Great Yarmouth Arcade Heaven - Part 3

In this awesome pic of the Golden Mile, some fantastic cabs can be seen in Circus Circus.  The sit-down driver is Final Lap R, released by Namco in 1993 and one of the only games to run on the System FL hardware. 

To the left of Final Lap R there appears to be a Star Wars cockpit and to the right the Taito Bubble Car! 

I played Chase H.Q. in one of these, and remember the chain guard around the cab, and my grandparents helping me get in and out.  I seem to recall it being black, but my memory is hazy.  Oh how I would love to have a few credits on this again!  It’s strange how times change.  Back in the day I thought these would be about forever, and the thought of owning machines seemed inconceivable. 

 

Barrons 

Barrons always had a special charm, with its heady smell of fried onions at the hotdog stall by the entrance, and the lure of Rad Mobile DLX and Nemesis in an old generic wood grain cab.  They had these games well into the nineties.  The arcade always seemed dated, even back in the day, and that’s why it was so awesome.  After all, we were spoilt with having the latest games in the other arcades up and down the seafront 

 

Behind these two gents there is an awesome and incredibly rare After Burner Commander, a sort of scaled down version of the DLX model.  The cab looks incredibly cool and is another one I’d love to play. 

In this pic there is an Electrocoin ZX-2000 to the left.   

I believe this was a generic driving environmental cab, with the game marquee displayed on the back.  The ones I’ve seen had Konami GT installed.  Behind this there appears to be another cab, orange and white with sharp angles.  This one is a complete mystery to me.  If anyone knows what it might be please get in touch. 

 

To the left the front end of Thunder Blade DLX can be seen.  

 

A couple more interior shots, showing the bingo kiosk and a shell suit in all its eighties glory. 

The Marine Centre Amusements 

Last year the Marina Centre was demolished to make way for a new leisure complex.  With this, and the fire and subsequent demolition of the bowling alley, Regent Superbowl, it almost feels like my youth is slowly being chipped away and disappearing.  

 

I think there were amusements inside the main complex, as well as amusements accessible from the sea front.  I rarely ventured into the main complex back in the day and can only really remember the latter, from around the mid-nineties.  They had some modern machines for the time, which weren’t anywhere else down the seafront, and I put a lot of credits in Konami’s Crypt Killers and Sega’s Fighting Vipers.  Virtua Fighter was a massive deal in Japan, but never seemed to harness the same popularity over here.  Fighting Vipers took the same great gameplay, but with characters and themes geared more towards the West.  I loved it, smashing the opponent out of the caged arena never got old.  The cab featured full art and was the same type as that used for Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Striker.  I have never seen another in the UK.   

 

Here are some pics of the amusements from 1988. 

It looks a little sparse, but on the right there is Hang-On DLX, complete with a custom ‘Super Bike’ arch.  They had a similar one to this at the Flamingo. 

 

The Chuckle Brothers* posing in front of Hang-On DLX, complete with the cool ‘Super Bike’ arch.  Also on the left you can just make out Space Harrier DLX, with the blue Sega logo and red triangles at the top of the chair.  It’s a shame there isn’t a bit more on show! 

In this pic of the left side of the arcade you can see even more Sega goodness, Thunder Blade DLX and Super Hang-On just behind it.  Progress was rapid, with new awesome machines seemingly coming out every season.  Sega were at the forefront and really did own the arcades back then, continuously pushing boundaries and making fun, innovative games which were a joy to play. 

 

Absolute classics you hardly ever see anymore.  How I’d love to go back and spend the day there.  There also appears to be a row of machines at the back of the arcade, but they are unidentifiable. 

Operation Wolf, another absolute classic.   

The rows of Electrocoin Goliaths they had in the seafront arcades were a sight to behold.  Arcade Club have done an awesome job recreating this, but I’d love to find some pics of them from back in the day.  For now I’ll have to make do with this solitary Goliath, hiding behind the change desk. 

Now let’s travel back a few more years to the Marina Centre in the early eighties, the era of the dedicated cabs.  What a fantastic pic! 

 

The games from left to right are Pole Position, Armor Attack, Star Castle and Defender.  Pole Position takes me back, with the unmistakable ‘beep, beep, beep beeeeep.’  I had to look up Armor Attack and Star Castle.  These two are vector graphics multidirectional shooters, released by Cinematronics in 1980.  The era of the dedicateds was a bit before my time, and I remember the arcades having a good mix of dedicateds and generic Jamma cabs.  As Jamma became an industry standard, generic cabs became a popular choice with Ops.  Once earnings from a game started to decline, they could change the PCB and marquee and have a new game, negating the need for a new machine, thus saving money. 

*These aren’t actually the real Chuckle Brothers.  In the unlikely event the guys pictured are reading this, it was a light hearted comment with no offence intended.

