Playdium Arcade, Gulf View, Trinidad (Behind Sting Nightclub)

May 2014: Playdium has moved to a different building on the same compound. 


The review below is for the old venue.

This game room and restaurant opened last Saturday and I visited on Sunday evening. You have to drive in the entrance in front of Ma Pau and then go to the back of Sting to get there. The parking lot is missing painted lines on the ground so it can be a problem with people who do not park straight and block you somehow or you get boxed in by people who block both ends on a path without watching the other end. Some spots on the road surface was soft and moved when cars drove on it so I imagine it could be messy during the day with heat from the sun making it softer. There is a ramp as well as steps so wheel chair access is easy. There is a guard/ bouncer at the door. Inside, there is one large open room with games to the right and food to the left. After the initial awe of noise and blinking lights I realised the games were limited. Tokens are $20 for 8 and most games (the good ones anyway) are 4 tokens to play.

There is a handful of regular joystick and button game boxes and the rest are more immersive. The most fun one seems to be a simulation where you sit in a mock Hummer (there is space for 2 in the ride) and drive through a stage. The seats are articulated and move all directions to give the feeling of being in the vehicle. Then there is another simulation where 2 people lie back on the seats and it moves to simulate a roller coaster. Fans that blow air on you during the ride. I do not see the sense of rides like these because we already have bad roads, dangerous drivers, poorly maintained cars, steep hills etc on our roads. Take a normal drive on many of our roads and your get more value for money. The games are obviously targeted for people who are not accustomed to our regular driving conditions.

In one row has 4 or 5 simulation shooting games, you get a gun and have to aim and kill the enemies, 2 tokens per play. Need for Speed Carbon is a car racing game with a cockpit style wheel and pedals that can be linked for 4 players or independently. I can't remember the price to play.

Further along there are 4 air hockey tables, 4 tokens to play. Then comes a 2 lane mini bowling alley that is poorly lit. I suspect it is intentionally so to hide the unevenness of the lanes as it was hard to get the balls to keep straight, or maybe the balls are not balanced, either way, 4 tokens to play per lane. Three strength games rate you, one you hit a hammer on a pad, one you box a target and the other you kick a football. You can race to fill a target with a water cannon, jump rope (lights), shoot out a horse's teeth or stop a running light on a target for tickets.

The biggest game physically I think was the pirates theme styled shooting gallery. 4 tokens give you 20 shots and you see how many targets you can hit to win a prize of tickets. You get tickets for playing some games and there are a couple ticket stations that eat your tickets and spit out a nice small receipt for the tickets it ate. The lower (affordable) prizes are the regular disappointing  cheap plastic non-sense or sweets or stationery. The better prizes are 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 tickets etc. By the time you do get that amount you would have spent well over the worth of the prize itself.

The food is one counter and a wide area with seats and tables. I didn't check the menu or check out the prices. You get a chance to win a Toyota MR5 car when you spend $40 or more on food according to a banner, but it didn't say when the draw was or any other details and I didn't ask. There were a set of rooms above a part of the games with glass walls that advertised space for rent so there may be more attractions to come and 3 or 4 similar rooms were also along the side of the arcade.

This is a good way to sink allot of money without realising it and it does offer an experience like nowhere else in Trinidad. The setting resembles a mini Dave and Busters in the US. Note that there is the other new arcade Fun Station behind KFC which was open for a few months now. They have different games so it is what you prefer. I will not be visiting either of them again soon because I prefer to game on my new PC.


Update 3rd May 2010:

I heard the food tastes good, you pay by the weight, call it approx. $35 a box.

Update 18th July 2010:
Their official website is http://playdiumtrinidad.com/

Update: 4th September 2012
There have been a few new games installed and a bumper car section that takes 4 tokens for approx. 5 mins.

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