Skippy B. Coyote

Got a couple eBay pickups in the mail today! First up is Double Dribble for the NES (my all time favorite basketball game, my original copy of which I had lost many years ago when financial necessity caused me to have to liquidate my previous retro gaming collection) that I scored for a very fair price of $5.49 shipped. Next is a copy of 1942 for the Game Boy Color, which I got a pretty fantastic deal of $12.95 shipped for. Both games have immaculate condition labels.

As Racerx mentioned, it just means that if you're on the 5th level of Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, or most of the other games on the board and you run out of lives you can't just hit the Player 1 button for another credit and keep playing; it just kicks you back to the game selection menu when you run out of lives on your one credit. There are a few games on the board that can be continued though, including 1942, 1943, 1943 Kai, and Arkanoid. There may be others that I haven't discovered yet, but those are the ones that I know you can continue from the level you left off on. Thanks Cynicaster! When the misses and I were thinking about ordering this machine I tried pricing out what it would cost me to build it myself, and not including the cost of the all the tools I don't own and would have needed to buy for the job I still don't think I could have done it for $440. It's a hefty sum of money, but I think it was well worth it to have the luxury of being able to play the real arcade versions of so many of my favorite 80's video games in the comfort of my own home on what feels like a real arcade machine. As far as the trackball goes, I'd say I get about one second of free spinning time out of it after a good swipe. It is much less than I get from the Wico trackball that I like using with my Atari 2600, but when you unscrew the trackball retaining ring and take a peek inside it quickly becomes evident why the spin time is so short. The trackball rollers and bearings are the epitome of "tiny", with the rollers measuring right about 1/8" in diameter and the bearings not being much larger. Fortunately they do seem to be made of good steel though, since I've been giving them a pretty heavy workout playing Centipede, Millipede, and Arkanoid on a daily basis for the last month and they haven't bent one bit. As it stands it takes two good swipes to get from one side of the screen to the other in Centipede, though the movement is very fluid and making small micro-motions feels just as precise with this little guy as it does on a full size trackball. I might make a run down to the hardware store to pick up some 3-in-1 oil and give the bearings a little squirt of it next week, just to see if that makes the ball spin a touch faster, but I'm not in any rush on that since think it does work quite well as is.

For our two year wedding anniversary a few months ago the misses pitched in 50% of the cost and we ordered this custom Centipede themed bartop multicade for our retro gaming center. She also knows that I'm an absolute fanatic for light gun games and picked me up a mint condition copy of Operation Wolf for the NES a couple weeks ago.

You're definitely right about there being no "One stick to rule them all", as it's very much a matter of personal preference, but it's still fun to discuss and see what other people like best. Personally I tend to bounce back and forth between using a Wico bat style stick and a Flashback 2 stick. I really love the robust arcade quality feel of the Wico stick, but it can be a bit stiff on the diagonals so I feel like it's really best suited to games with 2-way or 4-way movement. For games with 8-way movement I like the Flashback 2 sticks, which give a really classic 2600 feel but with much smoother control and less resistance due to the more modern membrane contacts in them. You just have to put a little thread locker on the joystick itself to keep it from coming unscrewed during frenetic gameplay. Beautiful stick! Can I ask what you used for the enclosure? I've often thought about making my own stick but I've been having trouble locating an enclosure that would not only look nice but accommodate the size of an arcade joystick and button's innards and still fit comfortably in the hand, but yours looks to fit the bill perfectly! It looks super clean and I imagine that it must play just as good as it looks. Again, wonderful work!

Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) Joust (Atari 2600) Millipede (Atari 2600)

I've been on a big Super Breakout kick the last few days. I used to think Super Breakout on the 2600 was too hard to play for any reasonable length of time, but then I got used to the arcade version of Super Breakout on the household multicade and all of a sudden the Atari 2600 version seems way easier and more relaxing.

The long awaited Zippy is almost here! I'm also really looking forward to Brik and seeing more on the Collector's Edition release of Lady Bug for the 2600. I don't normally go for boxed/collectors variants of games, but Lady Bug in a Coleco shell sounds just way too cool and I'll be interested in seeing what graphical changes were made as well. I won't be able to make it to PRGE this year, but I'll be hoping to pick up all three of the aforementioned games once they hit the AtariAge store.

