.

• The food: I know people love to talk about how it sucks there, and in the past I would agree. I saw a bunch of folks eating and not keeling over so I tried some. I had a shrimp nachos that was pretty good. The woman next to me had a burger that she really liked. It looked juicy, she said the bun was fresh and tasty, etc.

I was spurned on to go to Crabtowne by overhearing some folks recently talking about how it sucked. I don't know if their experiences are old or they are just grumpy codgers, but I disagree with that assessment.

I think it's a great arcade and people should go check it out themselves and see if they like it.

I think we as the Vintage Arcade Preservstion Society should applaud and get behind a great arcade like this.

Game on!