|
Post by Mod City on Apr 18, 2011 20:56:09 GMT -5
i like the corvette one - but if a machine can make monopoly interesting, i'm all for it. i saw a simpsons pinball machine once that i would have LOVED to have had at a deli shop up north. i used to joke around with the owner, telling him the next time i came, i was bringing a truck so i could take it with me. i think he was a little afraid that i actually meant it. at the radio station where i work, we have a buy/sell/trade show every morning, and a guy had a "circus queen" pinball machine on today. does that name mean anything? Was this it? www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=4674&picno=8433There's also an older (1990) Simpsons machine that must have come out just a few years after the show did. It looks nice, too, but I hear Simpsons Pinball Party is fantastic. It's cool that was in a deli. Must be something about food. One of my all-time favorites, Apollo 13, was in a burger shop in the small town where I went to college. It was a tiny place with enough room to have three or so small tables, enough room to stand and order/wait, and two pinball machines: a Guns 'n Roses and an Apollo 13 (based on the movie). You could go in there and order a sack of cheeseburgers for $2.50 and stand right next to the order window and play pinball while you waited. Had never heard of Circus Queen, but it's apparently very old as pinball goes (1960). I can't imagine there are that many floating around out there. Have no idea what it's worth, but I'm sure someone out there would love it. www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=524&picno=38920
|
|
|
Post by solgroupie on Apr 19, 2011 11:20:30 GMT -5
that does look a lot like the one i used to drool over in the deli. it sounds like the deli you described was much like the one where the simpsons pinball machine was. there was always someone playing it every time i went in. i think i got to only play it, like, once.
wow, that circus queen is an oldie. he didn't name a price for it or say anything about its condition, so i have no idea what kind of shape it was in. i imagine if it was in good shape he would have had more info about it.
|
|
|
Post by Mod City on May 26, 2011 16:14:51 GMT -5
Thought I’d add some odds and ends to this blog, seeing as I did something recently that you don’t usually have to do with video games these days. Change the lightbulbs! With the exception of many of today’s “fun centers,” most arcades from back in the day were dark, low-lit places. So it helped to have a variety of lights on the cabinets to make them attractive to potential players. The marquee, the outcropping above the monitor, and coin mechanism were two items on an arcade cabinet that were often lit. The marquee let players know what the game was called and the coin mechanism lights allowed players to find the coin slot in the dark. That’s important since the main goal of these machines was to make money. Here’s the machine that appeared in the background of some of my previous pics. It’s an NFL Blitz circa 1999 or so. I found it on Craigslist in September of last year or so not terribly far from home, so I didn’t want to pass it up. There are all kinds of little issues with it that make it kind of another learn-while-you-do-it kind of project. Including: • The guy from who I purchased it apparently forgot to give me the keys to the back door. He never returned my calls after I got it home and he’s since moved out of state. Oh well. It’s my machine now, I can break into the back if I need to. And I’ll need to, at some point. • Someone spilled beer or something and it seeped underneath the plexiglass that covers the control panel. Not a huge deal, but I’ll need to disconnect and remove the buttons to get the plexi off. • For some unknown reason, some idiot drilled a bunch of holes near the top of the cabinet. I have no idea what for. Not sure it’s worth fixing, and I’m not entirely sure how to go about it if I decide I do want to fix it. • And the marquee light was mostly burned out. You know how fluorescent bulbs get when they’re about dead – they flicker. At first I thought that might be how it was intended to operate, since the lightning theme of the marquee actually looked kind of cool with a flickering light behind it. Here is a picture of my brother playing the Yie Ar Kung-Fu after we got the coin mechanism lights working a while back. Sorry for the goofy pictures, I don’t think about taking photos when I should. Anyway, you can see the brightly lit up coin lights on the Kung Fu that he’s playing and the dull marquee light on the NFL Blitz next to it before I replaced the light to give you an idea of how it looked before repair. Incidentally, the coin lights on the Kung Fu burned out within 20 minutes because the bulb wattage was too low for the power coming off the board. I picked up some proper lights and they’re working well now. Here is the machine with the