Before I get to my household's play time statistics for this week, I have to give a huge "Thank you!" to Carlsson, Kurt, and Opry99er for all the great TI-99/4A advice they provided. I'm still not sure I really "need" one, since almost all of the games from that era I like the most I can already play on the household multicade arcade machine, Atari 2600, or NES; but you guys do make the TI-99/4A sound like a really attractive piece of hardware. Plus I could always use to have more versions of Centipede and Ms. Pac-Man around. If I ever decide to wet my feet in the world of classic computing I'll probably pick one up, since even after factoring in the cost of an Atari joystick adapter and modern A/V cables the TI-99/4A still comes out to well under half the price of a complete Commodore 64 or Atari computer; and the TIs do seem to be much more durable. I also like that most popular TI games come on cartridges, so there's no need to worry about or make shelf space for old and potentially unreliable disk drives like I'd have to do with a C64, and the voice synthesizer is pretty darn cool too. Thanks again guys! If I feel the need to scratch the classic computing itch at some point the TI-99/4A will most likely be the first computer I pick up. That all said, on to the play times for this week! Ineligible The Pinball Arcade (Android) - 39 minutes Arcade Arkanoid - 69 minutes Centipede - 19 minutes Donkey Kong - 63 minutes Donkey Kong Junior - 31 minutes Frogger - 77 minutes Galaga 3 - 15 minutes Gun.Smoke - 5 minutes Lady Bug - 54 minutes Millipede - 4 minutes Ms. Pac-Man - 42 minutes Ms. Pac-Man (Speed-Up Version) - 29 minutes Pac-Man - 48 minutes Pac-Man (Speed-Up Version) - 6 minutes Pac-Man Plus - 4 minutes Pengo - 6 minutes Phoenix - 14 minutes Pinball Action - 10 minutes Pleiads - 8 minutes Scramble - 10 minutes Shao-Lin's Road - 12 minutes Space Invaders - 36 minutes Super Pac-Man - 25 minutes Time Pilot - 10 minutes Xevious - 12 minutes 1942 - 22 minutes Atari 2600 Frogger - 10 minutes Ms. Pac-Man - 8 minutes Game Boy Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad - 7 minutes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan - 18 minutes Game Boy Color Super Pac-Man (played on Ms. Pac-Man: Special Color Edition) - 4 minutes 720° - 16 minutes NES Dragon Spirit: The New Legend - 315 minutes Freedom Force - 13 minutes Kirby's Adventure - 35 minutes Metroid - 302 minutes Xevious - 14 minutes Total Play Time This Week 1,412 minutes (23 hours 32 minutes) Individual System Play Times This Week NES: 679 minutes Arcade: 631 minutes Android: 39 minutes Game Boy: 25 minutes Game Boy Color: 20 minutes Atari 2600: 18 minutes It was a pretty big week for gaming around here, with the household multicade and NES making up the overwhelming majority of the play time. The misses and I are still exploring and getting a feel for all the games on the iCade 60-in-1 board in our multicade, thus the huge list of arcade games with 5 to 10 minutes of play time on them, but at this point I think we're both starting to settle in and find our favorites on it. For me those games are Centipede, Lady Bug, Ms. Pac-Man, Arkanoid, Shao-Lin's Road, Xevious, and 1942; and for the misses it's Donkey Kong, Frogger, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders. There's still a lot more games on that board to explore though, so I wouldn't be surprised if either of us found some new favorites over the next few weeks. On the NES side of things, my wife and I each picked up a new NES game this week and we both spent a whole lot of time playing our respective games. I finally got my hands on a copy of Dragon Spirit: The New Legend, and oh man was it ever worth the wait! I think it took all of about 5 minutes for Dragon Spirit to become my new favorite vertical scrolling shooter on the NES, and though I still haven't beat it after the 5 hours of gameplay time I've put into it, I do get a little farther into the game (I can actually get to the last level now) and my skills do noticeably improve every time I play; which is always a hallmark of a good shmup. I love the fluid control, huge variety of power ups, and the really neat high fantasy storyline that's told through anime style cutscenes between levels. It's just an all around wonderful game for any fan of vertical scrolling shoot 'em ups! The NES game my wife picked up this week was the original Metroid, which neither of us have ever played before, and she's been having an absolute blast with it. She quickly discovered that this was one NES game that it was absolutely necessary to read the manual for before playing in order to know what you're supposed to do and where to go, but after downloading and reading a PDF copy of the manual she's been having a great time spending hours and hours exploring the cavernous underworld of the planet Zebes. Thus far the only complaint she's had about it is how little health you restart with after you die, but that hasn't stopped her from monopolizing our retro gaming TV at every available opportunity since she got Metroid a few days ago. Anyway, that's all for this week!

