About Me

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Friday 5 February 2016

PengoQuest USA tour dates

I mentioned a few posts back that I planned to travel to the US in the new year. The trip was originally designed so I could run the New York half marathon (around Manhattan) on 20 March - as part of a long term plan to one day qualify to run Boston.

While in America, I'd also been thinking of wandering around the north-east and maybe elsewhere for a short time to see what I could see before heading home. But since discovering the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Chicago, I can now announce exclusively that I'll be in Chicago from 26 to 28 March 2016 to attempt to etch my name into the record books - or at least onto the Galloping Ghost high score website.

The Galloping Ghost website gives a good, albeit somewhat breathless, description of the place:

The GALLOPING GHOST ARCADE provides a video gaming experience like no other! We are the LARGEST video arcade in the USA, and currently have over 440+ games to play and have more games up and running all the time! Unlike most arcades, we do not use quarters or tokens. All of our games are set to FREE PLAY! We charge a $15 door fee and then you can come in and play ALL the games for as long as you want! We are open until 2AM daily (EVERYDAY including all holidays)! We offer Weekly, Monthly, Yearly & Lifetime Memberships as well! We are also one of the most reputable arcades for tracking high scores and world records. We currently have over 180+ World Records set here!

Given it takes me around 1 to 2 hours to play an average Pengo game, I’d probably prefer the old fashioned, coin-in-the-slot, way of playing, but it’s a small price to pay if I do manage to reproduce my Sydney form on the big stage. And of course, if you're in the vicinity at that time, feel free to drop by and say G'day!

When I previously wrote about the Galloping Ghost, the Pengo high score was listed on their site at 132,790, set on 3 April 2015 by a gentleman named James White. Lo and behold, I’ve just checked again and it seems the champ has been back, posting a new high score of 160,100 on 29 November 2015. Good job James!

All up, I’ll be in New York from 17 to 24 March before heading up to Boston for a day, and then on the train to Chicago. After that, another two days on the train to San Francisco for a couple of days, before the loooooong flight back home to Sydney, via New York and Abu Dhabi.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be stepping up my searches for any arcades in New York and San Francisco. So, again, if you know of any currently operating that carry the great game, I’d love to hear about them!