Over the last year or so I’ve been hearing about Joystix Classic Games and Pinballs in Downtown Houston located near Minute Maid Park on Franklin Street.

Basically it’s a video/pinball arcade featuring vintage games like Asteroids, Defender, Tron, Space Invaders and so on. Plus many, MANY pinball machines. You pay a flat fee and play all night. Pretty cool.

On this week’s show my co-host phliKtid mentioned his recent visit to Joystix and word got to the owner who invited us out to check the place as a possible venue for a future event.

Friday night myself, phliKtid and Groovehouse ventured over there and checked it out. It’s about everything you would expect. Flashing lights, electronic noises and grown men and women grinning like idiots. I played Defender and Tron and even went head to head with phliKtid in a game of Wizards Of Wor. I was soundly defeated. I was, however, happy to see that my mad Spy Hunter skills were still in tact.

While I was roaming the aisles of games I was reminded that there is something that is worse than the band Journey…and that’s the video game Journey

Joystix

9 thoughts on “Joystix

  • April 6, 2008 at 12:30 am
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    MAN! That looks SO fun! I wish I’d read this earlier today. I would have gone there tonight!!

  • April 6, 2008 at 7:52 am
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    That is the coolest thing I have ever seen.

  • April 6, 2008 at 11:39 am
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    groove was telling us about it last night. we even called and tried to go but apparently the arcade part is only open fridays or something erratic like that. looks very cool. sorry i missed it.

  • April 6, 2008 at 12:10 pm
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    God that was awesome, as you can tell from the grins on my face in those pictures! Thanks Jay and phliKtid for a RADICAL Friday night!

  • April 6, 2008 at 5:04 pm
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    you are totally my hero! I had *no* idea that place even existed! That looks like amazing fun!

  • April 6, 2008 at 9:22 pm
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    Still smarting over missing it. And it wouldn’t be SO bad if I wasn’t going to be out of town the next time they do it. And then I can’t go the time after that either. 🙁

    The pics are great though – they’d make me want to go even more if that were possible. But it isn’t.

    Also nice about these photos: you got groovy smiling in every shot (yes!) and I’m loving phliKy’s hat.

    Thanks!

  • April 7, 2008 at 11:47 pm
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    I heard you guys talking about it on the show last week. It sounds like fun. It’s like the annual arcade expo all year long. (except it’s also a bar. I guess the 8 year old would have to sit this one out!) And it also doesn’t look quite so warm and moist as the Expo. That many sweaty geeks in that close proximity for too long is never a good thing. *shudder*
    We’ll have to check it out soon.

  • April 8, 2008 at 9:26 pm
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    they only have the arcade showroom open for flat-fee free play the first and last fridays of the month, from 9pm until 2am. the connected bar isn’t anything amazing (like no arcade theme or anything), but it’s got a nice look and feel to it.

    and that pic of me and groove is us playing wizards of wor. man, i love that game!

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