Not to derail this thread (and feel free to shoot me a PM in response if you'd rather not take the thread further off topic), but as someone who has never owned a classic computer outside of the IBM PC-XT that I grew up with, what are the big selling points of the TI-99/4A over other popular classic computers like the Commodore 64 and Atari 130XE? The C64 and Atari computers seem like they have a larger variety of games available on them, most of which are less expensive than the TI-99/4A versions (not to mention that they don't require a $30-$50 adapter to use an Atari joystick with), and yet the TI-99/4A appears to be massively more popular among the classic computer users who participate in this tracker. So I guess I'm just kind of wondering—as someone who has never owned a classic computer is considering picking one up—what reasons are there to go for a TI-99/4A over a C64 or Atari computer? Aside from the obvious fact that the TI has the competition beat by a mile in the external aesthetics department that is.

What a neat idea for a thread! There's a lot of mornings (about half of them probably) when, after returning from smoking my morning cigarette out on the porch, I come back inside and sit down to play a game. What makes early morning gaming a little different than my usual gaming sessions though is that there are certain criteria I look for a in a "morning game" that are quite a bit different than what I usually look for in a game. For instance, one of my favorite genres of video games is vertical scrolling spaceship shooters; but in the early mornings I just can't play those kind of games because there's always too much flying around on screen for my foggy half awake brain to keep track of. The criteria I look for in a morning game is: Easy starting difficulty, slowly ramping difficulty curve, relaxed game pacing, not too much happening on screen to keep track of, and that the game can be completed in half an hour or less. That said, here's my Top 10 favorite morning games. 10. Pitfall II: Lost Caverns (Atari 2600) This is one of those games that I've played through and beaten so many times that I could almost play it with my eyes closed, which is a good thing since my eyes are usually half closed in the mornings. I know where all the treasures and enemies are, so I can just sort of play this one on autopilot and not really have to worry about running into anything until that final climb up to rescue Quickclaw at the very end. Even then, I've played Pitfall II enough times that I can usually get through the final challenge in two or three tries. It's just an all around nice game to fill the first 20 minutes or so of my day with. 9. Mortal Kombat (Sega Genesis) Fighting games aren't usually what I would consider a relaxing way to start my day, but this old familiar favorite is much slower paced than most fighting games and pretty darn easy on the Normal difficulty level. The special moves and fatalities are also simple to pull off and don't require very precise timing, so this is one of those rare fighting games that I can actually play through and beat on one credit first thing in the morning. 8. Freedom Force (NES) There's nothing like a light gun shooting game to get your arm muscles warmed up and ready for the day ahead, and this one has a great pacing and difficulty curve for first thing in the morning. The music is pretty awesome too, and it scores bonus points for being the only NES game I can think of off the top of my head to actually have blood in it. Freedom Force is just an all around great game for any time of the day, but it's definitely become my favorite "first thing in the morning" light gun game. 7. Space Invaders (Arcade or Atari 2600) These days I often plunk down in front of the household multicade arcade machine for early morning gaming sessions, but for the longest time the Atari 2600 was my go-to gaming system for early morning video game fixes. Regardless of the platform it's on though, Space Invaders is always a great way to start my day. It offers up a good challenge that starts out slow and gradually gets harder as you begin to wake up and your reflexes improve, and… I'm not really sure there's more I can say about this one that everyone doesn't already know. It's Space Invaders! 6. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) In spite of most of my morning gaming sessions occurring on the aforementioned multicade arcade machine, this is one game that I always prefer to play on the Atari 2600 if I'm going to play it first thing in the morning. Why? The arcade version is just way too difficult for me to handle right after waking up, but the ghost AI in the 2600 version is much less devious and the gameplay is more forgiving because of it. Besides, who doesn't love waking up to the sound of "waka waka waka waka"? 5. Super Breakout (Atari 2600) This one is a little faster paced than my usual morning fare, but there's just something so simple and zen like about the very basic gameplay of "bounce the ball off the paddle, break the breaks. Break them all then break a new set of bricks." Super Breakout is a game that I can really zone out and just let my mind wander while playing, so it's well suited to the mental fog of early morning grogginess. This is another one that is on the household multicade, but as with Ms. Pac-Man the arcade version is just way too difficult for me to handle first thing in the morning. Best to stick with the 2600 version. 4. Lady Bug (Arcade or Atari 2600) Another maze game along the lines of Ms. Pac-Man, but I just like this one a little better due to the larger variety of gameplay mechanics, slightly slower pacing, more gradual difficulty curve, bright and colorful graphics, and the inherent charm of playing as a Lady Bug going around munching flowers. It never fails to make me smile and, whether played on the arcade machine or the homebrew Atari 2600 cartridge, Lady Bug is always a great way to start the day. 3. Frogger (Arcade or Atari 2600) Another great morning game regardless of which platform you play it on, but I like the arcade version the best for it's large variety of cheerful little songs that play throughout the game and it's fanciful graphics. No matter what it's played on though, Frogger always starts out slow and simple and takes a good 8 or 10 minutes before the pacing ramps up enough to start giving me a real challenge. Thankfully that's usually about how long it takes me to shake off the early morning grogginess! 2. Adventure (Atari 2600) Come on now, who doesn't love starting off their day by slaying some dragons and saving an entire kingdom from an evil wizard? The third game mode in Adventure, which randomizes the locations of every item in the game, has been a longtime favorite way to start my day. In 15 minutes or less you can go on a high fantasy adventure, solve some basic "find the key" puzzles, get a moderate challenge from trying to locate the sword and battle the dragons guarding the items you need to complete your quest, then finally return the magical chalice to the golden castle where it belongs. What I love most about playing this game first thing in the morning is that no matter how many times you die (I.E. get eaten by a dragon) you can always hit the reset button and try again with all the items right where you left them. There's no real punishment for failure, and that makes it a wonderfully frustration-free way to start your day. 1. Dungeon (Atari 2600) Coming in and number #1 is a homebrew Atari 2600 game that I've started off more days than I can count with, and I can count pretty darn high. Much like Adventure this game sends you on a short quest (15 to 30 minutes on average) and tasks you with completing variety of classic fantasy genre objectives: Rescue a princess, slay a dragon, pull a legendary sword from a stone, battle a black knight, and so on. Dungeon is a marvelous game any time of the day, but what makes it so well suited for playing first thing in the morning is it's turn based combat system. Since you and the creatures you battle on your quest take turns selecting and making attacks (á la Final Fantasy and just about every other JRPG ever made) there is zero pressure to do anything in any sort of time frame, and you can always set the controller down for a few minutes to wander off to the bathroom, make some coffee, go have a cigarette, cook breakfast, or whatever else your morning routine might include. That combined with the randomized location of items, characters, and monsters throughout the game—giving it infinite replay value—and the relatively short length of the game's quest make Dungeon my #1 favorite game to start off my day with.

