Power Play

Arcade that looks cool, with a few decent games but most are overpriced.
I go there a lot, because it’s a good place to kill time before watching movies upstairs, and I love Lincoln Square’s Theater.
This place requires you to purchase the point-​system card where one of the most common price is 20 dollars for 3000 points. It’s actually not a bad deal, but you gotta play the games smartly. Some game takes 300 points including the big basketball hoop game and I think the Hummer game uses up around the same amount of points. The claw machine takes 350 points. The mini basketball game, skee balls, the baseball game and the football throwing game all cost 50 points. Those are the ones that are worth it because 50 points is equivalent to around 33 cents each. The DDR game costs 100 points, the ball drop costs 100 points. Those are good deals. If you compare all these prices to Round 1 Arcade in South Center, it’s much better here. It’s just that, they don’t really have enough fun machines (in my opinion at least) to spend more than half hour for.
They have added 3 additional games (Piano, Fish Jar and Angry Bird). Solid, but pricey so watch out.

I love this place! I like when arcade games incorporate your typical «county fair» type games as well as your video games. I knocked a star off because the last time I was there, there was a birthday party or something going on, and a kid dumped or spilled their water or soda on one of the hummer game seats, and I ended up sitting in it… I was NOT happy, but it wasn’t the arcades fault. But… they have waitresses and staff roaming around so it was a bummer that no one caught it and cleaned it up. I just tied my boyfriends hoody around my waist (what a nice guy! haha).

Free parking. $ 20 for 1 hour of fun for my wife and me. The Hummer game and the fighter pilot game are the best. Clean, family friendly and the best part was the card readers give you an update on how many points you have left after each swipe. A nicer, smaller and newer Gameworks. The Harpoon game looked fun too, but I didn’t get to play it. Only 1 shooting game I saw, Terminator. Basketball hoops, football throwing and baseball throwing games.

I ordered my buddy a soda on his birthday. It was entirely flat. Reason being the bartender pre-​fills a pitcher with soda who knows how long ago and fills the order with too much one and that old pitcher of soda that has likely been there all day.

I love this place! Came in with the boyfriend and we spent about an hour «driving» the Hummer arcade game which 2 people can sit by each on while playing with the seats bouncing along with the game. So much fun. Also air hockey, huge 4 person Pac Man, F1 racing cars, pool, and skee ball.
We don’t give a hoot about the sports games and there are some little tyke games that spit out tickets.
This is a smaller arcade and you have to buy a card for $ 2 to add cash to in order to play the games. However, it’s in a great location with enough games to entertain for a couple of hours. Bowling is nearby and movie theatres are on the level above so you can come here and do other things as well to make a day/​night of it.
Parking is FREE and there’s a ton of it in the multi-​level parking garage.

This place is awesome. The dangerous part is that once you convert your money into points on the PowerPlay card, you can quickly forget how expensive each «game» is. I think most video games end up costing about 1.50 to 2.50 per person. Three of us actually did pretty well and played around for a good half hour on $ 15 or $ 20 worth of points. Not too shabby.
Good for some short term entertainment, I wouldn’t stay too long cuz it could get pricey, quick!

Pricey, oh my god, bring a certain amount you wanna play, and leave the rest of your wallet at home!
The game systems are all pretty clean and looks to be brand new though I wouldn’t know the secret birth dates of these machines.
They also have a bowling lane next to the arcade as it is intended for bowling and arcade.
There is also a laser tag I didn’t really notice until a few times after I went, basically pretend you’re a spy and those red lasers will either sound an alarm or burn you, whichever way you would prefer to think of it as. Though the alarm really will sound, but don’t worry, you are still raw!
PS: If you’re 18 before 10pm and 21 after, there will be what some of you call «fun».

It may be small but it’s got the newest and best of everything.

