Timeline Arcade - Hanover, Pa — Attraction in Hanover

A party of 6 of us--ages ranging from early to late 30's--recently made the trip to Hanover (evening of 9/15) with the goal of spending a number of hours exploring this unique landmark. All of us have a lot of love for both retro and modern gaming, so an "unlimited play" pass at Timeline Arcade had the potential to make for a super fun trip down memory lane; but then what we discovered was a venue that has a ton potential that is, sadly, being squandered by poor operation. Here's my list of issues:

1. at least 10% of the games have "out of order" signs on them;
2. at least another 10% of the games--probably more--have controls that don't function properly, despite not having any "out of order" signs on them;
3. almost every one of their fighting games had broken joysticks and/or buttons, even those as recent as Soul Edge, TEKKEN Tag Tournament, and Marvel vs. CAPCOM;
4. the bulk of the games are crammed into rows in a relatively small space, so, in many instances, two average sized people can't stand at a machine without interfering with the "player space" of the machines around them.

Several of us expressed to the employees--with total civility--the issue about the large number of broken controls, to which we were met with little more than shoulder shrugs or "Yeah, we know; but they're old games." Well, for those unaware: fighting games kept the US arcade scene alive even well into the 2000's, so they're not THAT old--replacement joysticks and buttons can be purchased all over the internet, including Amazon. I realize that some repairs--such as repairing or replacing CRT screens--aren't a simple task; but maintaining buttons and joysticks should be a priority, especially for games as modern and as important as competitive fighting games.

In summary, we spent $150 to purchase 6 of the $25 "unlimited play" passes, yet walked away feeling like what we were sold came with an unadvertised caveat: there's no guarantee that the games you came to play will work properly, or even be in operation. Had actual management been on site, I would've asked for a partial refund; alas, our party walked away from our evening at Timeline Arcade feeling that we'd been mislead and then not appreciated as customers. It bums me out that, until the owners/operators step up their game, I won't be able to recommend this venue without including a list of problems with it.

Oh, and since the employees didn't seem interested in writing down our observations about specific games with busted controls, etc. that didn't have "out of order" signs on them, here are a few that I can still remember: *TMNT (specifically Donatello and Michelangelo controls) *MARVEL vs. CAPCOM *TEKKEN Tag Tournament *Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (game crashes) *Soul Edge *T2: The Arcade Game *Street Fighter 2 (right half of...

Drove up from Baltimore on a Friday evening and was not disappointed. BYOB policy is great, brought in a six pack and played games for over 3 hours. Great investment on a night out that is still cheaper than going to the movies. We only planned on staying for maybe an hour to keep the price at 10 bucks each, but there were so many old games to play that we haven't seen since we were kids, so we couldn't leave! The free play aspect is awesome, we ended up getting stuck on a single machine because we could keep on with 'Continue", rather than giving up since we didn't have to feed it any coins. Personal favorites are the Pacman vs Pacman game (up to 4 players!) and Gauntlet. As well as the Star Wars Pin ball machine!

We don't have anything like this near us in Baltimore that we know of, and the one we went to in D.C. was not nearly the same (it was an arcade bar that ended up being ridiculously expensive!). I'd highly recommend this to anyone within a 1 hr radius of Hanover as a very nostalgic, chill, and fun thing to do. Great for date night, hanging out with friends, or just killing time by yourself. We will definitely be coming back.

Pros: BYOB Free-play arcades. Get past the spot where you usually have to give up! Plenty of pinball machines! Staff was helpful Bathroom was clean They had Star Trek playing on the projector screen which definitely completed the arcade/nerd vibe for me. Not overly crowded (which surprised me!) They have a game couch with console games, including older consoles like N64, Genesis, SNES, NES as well as new systems like PS4 (we didn't get a chance to check this out, but saw others playing).

Cons: It is a bummer when some of the machines are either out of order (less annoying but expected) or are partially not working, like finding out the jump button for P2 or a joystick doesn't work after you started playing (more annoying). But I hope my review will nudge people on the fence of that dreaded "what to do tonight" feeling when they google things to do, and feel inspired to go! More business will end up meaning more money for maintenance.

Neither Pro or Con: Bathroom is unisex.. or multisex.. or co-ed. Not sure the term, but it's for both male and female and accommodates multiple stalls. As a guy, this did not concern me. So it may be my gender-bias talking but I'm not sure I would be super comfortable as a young woman! (However, the door can be locked for privacy - not 100% sure of the store policy on whether you are...

TL;DR Half the stuff isn't working which loses the value of spending $10 an hour or even $25 a whole day

You can find a few games worth your time and money. Playing the Batman Arcade game and the stranger things pinball work great. MK2 cabinet is nice. Skeeball is great. hence the 2 stars and not 1. BUT half of the stuff is in pretty rough shape to a point they're unplayable. I'm not asking for pristine condition. I understand these machine get used up. I'm just going to leave a few examples and leave it at that. The one pacman machine is a cheap clone and not actual pacman. Popeye the joystick gets stuck left and right so popeye is always moving making the game pretty much unplayable. Tetris monitor bleeds so bad you can hardly tell where to fit the pieces. Both players on the California Speed have messed up steering wheels. The one on the left has a terrible wobble with no force feedback. Other one has force feedback but moving to the right is way too sensitive ending up driving the car off the road. Terminator 2 pinball top bumpers are dead. Bride of pinbot flippers are so weak you can't get the ball up the ramps. No Fear pinball at first the screen wasn't working then later on the screen was working but the game was stuck couldn't find the ball. Diner pinball lights are so dim and bottom half lights don't work to a point you can't see the ball. Simpsons arcade is playable but screen is dim and has a bunch of graphical errors Adams Family pinball kept losing track of the ball and would have to reset constantly. The playfields on most of their pinball machines are beat up. The ball will move all over the place depending on where the scratches and cracks are. Bronco pinball the left flipper gets stuck making the game unplayable. Even the snes clone console they have set up can't play games properly because they have a US cartridge playing on a PAL system. They only had one game to choose, street fighter 2. The game will only let you play for a few minutes and then you get a black screen telling you the cartridge is not meant to be played on that console. The biggest sin they have a beautiful Attack from Mars pinball with all the newest upgrades led lights etc. But the left flipper gets stuck pretty much making the...