The more I see it show up in this thread the more I feel like I should really get a TI-99 at some point to check out the games on it. They're about as affordable as classic PCs come, and—if this thread is any indication—seem to have a ton of great games on them.

Lady Bug (Arcade) Donkey Kong Junior (Arcade) Arkanoid (Arcade)

I couldn't agree more! Ever since I started participating in this tracker I've noticed that I always feel more excited to play video games, and that I end up playing a larger variety of games than I used to. I often look back at what I played the previous week and decide what I'm going to play this week based off that, rotating systems and game genres regularly. All the hard work that thegoldenband does on this tracker has really breathed new life into my favorite pastime, giving it some structure and giving me motivation to keep the games I play fresh and varied.

It's been a while since I updated this thread, so here's a look at my newly acquired Centipede themed 60-in-1 bartop arcade machine from http://doxcade.com: And an updated look at the retro gaming center while I'm at it.

As someone who loves their Game Boy Camera and still takes pictures with it regularly, I will be placing an order for this amazing bit of kit on the 1st of next month: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/10/hardware_review_bitboy_lets_you_back_up_your_game_boy_camera_snaps_with_ease The BitBoy is little on the pricey side, but it's by far the best solution ever created for transferring photos from a Game Boy Camera to a modern computer!

Atari 2600, Game Boy, and Game Boy Color for me. There are enormous quantities of great games that can be purchased for $3 to $5 each on all three of those systems. The NES is actually pretty budget friendly too for the most part, with the majority games outside of the mainstay first-party Nintendo franchises (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, Punch-Out!!, etc.) and some of the big name third-party ones (Mega Man, Contra, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, etc.) going for around $5 to $10 these days. The most popular NES games, such as ones in the franchises I just mentioned, have gotten a bit pricey at $20 to $30 on average; but there's still dozens if not hundreds of great quality lesser known titles to be found on the old gray toaster.

