If you like arcades, get yourself to Pelham, New Hampshire sometime. There’s a big arcade there called Pinball Wizard that’s filled like a jelly donut with pinball machines and classic arcade games. There is even a handful of ticket machines for those of us who enjoy spending $10 in tokens to earn 2 Twizzlers and a plastic ring.
New Hampshire is also home to Funspot, so one could plan a whole vacation around bouncing between the two arcades. While Funspot is bigger and offers activities beyond their arcade and pinball games, Pinball Wizard is quite well stocked within its area of focus. Both arcades have a lot of pinball machines. Funspot’s arcade is focused on the games of the 1980s and doesn’t venture too far beyond it. Pinball Wizard features quite a few 80s games, but it really shines where it fills in some of Funspot’s gaps. Funspot does not, for instance, have a single Street Fighter machine (at least, it hasn’t the last few times I checked). Pinball Wizard has a whole row of different Street Fighter games.
Pinball Wizard maintains their machines well, clearly marking any units that aren’t working, unlike Funspot, where it’s a thrilling gamble every time you drop a token. I once played a game of Donkey Kong at Funspot where Mario was invisible. Mario died. On the other hand, many, maybe a majority, of Pinball Wizard’s games take multiple tokens, where most of Funspot’s games require just one. So perhaps it evens out.
Pinball Wizard doesn’t have a super classy bar like Funspot does, but they do have some vending machines, and they’re right next to an American Chinese restaurant and a pizza & sandwich shop. It’s a good time in a strip mall in the middle of nowhere.
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