Location: 2 Woodfield Mall, Schaumburg, IL 60173, USA
Report date: March 2015

Report by Dan Marquardt

An all-new barcade just opened in the Chicago area. It is called Level 257.

The Pac-Man themed barcade is the first of ten planned nationwide by the owner Namco. It is located in the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. It is next to the Sears store and is about an eighth of a mile north of GameWorks.

Level 257 in Schaumburg, Illinois

The name comes from the 256th level of Pac-Man being the top level. Level 257 is meant to mean one level above the highest possible.

Pac-Man is there to greet you

Pac-Man has done well for himself. The barcade is very upscale, loaded with a variety of games.

Level 257's bar area

The Lost & Found Games Lounge features a large multi-player Pac-Man screen

Level 257 also features 16 bowling lanes

The restaurant in the middle of the location has a much better menu selection than I would have expected.

The food menu
(click to enlarge)

I was also very impressed at how good all the vintage games looked and played. It was obvious that Namco cares about providing customers with a top-quality game experience.

A selection of the classic video games at Level 257

There are six pins there to play. Five are side-by-side against one wall, and there is a half pin, half video Baby Pac-Man game in the video game section.

The wall of pins features some of the all-time top arcade pins, including the Black Knight and Gorgar, who were once rivals of Pac-Man during their peak.

The pinball section

It might be 35 years old, but Black Knight still looks and plays great

Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man, the first of two Pac-Man themed games from Bally

The second, Baby Pac-Man, is in the video games section

All the pins were extremely clean and worked fine, and the volume was decent on all the pins too.

A swipe card is used to play the games. A card is issued when you buy time on the games. This card can then be recharged with between fifteen minutes and two hours of play time.

You can purchase up to two hours additional game play time

Tapping the card on the reader box on the front of the cabinet puts a single credit on the game. A second card with time purchased on it is needed to use the multi-player feature on all of the games. The time bought on the card does not begin counting down until you put your first credit on a game, while the card reader box on each game shows the amount of time left on the card after it issues a credit.

There is about a two minute hold between the ability to put a credit on a game. I assume this is to prevent using a single card to add credits on multiple games for friends. Once a credit is put on a game, you can play it to the end even if the time on the card expires.

This mini-bagatelle game is one of the Pac-Man-themed items on display

It is nice to see that the nostalgic interest for video and pinball games continues to grow and has led to the opening of this fun barcade.

© Pinball News 2015