Hey there everyone! Those of you who have been following my posts in the Arcade and Pinball section of the AtariAge.com forums may have noticed that since last July I have been on a bit of a quest to find a custom arcade cabinet maker willing to build my "dream machine". What I was looking for was a bartop sized recreation of a Centipede arcade cabinet, with an LCD monitor, iCade 60-in-1 board installed, backlit marquee, authentic looking bezel art, and joystick + trackball controls. What followed was several months of shopping around online, contacting various websites that specialized in making scratch-built bartop arcade machines. I must have contacted nearly a dozen different sites, and all of them quoted me prices of anywhere from $800 to $1,200 before shipping costs. All but one that is. When I contacted http://doxcade.com and told them what I was looking for, the price I was quoted was an astonishingly affordable $440 + $35 shipping to Minnesota. Being a disabled person living on a fixed income all the other prices I was quoted were way out of my price range, but with a little careful budgeting this was one that I could definitely swing. While DoxCade didn't have any renown in the arcade machine community, and I couldn't find a single review of their products anywhere online, I decided to roll the dice on them anyway since if worst came worst the purchase would be covered under PayPal's buyer protection policy. Approximately one month later, and after no small amount of picky feedback and change requests regarding the color choices for the base, controls, and marquee on my part (I really was probably the pickiest and most detail obsessed buyer that this poor craftsman had ever had to deal with, to the point that he actually ended up selling the Centipede machine he built for me on eBay and made me a second entirely new one built to my exact specifications free of charge. What a saint!), this arrived on my doorstep: So how did this budget priced custom arcade machine turn out? Was it worth the money? To find out I'm going to be evaluating on five different factors: Appearance, Build Quality, Controls, Games, and Overall Value. That said, let's get started! Appearance As you can see from the pictures above, it's a lovely looking bartop that is strikingly similar in aesthetics to the original Centipede cabinet. There hasn't been a single person I've shown it to so far who didn't instantly recognize it as a Centipede arcade machine after one look at the side art, and a good number of those people definitely were not people that anyone would consider a "gamer". When your grandma could tell what arcade cabinet it's styled after just by glancing at it that's always a good indicator of authenticity. Bigger fans of arcade games will notice some inaccuracy in the control panel layout, particularly in the location of the trackball, but that was just the price of trying to squeeze a trackball into the control panel of a 23" tall bartop. You can't tell from the outside, but the trackball mounting plate underneath the control panel artwork takes up the entire panel to the right of the three fire buttons. Speaking of artwork, all the artwork used for the sides, marquee, bezel, and control panel looks fantastic. It's all very high resolution, extremely authentic looking, and printed on some seriously thick and heavy duty vinyl. The marquee is well lit by a strip of white LED lights behind it, and in low light the whole thing just lights up like a Christmas tree. The picture above that was taken in the dark really doesn't do justice, as it looks much brighter and more vibrant in real life. The back of the cabinet is also very aesthetically pleasing, with a neat little Pac-Man style cutout and dots for ventilation, and the black paint covering every part of the cabinet that doesn't have vinyl artwork on it was spread very evenly, with no detectable brush strokes, missed spots, or pooling. All in all I'm really pleased with this cabinet in the Appearance category. No complaints whatsoever. Build Quality Weighing in at 35 lbs. and constructed entirely from 1/2" MDF, this thing feels rock solid! There are four heavy duty rubber feet on the bottom of the cabinet that prevent it from moving even a millimeter no matter how aggressive you get with the joystick, and when your hands are resting on the control panel it really does feel like an honest to goodness arcade machine. I have no concerns whatsoever about how well this machine is going to hold up to the long years of daily use ahead of it, and I really like how the whole cabinet was designed to be user serviceable in the event that any of the electronic components ever need replacing. Accessing the joystick and button microswitches is as simple as unscrewing the two phillips head screws on the top of the control panel and lifting a panel up, and getting at the LCD monitor, JAMMA board, power supply, and other electronic components can be done by removing the two screws on each side of the cabinet then sliding the entire back panel of the cabinet out. The mono speaker and LED strip backlighting the marquee can be accessed by unscrewing the three screws on top of the cabinet, lifting off the marquee retaining bracket, then sliding out the acrylic marquee. The whole cabinet seems to have been designed with easy long term maintenance in mind, which is a very good thing in my book. The only fault I could really find with the build quality is that there could have been a little more attention to detail in certain areas when the cabinet was assembled. When it first arrived in the mail the LCD monitor was about 1/4" off center and the marquee was aligned crookedly, but fortunately both of those were very quick and easy fixes using nothing more than a phillips head screwdriver. All it took was loosening a few screws, straightening out the marquee and monitor by hand, then tightening the screws back down. The only alignment issue I found that couldn't be fixed was that the front black baseboard of the cabinet seems to have not been cut to quite right height, since there a slightly uneven 1/8" gap between the top of the baseboard and the bottom of the control panel. It's not a major aesthetic issue to me, and it doesn't affect the function of the cabinet at all, but it is something that I do think could have been avoided with a little more attention to detail. Another detail that's off by about 1/8" is the centering of the vinyl artwork on the control panel. It's not very noticeable unless you look at the positioning of the 1 Player and 2 Player Start button graphics or the locations of the two screws securing the control panel to the cabinet base, but a keen eye will notice that the vinyl was applied about 1/8" left of center. Close examination also reveals a slightly uneven cut on the edges of the side art vinyls that is a little jagged in a couple spots, and a very small chunk broken out of one of the corners of the marquee retaining bracket on top of the cabinet. In spite of the small handful of cosmetic flaws, I do think the overall Build Quality of the cabinet is very solid and well thought out. I have no doubt that it will last a lifetime of use. Controls Second only to the games themselves, one of the most important aspects (for me at least) of playing an arcade game is the quality of the joystick, buttons, and—in this case—the trackball that I'm playing them with. Trying to play a game like Ms. Pac-Man, which was designed for a 4-way joystick, with a ultra sensitive 8-way Japanese joystick designed for fighting games can be the worst kind of exercise in frustration; and the light weight button microswitches popular among fighting game enthusiasts these days just don't have the same feel as the stiffer, more heavy duty microswitches that anyone who has played the original 1980's arcade games that this cabinet runs might remember. With that in mind, I am pleased to report that DoxCade selected some