3.5 Stars
It looks as though movie theatres are dying as this location was formerly 'Orion Gate' but Cineplex felt an arcade would be more profitable, leaving a city of 600k people with one theatre. Well, one one door closes another opens i guess - or in this case, if you knock down several doors and walls, others will open.
I will say that having visited Orion Gate for years, I expected this place to be being bigger than it was with all the auditoriums having been knocked down. But it's a fairly comfortable space and not terribly large - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when trying to track where my kids are running off to.
My son came here for a birthday party. The party room was fairly simple and for some reason it took a long time for things to get going. I'm not sure if that was on the part of the host or the venue, but there seemed to be talking between for awhile while there wasn't food or anything to do for 30-40 minutes. The kids were literally screaming and running in circles waiting for things to start. To their credit, when the food arrived it all came at once, and was very fresh. It's not the Rec Room in terms of choices, but the food quality was miles ahead of most kids places, even if it was simple items such as pizza, hot dogs and chicken fingers. They were still better quality.
There wasn't nearly the amount of games you'd find at the Playdium at Square One, but they at least seemed to be smart with the games they did choose to bring in. They also have an area for VR gaming and above the arcade area is a rope repelling area - almost like tree top trekking, which is $15 per person. Kids under 4 ft. tall need to be accompanied by a (paying) guardian. There is also a bowling area with 3-4 lanes.
All in all, a fairly well-executed concept and probably fills a niche for the city. In spite of some of the ads I saw featuring young adults however, I think this is more geared to the 16 and under crowd. read more