A new 'barcade' just opened up in Des Moines last Friday (October 11th) called Up-Down. It is located at 500 E Locust St, Des Moines, IA.

I visited last night and they have a pretty good selection of 80's games plus 10 or so 90's games and 6 pins (see list below). It was right after they opened at 5pm and there were 6-8 people in there, mostly looked like late 20's early 30's types. I felt old.

They had narrow wooden platforms set up between games to set you beer on, which was pretty convenient. No stools that I can recall. It's in a basement so daylight shouldn't be much of a problem.

They were playing mostly newer music. Harder than pop music but not overly loud. There was one non-electronic game that dropped some game pieces when it started and it made a huge 'crunch' that wakes you up if you don't know it's coming.

I only played 4 games because I didn't have a lot of time. Gorf and Defender played very well. The trackball on Centipede needed new rollers. It didn't continue to roll at all if you rolled it and let go. Mario Bros, as well as Dig Dug, had an LCD screen and it played kind of sluggish, so I wonder if it was a 60-in-1 board or something.

Didn't see a lot of scores and they don't have a scoreboard (yet). There was a 79k on Asteroids and 125k on Tron. Didn't talk to any of the staffers besides to order a beer. Next time I will ask about the owners and try to be there a night 1 or more of them are.

Supposedly there are going to have tournaments and what not. There was also a console area set up in the back but whatever ones they have weren't out for display or playing (it said ask).

Game List :

Area 51 Site 4
Asteroids
Burgertime
Centipede
Cruisin' USA (dual)
Defender
Dig Dug (cocktail)
Dig Dug
Donkey Kong Jr (cocktail)
Donkey Kong Jr
Frogger
Galaga (cocktail)
Galaga
Gauntlet Dark Legacy
Ghosts n' Goblins
Gorf
Gunsmoke
House of the Dead
Mario Bros.
Marvel vs Capcom
Mortal Kombat
Ms. Pac-Man (cocktail)
Ms. Pac-Man
NBA Hang Time
NFL Blitz 2000 Gold
Pac-Man
Playchoice 10
Punch-out
RBI Baseball
Revolution
Rush n' Attack
Space Invaders (cocktail)
Street Fighter II
Super Offroad
TMNT
TRON
Virtua Fighter 3
WWF Superstars
X-Men (4 Player cab)

Austin Powers (Pinball)
Cue Ball Wizard (Pinball)
NASCAR (Pinball)
South Park (Pinball)
Street Fighter II (Pinball)
X-Files (Pinball)