Now for something a little different- Anyone own an actual arcade game?

[Emig5m]

I have my childhood favorite - R-Type:





Me and a childhood best friend used to play this game everyday down the road at a little bar his mom worked at when we where kids. How my search for it started last summer I was looking for a PC version of the game and ran into the Android version. A little later I discovered it was remade in HD on the Xbox360. On the Xbox 360 version it shows the arcade cabinet - I thought it would be super cool to stand at and play the actual arcade game once again (it was around 25 years since I've played the arcade machine).

I checked all the local malls to see if they still had an arcade but none did. I found a couple real ratty ones on ebay but they where over 500 miles away and would need to be restored before bringing them in the house. I was about to give up when through a Google search I came across this guys site who's fairly famous in the classic arcade gaming scene and he had one for sale and he was in my same state - only a 40 minute drive away! I made the drive down, he had just re-opened his arcade, and all the way in the back corner there it was! Oh the nostalgia!~ I didn't care the price I had to have it! It was in great shape and didn't need any restoring. Next day I took my bucket of change I had been saving since 2008 and cashed it in and went and paid for the game!

Now since then it's become an obsession, on top of the game, I've collected over $2000 of memorabilia over the past winter and summer for the game including the rare PCB game boards to R-Type II and R-Type LEO to a $200.00 original promotional poster (super rare). I also have the original promotional flyer, a diecast metal toy of the ship and plastic model kits and even new old stock R-Type II side art and marquee (R-Type II and LEO only came as upgrade kits to upgrade existing games and didn't come in a dedicated cabinet like R-Type 1 did).

Here's most of my current collection...




R-Type II PCB:


R-Type II installed in the original R-Type cabinet:



GoPro footage of R-Type II:


R-Type Shirt:


Keychains and fridge magnets:





R-Type LEO in the original R-Type cabinet:



Custom artwork for the Razor Atrox Xbox 360 arcade stick to match the arcade games control panel:


Current high score in R-Type 1:


The sticker on the monitor chassis says 1984... looks freaking good for it's age, eh? You don't get those deep blacks so easily nowadays.

Pretty neat huh? Any of you guys own an arcade game?

[VTSummit]

Wow- that is cool! I just built a man-cave on to the house and I'm looking for an original Gorf arcade game. I've had some before- had Spy Hunter years ago and Moon Patrol.

[skuttduck]

I did a mame box with a dynamo cabinet.


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...4&l=6e164e6d42

I hadn't played it in a year or so, and just hooked it back up and played it tonight.

[Emig5m]

Originally Posted by VTSummit

Wow- that is cool! I just built a man-cave on to the house and I'm looking for an original Gorf arcade game. I've had some before- had Spy Hunter years ago and Moon Patrol.

Oh Spy Hunter! That was one of the first arcade games I would beg my parents to go take me down the road to the little burger/ice cream joint to play! That was even before R-Type! I miss the 80's and even early 90's arcades for sure! Spy Hunter is actually not easy to come by nowadays.. If you're an old arcade fan you should check out John's Arcade Youtube channel. He releases two videos a week and does a lot of great content on collecting, restoring, and road trips and tournaments for old arcade games. Also TNT amusements on Youtube is pretty cool. I was in shock when I discovered how the classic arcade gaming scene was thriving alive and well through a band of passionate world wide collectors even though actual commercial arcades are pretty scarce.... pretty neat stuff.

Half the fun of the hobby is the hunt to find the stuff and when you find it knowing how rare some of it is. My R-Type LEO board came all the way from Germany and I contacted multiple warehouses in the US with thousands of old game PCBs and didn't even have one. And to find brand new R-Type II side art and marquee that's been sitting around untouched since 1989...wow...