1943: The Battle Of Midway

This video is footage of my iCade 60-in-1. It's not related to the story below.

So I was playing my iCade 60-in-1, 1943 specifically, and doing well. I mean very well. I was creeping up on to the fourth boss, and was approaching 500,000pts. I was doing figure 8's around the enemy planes! Explosions to my left! Explosions to my right! Nearly full life bar!

Then suddenly something went wrong... it felt like slow motion... then the familiar sound of something metal bouncing on wood deep inside the bowels of my arcade machine! What the hell? I pressed on destroying wave after wave of 1943 enemies... then the controls went to crap. Up wasn't responding... neither was down! Then suddenly a dull thud, again deep inside the machine's wooden shell!

A took heavy damage from a bomber that crept up behind me. I tried dodging bullets but by now the controls were so lifeless. And then Kaboom! And my plane burst into flames billowing brown smoke before finally shattering into a fiery explosion over the South Pacific. I yanked on the joy stick and it detached from the machine! The metal shaft separating from the guts of the assembly and spilling into the machine.

There would be no NTSB investigation, no military tribunal or investigation. The official report was as follows:

When installing the joysticks on the arcade machine I took a short cut by sliding the retaining ring on to the joystick to the first position. This position is normally used for testing, and for transport. The full assembly requires the retaining ring to be pushed entirely onto the metal shaft into the supplied groove. Vibration from playing the machine for the past six months dislodged the partially installed ring, giving way to the rest of the assembly.

So there you have it. What could have been an incredible performance went straight into the toilet because of laziness.