Howie's Game Shack Review

We spent the day at Howie's for my son's birthday. It was nice, the food was typical and staff was friendly. Only down side is headphones on xbox didn't have mic. So kinda killed it for my son. Make sure you have your xbox account ready, my daughter's gave us lot of issues and wifi service was spotty. We spent a long while getting her ready to play. VR was cool but i don't think they wipe down equipment.

Sub-par management for over a decade. Was extremely out of touch with gaming for many years on the corporate front. Treated players like trash. Prices very high, turned the place from a competitive LAN into a new modern-day chuck-e-cheese. Hope they finally fired Brad. This review is by someone that was hired by Howie personally. I was there from their first day open through half a decade almost. I also started Monster Energy Gaming there years before ME finally figured it out and got on board and never received ANY credit.

Love the computers and games but some of the staff need to care more about their job

I have not been there but I lived in San Diego and I may want to be there someday.

Scott has the best customer service, helped me figure out a problem for an hour.

Very clean place and fun, great selection of popular titles. good network connection on the PCs and for the most part good on the xbox consoles. Having said that, it is often understaffed on busy days so prepare to come early or wait in line.

Trash computer, keyboard and mouse. Everything is trash. Everything sucks here.

I have gone to lots of Howies game shack an I have liked all of them

Played black ops 3 and it wouldn't connect to online play. We ask them to fix it and they said play it locally. We ask for a refund and they refused. Won't be back here.

This place sucks. Don't ever go her yeah I know its the last lan center in riverside area but service sucks balls games we want to play have to update so bad worst lan center ever been too just buy a computer cheaper and way better

This place is pretty over priced, only worth it if you come with a group of friends to have a lan party experience. The manager is a prick, it's expensive, and the hardware sucks. You'll be playing on an old monitor with an older PC, cheap mouses and most of the keyboards are junk with awkward layouts. No mouse pads, old chairs. No outside food but all their food is crappy and unhealthy. BUT HERE'S THE WORST PART! you have the own most of the games to play them! Say you want to play overwatch or player unknown's battle ground on PC, you must own a copy of the game to play it. What a rip off, you have to pay $20 for a day pass to play and buy the games if you don't own them. Same for the xbox's if you want to play online you have to have your own xbox live account.

If you already have an xbox live account, coming here 3x will pay for a new game. You might as well buy a cheap 5 port switch on amazon and setup your own lan party, you could use PC monitors for your xbox.

For PC, if you have to own the game to play then you already have a PC (probably a better one) and again I would recommend hosting a lan party with friends. With 4 people paying $20 that's enough to order pizza, etc. and buy some long ethernet cables and a switch.

I've been coming to Howie's since it opened as was run by Mr. Howie himself. I was there for the Buena Park opening, waited in line hours before. Recently started coming back, not for the 144hz 1440p gaming I have at home but for the atmosphere. The manager is a total prick, everyone else that works there is alright. This place doesn't cater to the competitive gamer like it used to and you wonder why it's dead here.

Staff is great! The hours it stays open and prices is also very good. But the food is not the best.

Even though it has not the best graphics cards or the best monitors it is a fun place to be i spend 6 hours there with my bro and its awesome. It really nice there I would recommend it but I would go to the end with the nice pc. Just ask the manage where they have the newer pcs.

It's basically heaven for gamers. Open late, monster drink bar, pizza, snacks, music etc. If you haven't been grab a friend and go check it out.

Bring back Midnight Madness, some customer correspondence would also be appreciated. I've emailed your customer service email a few times with no reply. #makehowiesgreatagain
- I think I speak for all of us.

Edit: Changed from a two star, to a one star. We were all banned because of my HONEST review. My friend and I decided to take a casual stroll today through the ruins that once was the glorious Howie's Game Shack, but we were escorted out the moment we walked in. I was blatantly told that it was because of the review I had left. I couldn't believe my ears, but as I let it soak in, I realized that I wasn't surprised. My freedom of speech has been infringed upon. I have never been dishonest in my critiques, nor a nuisance within the establishment. I have been a patron of Howie's since it's opening day in 2004, and I was just bullied out of the store by an employee because I had an honest opinion.

Edit #2: They are paying massive amounts of money to censor their reviews on most platforms, not sure if this one will get through.

Never been there sounds like another tourist ripoff arcade where you spend money playing,you get tickets then you redeem them for cheap chinese trinkets that amount to garbage.

Gamers paradise...u can play all the new games for 20 bucks for the day. I played for about six hrs total and loved it. Food and drinks werent too bad
They have xbox one and pc formats.

I loved it because it looks so awesome and everybody in the car so I could not say I could not say a word online you should have you can't do you can't do bad things and treats that look pretty just take the compliment from anybody and if you're not learn will we get from your parents learn have fun with it the golden teacher something good enough because it wouldn't look good on duty them you're the things that you would have come over tonight. Would 2:30 a.m. 11.30 to ruin 7 a.m. 7 a.m. or 1:30

Great place for a group of guys to go and have fun, also see quite a few dads playing video games with their sons. Which is good to see bonding happening at any level

VR Games are amazingly fun and the desktop units and game towers are fun to sit at!

Headphones on vr voice coms were not working Controller died and was wasting time, manager said he would pause the time to give us time to eat and never did pause the time than gave us 7 minutes when it wasted 30 minutes. They need to make sure their equipment is working and make sure they are not promising things they cannot keep. I almost made a yelp account just to warn people of the bad service but the vr games were so fun and I m going back in the future I will not go out of my way just for a communication mistake. I just hope this does not happen again or I will have to make a yelp account.

We love Howie's. The staff really caters to the kids and is helpful to parents. Thanks, Howie's!

computers are okay but area is dirty and staff is terrible

It's dark and cavernous, and the perfect place to be social with your online friends.

Fantastic experience. PCs, Xbox, VR, Pizza, its a gamer's dreamland

Friendly dudes and some reasonable prices a must try if in la

I like sitting in their comfy seats. It makes my bum feel nice.