really fantastic and period-appropriate hardware for the controls of this cabinet! The joystick is a Holland Computer brand bat top joystick that features a pleasantly stiff tensioning spring, which makes it feel more like one of the classic 1908's Wico brand leaf spring joysticks than any modern microswitch equipped joystick. It is an 8-way microswitch joystick, but the heavy spring inside combined with the square shape of the actuator makes it very difficult to accidentally activate the diagonals when playing a 4-way game like Ms. Pac-Man or Frogger. I think this joystick was a perfect choice for the cabinet, giving it 8-way functionality with a distinctly 4-way feel in the games that demand it. The three fire buttons also feature some very robust springs and microswitches in them, which may put a little wear and tear on your finger muscles in games like Xevious and 1942 that require constant rapid button pressing, but they do give the system the kind of heavy duty 1980's arcade machine feel that I personally find very enjoyable. Lastly, the trackball works magnificently! It is a 1.75" trackball, so those accustomed to the 2.25" trackballs that most arcade machines will notice it's little smaller than usual, but it does fit the cabinet nicely, is beautifully flush mounted on the control panel, and is very precise and comfortable to use. Once I got used to playing Centipede and Millipede with this trackball I consistently started nearly doubling my previous high scores, and after a few weeks with it don't think I could ever go back to playing those games with a joystick again. I'd also like to add that the trackball works extremely well in place of a spinner for Arkanoid and Super Breakout, providing the kind of analog control sensitivity that those games really need to be played well. I did have an issue with the ring securing the trackball on top of the control panel rubbing against the ball and preventing it from spinning freely when I first received the cabinet, but the ring was easily removed with a little clockwise twist and all I had to do from there was take a small round hobby file and shave off a millimeter or so of material around the inside lip of the ring to prevent it from rubbing against the ball. After that the ball spun smooth as silk, and has been completely problem free ever since. All things considered I have been very pleased with the controls! The joystick and buttons chosen feel just perfect to me, the trackball has been an absolute joy to use after doing that little alteration to the retaining ring, and they're all spaced out very nicely on the control on the control panel and comfortable to use for any length of time. Games And now we come to the most important thing of all: The games! All the aesthetics, build quality, and control choices in the world don't matter one bit of the games in the cabinet aren't good, and I can happily say that all but a handful of the games on the iCade 60-in-1 JAMMA board inside this machine look, sound, and play flawlessly. To make things even better, the 17" vertical LCD monitor in the cabinet displays them beautifully and gives every game the kind of sharp, clean appearance that these classics deserve to truly do them justice. All the big vertical screen arcade classics are here, including Centipede, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior, Frogger, Space Invaders, Galaga, and many many more. If you'd like to see everything included on it, you can find the full list of games included on the board in the spoiler tag below: While I haven't played every single game on the board, I have played the vast majority and almost all of them—including all of my personal favorites—are perfectly accurate to the arcade originals. The only games I have found thus far that had any issues with them were Millipede, Gyruss, Gun Smoke, Super Cobra, Scramble, 1943, and 1943 Kai. In all of those games the graphics and gameplay are perfect, but the sound is overly loud and distorted to varying degrees depending on the game. Some of the games like Millipede and 1943 are only slightly too loud and distorted just a little in the sound department, making them still very playable without irritation, while others like Gun Smoke and Scramble have their sound so loud and distorted that you'll be hard pressed to play them for more than 30 seconds without getting an earache. This hasn't really been an issue for me, since all the games I really like to play are perfect, but it could be an issue for someone who is a huge fan of one of the few games on the board affected by audio problems. I'd also like to mention that I really enjoy the clean, bright, and easy to navigate menu system for selecting games. It's extremely intuitive to use, requires no setup at all, is very aesthetically pleasing, and I like how the board cycles through demos of all the games when not in use. If you do want to tweak and tune the dip switch settings for any of the games on the board all you have to do is power off the cabinet then power it back on while holding down the black button on the back of the cabinet closest to the power switch to start the board up in test mode, then cycle through the games and dip switch settings to configure them however you like. By default the board comes with all the dip switches turned off, but even as someone who has never configured anything like this before it was very easy for me to look up the dip switch settings for every included game online and set them to their original factory defaults. The last point worth mentioning about the board is that it even when the machine is turned off it does save your high scores in every game I've played on it. The only catch is that if you entered your initials for the score those will not be saved. This isn't a big deal to me since the only people who are going to be using this machine are myself and my wife, and we both keep physical pen and paper copies of our high score lists, but it could be an issue for someone who plans on having several different people using their machine and turning the power off regularly. Factoring all of these points together, I can safely say that I'm very happy with the iCade 60-in-1 board. It plays all the games that I personally enjoy absolutely perfectly, has an aesthetically pleasing and easy to use interface, and it's a tremendously affordable solution for someone who doesn't want to invest in a MAME computer setup or deal with the all the hassles inherent to configuring MAME and it's various front end options just to play some classic 80's arcade games with a clean and attractive user interface. Which brings me to… Overall Value When I sit back and consider everything about my custom commissioned Centipede cabinet from http://doxcade.com, I can't help but feel like I got an incredibly good deal for my money. For half the price or less of what every other custom arcade machine builder out there was quoting me I got a machine that is a beautiful bartop sized recreation of an original Centipede cabinet, built like a tank, and just an absolute joy to play all the arcade games that I like the most on. There were a few niggling details with it when it first arrived that needed some minor tweaking to sort out, but the very user serviceable nature of the cabinet's design made those fixes simple and easy to perform. Once those were taken care of I was very happy with it and would absolutely recommend DoxCade.com for anyone looking to add a bartop sized arcade cabinet to their home gaming center without having to spend a small fortune in the process. You may notice a few minor cosmetic imperfections here and there, but keeping in mind the price and the fact that these are handmade cabinets being built one at a time from scratch and not factory production units I think a couple tiny cosmetic flaws are perfectly acceptable, and the machine as a whole is sure to provide you with many long years of retro gaming enjoyment.

