Arcade Info

8 On The Break

Location: Dunellen, NJ

Main Arcade type: Music Simulation, Pinball, Fighting Machines

Parking: Street Parking 25 cents per hour

Number of Non Rhythm Cabs: 32

Number of Rhythm Cabs: 12

Pinball Cabs:9

Extras: 3 pool tables, food available, restrooms available to customers

Staff: Friendly and readily available

Noted Age Group: 20-30 year olds

ATM: Yes

Why We Chose This Arcade

Our first review is on 8 on the Break. During its peak, The Break was always loaded with people. The last time we visited The Break (pre-2012), it was rated one of the best places to play DDR by DDR Freak online. They had multiple DDR cabs and all of their machines were in tip top shape. Sure it was a little crowded, but it was very clean and seemed like a very safe overall environment. They have always been known for their rhythm cabs. We thought The Break would be an easy choice for our first review since we remembered it being a fun arcade. Little did we know, a lot of the original machines were gone and or replaced. Some cabs had suffered some damage since our last visit.

The Good

8 on The Break was actually open on Memorial Day until midnight! That was fantastic news for a bunch of nerds like ourselves, that didn’t really have anything to do. The owners have stuck to their specialty, music simulation cabinets. There were many new cabs or brand new CRTs/screens. The slow day at The Break also gave us a great opportunity to try out a lot of equipment without the crowd.

The Break holds fantastic tournaments. Lots of serious gamers always seem to show up. As a spectator, it’s actually very fun to watch these guys duke it out. Their rhythm cabinets seemed to either be new or in very good condition. This is really important to hold both fun and fair tournaments. They also do seem to have cool giveaways for the winners.

I also want to note all of their pinball machines were very balanced. The Break has almost an entire room dedicated to pinball. Seeing 8 out of 9 lit up and clean pinball machines was a nice surprise. They also had two Neo-Geo cabinets with Metal Slug, Last Resort, Bust-A-Move, and Samurai Showdown. The Pop ‘n’ Music cabinet was beautiful and worked very well. Gamers there have proper gaming etiquette as well, probably due to the age group.

Notable Games

BeatMania II dX

Technika 3

Technika 4

In the Groove 2

ReRave

ReRave Plus

Pump It Up Pro II

Pop ‘n’ Music 11

Drum Mania v3

DDR

Star Trek Pinball

Attack From Mars Pinball

The Shadow Pinball

AC/DC Pinball

Samurai Showdown

Street Fighter II Turbo

The Not So Good

At first glance 8 on The Break blinds you with it’s shiny new rhythm simulation cabs in the front of the arcade and pinball room. However, after doing some further evaluating, we found some of the cabs were not original cabs, but instead, MAME machines. There were 5 screens total that were notably dim. Machines that were broken were not all turned off or marked so we did run into some quarter eaters. None of the gun simulation machines seemed to have working guns. While the carpet seemed new and the food looked great, there was something about that place that just gave you the feeling like maybe you should eat your food outside. It might have just been the years of sweaty gamers playing right next to the food serving area.

Broken or Unplugged Cabs and Pinball

Spiderman Pinball (unplugged)

Guitar Freaks 11th Mix (unplugged)

Bust-A-Move (Quarter eater)

Ms. Pacman (Unplugged)

Time Crisis 3 (guns not properly calibrated)

Friction (guns broken)

Summary: 8 On The Break

6.5/10

We would love to come back when the arcade has had more time to rebuild and fix some of its broken cabs. While we love the conditions of the music and dance simulation games, it was really missing some of the more classic retro games as well as a few more recently released games. We do appreciate The Break staying up to date with some of the latest rhythm machines. It’s also understandable that they don’t have the multi-leveled arcade space like the Taito Arcade, but we are holding every arcade to this super high bar. They definitely had a couple gems in this arcade.

As far as classic arcade cabinets go, one Street Fighter and two Taito cabs were just not enough to justify any sort of retro label. We also would have loved to see a better, and more than one, DDR machine. Their pinball cabinets were in fantastic shape. They had a nice selection as well. 8 on The Break was a very friendly environment and was definitely not one of those claw machine holes. There was some disappointment with the ratio of working to broken arcade cabs. We know if we had this arcade closer to our house, we’d be frequenting the arcade. If you are up in North Jersey, it is still worth a stop. We give, 8 On The Break a 6.5 out of 10. Til next time…