Out with the New, in with the Old

We arcade collector types always show videos of our game rooms in ideal conditions.  Everything on, the music pumping and game sounds whirring.     Not today.   I'm going to be real and show you the mess in my basement and talk about game conveyances that have been on my mind and are under way.

Shamefully messy and cluttered game room with games going out and coming in, along with a video look at Star Wars Trilogy.

Starting the new year, decided to get off my bum and make a few changes to my game line up that have been on my mind for a few months.  In the Pinball realm, in the last 3-5 months I've said goodbye to Stern's Star Trek and hello to Attack from Mars.  More Recently I've said goodbye to Ghostbusters and I'm saying hello to STTNG, for the second time.   My Revenge from Mars is tentatively sold and I'm not sure what replaces it (if anything).

For arcades, I decided to let go of my Nintendo Red Tent, which is now packed and ready to make a trip literally to the other side of the country.  Getting rid of the Red Tent frees up room for two stand-up arcades or options for opening the room up to be a little less crowded.

(Less games, whaaaat??)  :)

More is not always better...

The final arcade going to a new home is my Star Wars Trilogy Stand Up.   In it's place is coming Atari Star Wars (the color vector version), so I'm trading the 1998 version for the 1983 version.  Out with the new, in with the old.   

Speaking of Craigslist - the scammers are out in full force..

So, why the changes?

I knew after SFGE last year that I wanted an Atari Star Wars.  There was one on the floor, it seemed to stay up all weekend and I offered to buy it but someone else apparently beat me to it, the seller never responded to my texts but I did see it getting loaded up with a new owner.   I have zero vector arcades in my current line up, so it checks two boxes for me, adds the vector and adds a super collectible Star Wars cab.  Larger theme though, just continuing to try to balance between the want for collector-typed games and the utility of finding game-play types that aren't necessarily otherwise represented in my game room

Why Get rid of the Red Tent?

Doing an audit of available gaming devices in our house, there are two arcade cabinets and nearly a half-dozen other things available that are capable of "Nintendo-y" play.  Just came down to calculus of unique playability and utility over available space.  Nintendo VS is well emulated on two of our multi-games.  The wii, the wii-u, the switch, the classic nes, classic snes, a couple of DS consoles - all giving us access to myriad sundry parts of the Nintendo game catalog in console form.   Seemed like it was time to free up the space and make room for something else.

Why get rid of the Star Wars?

This one is a little harder since I have a soft spot for this particular game and era of gaming.   In the end it comes down to overlap of similar experience as well.  I could get a similar gaming experience in console or MAME form.  I know I wanted to own the older Atari / Vector game and I really don't like having theme overlap.  So, Star Wars trilogy gets the short straw.  Though, maybe one day I'll have room for the sit-down projection version!

Why the pin changes?

Why Get rid of Revenge from Mars?

Really just a matter of theme overlap.  Since I have AFM and even though it intuitively might sound cool to have "the pair" in a collection, I'm not really curating a collection so much as a fun game room.  Both good games but AFM wins for me on nostalgia for pure pinball and so it stays.

Why get rid of Ghostbusters?

Mostly, long term reliability concerns.  Partly a re-focusing of my hobby activity.

A couple of days before my summer get-together.  My brand new Ghostbusters pin crapped the bed, so to speak.  The lower playfield started to flash and the switches stopped working on the lower 1/3 of the playfield.   Node board 8 failure appeared on the diagnostic.     

Just what you want, a few days before an event - the newest pin goes down.   

I call the distributor and they were great about the whole thing. "No worries, we'll get you a new one out, no charge, just drop the old node board in the return box and send back to Stern."    Awesome. Well, sort of awesome. 

I inquired about paying for overnight delivery and the dist. explained in the most politically correct manner possible that they could put the order in but... dealing with Stern - no guarantees on when the part would leave Stern. 

Long story short, on Ghostbusters, I ended up with a $300 lighter wallet for a spare node board.  Thanks to steady troubleshooting work from Charlie and Nathan (who helped with overall prep in many other ways too) - the game was working for the event.  Until it wasn't.  The timelapse video of the event showed the glass coming off of Ghostbusters 1/2 dozen times throughout the twelve hour event.   In fact, I'd say that Cody spent more time fixing Ghostbusters that day, than I'd spent playing it to date.