Recent Pick Ups

I thought I’d share some pics of my recent gaming pick ups.  First up are some console games from ‘Japanese Allan’, plus Sonic Wings 3 MVS from a Ukvac forum member. 

The Super Famicom game is Gegege No Kitarō: Fukkatsu! Tenma Daiou, a nice looking platform game I first heard about on the KidShoryuken Youtube channel.  We really want to go back to Japan, hopefully in the not too distant future, and I’ve started compiling a ‘wanted’ list.  This game was one of those titles.  The list is already quite long, so I keep an eye out for games on the list to try and keep it to a manageable level. 

 

Sonic Wings 3 replaces my Japanese cart.  I’m trying to go for English label carts, plus the Japanese exclusives.  The cart is very clean and has a M.H.P. sticker.   

Mo Patel is a long running Op and is still in business today as Videotronics.  The number of boards and MVS carts I’ve had with M.H.P. inscribed on them is unreal.  I must have had fifty odd M.H.P. Puzzle Bobble carts.  A lot had M.H.P. written on the cart label, but fortunately in this case it has a sticker, and the label is unmarked.  According to Mo, the boards were marked as board theft was rife back in the nineties.   

This parcel of awesomeness was from Stefano / Retro Emporium. 

Once again there are a few titles here I can strike off my wanted list.  I’m especially pleased to get the Japanese version of Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64.  I absolutely love the box art and it’s use of two-tone red and black, it’s so understated and stylish. 

 

Here is a better look at the AstroCity Minis.   

One is the Ebten DX Pack Sega 60^th Anniversary Collector’s Edition.  In addition to the Astro Mini, the set includes an Astro base, a commemorative medal set and acrylic display, ‘High Tech Land Sega’ desk mat and ashtray, and instruction cards. 

 

The instruction cards are for the games featured on the Astro Mini.  These are reproductions of the art and move strips which originally came with the PCB boards.  This is a nice addition, especially as I have some of these boards without arts.  Also I’m really happy with the ashtray and medals, I think they look fantastic. 

The Future Is Now – MVS Collecting

SNK was synonymous with arcade gaming back in the day, with the Electrocoin licensed multi slot cabs down the seafront and generic one slot cabs down the pub, usually with Super Sidekicks installed.  During the nineties versus fighter boom, I remember my classmates proclaiming that Fatal Fury was better than Street Fighter II.  I’m a bit of a Capcom fan boy and they were wrong of course, but there is no denying that SNK left a great impression on me.

I’ve been collecting MVS carts for quite a long time now.  Over the years, my arcade collection has gone in different directions.  For a while I was more focused on the Neo Geo AES.  I was fortunate in that I was able to shop in Akihabara, Tokyo and Den Den Town, Osaka and enjoyed picking up AES titles.  It brought the arcade experience home like no other system.  I loved the box art, and the sheer size of the carts.  It was exciting and novel being able to buy them from game shops.  The console and games were super expensive, and prior to travelling to Japan I had only seen pictures of the home system in gaming magazines and played the games in the arcades.    As I grew older and my focus shifted from console to arcade collecting, I switched to the MVS.  However I’ve managed to hang on to the boxed console I picked up in Osaka and my modest AES collection.  There is something quite special about the system, and it reminds me of a certain time in my life.  I’d be sad to part with it.

Boards and MVS carts I picked up from G-Front and Try in 2011.

I managed to get all the MVS titles I wanted and was happy with my collection.  However the collection is never finished really, and I still manage to set new goals and find more stuff to buy.  Over the last couple of years, I’ve visited old arcade Operators here in the UK, buying up their old video game stock.  They quite often they had MVS carts and so I decided to hang on to any games I didn’t already own.  Ops didn’t always store games very well, and the beauty of MVS is that they’re pretty robust and usually work after giving the edge connector a good clean.  I’ve set myself a new goal of getting a full set of MVS titles, with English label carts were possible, plus the Japanese exclusives.  The boards must be original, no boots.

MVS carts from UK Ops.

As my MVS collection has grown, it’s becoming more difficult to find the titles I need to get the full set.  There are some Japanese exclusives that I stand no chance of finding without widening the search.  I’m in no rush though, and plan to continue chipping away at it slowly.

Here are some new additions to my collection.

Burning Fight, Ghost Pilots, King Of The Monsters and Thrash Rally

I remember playing Burning Fight in the arcades.  Even back then it seemed like a blatant Final Fight clone, only not as good.  It hasn’t aged particularly well, but I like how it takes place on the streets of Osaka with familiar looking shopping malls, arcades and even the Gilco Man!

