“تفضل” which roughly translates to “come in” is a short documentary on Rihab Complex that was released a couple of months back but I only got to watch it a couple of days ago. For those of you who’ve never been to Rihab Complex, it’s an old shopping complex in Hawalli filled with video game stores. The documentary gives a bit of a rundown on the on the complex as well as interviews some of the shop owners to get their story as well as explanations on why some games are expensive, while EU games are cheaper than US and other things. Sadly the video is in Arabic so if you can’t understand Arabic you’re not gonna get much out of it. [YouTube]
I’ve personally been going to Rihab since the late 90s (when the best gaming console ever the Dreamcast was released). But before Rihab, during my SNES and Game Gear days I used to get all my games from the shops in old Salmiya. There used to be a bunch of great shops in the building right next to mine, I don’t remember their names but I do remember there were three of them, two on the main street and one inside the complex. One of the ones outside used to have a 3DO in the display playing either the Night Trap demo or the original Need for Speed on loop while the store inside the center had a Neogeo on display playing mostly Samurai Showdown. You also had two computer shops upstairs, one called Computer World where I got my original copy of Windows 95 from and the other shop right next door where I used to buy my pirated games from. You’d buy a game and then have to wait for the guy to make copies of it and some games like Duke 3D for example used 13 floppy disks so you had to either go and come back or wait there patiently until he finished copying them. Then you had Burj Al Abyad (White Tower) further down the road which was the gaming center of Kuwait back then with most of the shops also housing arcade machines.
This post is really making me regret selling all my old gaming consoles. All I kept from the bunch are my Game & Watches.
If you really want to step back in time, back in the 80s there used to be a computer shop in Salhiya, I think it was on M1 or M2, it was right across the Korean restaurant that used to be there. I also got my Coleco in the mid 80s from a video game shop in Kuwait City that was located in the hexagon shaped blue glass tower. Kuwait was so different back then.
18 replies on “Short Documentary on Rihab Complex”
YAAAS
Another Dreamcast fan!
I still have my Dreamcast and play Soul Caliber, Sonic and Power Stone with it!
I actually went to Rehab about a week ago and bought a Dreamcast with a tons of games and been playing it daily ever since. It’s awesome.
How much did it cost you?
is there a place out here “like” rehab that one can find old production die cast cars from the 80s & 90s?
ooo interesting, I don’t know of any but when I was looking for old matchbox cars I just used eBay since they aren’t heavy pieces so shipping isn’t an issue.
Muthana Complex
I wonder if those shops in muthana are still around. I remember they had more R/C shops back in the day.
I don’t think they are available, and if they were, I am sure they will have a very modest selection and highly priced
I have been an avid diecast collector (scale 1:64) all my life, i have a large collection (over three thousand) that i have accumulated over the years mainly from abroad and not kuwait.
Plus i have rarely seen brands other than Hotwheels or Matchbox (Corgi & maisto to a lesser extent) in kuwait.
Brands like Majorette, Jada, Greenlight, burago, M2, Johnny lightning i have never seen in Kuwait.
Like Mark said ebay would be the best place, or if you do travel to the states or europe you will finds them in many places.
If you have more questions regarding that matter i would be happy to help
FINALLY! A collector based in Kuwait!
I have just started collecting since last year (mainly 1:64).
Would like to get some more information. By email?
Sure no problem
My email is [email protected]
I hope i can help
I’ve simply moved onto buying digital copies of games from PSN now. I know you dont get the satisfaction of owning a physical copy but hey its cheaper than rihab (for US accounts i mean).
Rihab is mostly cheaper than digital copies. Doom is 18.5KD digital and KD17 in Kuwait. Plus you can always resell physical copies.
That Game & Watch brought back some fond memories. I had this Donkey Kong game with a folding screen that had a color display! It was insane at the time considering my Casio handheld games were all in B&W and the color was permanently fixed into the background layer.
As a kid, I distinctively remember a row of video game stores in Kuwait City. It was in a building across from the felafel shop Shuruf and down some stairs. I remember the TV screens facing the outside of the store had a Jaguar playing Bubsy and a NeoGeo playing Real Bout Fatal Fury. My father owned a computer repair shop just a couple stores down from the video game shops, so when he had to go to his store, I would tag along and run over to play. Those were the days man, I tell ya.
Even as a kid my parents would take me to Rihab Complex to buy pirated PlayStation games for 1 KD, but there was another place they would take me to buy games in Fahaheel. It was a row of stores in the backside of where the Manshar stores are now, behind all the shoe stores that used to be there. I remember getting my Dreamcast from one of those shops, back when you bought the system for 100 KD and they threw in an extra controller and 20 pirated games “for free.”
There is one other place I remember buying video games from as a kid–Muthana Complex, on the top floor. There was a handful of video game stores and I remember buying one of my favorite PS1 RPGs from there; Suikoden II. I went back to Muthana Complex for the first time since I was a kid just about a year ago, and man, that place is a dump now. Muthana was the place to be after the Gulf War. I remember going almost every weekend and it was packed. It sadly died when the mall dynasty started.
Remember all the awesome arcades they had on the top floor? Guess what, they’re all still there. The same exact machines. Half of them don’t work, and the other half are so broken down they shouldn’t even be left on anymore. I think the Tekken machine is still working though. You should take a visit over there and take some pics for a blog article, or something.
One of the most memorable things in Rihab for me was watching arcade pros go mental on the Street Fighter 3rd Strike arcade machine. This is when the arcade was behing the big Al-Aqsa store (remember them?). There were a bunch of absolutely devastating players that finish matches with MSF SS XS ratings easily everytime they played.
Alas Rihab is ruined for me.. anyone who had to sign papers from the fire department in the first floor will rue the day they found rihab.
And Rihab is in Tunis street, not Beirut.
The basement ruined Rehab man, not the stores that sell the fire extinguishers.
Not those. Those stores are in the mezzanin floor. There is a fire department in floor 1 where you get your fire safety liscences and permits.
Umm, this guy is worried about the reputation of the sales people? how about big time piracy kingdom?