Free Play Galaxian Arcade Machine

The Place: Bloomsbury Bowling Alley, London.
The Gang: Tikipod, me and friends.
The Machine: A lonely Galaxian arcade machine looking for some action.

“Lets go bowling, as I know this interesting alley in Bloomsbury” says Tikipod. “Ok, sounds good” I replied. A few days later (Sunday) I go along expecting some top quality bowling entertainment and what did I get? Top quality free arcading that’s what, oh, and some fun bowling.

Quite what the Galaxian machine is doing sitting outside the girls toilet I don’t know, but since it was all alone it was time for a quick play to see if the old fella still works. After some extensive paytesting we found the joystick was a bit ropey making it very tricky to move left (just be forceful and whack it left instead, that works), otherwise the machine worked like a dream. And then there’s the cost…

FREE PLAY. Oh yes, those magic words that I’m only ever used to seeing on MAME sitting there, blinking at me on a arcade machine in London. Yay. Yes, this machine really does cost nothing to play. Nada, zip, zero.
Also Will (one of our friends) spent ages racking up the damn high score on the machine before I could take some pictures. Tisk, how inconsiderate.