Last year I was pleasantly surprised by a simulator game, as I don't normally enjoy them that much, but Arcade Paradise had several things going for it that won me over.

Almost all those elements that I loved about the console game are still here in Arcade Paradise VR by Nosebleed Interactive, but often improved by the VR elements.

A day in the life of a teenager at a laundromat

In Arcade Paradise you play as Ashley, a young woman stuck in a dead-end job. Until your father puts you in charge of the King Wash laundromat, which happens to have a small room with a few arcade cabinets in the back.

Early in the game each day will consist of cleaning up the trash left around the laundromat, cleaning out the toilet and doing load after load of laundry. All these activities earn money so that Ashley can purchase more arcade cabinets beyond the starting few and eventually expand the arcade portion of King Wash.

Given how much you'll be doing these menial tasks this is where the VR aspects start to shine early. Players utilize the "˜force' to pickup trash, allowing you to point your hand at a piece of garbage and just summon it to your hand, blessedly ensuring you don't have to bend over to pick up each piece.

Although once you have the trash, you really just throw it back down and it feels like there was a missed opportunity to have the players put the trash in their actual bag or a nearby trashcan, but I suspect that would have added too much tedium to these activities.

Once you've filled your bag with trash there's a fun basketball style mini game as you'll go out back of the laundromat and pitch the trash bag into the dumpster, with farther throws rewarding more money and a sense of satisfaction when you nail a long toss.

Similarly doing the laundry has been enhanced by the inclusion of VR, now when you load the laundry into the washing machines you must pay attention to the color of the clothes which are separated into whites, darks, and mixed colors, and set the machine to the appropriate color.

This continues when you move the clothes over to the dryers, but now you must pay attention to the color of the basket to determine the type of drying the clothes need. The pink baskets stand out clearly, but there was a light green and a teal basket that felt like they  blended a little close at times and slowed down the proceedings with just a touch.

The one daily activity that I don't know how much I needed enhanced in VR was cleaning the toilet. On the console version you simply mashed the A button to clean it, but here you must grab that scrub brush and clean the stains, and I just don't know that I need to be that close to a dirty virtual toilet to enjoy my game more.

The other issue you do run into, especially during the laundry segments, is the VR jank one might expect. The dials on the washing machines and dryers can get stuck or look like they're popping off the machine and your hand will often get stuck on one of the doors that can be very tricky at times to make sure they close properly so that you can start the machine.

Unfortunately, the issues worsen as you progress in the game, with one specific upgrade to the King Wash seeming to be a line of demarcation for when these issues get annoying. Nothing going on here is game breaking, but it does cause some frustrations at times that diminish the experience a bit.

The real MVPs of the game, the arcade cabinets!

Ultimately all the daily activities exist for you to make more money and buy more cabinets for the arcade, eventually expanding from the starting three or four games to a fully fledged arcade with nearly 40 games.

In addition to the 27 cabinet games from the original that didn't get any VR treatment, you have six games from the original that were upgraded, such as air hockey and the light gun game. There are also six new fully VR games added in this version such as basketball and boxing games.

When it comes to the original non-VR supported games, they can be hit or miss as to how well they play when using the control sticks for Meta Quest. Games that require a little more nuanced control like Stack Overflow or Zombat 2 felt more difficult to play here than when playing with a standard controller.

Conversely some of the games that were in the original and got upgraded with VR here play far better than they did previously. The laser gun game Smoke 'Em and the whack a mole style game Thump'A'Gopher both felt way more natural and played better in VR.

When you add in the new games such as basketball or boxing games it feels like Arcade Paradise VR offers even more effective ways to play more games. Despite a few of the traditional ones not feeling as tight as they did on the console, the improvement of some others and the new games in VR make this a better experience if you're interested in VR.

And the fact is that at the end of the day, most of these games are fun if you enjoy older school style games that represent what arcade games felt like in the 90's, which is when this game is set. Games such as Communists from Mars, which is clearly based on Missile Command, provide a real nostalgia kick.

Balance is the key to life and running a laundromat/arcade.

One thing Arcade Paradise excelled at was keeping players engaged with its constant balance of cleaning the laundromat, doing laundry to earn money and eventually daily tasks after you unlock the "To Do" list.

Once you unlock your "to do" items you'll get three tasks each day, which could include doing a certain number of loads of laundry, playing a game for a designated amount of time or attaining a specific score.

