Megapolis Entertainment Center
My first stop in the at the arcades of Doha was at the Megapolis. As far as arcades go, this really isn’t one. This was more like a Dave and Busters. Video games were not the focus. That said, they did have a few and they were all (except one) in great condition and of high quality.
Most of the games were networked racing games. The pinnacle of this was a section of the floor devoted to 5 or 6 three screen F1 simulators. Boy were these machines loud. I mean, so are F1 cars. But when two kids at a birthday party started playing, you couldn’t hear anything else. The game itself cost around $11 to play (450 QAR) so it’s not exactly cost efficient. But it did look fun.
Actually, even the cheapest of games cost $2.75 to play. Not very cheap at all. I didn’t really look at the ticket games. They were silly. A couple of mobile games blown up to full sized (Angry Birds, Temple Run 2, Flappy Bird) and then really basic games of skill. Silly stuff. But since I wasn’t really going for tickets, I thought I would stick to the bigger games.
I spent most of my time playing the Batman racing game and a game called Showdown. Batman was a mission based game driving through the streets of Gotham trying to take down goons and either the Joker, Bane, or Mr Freeze in one of the first three levels. Scattered weapons along the way and the ability to ram the opponents off the road make for a bit of action. There’s a lot going on on the screen so it’s a little hard to track. But you do have your choice of about a dozen different Batmobile options through the eras. Tremendous fun.
Showdown was amazing. It truly monopolized most of my time there. It’s a racing game, but not the pristine fancy tricked out cars that you normally see. Based more around a demolition derby, you could either race and destroy each other, race with crossovers (figure 8) and destroy each other, king of the hill, or straight up demolition. It was awesome. I still have money on my card, too. So I will be going back to play that game.
Probably only that game.
Seriously. It was a great game.
But the MEC also has other things besides the games. There are a handful of bowling lanes behind a small restaurant. I didn’t get a real good luck, but they seemed a little shorter than normal. But it was definitely where more people seemed to be. A little further down, there were some VR games as well. I didn’t get a price on those, but the looked SUPER fancy with two options for the type of flying game to play. Across from that there were a few karaoke rooms that you rent by the hour, it seemed. And then some PCs in an internet gaming cafe, and then escape rooms. Truly, this was a mega entertainment center. And a really good use of space. It seemed really large but couldn’t possibly have been that big.
Megapolis is located in the Pearl district of Doha, Qatar. Coincidently, this is the only area of Qatar where foreigners are allowed to own homes. After doing a cursory glance, I’d say they were pretty well inline with Seattle upper middle class prices for a standard 2 bed 1 bath.
Though I was disappointed at the lack of games, the ones they had were fun and impressive. Everything is run from a game card which was just a little expensive to load. However, the more you load, the more bonus points you get. I will be going back for more activities. If you lived here, it seems to be a pretty One-of-a-Kind place. I do recommend stopping by with more than just yourself. I wonder if the cards have a delay on when they can be tapped again.
