Rec Room Calgary 2020 Review

January 1, 2020 at 10:52pm
By Jason Stettner

The Calgary Rec Room continues to be an interesting entertainment venue within the city. It’s located within the revamped Deerfoot City and features two stories for what’s a 50,000 square foot complex.

I was initially invited to check this place out prior to it releasing, and I’m now refreshing my write-up with a review for this new year. This is a place that I visit a fair bit, mostly to play their arcade game offerings. So what we get here is a place that’s just generally an entertainment area, while also providing a venue for performances. They tend to have special events as well, so there’s always something different going on.

To focus on the arcade, this place features a large space with a number of modern machines. You should keep in mind that these aren’t the classic games you may know from the old days, these are modernized versions.

It’s more of a reward system where you’re trying to earn points to redeem them for prizes. Everything here does feed into the Scene points system, if you’re familiar with that as this is part of Cineplex. There’s a good variety within the games present, definitely get a couple hours worth of time out of them at a time and the pricing is fairly good for what you get out of it token wise. They do also swap out machines occasionally, and have recently rotated the order of the layout.

In the same area is now a VR (virtual reality) setup that you can check out, I personally don’t find value in it but it’s neat to try out if you haven’t ever experienced the technology before. This replaced a fancy full body VR area and the AR (augmented reality) climbing wall they had prior. This area also has a food section for faster options, and of course drinks.

I find the food to generally be excellent, but it is a bit costly so keep that in mind. They do some neat things though, such as intense poutines. If you move past the games area they have conference type rooms tucked away, and a main drinking area. I mention the conference area as I imagine businesses also look into booking this venue. This drinking area I mention is the type of spot you could have dinner in, or sit up at the bar.

There’s a large screen which usually has hockey on, and it’s very aesthetically pleasing. That’s the overall just of the entire facility, it’s sleek and modern looking. It has a very nice look to it, and it comes across as very fancy when you’re entering or within it. The upstairs area is very lounge like. It has some seating options, a spot for stage performances and of course a bar area. There are some pool tables and other games to engage in. On one side you can even find some interesting sport type options, it’s hard to describe but they’re digital setups with some real integrations.

The upstairs is quite nice, and you can look down at the main sit down eating area I mentioned prior. It’s also somewhat quieter, unless of course there’s a performance going in this spot. I really do enjoy coming to the Rec Room, I grab a Stella and then have a good time playing some games. It’s definitely a popular spot as it’s always busy, but I mostly go at night. During the day it’s more oriented towards the younger family type crowd, then it shifts into a night life atmosphere which is nice. It’s a good spot to have some casual arcade gaming, enjoy a drink and perhaps grab some food.

There are a variety of gaming options in this spot, whether you want more casual or perhaps a tad competitive. Just again keep in mind that it’s not traditional arcade, sort of dumbed down or silly versions of the classics. I just want to make that clear so that you have particular expectations about the place. They’re not bad versions, just different. They have a massive Pac-Man game, or large scale Space Invaders as examples. I think there’s a fair bit that goes on here, and the venue is very aesthetically pleasing. It’s a nice spot, and hopefully they expand it like they planned earlier on. You can read our review of the Haunted Calgary event, or check out our general hub for the city below.

Read our Haunted Calgary 2019 Review
View our Calgary Hub