marquee removed. Inside is a standard 15w fluorescent light ballast. Sure enough, the ends of the bulb were good and blackened. I was a little worried because the bulb has obviously been out for a long time, and it tries to kick on automatically when it powers up. I heard this can sometimes mess up the ballast itself, but after a trip to the local electrical supply shop for a couple of new bulbs (one spare!) and some gentle nudging on it, it popped on. For the record, that droopy decal behind the glass is another thing on the "to fix" list. Here the marquee waits patiently to be replaced. After cleaning the glass and securing the insert, this is what it looks like completely lit up. I was a little surprised, it’s like a whole new machine! It’s really a pretty good looking marquee. I definitely like the color and it’s very bright. Here is a fuzzy phone pic of the two machines side by side. I need to get a better shot of the two them together soon. Incidentally, the coin lights on the NFL Blitz also don’t work, so I guess I’ll try to get all the lights fixed I can and then move on to the next project. Not sure what that will be just now, but in addition to some of the bullet points above, I’d like to replace some worn buttons on the Yie Ar Kung-Fu. Some other odds and ends to cover here, I wandered into a local bowling alley and found a nice selection of pinball machines. Included were Doctor Who, Johnny Mnemonic, Star Wars (1992) and World Cup Soccer. I played them all, but I have to say World Cup Soccer was my absolute favorite, which is weird because I hate soccer. This is the backglass (upright portion near the back of the machine). Kind of plain. Nothing to write home about. This was the gnarly part. A little goalie near the back of the playfield that moved back and forth. A well-placed shot would scoot past the goalie and reward the player with a long “goal!” The gameplay was really pretty good all-around. I’m officially in the market for a pinball machine now, so I’ve been dealing with Craigslist and it’s cadre of crazy people. I did have a bead one that I really wanted but couldn’t pull the trigger. A guy about four hours from here had a Back To The Future pinball machine. I offered, he declined, but I see it’s still listed a week later. Maybe he’ll soften up. I may try him again. For those interested, below is a YouTube video I found of BTTF pinball in action. I love the sound it makes when it coins up. If I can find one somewhere I’m going for it.
|
|
|
Post by Mod City on Jul 26, 2011 12:34:45 GMT -5
I have officially become part of the pinball set. Last Thursday I brought home a 1993 Bram Stoker's Dracula by Williams. Found it about an hour away on Craigslist for a reasonable price. Checked it out and was impressed, just a weak flipper issue. It looked gorgeous. The cabinet sides still had deep color and were unfaded. Backglass was also very nice. No flaking or curling. Some pics are a little fuzzy, not sure what I did wrong there. The playfield was immaculate. It had been home-use only for about five years and I can't imagine it was out on route a whole lot during it's life. There are some lights burned out (easy fix), one jet bumper ring assembly needs to be replaced (a little harder), and the flippers need rebuilding (not crucial, but would be nice to do). I did run into one semi-serious problem once I got the machine home. After setting it up and playing a few games, the machine would suddenly reset in the middle of play, often when both flippers were pressed at the same time. A little research revealed that Williams machines of this era are very sensitive to voltage drops. I own an older house (built in the late 50s) and the wiring is still as it was in the 1960s - fuse panel and everything. When my central air kicks on, it can drop my wall voltage below 115, which is considered the minimum to avoid resets. The sump pump can also cause a reset. So right now I mostly play at night (perfect for the theme - it looks awesome in the dark) and shut the AC off to be sure. It still happens very rarely, but much reduced since turning off some of the high power-use items in the house. There are other fixes for it, but I'll go into more detail another time. For the record, I really, really like the theme, even more so now that I've played a few dozen games. The audio captures are really great. And the game is not easy. In fact, it's brutal. I need to practice. I was surprised by how many of my friends had never seen the movie it's based on. I thought it was kind of a big deal back in the day. Maybe it was just me? Will try to get some nice pics of it lit up at night. It's really sharp
|
|
|
Post by Mr. Atari on Aug 8, 2011 0:00:45 GMT -5
Just got around to reading this, Mod. I have a good friend who has a couple machines in his basement, including an old Centipede game. I played it religiously at the 7-11 as a kid, and now I can go to his house and relive the magic.
