Jesus, Logan.

Alright, so this blog post is going to sound like I'm pluggin' something, but no, I just went to the coolest goddamn place this week. Leslie, me, and the roommates (the fine folks at Lighter Than Heir) took a trip out to the long abandoned Cincinatti Mills mall. Now, this was super interesting in of itself. Go google that shit. It's the nicest, biggest mall I've ever been in...and it's (almost) completely abandoned. It's like if you removed all the zombies from Dead Rising or Dawn of the Dead and just explored that. There's still music. There's minimum lighting. But it's been abandoned for years now. All the stores are blacked out and locked down. Escalators are turned off. We just took a few minutes to explore the damn place, it was so huge. You can tell someone dumped a ton of money into the place because the decorations are ridiculous. There's neon pianos lining the ceilings and great architecture, all for this dead, abandoned mall. 

Well, like I said, ALMOST abandoned.

The mall is still open to the public (there was a decent amount of people around, and an entire little league team holding practice in one of the empty wings). There are three stores still open. One if a Japanese restaurant in the food court...the only thing left in the food court. I didn't get a chance to see them, but man, I'd love to strike up a conversation with them. There's also a Kohl's, but it's accessible right from the front of the mall so it BARELY counts. It's just a big store that HAPPENS to connect to a mall. But no, the most important thing, the thing that's getting ANY business there, is in fact, an arcade. The greatest goddamn arcade I've ever seen.

Guys, let me tell you about Arcade Legacy. Centered right around in the center of this husk of a mall is a gigantic video game Mecca. You pay ten bucks to enter and every game is free-play after for the entire day. And they have everything. EVERYTHING. You like shooters? They got Time Crisis, Virtua Cop, CarnEvil, Silent Scope, and more. You like fighters? They've got Marvel 2, Third Strike, Ultra, Killer Instinct 2, DIVEKICK, DARKSTALKERS, AND A FUCKING AUTHENTIC JAPANESE PROJECT JUSTICE CABINET JESUS CHRIST. There's Sunset Riders. The Simpsons beat-em-up. Ninja Turtles arcade. Megaman Power Battles 2. Crazy Taxi 3 (so you get ALL the Crazy Taxis). Jambo Safari. X-MEN ARCADE, THAT HUGE-ASS CABINET. Battletoads. Metal Slug. STAR WARS ARCADE WITH THE JOYSTICK. Everything works wonderfully and it's all FUCKING FREE (after an initial $10 entry fee). 

Let's say for some reason you don't even want to play the arcade games for some stupid reason. Fine. They have a ton of TVs and consoles set-up with a whole shop of games for every fucking console so you can play WHATEVER. They had Smash 4 on a 60-inch projection screen so that Great Cave Offensive is ACTUALLY playable. Want to get some buddies together and play Power Stone? Well, you fucking can. Not only that, but there's tons of video game memorabilia everywhere. Local art, game magazines, figures (including a GIGANTIC Lord Raptor figure), peripheals...it's so fucking good, guys. All nestled into this giant, empty mall.

Arcade Legacy is seriously one of the greatest places I've ever been to. I'm so happy it gets as much business as it does. It blows any video game convention I've ever been to right out the goddamn water. I seriously want to hold an event of some kind there. They do weekly tournaments (I'll be in a Smash 4 tournament on the 24th there), but I want MORE excuses to go there. My birthday's too damn far away. Maybe if by some miracle there's a bunch of Blaster Nation fans in Ohio, we can hold some sort of get-together there. I would love nothing more than to stomp all you babies in Project Justice. 

That's all for today. SEE YOU ON FRIDAY.