PIU Exceed 2 in Bloomington

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PIU Exceed 2 in Bloomington

Post by malictus » Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:07 pm

I'm just reporting on a new Pump It Up location in Bloomington!

Location: Magic Planet - This is at the NEW location for Magic Planet, on the highway going out towards Ellettsville (sorry I don't have the address handy...)

Pros: As far as I can tell, it's an absolutely brand new PIU Exceed 2 machine. Pads work, sound is loud

Cons: $1.00 a game and the machine is out in the middle of the kids playground area, which pretty much guarantees that some random kid will come up and try to mess you up :( I'm not sure whose brilliant idea that was...

Anyway, it's Bloomington's only PIU location, so it's worth checking out. It's funny though, because the new Magic Planet ads that they are running on the radio say, "Now featuring Dance Dance Revolution". :P

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Post by sam » Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:49 pm

susie's not gonna like this one!

do you have hours for this magic planet? do they have a space shuttle that takes you there? do i need my own oxygen tank?
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Post by Merk » Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:23 pm

Hmm, I didn't know this place even existed at all. What exactly is Magic Planet?
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Post by Secef » Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:20 pm

Can we just go to this place and play? If so, I propose that we organize a meeting sometime to thoroughly break this new guy in.
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Post by Fluffyumpkins » Mon Jun 06, 2005 7:03 pm


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Post by sam » Mon Jun 06, 2005 7:23 pm

it's lazerlites rival (oooooh) it's a party place for kids but instead of laser tag they have a ball pit which they never clean (!!!) and worse pizza
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Post by malictus » Mon Jun 06, 2005 9:56 pm

The best time to go would be NOT on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon; there are about a zillion kids parties at that time. Evenings are probably reasonably deserted. Anybody want to meet up maybe this Friday evening? Or someone suggest another time/day?

I know one of the managers, so there's always a chance I could score free pizza or something :wink: But Sam's right, the pizza isn't nearly as good as Lazerlite. And the target audience is a lot younger than Lazerlite, so there's lots of little kids running around. Definitely not as cool of an atmosphere as Lazerlite...

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Post by Merk » Mon Jun 06, 2005 11:26 pm

I assume the ball pit is kids only?
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Post by sam » Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:25 am

i'd imagine...the location of it is kinda annoying, there's only room for like maybe 5 people to watch...although it was funny as fuck. i was playing beethovin's virus (which I failed, I have lost any PIU skill I had....hard difficulty...FUCK!) and this kid started jumping around on the other arrows...no biggie...then she fell over and started crying....i ended up laughing so hard i failed.

other than that....half doubles for life!
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Post by Secef » Wed Jun 08, 2005 2:21 pm

So I went and checked the place out. I don't think I'll go play there often.

Number one, it's a dollar per play. Not four tokens, not four quarters. A dollar bill is required to pay for one credit. A tad silly. I'm willing to call the price fair though since it is the newest PIU version, you still get four songs as long as you aren't really really terrible, and I'm partially just spoiled on great .50-.75 cent prices or better on arcade machines.

Number two, the volume. The bass on the machine is about where it should be, but the treble is way down low. You can't hear most of the songs aside from the bass beat. I couldn't even tell that Canon in D was Canon in D for most of the song for crying out loud. I suppose the workers there didn't want music to drown out all the screaming kids. Which brings me to...

Number three, location of the machine, and I mean this in two ways. First, the machine is in a hardcore little kids establishment (amusing since games like Judge Dredd and Lethal Enforcers are in the actual arcade room). The environment is a little hard to get comfortable with, especially since the machine itself is located in the midst of the playground area totally seperate from the arcade area. Another factor in the location is that it's way out towards Ellettsville. This isn't relatively far for myself since I live a mile or so away from the 37-45/46 junction. It's probably not a lot different in driving time from my apartment to Lazerlite, honestly. However, it really is a ways to go for a machine set up like this. If it were in the middle of town, I might be more inclined to stop in and play again, but that's a bit too out of the way for me.

Now this isn't to say it's all bad. I mean, the people working seemed friendly enough. Also, the machine was in superb shape and the pads were absolutely pristine. If it were anywhere else closer with better volume and a quarter lower price, I'd be all over this machine. However, as it stands, I just can't get excited about this location. I'd be happy to go with a group if other folks went, but I don't foresee myself going back by myself like I would with Lazerlite.

It is kinda funny though. There were these little girls watching me play. When I'd pick something and put it on Crazy, I'd hear one of them say "Alright. He's doing Crazy." kind of like a golf announcer, and when I played the full version of Dignity in the remix mode there was a whole fun assortment of comments like "He's a really good dancer" and afterwards a round of applause. With that said... playing in front of kids is a silly but nice ego booster. :lol:
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Post by malictus » Wed Jun 08, 2005 2:46 pm

Yeah, I pretty much agree with Kyler's assessment. Why does the machine take only dollar bills? Especially when you can get tokens in the game room. And I still can't believe they put it where they did.

Like I said before, I do know at least one manager there, so I could probably get the treble turned up (I didn't notice it before because there were kids literally screaming in my ears while I was playing :shock: ). But I'm pretty sure they wouldn't move the machine....

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Post by Mosh_Mosh_Revolution » Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:12 pm

Secef wrote:It is kinda funny though. There were these little girls watching me play. When I'd pick something and put it on Crazy, I'd hear one of them say "Alright. He's doing Crazy." kind of like a golf announcer, and when I played the full version of Dignity in the remix mode there was a whole fun assortment of comments like "He's a really good dancer" and afterwards a round of applause. With that said... playing in front of kids is a silly but nice ego booster. :lol:
Sooooo....Kyler has a preteen fanclub.
...Does that make you like Hanson? Minus the other two guys?

And malictus can get in to play all undercover-like, seeing as he's got kids to front. How many of us would actually be able to go in there as a group without children that basically say "Hey, we're why these guys are here"?

We had this same discussion when there was talk of a PIU going in a Chuck E. Cheese. :roll:
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Post by Secef » Wed Jun 08, 2005 6:08 pm

Mosh_Mosh_Revolution wrote:Sooooo....Kyler has a preteen fanclub.
...Does that make you like Hanson? Minus the other two guys?
Oh yeah! I'm just like Hanson. I mean... minus the two other guys, the golden locks of hair, the girlish figure, and the crappy muzak. But still, all the preteen chicks think I'm dreamy. It won't be long until I grace the cover of Tiger Beat with a large centerfold for all the preteen ladies to hang in their lockers.
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Post by Mosh_Mosh_Revolution » Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:07 pm

Secef wrote:Oh yeah! I'm just like Hanson. I mean... minus the two other guys, the golden locks of hair, the girlish figure, and the crappy muzak. But still, all the preteen chicks think I'm dreamy. It won't be long until I grace the cover of Tiger Beat with a large centerfold for all the preteen ladies to hang in their lockers.
DAMN that's hot.
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