Nice work!
|
|
|
Post by mummifiedstalin on Aug 8, 2011 7:29:32 GMT -5
Speaking of old standup football games, the only actual arcdae game I've ever wanted to own was the two-screen Cyberball. My favorite arcade memories are always around that, and even the ROMs I've found online do nothing to recreate the feel of beatin your friend standing next to you.
|
|
|
Post by Mod City on Aug 8, 2011 14:39:37 GMT -5
Just got around to reading this, Mod. I have a good friend who has a couple machines in his basement, including an old Centipede game. I played it religiously at the 7-11 as a kid, and now I can go to his house and relive the magic. Nice work! Thanks, Mr. A! There's something about those memories of arcade machines in convenience stores or Pizza Huts or wherever you used to run into them. That's why I bought the Yie Ar Kung-Fu. Centipede is an all-time classic and a great family-friendly addition. I have a buddy who would love to have one himself. Speaking of old standup football games, the only actual arcdae game I've ever wanted to own was the two-screen Cyberball. My favorite arcade memories are always around that, and even the ROMs I've found online do nothing to recreate the feel of beatin your friend standing next to you. Ah yes, I remember Cyberball, but can't say I ever played it. All I know now is looking at the cabinet of one and thinking what a bear it has to be to move. The ability to play two players simultaneously added a real competitive feel - perfect for the public arcade. And I assume those ROMs you mention were for MAME? MAME is interesting and a cool way to preserve printed circuit boards in digital form, but it's no substitute for the actual vintage equipment, no matter what its fans tell you. For the record the Dracula is taking up all my time right now. The Yie Ar doesn't need any work at the moment, but the NFL Blitz is kind of falling by the wayside. Will update pinball problems sometime in the near future.
|
|
|
Post by Mod City on Aug 11, 2011 12:09:10 GMT -5
A brief update on all things pinball. First of all, this thing will keep you up late at night and make you groggy as heck for work the next morning. It's screwing up my schedule. I'm like the undead walking around because it's hard to play "just one more" game. It's a sickness. So yes, the machine is up and running, but it took some head-scratching and so forth. There were good pictures taken but I don't have any of them. I have a couple semi-fuzzy phone pics at the end, but the rest I'm cobbling together from online. Here's what we've done so far. We started out simple - we replaced the light bulbs. There are a ton of bulbs on these things. We took note of burned out bulbs through the self-test and replaced about 25 all around the playfield. There are probably double that on the machine but we only replaced the ones we knew were burned out. Probably would have been a good idea to do them all, but we were impatient. Currently there are two burned out lights we haven't attempted to replace because of how difficult it is to get to them, and two others are intermittently on and off. Could be a connection problem. We're looking into it. Bottom line, it now looks sweet! I thought it looked nice before and didn't even realize how much brighter and more active it could be. Here are those phone pics, one shot from over the should on both sides. Due to the aforementioned voltage issues, I mostly play at night, and that is easily the best time to play. Perfect for the theme and the lights and flashers really pop out. I need to take a nice shot of it lit up at night. Not as easy as it sounds! Next we went to work on one of the pop bumpers. Pop bumpers are those round things usually near the top of a playfield that jets the ball all over, speeding it up. One of them had broken. Example pic: Here's the assembly viewed from the side. One of the two metal posts that control the metal ring that comes down and shoots the ball away from the bumper had sheared off (solenoids are strong). So I ordered a new ring assembly. When we got it, we realized we also needed these darn things: One metal and one poly-fiber yokes to hold the metal rods in place. They sit opposite each other