This place is pretentious and overpriced for what it is… I’m no gamer, but this kind of place wore out my short attention span after 10 minutes. Which is good, cause if you spend a couple hour there, you might have spent the monetary equivalent of buying a WII…

The only thing cool about this place is air hockey, besides that this place is pretty lame. The games they have are all overpriced and nothing is really that amazing, they just don’t have any big name arcade games which is mainly why this place is just meh. If they had some street fighter or a real DDR box instead of some ripoff it would really improve this place.
I would definitely avoid this place unless you like air hockey, the tables they have are in really good condition. but if you don’t, avoid.

So… this isn’t an arcade for gamers. Can you even call it an arcade without Street Fighter? Seriously!
But who am I kidding, this is still a great place (if expensive) to waste time while waiting for a movie, and admittedly has a lot more of a «date friendly» vibe to it compared to your usual arcade.
* Air hockey: at least they got that one right!
* Lasers: cool premise… but apparently I’m not cut out to be a cat burglar or Mission Impossible secret agent. The lasers were hard to see (maybe that was the point). But the best part was that I did just as good as my boyfriend when I gave up halfway, stood up, and walked through alllllll the lasers, despite the fact he crawled meticulously. ;)
* Football. I haven’t seen this so much (compared to basketball) — it’s fun!
* Safari game. Always good to get a competitive rivalry going on. :)

I guess this is the Damon Busters of WA… Despite all of the negative reviews — I think this place is fun! It cost an arm-​and-​a-​leg to hang out here — but come on people — this is Bellevue — everything is yuppy and pricey! Service was a nightmare and they don’t have pitchers of beer — but I have to say that the concept is cool. Grab your peeps and take some shots before challenging your friends at basketball, ferrari racing, rock band or trivia. There apparently is laser tag too! I seriously forgot where I was while hanging here. Bellevue has become the mini L.A. and is a major meat market on the weekends. If this is not your scene — come anyways and yuppy watch! (super hilarious watching yups get their game on!) — any place is fun when you’re with your friends…

Meh.
Over priced arcade in Bellevue’s Lincoln Square. The limited offering of arcade titles spread far apart make the place look unfinished. Probably great for corporate events where you don’t actually have to pay for anything and you just play a game in between beers and networking. Not worth spending your own cash for. You’d have a better time at Full Tilt.

This place is like Dave& Busters Third Cousin’s Friend of the Mailman’s Post Master’s General Neighbor in the town of Boring wanna be Cool Hip Arcade. They do have a Huge Basketball game thats fun to play though.
Come on Bellevue, who thought of this one? Such a Limited Selection & most underwhelming arcade feeling you could get…“Thats what she said” Drive to Gameworks in Downtown Seattle or yet your are better off buying an Airplane ticket to your closest D&B’s…Heres a link to the closest one
You will have more fun playing your Nintendo DS… or paper toss on you iPhone… LoL

This place is a great idea, and while it was fun there was still a lot to be desired. The service for food and drinks was bad. We had to aggressively hunt down a waitress every time we needed something, including paying our tab. The games run pricey, but that wasn’t a huge surprise. The food was good, but small portions. The tickets system is kind of crazy, but also not a surprise. Plus they have last call at 1:30am, at which point all games go dead immediately which was surprising.
Perhaps if service got better, it could pull to a 3 – 4 star place.
On the plus the place was pretty dead in what would seem to be prime time, so no waits or crowding for games.
P.S
On Halloween there was a ghostbuster who stripped his uni half down after getting hot and sweaty on the mini hoops. He then proceeded to wrestle it back on with his inflatable blaster pack foiling his efforts for literally 15 minutes. Maybe good people watching?