 Art of Fighting 3, Matching Serial #007009

Mutation Nation

Pop ‘n Bounce, Matching Serial #000108

Samurai Shodown II

Arcade Op PCB Pick Ups #1: Sega Mega Play

 

Amongst the PCB haul from an old Op in Blackpool were three Sega Mega Play motherboards complete with ten carts.  I must admit I didn’t know much about the system.  I had come across Mega-Tech carts, but it was the first time I had seen these.  One of the games was Streets of Rage II.  This immediately piqued my interest being an all-time favourite of mine, and I was very excited about the prospect of playing it in a cab.

 

Reading up on the system, I discovered that it was released in Europe and Asia and Sega’s second attempt at bringing Megadrive games to the arcades, the first being the Mega-Tech.  Whereas credits buy the player time on the Mega-Tech system, you get lives for your money on the Mega Play, giving a more traditional arcade experience.  I much prefer this and was never a big fan of the ‘credits to buy time’ concept back in the day.  The system also differs in that it has four cart slots, whereas the Mega Tech has seven.  It appears eleven games were released in total.  The games have been modified to specifically work with the hardware and do not work on the Megadrive.  Significant changes were made to the games to make them more suited to an arcade environment.  For example, Sonic the Hedgehog has very strict time limits, removes the two slowest Zones, Marble and Labyrinth, has no special stages, making chaos emeralds unobtainable, and all the extra life boxes have been removed.  These have a massive impact on how the game is played, making it more of a time attack and high score challenge.  There is a neat page detailing the differences here. 

 

http://gaminghell.co.uk/SonicTheHedgehog.html 

 

A lot of the Op’s boards had been stored poorly, but these had at least been wrapped in bubble wrap and looked barely used.  Two of the three motherboards are fully working, which is a good result!  The system is Jamma compatible. 

Like the Mega-Tech, the Mega Play was designed with two monitors in mind, one for game selection (top) and one for the game itself (bottom).  I noticed that a mod had been carried out on all three of my motherboards, allowing the player to select games by using Button A of Player 1.  This is useful when using the board in a cab without a select button, and the mod is actually described in the Mega Play service manual. 

My Mega Play cart collection, along with their respective product numbers.  I wonder why Golden Axe II number ends with B? 

1. Sonic The Hedgehog 610-0297-01 

2. Golden Axe II 610-0297-02B 

3. Grand Slam 610-0297-03 

4. Tecmo World Cup x3 610-0297-04

5. Streets of Rage II x2 610-0297-05 

6. Bio-Hazard Battle 610-0298-06 

7. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 x2 610-0297-07

 

 

The above carts were picked up from the Op, except for Sonic The Hedgehog, which I bought from a seller in Italy. 

 

I’m currently missing the following titles for a full set. 

 

8. Columns III: Revenge of Columns 

9. Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master 610-0297-09 (tbc) 

10. Gunstar Heroes 

11. Mazin Wars 610-0297-11 (tbc) 

 

Some sources suggest the original Streets of Rage was also released, but there is little evidence to support this.  It is mentioned on the flyer, but the screen shots are from the sequel, so it could be an error.  Amusingly the title has been misspelt on both the flyer and the cart label, with Street instead of Streets. 

The games originally came in plastic cases, similar to the Megadrive.  I haven’t got any cases, and the only paperwork I’ve got is for Streets of Rage II.  The art is very similar in size to the MVS mini marquees. 

Given the scarcity of the system and the small number of games released, I suspect the system wasn’t a great success.  It’s unclear whether Sega were trying to replicate the success of the MVS or promoting Megadrive games in arcades.  Graphics and sound would have been underwhelming compared to arcade releases at the time.  Also the Mega-Play was competing against a certain fighter which would go on to dominate the arcades in the early to mid-nineties. 

 

I’m really happy to have discovered this system, it’s an interesting piece and a nice addition to my collection.  I plan to install it in the Lordsvale cab I picked up from the same Op.  I’d love to get the full set of carts, but they’re proving incredibly hard to find.  If anyone has any leads please get in touch. 

New Arrival – Nintendo Donkey Kong: Part 5 - Complete

I’ve been working on and off this cab a while, and it seems like it’s taken forever.

Coin door re-fitted.  Removing and re-fitting the door is a bit fiddly.  The lower bolts aren’t very accessible due to the wooden shelf where the coin box sits.  A 7mm spanner is required.

New coin mechs and face plates fitted.

Fitting freshly powder coated parts is so satisfying!

Previously I noticed some of the PSU caps were bulging slightly, with slight signs of leakage.  All caps have now been replaced.

New instruction and insert coin decals from Mikes Arcade applied.

My original bezel has some wear and scratches, so I’ve fitted a lovely new one from Muddymusic / Arcade Art Shop. 

I was lucky enough to get hold of a marquee signed by the top Donkey Kong players at the Kong Off tournament.  I think it’s a cool piece of arcade history and finishes the cab off nicely.

A short video of the cab.

And that’s it, the cab is finally complete.  Time to play some Donkey Kong!