and hold everything together. The metal one had fallen apart, and since we didn't have another one we just reassembled it with just the fiber one. We were nervous, but it held up and worked great for another week until we got the replacement yokes in. I may try to update with a little video next chance I get. Next up were the flippers. The right flipper would stick slightly in the up position after a few hours of play. It's not an uncommon problem, and the coils and assembly looked original. It was time for a little rebuild. So I ordered a rebuild kit that replaces about all the moving parts except the solenoid (electromagnet that gives it it's "kick"). Here's what a full flipper assembly looks like. The solenoid (coil) is the round part. When the cabinet flipper buttons are pushed, the coil is energized, draws the metal plunger into it, pulling the hinge that rotates the shaft and the flipper on the playfield above. Note that the above shot shows the assembly upside-down from what it would look like mounted on the bottom of the playfield. Here's what is in a standard rebuild kit. All you need to make your flippers nice and smooth. We replaced everything except the plastic bushing (white plastic part on which the flipper bat pivots), but we couldn't get the little plastic sleeves into the coils easily - apparently that's a tell-tale sign of old coils that need replacing. So new coils ordered and on the way. The old ones were installed in 1993, after all. So here's a coil. The plastic sleeves included with the rebuild kit are supposed to slide into the coil to protect it from the moving plunger. You can see on installed in the above picture. When we attempted to reassemble the the parts with the new coil, however, we couldn't get it all to line up properly. This would cause the plungers to bind against one of the metal brackets, making them very weak. We simply could not align everything so that the flippers moved smoothly. We were stumped. Eventually, after some online digging, we came to a weird conclusion. The original coils on my machine had been installed backwards - which is fine, as a coil operates the same in either direction. However, the sleeves must be inserted to match the assembly, not the coil. In other words, we hadn't noticed when we pulled the coils out what direction the sleeves were inserted, so we accidentally put the sleeves in with the flange end on the wrong side. This caused the bad alignment. In the end, we switched the coils around since that's how it was supposed to be according to the manual diagram. Once we did that, they tightened down no problem and they fire hard and true. So basically that's where we're at. I've taken some video but I think the short clips I have are all NSFW (the game will bring out the four letter word in you). I'll try to get something a little more docile here in the near future.
|
|
|
Post by Mod City on Oct 15, 2011 19:58:32 GMT -5
Been a while since the last update, so I thought I'd report on a few small bits of progress we've made lately. First on the pinball. It's had a nasty habit of resetting in the middle of games. The power goes off and on again quickly, like someone flipped a switch. Obviously, your lose the game you were just playing. So we opened up the back box and checked a common suspect part, the J101 connector, which transfers power from the transformer brick to the driver board, which distributes power to the entire rest of the system. This is what we found. The top two receptacles that connect to the driver board were almost completely burned off. In fact, as soon as we pulled it off it cracked apart instantly. Had to order new pins and connectors. So the game went offline for a while. I did get some pictures while we were doing this, but I don't have quick access to them. Essentially, we wired a new connector receptacle and reconnected it. In picture below, it's the connector with the red and blue wire toward the lower right. We reconnected it and the machine started working great! No resets for a couple of weeks. Then it occasionally started happening again. Not nearly as badly, though. Experts recommend replacing the pins on the board that the connector attaches to, but