I was with the fiancée hitting up the Bellevue collection yesterday evening just to kill some time prior to our Halloween partying planned later that night. And what was this, Lucky Strike apparently expanded and built basically an adult Gameworks or rip off of Dave and Busters in Bellevue.
I figured I had to check it out. First off it appears it may not actually be a 21+ only establishment as there were kids there, but maybe after a certain time it is adults only. The establishment was very clean, and had some cool vegas-​like decoration. Anything Vegas like automatically makes me a fan. As for games, they have a nice variety of games to play: basketball, football, baseball, typical coin drop ticket machine things, some new-​ish games like that police and boxing games that senses movements, some cool racing games that features Ferrarris or Hummers. A cool trivia game with multiple players and winner gets more tickets, a fun game but sadly too little questions asked.
But the best game they have in the whole place IMO was Deal or No Deal. Simple, just like the actual trivia show (although no Howie Mandell voice), BUT you play for tickets. And believe it or not it actually is pretty fun because well, you’re playing for anywhere from 1 to 400 tickets (200 if you play only one credit), and the banker does make you offers. I think Danielle and I actually played that game like 4 – 5 times yesterday. it was a lot of fun, and on our last time we actually did end up with 100 tickets out of the 200 max which was pretty cool.
Servers are fast and friendly, good menu, prices are a little higher for everything than your typical arcade type place, but it’s meant to be more of an upscale place. But $ 20 in arcade credits did last Danielle and I about an hours worth of entertainment, and we did get enough tickets to win a little dog chew toy to bring back to the kiddies ;). Honestly I really wish this place was built a lot sooner, as it could easily be a place Danielle and I would stop by at least once a month or something for some different entertainment.
BTW one of the coolest game I would highly recommend for anyone (sadly no tickets involved) going with a group is this laser beam game. Basically think like Oceans 12 or Entrapment where you gotta get past a laser beam field and hit a button at the end where there’s a huge fake diamond. Danielle and I were out of credits by the time we found out about this game, but it looks real cool. Especially if you got a group who wants to have a good laugh out of how stupid you look trying to get pass the «LASERS».
Anyway if you’re in Bellevue, and looking for something different, I’d definitely recommend power play. It’s always fun to feel like a kid again (yet still be able to order Nachos and Beer lol)
~G

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I just came back from Power Play’s opening night to the public. After a quick walk through the location, it was clear that they went for quality over quantity. Every machine looked brand-​spanking new, from the redemption games to the 62″ plasma screen racing game. The goal with game selection was to choose games that you wouldn’t be embarrassed to play in front of your social crowd. Machines are very spaced out, and there is a lot of open space in the arcade for socializing and hanging out with your friends.
Instead of using quarters, it uses a point card system similar to Gameworks, the competition. Points are simple: 100 points = $ 1. Just like Gameworks, the value comes from buying a large amount of points at once. My friends and I bought a card with 2800 points for $ 20. Not a bad deal!
Atmosphere: This location is in Bellevue. Specifically, it’s located right next to a high-​class bowling alley (that almost seems more of a nightclub), and an actual bar/​night club. You aren’t going to find many families; therefore, no screaming kids that want to play the game next to you. There is a dress code, and I have no doubt that they will enforce it. My group had absolutely no problems getting in tonight, so just make sure you check out Lucky Strike’s dress code, because the same rules apply here.
The staff were very friendly, and there was a large amount of staff to make sure the opening went off without a hitch. They definitely made the place enjoyable.
GAMES: The important part — what’s there to play?
Compared to Gameworks, the selection of games is MUCH smaller. You will not find any old games like Pacman here. Only the newest American released games. That means no imported games, leaving out a lot of popular titles across genres with extremely dedicated cult followings.
Game selection included:
1) Multiplayer Racing games. They line the entire right wall, and first part of the left wall.
2) Redemption /​Competition games — tickets, skee-​ball, air hockey (3 tables!), and pop-​a-​shot basketball games are all included.
3) Other specialties:
–Dancing Games — There was no sign of the popular game Dance Dance Revolution!
They did have the US version of the 5 arrow dancing game alternative, Pump It Up: Pro (Dedicab). It cost 100 points, and the machine is new, so the pads are in amazing condition.
–Multiplayer Trivia — looked interesting, although I did not try it tonight (I’m not a huge trivia guy)
–Laser Course — Try to maneuver through the room of lasers. 300 points with Easy/​Medium/​Hard difficulties. It will definitely be one of those «I can do better than you» attractions. It didn’t seem very advertised or presented though, as it was in the VERY BACK of the arcade, and looked like it could have been a storage closet behind the bar.
Conclusion: So how good is an arcade if it has a limited selection of games compared to its competition? Still good, however it’s not clear whether they are really trying to be an arcade or a nice add-​on to Lucky Strike.
With the large amount of space and cutoff for those under 21 (9PM on a Friday night, and it sounded like they were going to up it to 8PM), the place is CLEARLY intended to have large groups of friends who want to get a drink, then play games. A seating area is directly in front of the entrance, a complete departure from traditional arcades that are interested in showing fans the newest games they get to spend their money on.
There are two different crowds that Power Play can attract, and from their connection to Lucky Strike, it seems that they have clearly chosen their path.
— If you are over-​21 and interested in playing a few arcade games casually with your friends after having a drink; this place is perfect for you.
— If you play an arcade game that has a strong following (especially anything imported), you’ll still probably have to go elsewhere to play your favorite games.
I personally am a fan of both of the types of arcades, and I had a very enjoyable time tonight. I will definitely be back again to see how the place matures. If machines stay in good condition, it will be a pleasure to return in the future.
Bellevue is always looking for more ways to attract their mostly single, over-​21 crowd to mingle and spend money, and that’s clearly who this arcade is targeted to. Those from outside the area, you have been warned on what to expect. The games are fun and new, however it is not the largest selection/​variety. The atmosphere can either be very good, or very annoying depending on your preference, but the staff seemed friendly to everyone there tonight. Power Play makes a nice addition to the Bellevue area, and a new alternative for their nightlife scene. I will be going back again, not for the drinks, but for the games — the true heart of what makes an arcade.