Meanwhile.. all those old Bally-Williams just kept running.. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm done with Stern after one bad experience.    In fairness, the SMD LED boards on my Star Trek started to fail and they replaced them, for free and were very cool about it. 

I am just saying that I wish they'd have engineered in protection to their miniaturized circuit boards to make them more failsafe in SPIKE systems. The SMD miniaturized components do not appear anecdotally to be as resilient as the 30 year old electronics in some of these older games..  What happens if Stern is no longer making pins in a decade.   Most of these 30 year old electronics can be serviced with a de/soldering iron and time.  These miniaturized components are a whole different ball of wax...

This all resonates with my inner grumpy-getting-older man..

For now at least, my acquisition and play tendencies are leaning back towards older stuff.   So much of pinball today is trying to herald back the golden era of Bally/Williams 90's pins, why spend the price of a nice car on a new pin when you could spend 2/3 the price for better pinball?  Especially if it's better playing AND better built...  

In Summary

My short (want) list for arcades is currently: 

Atari Star Wars - (One on the way!)
Tempest -  (Maybe less of a priority with Star Wars coming..)
Burger Time - (Honestly I just think the cabinet is fun)
Joust, Robotron, Defender or a Multi-Williams Cab (Pure arcade fun)

My short (want) list for pinball is currently:

Medieval Madness - (preferably original, good players condition)
Monster Bash - (original, not remake - should never have sold mine... )
Total Nuclear Annihilation - (one of these things is not like the others)

..something different.  An EM, Solid State, etc.

So, that's me in early 2018.  Subject to change on the ADD whim as always, my collection philosophy for Q1 2018 is: bring on the oldies but goodies.  Now, I've got a mess to go clean up so I can get back to having a functional gameroom again! :)

(Sold): Revenge from Mars

I'm selling my RFM... 

Ad Stuff

$SOLD

Plays great and super clean / well maintained. Super cool game, the holographic effect is very cool and well integrated into classic pinball gameplay.
Running PRISM but appears to have been upgraded via an upgrade cart.   I believe it belonged to pinsider, "Hilton" at some point, I got it from pinsider, "fuseholder" about a year ago.

Full LEDs
Red candy powder coated legs
Custom figures and other upgrades
Interactive color changing saucer mod from mr pinballz in Europe, extra saucer disks

Cabinet art is really good,

The pin2k glass that is on it is very good.

Just making room for another game / eliminate some theme overlap in my gameroom.
Would trade for an Atari Star Wars Stand Up Arcade or trade plus cash towards a Total Nuclear Annihilation

I'd have to rent a truck to deliver, so delivery isn't available but I work at home and can meet with a shipper / mover if you'd like.  I have an arcade friend that makes frequent trips to the Birmingham area for anyone in that area.

How I came about the game.

I picked up this Revenge from Mars from the Pinsider, "Fuseholder" - who said he had gotten it from Pinsider, Hilton.  Evidently the Prism card had been updated at a show.  The game was in the ChicagoLand area and it cost me extra moving dough with STI / NAVL to get it carried up 34 steps from the basement where it lived.  

I used to own a SW Episode 1 and I recall not really liking the Pin.   I had never really spent much time on RFM until a local friend got one - and after spending some time on the game, I was pretty well smitten with it.  What struck me about the game was that it was a considerably better game of Pinball than the SW Episode 1, which came later.   The cheesy / campy alien theme was a nice compliment to AFM and I remember thinking that I'd probably never be able to own AFM, they were still going for about 8k on the average.   I felt like RFM would be my answer to get the cheesy mars-attacks theme without the crazy 8k price tag.

As I got to know the game, I really learned the appreciate it for other reasons.  The holographic denizens of the game modes, mattered.   The integration with the theme was excellent and the soundtrack, over all, was a trip down Bally-Williams memory lane with reprised voices in callouts and musical nods to other games... Of course, the usual AFM soldier-guy voice but I was delighted to also recognize the "boogie" theme tune from Scared Stiff and some notable voice talent from Medieval Madness.

With RFM in my arsenal, I thought i had my martian-themed pin checkbox, checked.

Why I decided to let it go.