that takes some fine-point soldering skills we didn't want to mess with if we didn't have to. Looks like we may have to if we want to kill that problem off. Speaking of soldering, the above two items are also part of a potential plan to eliminate those resets. The capacitor at the left and the bridge rectifier on the right are printed circuit board components that help keep the power going where it's supposed to go and at what level. They can both get old and wear out, and since these boards look original, we figure they're 18 years old. It's another last resort, but we may go that route before it's all over. Last item on the pinball. When that little metal ball goes flying around at high speed, sometimes plastic parts on the playfield are gonna break. That's what happened the other night when the above piece of plastic was broken. I don't have a great shot of it, but this piece of plastic sits over a bank of targets in the middle of the playfield about halfway up the table. Needless to say, those targets get pounded, and sometimes a ball will become slightly airborne and hit the edge of the plastic on top instead of the target itself. The above plastic shattered hard. I ordered a new one (the bottom one, it still has it's protective film on it), but I'm not installing it until I order some protectors for it. Some specialty companies make special protectors that help keep any errant ball from hitting certain plastics, thus preventing them from breaking. The plastic itself was a $25 item, and as far as I know, it's new old stock. Actually did some work on the NFL Blitz. The plexiglass overlay to the control panel had been scratched to beat hell, beer had been spilled and it seeped underneath it and there were cigarette burns all over it. I figured it should be an easy replacement. And for once it was. Took the old overlay to my local lumber yard, where they cut holes on a new, slightly-thicker sheet of plexiglass to match as exactly as they could. Really pleased with the way it looks. If there's one thing this project has taught me, it's that it's hard to take pictures of plexiglass. Actually, the above picture shows the panel with no overlay. It had to be cleaned using an all-purpose cleaner and glass cleaner. It took longer than expected. Unfortunately, some of the artwork peeled up with the old overlay (thanks, spilled beer), so there are bare spots that can be seen. Above is the panel after cleaning. Here's the new overlay, shot so you can see the sharp reflection off it. I didn't think to get a shot with the old plexi on, so I might do that tomorrow and add it here. It makes a big difference when you notice it, and it was a fix for under $10. You may notice the panel doesn't have the buttons installed. To get the plexiglass off, I had to remove the buttons (a bit of a pain). But while I was at it, I ran some tests and found a couple of faulty microswitches that were only working occasionally. So one of the next steps will be to replace some microswitches (or all of them) and maybe some buttons. I dropped some buttons in the holes in the above picture just to give it the look it would have if they were hooked up. Above is an example of a button and a microswitch. When the button head is pressed, a plunger is forced down onto the little tab on the top left of the switch. I don't think I need to replace the buttons themselves, but I figure since I have a new overlay it might look nice to have shiny new buttons, too. Oh yeah, remember this? I actually had this fixed earlier. The label was still sticky so I just reapplied it. Should have known it wouldn't last. It started drooping within a couple of days. So today I went back in there and just peeled it off. It's a warning about seizures and so forth, anyway, and not game-specific instructions or anything, so I don't feel bad about it in the slightest. With the sticker removed. I like it better. That's the latest and greatest. I'm glad the Dracula is working (mostly, more long stories to follow) in time for Halloween. I've got my eye on another pinball machine not far from here. Going to go see it Tuesday evening. Sounds like another project but we'll see. If the price is right, I may go for it.
