Location Watch: The 1up – Greenwood (CO); TapNPlay(Philippines); Pizza Ranch [WY]; AGS-Automatic [France] & More

I like to get at least one locations post in per month, so with it being Jan 31st, we’ll go with it, even though I don’t have quite as many new locations to talk about as usual. If you find yourself near any of these venues, be sure to go and play!

Today’s Location Watch is very international, but we’ll start in the USA with:

The 1up Arcade Bar – Greenwood [Colorado]

We’ll start with one that we received a good cache of information on. Most of the time, I’m just randomly encountering short news stories or social media posts about new arcades; in this case, I was contacted and provided the info. Thanks to Jourdan Adler for this.

We’ve mentioned The 1up Arcade Bar before, a location out in Colorado that has been at the forefront of the bar/arcade revolution. Their success over the years has meant growth, and now they have a 3rd place bearing the name. This content mix of this location has been spearheaded by Jon “Exidy” Jamshid and Donavan Stepp, the former name is one I recognize from the classic gaming community (particularly with vector games). As you can see from these photos, they made sure to cover all of the bases, including Aliens Armageddon, Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX Unlock B (Japanese model), World’s Largest Pac-Man and much more.

They also issued a press release, part of which I'll quote here, as it details some other location specs:

​The 1UP Arcade Bar, purveyors of fun, are excited to announce the official opening of their 3rd location in Greenwood Village on December 20, 2018.
Conveniently located near the DTC off Arapahoe and I25 in The Shops at Greenwood Village.
The 1UP Arcade Bar - Greenwood features 60 of your favorite Retro and Modern Arcade
Games, 5 Lanes of Skeeball, 5 Basketball Hoops & 30 Pinball Games with their first tournament
being held on January 27, 2019. They also have a full service bar, 20 cold taps and a very tasty
diverse menu.“

TapNPlay [NCCC Mall, Davao, Philippines]

Here's one that opened in November of last year, but I didn't hear about it until now. It's a pretty modern FEC-style arcade, with games covering everything from basketball to kiddie rides to redemption and video games. They only have 42 games total, but those include: Daytona Championship USA, Jurassic Park Arcade (Raw Thrills); Lane Master, Luigi's Mansion Arcade, Pump It Up Prime 2 2018, Space Invaders Frenzy, Time Crisis 5, The Walking Dead & more. They've confirmed on their Facebook page that the PIU will be upgraded to XX, something they are holding a launch event on tomorrow; by the looks of it, PIU is their most popular game. You can also see some great photos of the location here.

Pizza Ranch [Casper, WY]

The past few location watches have mentioned a Pizza Ranch as a part of the mix, with new locations that include arcades popping up a lot lately. The arcade section of each Pizza Ranch is called the Fun Zone, and for the location opening in Casper, WY, they have 2,000 sq. ft. of space and are enjoying a number of redemption/videmption pieces. While the Replay news article about this mentions some names, the only video pieces were Ice Man and Space Invaders Frenzy - both are certainly operating on rewarding tickets. News came via Instant Replay (an e-mail newsletter); no pics were provided.

EDIT: Right after I hit publish, I found a Facebook page for this location. Some other games to mention: Crossy Road Arcade, Cruis'n Blast, Jurassic Park Arcade(RT), Tomb Raider Arcade (65") & Willy Crash.

Nagoya Garaspan Stadium [Nagoya, Japan]

Tomorrow should be interesting for fans of Fatal Fury Special, a 1v1 fighter released by SNK back in 1995. A small venue with a few pairs of versus cabinets is opening up in Nagoya that is entirely focused on FFS. I'm not certain if this is one of those temporary "pop-up" concepts, or if this is going to have longer legs, but it's something! You can read a Google translated version about this opening here.

本日風営法許可が正式におりましたので告知します。
大須ビデオゲーム専門店
名古屋ガロスペスタジアム
2月1日よりオープンします！ pic.twitter.com/3o5VivqsfC

— 大須ビデオゲーム専門店　名古屋ガロスペスタジアム (@syuragayuku) January 21, 2019

Ags-Automatic [Toll Bourg, France]

Also opening up in February is a venue in France that is bringing some [mostly] classic gaming to the area in a 300 square meter space. Those games include: Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX, Hang On, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat (1,2 & 3), NBA Jam, Outrunners, Star Wars Battle Pod, Title Fight and much more. You can check them out on Facebook here (under the Badsof Sof profile); I've also embedded a post of theirs below.

Pocket Change [Lancaster, PA]

This one isn't exactly new, but I was alerted to it by our friends at The CART Documentary. The tweet below shows a tiny bit of the game selection, with reply tweets stating that they use "Namco's card swipe system" (not sure if that's Embed, Sacoa, Intercard or something else) and that it's at the Lancaster Mall. By looking at the map, it seems similar to my own situation; my arcade isn't that far away from a JCPenny as well.

Haven't seen one of these in years. pic.twitter.com/uVe7omULti

— The CART Documentary (@CartDocumentary) January 4, 2019

That's all I've managed to collect for now; again, if you find yourself near any of these venues, stop by, purchase some credits and tell them that Arcade Heroes sent ya!