A couple of weeks ago, my good friend that I’ve known since college and I went to a big new arcade in Lewisville, TX called Push Start Play.  I don’t know if it’s the biggest arcade in Texas, but it’s got to be one of the biggest.  And it had some really cool and super rare games, too.  So I thought I’d talk about it here.  So let’s take a tour of it!

Here’s a bigger picture of the front of the arcade.  It’s in Lewisville, TX, which is in the North Texas DFW suburbs area and pretty near where I live.  If you come to visit, you should check it out  It’s only been open for about three months now.  They also serve pizza and drinks and have a ticket prize exchange room.  I didn’t take a picture of the restrooms, but the men’s and women’s signs had neon Mario and Peach over them!

Speaking of Mario, here’s a blow up Mario welcoming you in.

Two of the rare machines they had were the Final Fantasy Theatrhythm arcade game and the Dissidia arcade game.  I’ve only seen the Theatrhythm game at Round 1, and I’ve never seen the arcade Dissidia game.  There is a home console version of the Dissidia arcade game on PS4 I think, but it’s not near as good as the PSP originals.

I’m certain this Crash Bandicoot trilogy arcade machine was used to promote the game at conventions.

Same goes with this Cuphead machine.  Kind of like how Disney made a Fix It Felix Jr. machine to promote Wreck-It Ralph (which they also had at this arcade).

Another super rare machine they had was Gaplus.  I’ve only seen it at the Pizza Inn near my house when I was a kid, and at arcade auctions where it usually had the marquee saying Galaga 3 instead.

And speaking of Galaga, they also had a Bosconian machine.  The reason why this one is rare is because most arcade operators back then changed it to Galaga, a more successful title, since they both ran on the same hardware.  In fact, this arcade was the first time I’ve seen a Bosconian machine.  I never even heard of it until I played it on the first Namco Museum on PSOne.  It’s actually surprisingly fun!  On this machine, the voice chip must’ve been messed up because it would try and do all the voices at once!

They also had The Simpsons Bowling, which I’ve only seen one other time out in the wild.  While the 3D graphics haven’t aged as well, I’ve actually enjoyed playing it.  I don’t think it’s as bad as everyone says it is.  The Arcade1up version of The Simpsons Arcade Game also has this as an extra title.  And of course, the original Simpsons arcade machine was here, too.

Speaking of The Simpsons, they had a version of Tapper here with a ROM hack featuring Simpsons characters.  Right beside it was a Timber arcade machine, which I’ve only seen at a travelling coin-op museum a long time ago.  Both games feature the same character first found in a title I’ve never seen called Mr. Domino.

They also had a Battletoads arcade machine.  Only other place I’ve seen that out in the wild was at the Pizza Inn near my house.  That Pizza Inn had a lot of rare arcade machines, come to think of it.

This arcade was so big, and I took so many pictures, that I had to split this up into two articles.  So check back here later at the end of this week for part 2!

Tags: Misc