In the summer, as AFM remakes started to ship, I was perusing Pinside and found an original, players-quality AFM for about $4k.   I took the bait and bought the game but had low expectations.   As the game arrived, I was happy to see it cleaned up quite well, had original B/W boards that were free from hacks and the playfield was decent, not so bad as to consider replacing but also had some questionable mylar added by previous owners.

With some parts, a few repairs, a modernization, ColorDMD, Chrome Plating, Mirror Art Blades, my stash of LEDs and a ton of work, AFM turned out better than I expected and quickly became one of my favorite games.  Now, I have two alien-themed games.

My gameroom layout is typically a 60/40 ratio of arcades to pins but at my highest count, I had 9 pinball machines.  I learned, at that time that in order to maintain a proper balance, I personally can own no more than 6 pinballs at any given time. The maintenance time-requirement (much of which is self-imposed), coupled with demands of being dad, hubby, primary earner and primary fixer of all things in my universe all lead to the number 6 as my upper limit, for now anyway. 

With 6 pins, I really have no tolerance for theme duplication so decision time came.  Which of my two martian themed pins gets to stay and which gets to go.  Hard decision because both are great pins but in the end, I think the pure and simple nature of AFM won the day and so my RFM is up for sale to find a new home.

Video Walkthrough

Photos

High Resolution Photo Gallery: (many more images on this image site:)
http://images.eyedyllic.com/Hobbies/RFM/n-fMZK4Q/

Vegas Arcade-y Goodness and Amazon (AWS) Re:Invent

In late-fall / early winter every year, Amazon hosts 50,000 plus developers, systems, dev-ops professionals and technology decision makers for AWS: Reinvent.  AWS (Amazon Web Services) is the arm of Amazon that sells platform and technology services to businesses looking to use Amazon's cloud infrastructure for app, web app and online service delivery.   Each year, Amazon adds over a hundred pr....  vertical markets ... technical debt reduction .... scalable solutio......[snore]  ZZzzzzzzZzzzz   Zzzzz ZzzZzz.  

Still Awake?

I've been to this conference a few times.   Vegas is an expensive town and I'm not much of a gambler but each time I've been I've tried to build in some arcade and pinball discovery in the afternoons and evenings, when off the clock, so to speak.  Although this year, the arcade and classic gaming motif was felt more in the AWS Event itself than previous years. 

Re-Invent

AWS: Reinvent is massive, in terms of scale.  The conference lasts all week and more-or-less subsumes the Vegas strip.   There are two keynotes in the week, the primary keynote venue houses probably around 10,000 people and there are overflow viewing areas at each participating major resort that will hold about half that, each.

As an engineer that has worked for numerous start-up sized companies, I can say that I'm largely pretty cynical about the exhibitor floors of these shows.    I worked for a company years ago that had a fully stocked kitchen of snacks and goodies (soda, energy drinks, sugary pastries and other goodies) and an even more stocked room full of conference swag (pedometers, shirts, hats, mouse pads, gadget-du jour, which these days would take the forms of drones, Nintendo Switches or iPads. That same company, couldn't always make payroll in regards to the engineering staff and contractors...   

But, I digress.  Hopefully these guys have their houses in order. :)

Bo-bo Pac-man

One vendor went so far as to build demos of their product into arcade cabinets and port a version of Pacman over on a few of the cabinets.  "Cloud Crunch" - to exhibit all of the security goodness they could bring to your cloud infrastructure.

(I guess, I really still don't fully know what they actually *do* over at CTP.)

Notice they even went with Arcadey - Family Fun Center styled carpet. (above)

The controls on the arcade cabinet themselves were pretty crappy (below) - I think they were loose mounted in the cabinet.

Their leaderboard was used to control the output of swag.  I only played once but held first place for the better part of the day with my freshman effort.  For my efforts, a pretty decent Patagonia pull-over.

PHOF 

Those hoping this acronym is a reference to the venerable David Hasselhoff will be disappointed but maybe otherwise delighted to learn it is the Pinball Hall of Fame, aka The Las Vegas Pinball Museum.

I walked through the PHOF with my phone on a facebook live broadcast.   Unfortunately the iOS version of the facebook app ignored my preference to save the 4k version to my camera roll, so I'm stuck with this version, which was downloaded from Facebook after the fact.