These tasks reward you with a currency that you can use to buy upgrades that improve the game, such as the ability to have time move slower and thus allowing you to complete even more tasks and laundry each day or running commercials that make the King Wash more popular, also earning you more money.

Unlocking the to do list is generally the point in the game that forces the most balanced approach to what you do each day. Cleaning is a must, if you don't the King Wash will be less popular, and you won't make as much money.

Speaking of money, the early to mid-game absolutely require you to wash a good amount of clothes so that you can make money to buy more arcade cabinets, eventually expand the arcade and progress the story in certain spots.

All of this forces the players to be efficient with their time, it's a constant balancing of doing the laundry, trying to complete to do's in order to get upgrades and cleaning the trash/toilet as necessary. Eventually the arcade cabinets will start to break down as well, so you'll need to keep an eye out for that as any game that breaks down must be "˜debugged' before it can make money again.

In the end it's an effective gameplay loop that keeps players highly engaged until you eventually reach a point where the arcade cabinets themselves make enough money that you don't need the laundry, at which point you can focus on simply playing whatever games you enjoy.

Altered Reality, what does it add?

One of the more interesting elements for me going into this was the inclusion of AR, which allows you to view your living space (in black and white on the Meta Quest 2 and in color on the Meta Quest 3) and place whichever arcade cabinets you've purchased in the game around your living space to play in an area separate from the core game.

It seemed like something that was neat, but I didn't realize how much it could add to the game until I live cast it from Meta Quest over to my phone so that my wife could see what I was playing. Almost immediately upon watching me play via my phone she was made nauseous, which highlights that this game will be difficult for people with a lot of motion sickness problems, such as my wife who could never play the game.

But that's where the AR comes into play, I was able to set up the room using the AR cabinet and then had her put on the headset so that she could try out some of the VR cabinets. The fact that she could still see the room alleviated her motion sickness and allowed her to simply enjoy playing some of the VR games.

While it may not make much of a difference when it comes to the core game of Arcade Paradise, the inclusion of AR does have benefits if you want to share this game with someone who struggles with motion sickness.

The music, the atmosphere, the story!

One thing Arcade Paradise absolutely nailed originally was the ambiance, starting with a grungy laundromat and dirty backroom with some games, to eventually having a vibrant and colorful full arcade, everything feels like it should.

That goes even further now in VR where you feel like you're in the King Wash, it's deeply immersive in a way I greatly appreciated. That also goes with the music which comes from two different sources.

Initially you'll just have whatever's on the "˜radio' which includes some music, some commercials and is generally quiet. This part was fine, but it's when you unlock the jukebox that the music really comes alive, with tracks that feel very of the 90's from grunge style to synth-pop, it's the music you would have expected to find at an arcade in the 90's.

Unfortunately, a gameplay element causes some frustration when it comes to the jukebox. Because it's also a money-making device the amount you use it increases its popularity and thus how much money it can make, which is why naturally there's no function for just having it continue to play.

Instead, you must go back to the machine to start a new song once the previous one has finished, and when you're in the middle of a batch of laundry it's challenging to get back to the jukebox, thus often leaving spaces of no music in a way that did get frustrating at times.

What really surprised me the first time I played Arcade Paradise last year was the story, if you haven't played this game before it'd be easy to ignore, but you'd miss out on a pretty good familial story about Ashley and her desires to prove herself, her sister who wants to help Ashley succeed where she didn't and their father who is very deep set in his views on what they should do with their lives.

There are some genuinely interesting twists and turns, with one section of the game that will absolutely throw you for a loop after having invested so much time in the King Wash.

Verdict

I enjoyed Arcade Paradise when I played it on console last year, it was a strong nostalgia kick with an engaging gameplay loop and a surprisingly good story.

Arcade Paradise VR has all those same elements but adds a solid VR experience on top of that. The VR makes the laundry segments more engaging, even if I didn't necessarily need to clean dirty toilets, and the occasional jank with the machines and your hands does distract from the immersion at times.

The inclusion of AR helps people who suffer from motion sickness, unfortunately the nature of this game in VR means that outside of the AR cabinet this game is going to be *very* difficult for people with those symptoms to play.

This is a solid experience and VR allows players to be transported into an arcade from the 90's, assuming you're willing to get your hands a bit dirty and do a little menial laundromat work to build the arcade of your dreams, there is a lot of arcade greatness to be had here.

Arcade Paradise VR was reviewed on the Meta Quest 2 and is available for both Meta Quest 2 and 3.