Century City Arcade

Do not go this shithole… The machines will take your money and you wont be able to play the games.

I used Century City for an impromptu location for a fashion shoot for Prowlster Magazine. The lady in charge was very nice letting me use the arcade (people can be narky about people photographing in their premises for reasons unbeknownst to me). I was surprised at how many people were playing the games, this being at 11am and the year 2013, especially when you can download most of the games on your phone for 89 cent. A nice place, somewhat a look into the past when entertainment was simpler.

Century City arcade is situated beside the Cineworld on Parnell street, in behind the Woolshed.
It’s a perfectly functional arcade. A few racing games, a few shooters. They have Time Crisis 4, which gave me a big pang of nostalgia.
Anyway, this is all beside the point. I include these details for those of you who might go to arcades for anything other than Dance Dance Revolution (DDR).
I swear I’ve spent so much money on this machine, I’m basically keeping Century City afloat.
It’s not like it’s a particularly good DDR machine, the songs are all J-​pop, the price is € 1 a pop, but it’s very addictive. Very addictive.
Thanks to those obsessive Japanese (even more so than yours truly), the game has 5 levels of difficulty, ranging from «bloody hard» to «break down in tears».
I have yet to complete a mission on the 2^nd easiest level of difficulty, something I find very emasculating. Not content with making you move your feet with the timing and precision of MJ himself, they also have a great laugh randomly changing the tempo, gah!

Century City is one of the few arcades left in Dublin.
Situated in the same building as Cineworld, its a great place to spend some time (and money) while waiting for your movie to start.
There is a nice selection of games, from shooters, to ball games and gambling machines. they even have a strength test!
Also, there is a nice little shop there, which is much more affordable than the shop in the cinema.
The one detractor is that it can sometimes be quite a hostile or intimidating environment, they have a security man, but lets just say he is kept busy.