New PCB Arrival - Salamander – Konami - 1986

I remember my school discos well.  A can of Shandy or a carton of Tip Tops, a packet of crisps and change for the arcade machines was pure happiness!  I first played Salamander at the annual school disco, probably not too long after its release.  The game is a spin-off to Gradius and introduces a simplified power-up system, two-player cooperative gameplay and both horizontally and vertically scrolling stages.  I remember the swirly fire dragons as I’ll call them, and the game being very hard.  Twenty pence didn’t seem to get me very far on this game! 

The venue was a pub in the village, The Kings Head.  They had two generic cabs in the function room and one in the bar area.  I think they were Electrocoin Goliaths, but my memory is hazy.  In the function room they seemed to change out the least popular game each year.  The cabs were always busy at the discos, and there was always a crowd round the cab featuring the new game.  In addition to Salamander, I remember Empire City: 1931 (I think!) Final Fight and Shadow Warriors.  I was blown away when I saw Final Fight here for the first time, and I remember watching someone clear Shadow Warriors and the excitement as Ryu Hayabusa defeats the boss and sails back to Tokyo in his boat.

The King’s Head during April 2020 during the lockdown.  Unfortunately the arcade cabs are long gone!

I didn’t get to play the machine in the bar area very often, only playing it when my parents decided to go there for a drink.  The only game I remember playing in the bar was Capcom’s awesome Magic Sword.

Going back to Salamander, the game has an interesting history.  The arcade version was released under its original title in Japan (version J) and as Life Force in North America.  The Japanese and European versions are nearly identical, but the American version changes the game’s plot by setting the game inside a giant alien life form, infected by a strain of bacteria.  Stages featuring star field backgrounds were altered to reflect this, and the power-ups were given different names.  An enhanced version of Salamander was later released in Japan, with the American title Life Force.  The theme was extended, with the backgrounds and mechanical enemies being completely redrawn and given organic appearances.  Also the power-up system was modified, using the same system as Gradius and some of the music tracks have been completely changed.

It’s also cool to note that Electrocoin released a dedicated cab, complete with awesome artwork.  These are pretty rare now, and I’ve only seen a few come up over the years.

On my most recent Raid I picked up a Salamander board.  I was really happy to find one, and it was definitely one of the highlights.  However the boards had been stored poorly, and I didn’t expect it to work.  Upon testing, the game booted to garbage and required extensive repair work.  VectorGlow has once again worked his magic.  Repair work was time consuming, with him replacing nineteen logic chips and all of the optocouplers, two EPROMs, the main 68000 CPU and a capacitor.  These were all on the top board, there were no faults on the lower board.  The board is version J.

The Hyper Neo is my cab of choice for this board. 

I love how much room there is inside the cab, and I recently had a shelf made to fully utilise the space.

The game is now once again fully working.  I’m really happy to have the board in my collection, and I’m extremely grateful for VectoGlow’s awesome repair work.

New PCB Arrival - Hyper Duel – Technosoft - 1993

One of my big PCB collecting regrets was selling Hyper Duel.  I picked up the board about twenty years ago from Mak Japan PCB shop in Akihabara for around ¥10,000, which was about fifty pounds back then.  The game also received a home port on the Japanese Sega Saturn and was considered a bit of a hidden gem, and I bought it as well around the same time.

Hyper Duel is a cool horizontal space shooter developed by Technosoft, best known for the Thunder Force series.  The game has great pixel art and features the ability to switch between spaceship “Fighter” mode and humanoid mecha “Armor” mode, really setting the game apart.  The ship has greater speed and manoeuvrability, and is the ideal mode for dodging tight bullet patterns.  The mecha is slightly more powerful, and the gun can be aimed up to forty five degrees above or below you.  On the downside, it’s larger and thus a bigger target. 

Hyper Duel for the Saturn was released in 1996 and features a faithful port of the arcade game, as well as a reworked version with updated graphics and a revised soundtrack.  The Saturn Mode has much more detailed sprites and backgrounds, with some sprites being redrawn completely.  It also implements some gameplay tweaks and changes.  Most notably a third button is added to lock the robots aim in place.

My collecting mentality has changed over the years.  Back then I just wanted to own the best version of a game.  I preferred the Saturn Mode over the arcade original and decided to sell the PCB.  Nowadays if I like a game, I tend to look out for it on different formats.  I enjoy seeing the gameplay, artwork and packaging differences and finding out what makes each version unique.

This leads me back to Hyper Duel.  I missed having it on the original arcade PCB format and really wanted to play it on an arcade cab.  When I had the board previously, I played my arcade boards via a Supergun and console games on the same TV.