Power Play is the name of the $ 4 million expansion to Lucky Strike bowling lanes. The 18,000 square foot addition is a well-​played cut at what GameWorks aimed to be years ago (does that place still exist?): a video game arcade catering to those above drinking age.
Let there be no doubt about it: these folks know how to throw a grand opening bash. Their intent was free food and drink, with no limitations. Seriously a Pleasure Island type of event. However, that idea was slightly quashed by the folks that own the nearby Parlor Billiards hall calling the liquor control board and tattletaleing that Power Play was going to give out free booze. Think about that the next time you decide to spend more than you should to hang out in Bellevue and play mindless games. Which establishment do you want to support?
So drinks were a dollar, and proceeds went to charity.
Power Play has filled the space with a large array of modern video games. Here you won’t find Rampage, Ms. Pac Man or Arkanoid, but you will find just about everything else. If you want to drive Hummers, Harleys, or hydroplanes, you’re covered. If you want to rock out to Guitar Hero or dance to Dance Dance Revolution, you’re set. You can dunk some real basketballs, roll some video bowling, or even toss some video lawn darts, because the world was really lacking that option.
There are interactive trivia games and a Deal or No Deal game. There’s a maze made up of frickin’ lasers. With the clientele of Power Play, the video screens outside the maze show scenes reminiscent of the late-​90s movie Entrapment, with tightly-​clothed women weaving through lasers while trying to keep their cleavage contained.
In a nod to the video arcades of our collective youth, there are games such as skee-​ball which spit out tickets to be redeemed for prizes ranging from Pez and stuffed bears to Xbox games and Lucky Strike barware. Play the wheel of fortune game to win tickets at the least, but if you are lucky, you’ll win an iPod, Nintendo DS, or… wait for it… a Coach handbag.
The food is standard Lucky Strike bar food; passable greasebombs, but it was free!
Finally, big props to Lucky Strike for their hiring practices. I don’t know where they find them, but they have somehow amassed the largest array of silicone-​filled tawdry tarts as their staff. The most silicone to be found north of Reno. A hostess whose mere ability to stand upright defies all physics.
I’m docking Power Play a star in advance, just knowing that their clientele on a typical weekend is going to be douchebag central, and for being yet another pretentious vortex in the expanding black hole that is Bellevue, but as far as big, glitzy grown-​up video game arcades go, this place fits the bill.