This week was a slower one for our household, partially due to real life obligations and partially due to the lack of auto-fire in the arcade versions of Xevious and 1942. I'm really enjoying those two games on the new 60-in-1 arcade machine, but man do they ever wear your fingers out! Ineligible The Pinball Arcade (Android) - 81 minutes Arcade Arkanoid - 26 minutes Centipede - 42 minutes Donkey Kong - 6 minutes Frogger - 18 minutes Galaga - 5 minutes Ms. Pac-Man - 20 minutes Ms. Pac-Man (Speed-Up Version) - 11 minutes Shao-Lin's Road - 21 minutes Space Invaders - 11 minutes Xevious - 66 minutes 1942 - 96 minutes 1943: The Battle of Midway - 13 minutes 1943 Kai: Midway Kaisen - 6 minutes Atari 2600 Dungeon - 23 minutes Frogger - 49 minutes Missile Command - 27 minutes Moon Patrol - 44 minutes Space Invaders - 14 minutes Game Boy Space Invaders - 8 minutes Game Boy Color Frogger - 9 minutes Project S-11 - 20 minutes NES Freedom Force - 43 minutes Kirby's Adventure - 152 minutes Mechanized Attack - 26 minutes Operation Wolf - 33 minutes Total Play Time This Week 870 minutes (14 hours 30 minutes) Individual System Play Times This Week Arcade: 341 minutes NES: 254 minutes Atari 2600: 157 minutes Android: 81 minutes Game Boy Color: 29 minutes Game Boy: 8 minutes For my gaming time this week, most of it was spent playing old arcade favorites on the household's recently acquired arcade machine. I've also been exploring some new games on it that I had never played before getting this machine, like Capcom's classic 1942. I spent a little time with the two different versions of 1943 as well, but sadly they're two of the handful of games on the iCade 60-in-1 board that suffer from poor sound quality and really grate on the ears. I'm not too disappointed though, since I prefer the simplicity of 1942 anyway. The Atari 2600 also got a fair bit of love this week, with the wife and I taking turns playing Frogger, Missile Command, and Moon Patrol. The real surprise of the week was just how much attention the NES got! After letting it gather dust for the better part of a year, both the misses and I have been playing a fair bit of NES games lately. For my part I had an awesome time with the NES Zapper, blasting terrorists, enemy soldiers, and robots (as well as the occasional unintentional civilian ) in Freedom Force, Operation Wolf, and Mechanized attack. I really enjoy all three of those games, from the branching paths and smooth pacing of Mechanized Attack to the trigger-finger-crippling intensity of Operation Wolf; though Freedom Force is still by far my favorite. It's a game that feels like it was really designed for the "one shot at a time" NES Zapper, rather than a port of an arcade game that was originally meant to be played with a full-auto light gun. For my wife's part in things, she decided to play through Kirby's Adventure again and explore every inch of every stage until she finds all the secret areas and gets 100% completion. It could take her a while, but I know she'll be able to pull it off. That's all for this week! Great job on the tracker this week everyone, there's some serious variety up there!

