Fun N' Games in Wayne NJ Closing

[mgriff]

Man does that SUCK! If for only the fact of arcades which disappear. That place has been going downhill for years. Lots of kids and drug addicts hanging arround the place with nothing to do.

Every time I went there, I played a round of Ms Pacman, then left. Too many racing, fighting, and dancing games.

Only other sort of arcade is SportsWorld on Rt17, but that place sucks too.

FYI, Sportsworld no longer exists, it was leveled and a furniture store was built in it's place...

[Apollo]

November 24th is when the auction is...damnit I fucking hate Black Friday even more now. I'm going to be working at Toys R Us trying to survive being trampled while theres an arcade cabinet auction going on.

[RCM]

truly sad, I dug that place and would go every once in a while. There was another place on rt. 17 called the Videogame Room, something like that, which was leveled a few years ago. totally fucking sad.

[Greg2600]

truly sad, I dug that place and would go every once in a while. There was another place on rt. 17 called the Videogame Room, something like that, which was leveled a few years ago. totally fucking sad.

Yes that is the place I was talking about earlier in the post, but I couldn't remember the name. Across from a Burger King and Wendy's and next to a Popeye's. It was leveled and nothing is in its place. The correct name of the joint was "Great Escape."

FYI, Sportsworld no longer exists, it was leveled and a furniture store was built in it's place...

Wow, I totally missed that one closing up too, although not a surprise. They never bothered replacing any of the games, which mostly stunk. The Lazer Tron game was fun in its day, and the only reason to go there.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Yes that is the place I was talking about earlier in the post, but I couldn't remember the name. Across from a Burger King and Wendy's and next to a Popeye's. It was leveled and nothing is in its place. The correct name of the joint was "Great Escape."



Wow, I totally missed that one closing up too, although not a surprise. They never bothered replacing any of the games, which mostly stunk. The Lazer Tron game was fun in its day, and the only reason to go there.

I live pretty close to the ex-arcade "The Great Escape" ... and in my briefest experiences with the place, I can say without hesitation it was the polar opposite of Fun N' Games - it was dark, dirty, smelly, almost every single cabinet had damaged or broken hardware ... and I never even remember the place being "staffed". It was kind of like one of those 24 hour laundromats...sometimes there'd be somebody in there to help you with getting change, and sometimes there wouldn't.

I'm not saying that anybody else was even comparing the two locations in terms of quality - but if Fun N' Games rated on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say the place was a solid 10 for most of it's existence in terms of the quality, variety and working order of games and pinballs, and Great Escape a 2 or 3 for being a veritable craphole. (from the brief impression that I had of it)

Was Great Escape ever a clean, inviting, well maintained place in it's early days?

[Flack]

I live pretty close to the ex-arcade "The Great Escape" ... and in my briefest experiences with the place, I can say without hesitation it was the polar opposite of Fun N' Games - it was dark, dirty, smelly, almost every single cabinet had damaged or broken hardware ... and I never even remember the place being "staffed". It was kind of like one of those 24 hour laundromats...sometimes there'd be somebody in there to help you with getting change, and sometimes there wouldn't.

Heh, you just described half the arcades I went to as a kid. The only nice arcades I went to back then were at malls, and even some of those were pretty dark and scary. The arcade near my house had an unguarded cigarette machine in the back that took quarters (and maybe tokens, who knows). Half the time, part of the thrill of playing a game was worrying that you might get abducted at some point during the game.

[Greg2600]

Alright, you want to talk about an old dumpy arcade! Well, does anyone else remember the kiddie amusement park up on Route 46 in Pine Brook, NJ? After Googling I found the name was Kiddie Karnival, and closed in 1987 to expand the highway. I remember there was one room, which I think was a shack or garage, that had early 80's games like Space Invaders, Tron, etc. It was like a county fair that never moved.