Sadly, these classic EMs and early Solid States were not getting much play, as is the case every time I've been to the PHOF.   I wish I had time to come and just work my way down these rows and learn to appreciate the bits of character that each of these machines have.

Mostly pins (of all eras) but some arcades on the backwall, too.  

PHOF has an excellent range of eras represented in their lineup from modern LCD games, through B/W DMD games and back to EM Classics.   They were all reasonably well maintained and along the back of the building, an employee worked on an STTNG while listening to an audiobook.    There were very few people in the place and there almost never is when I go in the Winter months.   There was one etiquette-challenged older gent that was playing more than one game at a time and draping his jacket over 1-2 nearby games not in play and challenged me over recording the video walkthrough.   I offered to play him a round and he chose the new Star Wars.  I won and we had a fun conversation about pinball during the game.

For some strange reason, the most interesting machine at PHOF to me is this awesome popcorn vending machine. I want one!    

Have Quarters, Will Uber

Fremont Arcade

Last year, when I was on my way out from Vegas - waiting on my flight, I remember reading about Fremont Arcade on Pinside.  I was bummed because the OP of that post had posted all sorts of promising pictures of the line up at these neat arcade down in Old Vegas / Fremont.  

This year I made it a point to go check it out.   

Unfortunately, instead of a promising line up of pins, I found the pretty typical modern card-based almost-redemption arcade with the exception of the 5 Stern games pictured here.

The pins were all well-maintained but the volume was down and even in the empty arcade you couldn't hear them.

The Big Apple Arcade @ New York, New York

I ventured over to Big Apple Arcade located inside of the New York, New York Casino.

Here, I was impressed and spent more of my arcade dollars than probably at an other location in Vegas.  A nice layout of modern pins, each properly set up and well-maintained..    

Speaking of Star Wars, it was nice to get the opportunity to spend more time with an updated Star Wars Battle Pod.    Even though I built a redneck equivalent, I sure do enjoy this game.

On my way out of New York, New York, the Bally logo of a slot machine caught my eye and sort of develops a lump in my throat as to what might have been had Bally stayed in it, making Pinball after 2000.

Zero Latency VR at MGM 

In MGM, they've set up a pretty sweet full-suite VR experience called Zero Latency VR.  It is similar, though probably not quite as good as The Void.  While we were there, the options were a Halo-styled space combat sim and a Zombie battle style sim.

We opted for the space-sim, since the zombie genre is well covered in the PS4 and Vive VR offerings.  The gameplay last about 1/2 hour (for about $50/person).   The resolution of the experience wasn't 4k but the effect was quite good.   On more than one occasion I found myself reaching for a virtual-only cover (a crate) in the environment, to hoist over and shoot at the alien boss.   Therein lay the hack.  You can clip in the environment by nestling yourself inside parts of the environment. :) 

I could see a version of this with practical trip-hazards that are represented in 3D space, virtually - as being pretty awesome.   Me, I'm glad I got to play it and I'm definitely looking forward to trying out other full-suit VR experiences. 

Closing Night, the AWS: Reinvent, Re:Play Party

The last night of AWS: ReInvent, Amazon sets up three football-field-length structures in the parking lot of The Linq and throws one hell of a nerd party.  The middle structure had a bad with EDM, House type coding music blaring to an impressive laser light show.  The right-most structure included physical activities, like nerf bow-and-arrow in paintball gear - type battles, adult bouncy castles, etc.  The left-most structure was packed full of classic arcades, a dome VR experience, foosball, airhockey and all sorts of gaming awesomeness.   

Quick, shaky cam walk through to show the retro gaming goodness going on in one of the structures.

Of the classic arcades, some impressive collector titles were on the floor

The center structure of the three structure layout included a stage, lightshow, food, booze and tunes..

I thought the lighting assembly was impressive, especially considering this was a temporary structure!

By the end of the week, it was time to relax atop the balcony at Twin Peaks and bid Las Vegas farewell.   I attended 3 to 5 sessions each day and filled the evenings as best I could think to with arcadey and pinball fun, not the most risqué activities available in Vegas but these are the ones that interested my inner arcade nerd. :)