|
|
|
Post by Mod City on Nov 18, 2011 15:15:10 GMT -5
Have some stuff I could report on progress on the Dracula, but I think I'll do something a bit different for this entry. A lot of people have a dream theme for a pinball machine that has not been done yet. Usually these are licensed themes of movies or television shows. Some people, myself included, would love to see a Battlestar Galactica pinball machine developed (and when you think about it, it's kind of weird one wasn't at some point, given the show was on in the middle of pinball's heyday). For me, I'd love to see a Mystery Science Theater 3000 pinball machine. I know it's never going to happen, it's just way too fan-specific, but a guy can dream. I'd drop big money for one. Some people take this concept into their own hands. Take this guy for example. He created a Lost pinball machine that's actually playable. benheck.com/10-09-2011/play-lost-pinball-at-chicago-pinball-expo-next-weekendHe's also created something called Bill Paxton Pinball, which is either hilarious or terrifying in its concept. Either way, the guy is obviously talented and I'd love to play that game. The only way we're ever getting a MST3K pinball machine is if a guy like this thinks it would be fun to build one. I guess we can always hope. But this all got me to thinking if there were pinball machines out there that might fit into the theme of MST3K. Some people collect horror-themed machines or racing-themed machines. I thought it would be kind of cool to have a row of machines that indirectly have a MST3K connection - mostly by movie title. So I did some digging. I went with pinball titles that matched (or very, very nearly matched) the films parodied in MST3K, regardless if it's a direct reference to the same film or not. For example, there is a Godzilla pinball machine, but it's just called Godzilla, not Godzilla vs. Megalon. Same thing with Sinbad - I couldn't find a machine that matched The Magic Voyage of Sinbad exactly, so I didn't use any of them. I found three. Enough to fill a little "MST3K Corner" of a basement arcade. Non-MST3K fans would probably never get the connection, but some fans might pick up on it. Here are the three: Cosmic PrincessReference To Episode K10 - "Cosmic Princess" Manufacturer: Stern Inc. Year: 1979 This is a really nice looking machine, but it's a bit of a mystery. It was made under the Stern name but it's unclear who actually made it. It sounds like it was actually made in Australia by another company, perhaps under license from Stern. This appears to be a connection in name only, since I believe the hacked-together Space 1999 mashup came out under the Cosmic Princess title after 1979, even though Space 1999 preceded this machine by a few years. Tough to tell. My favorite part about this machine is the backglass. That's some gorgeous artwork. They just don't make them like that anymore. The 70s were a great time for actual backglasses, which were sheets of glass with the artwork screened directly onto them. These days backglasses aren't screened or painted - they're printed on card stock and mounted on a translite. BeatniksReference To Episode 415 - "The Beatniks" Manufacturer: Chicago Coin Year: 1967 This is a little cheat, since I don't believe "The" appears in the title of the machine, but it's so close I'm going to allow it. It's kind of a cool old electromechanical machine. Those people on the backglass look, well, relaxed. HerculesReference To Episode 502 - "Hercules" Manufacturer: Atari Year: 1979 This thing is crazy. It measures 93 inches long, 39 inches wide and 83 inches high. It's an absolute monster. And it matches up perfectly with the title of episode 502. Here's a shot of what it looks like compared to your average pinball machine. I have no idea how many of these were made but there are apparently a few still left around. I was a little surprised that a few more pinball machines didn't have names closer to some episodes. Like I thought for sure there would be a Gunslinger pinball, but no machines was ever produced under that name (one that was going to be had its name changed at the last minute). Same with Outlaw, although I did find a 1986 machine called Out Law that was made by a small Italian company. So there you go. Three machines that combine the geek of pinball and MST3K. I'd like to have all three. I've never seen one of them in person, though. I also did some housekeeping in the above posts, fixing some broken photo links that happened when I shuffled folders on Photobucket. I'll have an update sometime in the future.
|
|
|
Post by Mod City on Mar 15, 2012 12:47:42 GMT -5
It's been a while but I finally have a little something to report. I think we finally have the miscounting problem fixed, and it took some help all the way from Australia! It turned to be a broken component on what is known as the 24-opto board, which is a circuit board mounted under the playfield that regulates an infrared beam that is shot from one side of the machine to the other. The broken component made this beam quite unreliable, and it is not easily replaceable, as several weeks of Internet searches proved to me. I ended up finding a guy down under who has re-engineered and rebuilt several relatively rare pinball machine circuit boards. So I ordered one. The old board is on the left. The mushroomy part just above and to the left of the bottom-most screw is the part that went bad. As you can see, the new board on the right is similar but uses upgraded and more common parts. The bottom line is it works! The miscount problems have stayed away, so much so that I'm starting to not worry about them anymore. Incidentally, the guy ended up sending me two different kinds of opto boards, a 24-opto and 10-opto board. The 10 runs a different set of switches than the 24. I didn't really need the 10, but I'm glad I have it now. This is the 10-opto board installed beneath the playfield. These new replacement boards are really nifty. They drop right in with no adjustments needed. Slick little piece of engineering. I plan to ship the old board to a guy who does repairs on these things. I'd like to have the original board working if possible. I actually might have tried him first if I had been aware of him sooner. I also fixed a little gate on the left side of the playfield that was having trouble opening. Turns out the coil that controlled it was installed wrong. Not even sure how long it had been that way. It was mounted incorrectly on the bracket. Kind of tough to describe it with just the picture. It was an easy fix. Hoping to get some things done on the Blitz and Yie Ar Kung-Fu in the upcoming weeks.
