Arcade Expo 2015 in SoCal

[ledzep]

Didn't notice that anyone else mentioned this, but there is finally going to be an arcade expo here in Southern California -

 

http://www.arcadeexpo.com/

 

In the fun capital of the world, Banning, Ca.! Looks like a load of pinball machines but also a healthy list of arcade games. I've done the California Extreme trip a couple of times, looking forward to a shorter drive this time.

[Albert]

Wow, 750+ machines, that would be great. Look forward to hearing your report after the show! Especially as it compares to California Extreme.

 

..Al

[ledzep]

Well, I went to the show on Saturday. Driving to Banning was much easier than driving up to Santa Clara. Banning seems to have been built entirely out of pressed boring, though, just like Santa Clara. But I wasn't there to visit the town.

 

The show compared very well to California Extreme. CAX had more/better video games. Well, I'm biased, I'm a vector fan and the Arcade Expo only had 2 Cinematronics upright vectors (Star Castle and an Armor..Attack that had a weird display that wasn't aligned well with the bombed buildings overlay) and no Sega vectors. But it had a lot of cool games (never heard of Chiller, a conversion of Crossbow that is very gory) like a cockpit Red Baron (got the high score that day, 25,900) and a cockpit Sinistar (had no idea that existed), most of the expected favorites and classics, too, like Asteroids, Centipede (with a incorrectly-wired trak-ball, unplayable), Missile Command, Satan's Hollow, Major Havoc (spinner conversion), GORF, Robotron, etc. Some lesser games weren't there, like Bosconian and Solar Fox and Space Firebird, but the place had lots of room for people to walk around. A lot of games were set with very low or no volume, a definite annoyance since part of the appeal of those old games is the sound effects and music. The was a nice section of old mechanical style games in one corner area, a version of that Whirly Bird helicopter game (Space Pilot) and some other flying stunt games and a hilarious anti-aircraft game (Midway's S.A.M.I, Surface to Air Missile Interceptor), both using projections for the moving elements, like holograms, also a crane game. My brother and I just about broke our hands playing one of the Atari Football games (those trak-balls felt like stone), the other was dead. That's one thing that was bad, too many games that were down for repairs (Tail Gunner II, Empire City, others), though many were fixed (Tempest, cockpit Red Baron, etc.) in the time we were there. It felt like the total space and number of games was about 1/3 of what is at CAX.

 

What CAX doesn't have to compare with is the pinball side of things. The Arcade Expo was held at a pinball museum and damn, that area was packed. I didn't know they made that many different pinball games. There were a lot of vintage ones, retro artwork and just 2 flippers and 8 or 9 bumpers, nothing like the lit-up multi-level beasts of the last 10-15 years. And lots of people playing them. But the highlight for me and my friends were the mechanical games they had in a couple small side rooms like a Sega Gun Fight and some shooting gallery games (Midway's Sportsman was the best) and, our favorite by far, a massive machine called the Bowl-A-Rama by United. Holy crap, a bowling lane in your house! It was broken when we got there (front pin was missing) but that was great because I got to see inside it while they repaired it. It's really fun, can handle 6 players at a time.

 

The staff worked great, some games weren't set to free but it wasn't too hard to track down a worker with the keys to open them up and flip in some more credits. They had a food truck or two that had decent food (hot dogs, burgers, fries) which helped because there's nothing around there to eat that doesn't involve a 5-10 minute drive. There were a few vendors as well, less than at CAX. Less cocktail games (love those things).

 

I probably won't do CAX this year (can't afford the trip) but I want to go again because of how many video games they have. But the Arcade Expo is great on its own, particularly the pinball/mechanical games aspect (and proximity), I really hope it happens again. We had a full day that went longer than we planned but we couldn't leave because we were having so much fun. And lots of younger people there playing games that were way before their time. Very cool!

Edited January 19, 2015 by ledzep

[+Mitch]

I was there on Friday and Saturday manning the console section. On the Atari side we had a 7800, XEGS and Jaguar there.

 

Mitch