Prices for the game have increased dramatically over the years and it’s become quite a difficult game to track down.  Matt, a Ukvac member recently done me a great deal on the game and there is a cool story behind it.  The game was picked up from a local arcade in Torquay.  Matt had known the manager who runs it for about twenty five years and at one point actually worked for him.  The board had been in his possession for approximately twenty years.  It was acquired by him when a previous Operator vacated the premises and left several Jamma PCB’s hanging up by nails on the wall in the storeroom, along with a comedy face mask hanging up in the prize shop!  Since Jamma games had passed by that time, he had no way of testing them, and he simply assumed the boards were deliberately left behind because they were probably faulty.  The boards were put on a shelf and then eventually all in a box for the next twenty years!  Last year Matt bought himself a Jamma cabinet and was looking for some boards.  He knew the manager had these boards all this time and contacted him to see if he would sell them.  A deal was made, but Matt had to test them before a price was agreed.  All of them apart from one were either dead or faulty.  Hyper Duel was one of the faulty boards, but has since been repaired by VectorGlow.

I know from my own experiences that sometimes it’s very surprising what games you come across on Raids and in Op storerooms, games you never remember seeing back in the day and would never expect to find.  Hyper Duel is one of those games and I’m really happy to have it back in the collection.

New Arrival – SNK Super Neo 29 Type II

The Future Is Now
First a little story.  Between 1997 and 2004 I worked on a tanker, transporting liquefied natural gas from Brunei to Japan.  We would discharge at various ports near Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka every three weeks or so.  Quite often we would go to Sodegaura.  Sodegaura had a small street, a shopping mall and a few small bars and eateries.  If I only had a couple of hours ashore, I’d do a bit of shopping and have a few beers and some Yakitori chicken.  One shop sold games, and I still have the used but minty Axelay I picked up.  The company put on a courtesy bus from Sodegaura to Chiba, with a journey time of about one hour.  When I had more time ashore I’d go to Chiba.  Chiba was a great run ashore, with loads of shops, bars, restaurants and excellent arcades.  And Akihabara was only a forty minute train ride from Chiba.  Shore leave in Japan was one of the great things about the job, and as an engineer I’d always volunteer to work the early stand-by shift going in to port to get the afternoon and evening ashore.

So what’s all this got to do with a SNK Super Neo cab?  Well on the bus ride to Chiba, we always passed Neo Geo Bowl, a large arcade / bowling alley run by SNK.  I don’t have many gaming regrets, but one of them is never asking the bus driver to stop and spending the afternoon there. 

Image 1

Image 2

In 2011 we visited Tokyo Leisureland arcade, Odaiba. 

The venue was formerly the infamous Neo Geo World.  Opening March 1999, the venue featured rows of machines showcasing Neo Geo titles, as well as rides, bowling, karaoke, restaurants, shopping and cinema.  Neo Geo World closed March 2001 and later re-opened as Tokyo Leisureland.  It was nice that the venue still housed an arcade, but NGW and the awesome SNK candy cabinets were long gone.

However the Neo Geo logo can still be seen on the rooftop, as seen on google maps. 

https://www.google.ca/maps/@35.6266761,139.782892,95m/data=!3m1!1e3

It is likely my SNK Super Neo Type II cab came from one of these SNK amusement parks.  Who knows, maybe it came from the one I used to drive past all those years ago.

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About The Cab

I have a New Astro City which is my dedicated vertical shooter cab, and I really liked the idea of getting another 29” cab with the monitor set to horizontal.  The cab currently has Akai Katana installed.

There were several versions of the Super Neo 29 cabinet.  The Super Neo 29 was wired for MVS in stereo, and had a select button and space on the marquee for four Neo mini marquees.  

The Super Neo 29 Candy was wired for Jamma in mono.  In addition to the version with the ‘Super Neo 29 Candy’ marquee, there is also a ‘pop’ version with an insertion space on the marquee for arcade art and logos.  

The Super Neo 29 Type II was wired for the Hyper Neo Geo.  Some versions came with an LCD fitted in the Hyper Neo Geo marquee to show the game to spectators.  

Interestingly the seller told me that the cab used to be owned by a guy from Ignition Software, who handled all of the UK home console SNK releases during the PS2 and Xbox era.

A couple of feet were slightly bent and needed straightening.  When I was loading the cab onto the tail lift van, I straightened one of the feet and found a 50 Yen coin had become trapped next to it!

The Good

-It’s a fully working SNK candy cab!
-The cab is totally original and in great condition with only a few minor marks.

-The monitor is very nice with no noticeable burn.
-The side art is in excellent condition with no rips or tears.

-The cab is extremely clean.
-It came complete with manual and keys.
-The amount of space available for PCB’s is awesome!  I’m thinking of constructing a shelf to store multiple boards.

The Not So Good

-There is some slight cigarette burn on the control panel upper near the instruction strip space.  I will probably just leave this.  It’s not too intrusive and all part of the character.
-The plastic monitor surround is a bit yellowed.
-Spares and parts seem to be much harder to source compared with my trusty NAC.

A massive thanks to Jamie (Arcade Otaku) for this awesome cab.

References 
Image 1: Neo Geo Bowl, Chiba - Remains the copyright of John Anderson.
Image 2: Neo Geo Land, from Neo Geo Freak - 1996 September issue.
Image 3: Neo Geo Land, Osaka - Source http://www.orochinagi.com/gamer-guide-japan/gunsmith-in-japan-1999