Video Game Collecting

I have a couple cool video game finds in this video that I got from a thrift store including a Vaus. We also check out eBay seller Infravision, and check out the ultra cool iCade 60-in-1 Jamma Mame board with footage of BurgerTime!

Screw the Nintendo Advantage Joystick with it’s sticky buttons, and unresponsive controls.  Who wants that when you could have a custom built Nintendo NES Controller featuring any game of your choice.  This is my first stab at an arcade stick for the Nintendo.  It features a real arcade joystick and buttons.  Its nearly complete, and when it is finished I’ll post photos for all to see.  Click for a larger photo!

Well, I had planned this for almost a year and I finally took action on it today.  My father in law and I built this iCade 60 in 1 arcade machine almost two years ago.  At the time it was going to be a mame machine with a simple computer in it.  Then at Jammaboards.Com I found that iCade 60 in 1 motherboard for cheap and bought that instead.

Since the Mame project was scrapped it was too late to remove the extra controller and 9 buttons.  So I asked my father in law to forge on with a decision to update the control panel some other time.  Well today was ‘some other time’.

The first thing I had to do was remove the old one.  This wasn’t too difficult.  Simply removed two screws on either side that was holding the control panel in place then chisel the edges to break the wood glue and it broke away cleanly.  I noticed the wood under the control panel was in terrible shape.  We had done our best to patch the left side with the intention of sanding and painting it fresh, but in my haste it never happened.

One of the hazards of having the control panel screwed and and glued down was the difficulty in wiring the buttons and joysticks.  At the time this was almost  a four hour project since i had to blindly reach into the cabinet and basically wire everything by touch.  Now this is no longer the problem.  The control panel will be mounted with hinges and a locking system to make the accessibility of the buttons easier.  This photo shows the mess of wires that connects the control panel to the JAMMA hardness to the mobo which is mounted to the subwoofer of the computer speakers.  That black thing center top is the power supply which is an ATX computer powersupply with two of the wires grounded which keeps the unit running.

And finally this is what the control panel looks like.  All of the games are single player or two players alternating so only one controller is necessary.  Only one game is configured to use all three buttons and thats Gun.Smoke.  The wood is poplar.  It smells nice and looks beautiful. 

It’s been a while since I’ve done any progress updates. I recently received Ninja Gaiden in excellent condition and I have that Gun.smoke that I’m still waiting for. I also won a Nintendo lot of 8 games late Friday and I’m not certain if it’s been shipped or not.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of collecting Nintendo games is my current inability to play the games. Two obstacles prevent me. The first is I don’t have a television to use and the second is I really have no time to play. Work is busy and more importantly I’ve recently finished upgrading www.videogamepriceguides.com which took up a lot of my time. The upgrade has some bugs which I’ll address in the coming days, but working a job where I spend eight hours working with three major game systems then going home to work on the site then playing the “iCade 60 in one” with my son leaves me pretty burnt out over videogames.

I try to mix up my interests by focusing not so much on playing games themselves but more for the appreciation of the art, programming, story, and mundane details which make up the game. Which brings me back to the original message of this post which is the references to Coca Cola in Ninja Gaiden. It not only exists in the NES version but the arcade version as well.

About 12 years ago I worked for SEGA. This was shortly before their involvement with a little abortion called Gameworks. The Vegas Gameworks was one of the first ones built and 12 years ago it stunk and it still stinks today. I mean literally. Worst than taco meat and after shave.

Anyways I had an urging this previous Father’s day to visit there to check out the new RAMBO arcade game. It was a cool looking game but nothing more than a typical light gun game. It might have been top of the line back when Virtual Cop came out but the novelty looks as though it would wear off the moment you pressed start.

Operation Wolf, rebranded as Rambo would have made a more exciting experience. However its possible to ruin a movie by over merchandising and considering the Rambo story line(s) are perfect for a video game its probably best there were only a few: Rambo on SEGA Master System. Rambo III in the arcade Master System and Genesis. Rambo for NES. There might be a few others but who cares none were memorable. Games that have pulled themes from Rambo have done much better… like Ikari Warriors for instance.

But anyways getting back to the arcade game. It’s not worth the 8 credits that Gameworks expects you to fork over to play it. The gun(s) looks like something from the future and maybe in some small way takes away from the fact that Rambo was never about guns really… it was always about that knife of his. And his bow. And lets not forget his enchanted bandana. But this plastic double gripped monstrosity would be perfect for gunning down E.T. or executing a space ape gang-land style. Now that’s a script for Rambo V. UPDATE: In looking at photos of the machine on other websites, it seems that other machines were equiped with UZI looking weapons and not the garbage I saw. I’m not sure if this this was just on the machine at Gameworks or if its on all of the U.S released machines, but what I saw was definitely not an UZI!

Anyways the whole thing is a big disapointment. But enjoy the photo of the marquee anyways.

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.

The arcade machine is just about finished. Today we mounted the glass, and speakers. The bass is fantastic – enough to set off car stereos a quarter mile away… not really but I wish.

We learned alot from this project: 1. Don’t mount the control panel until all of wiring is done. 2. Don’t use plexiglass as it has static cling and saw dust will stick to it like you wouldn’t believe. 3. Have a better plan for everything. Most of the project was improvised, and my father-in-law did a fantastic job putting everything together with out having any instructions what so ever. The next one we build will be even better.

Foam board bezel is now in place. Glass is last part!

Bzzz bzzz.

Monitor is mounted.