|
|
|
Post by Mod City on Apr 22, 2012 23:56:27 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Mod City on Jun 29, 2012 14:00:21 GMT -5
Just a little update on all things arcade. Did a little work on the Yie Ar Kung Fu. I've owned it for about two years now, and despite replacing the wiring harness and a few other things, I've pretty much left it alone. One thing we did was lock down the joystick to the control panel a little better. A player can really wrench the joystick around playing this game, and after several dozen games the screws holding it on can work themselves loose. We have it where it feels pretty good, although the screws do need to be replaced. Didn't think to take pics of this part. Otherwise, the main thing we did was clean the screen. Sounds stupid, but I couldn't figure out how to get the glass off the front of the machine to get to the CRT screen surface. While working on the joystick, however, we figured it out. The front glass is really, really thin, especially compared to the pinball machine top glass. I also don't think it's tempered, so we were very delicate with it. So we gave them both a shot of Windex, as well the plastic border around the CRT screen. This is what the paper towel looked like after the first pass on the screen. I don't think it had been cleaned in 20 years. Took about five or six passes to get everthing to where we liked it, but it was worth it. Wish I had a before/after picture but all I have is an after pic. This is a pic of the cleaned screen after a game. Incidentally, after we had the machine all back together, I decided to throw down a game. Had my best game ever, racking up over 5 million points. It took me over two hours and I finally stopped because it was after 1 a.m. My next step is to max it out at 9,999,900. It should take me about five hours, I figure. The pinball machine is down with flipper issues right now, but parts are on the way. Maybe more pics on that when the stuff arrives. The NFL Blitz continues to languish in limbo. Just can't get myself to start working on it. Someday it will happen, though.
|
|
|
Post by Mod City on Aug 11, 2012 3:26:41 GMT -5
An addition! Picked up another pinball machine last weekend - a Rollergames by Williams. It's based on the short-lived roller derby show of the same name from about 1990. Themes of all kinds abound in pinball, but I'll admit this one is a bit odd. Kind of like American Gladiators on roller skates. The show it's based on didn't last long, but the game had a great designer and is actually a blast to play. Yeah, it's based on this: Apparently there was an alligator pit incorporated into the pilot episode. But here's the machine. It's all 80s/90s goodness. A few things need fixing but it's mostly working. Looks pretty nice, too. All lit up. Backbox needs to be switched back to incandescent bulbs. Previous owner put in LEDs and it doesn't look right. My only other complaint is there are too many dudes in cheetah suits. Rollergames and Bram Stoker's Dracula. The Dracula is working great - smooth and fast. Gotta get the new acquisition up to speed. I love that they are two completely different pins in theme and gameplay. So, I'm happy. If you clicked the YouTube video, you heard the theme music. The machine plays that a whole bunch. It will get stuck in your head. I keep hearing "idiot control now" Long live the arcade!
|
|
|
Post by nondescript spice on Aug 13, 2012 14:38:30 GMT -5
wow, mod.....you've been busy. i really love the dracula and beatniks machines - the others are great too - your pics show so much detail. you should quit whatever it is you do for a living and do this instead. something to think about, although i am kind of known for giving TERRIBLE advice.
|
|