Wow! Thanks for all the great replies so far everyone! This morning I ended up cashing in a few eBay Bucks I had in reserve to pick up Dragon Spirit for the NES (based on Mark from Classic Game Room's review of it) and 1942 for the Game Boy Color, because I love playing 1942 on my 60-in-1 arcade machine being able to play a pretty accurate port of it on the go sounded like way too much fun. But to get to your replies... It does look like a great game! I have the arcade version of 1943 on my 60-in-1 multicade but I haven't spent much time with it due to it being one of those handful of games on the board where the sound is screamingly loud and completely distorted, plus the handful of times I did play it I never managed to live more than 30 seconds or so. The NES version looks to be much more my speed, and I'll definitely have to pick up a copy at some point. I haven't heard of that one before, so I'll have to check it out. Based on some screenshots it looks pretty similar to Twin Cobra, which is another one I've been meaning to try but haven't been able to decide on whether to get the NES or Genesis version. I've been waiting for enough excuses to pile up to convince me to invest in a NES to Famicom adapter, and TwinBee is pretty high up there on the list (along with Yie Ar Kung-Fu). I've been hoping to track down a copy of Pop'n TwinBee for the Game Boy first to try it out the gameplay mechanics on the small screen before dropping the cash on a NES to Famicom adapter, but that's one game that has proven pretty tricky to get ahold of. Nevertheless, I do kind of owe it to myself to try some version of TwinBee in the not too distant future. If I ever happen to get my hands on a TG-16 then I'll definitely have to check that one out. Thanks for the recommendation! Thanks for reminding me of the 10th game that should have been on my list above! I do own a ColecoVision Flashback and I absolutely love Mecha-8 on it! I've played through it a good 5 or 6 times already and it's always a joy to play every time. The shooting action and difficulty level feels just right to me, and the cutscenes used to tell the story are really neat too. Mecha-8 would be the new #9 if I was to re-write my list.

Digital stuff no, ridiculous stuff yes. I'm one of those weirdos who refuses to pay money for any digital games, partially because I like to collect physical media and partially because there's no way to resell a digital game if I decide that I don't like it or wouldn't want to play through it again after the first time. I'll definitely have to give Fire Shark a look, since I recall Mark on Classic Game Room giving it high praise for it's similarity to Truxton; which I did find to be a pretty enjoyable game overall, even if the last stage was insanely frustrating to beat. And thanks for the Bullet Heaven YouTube channel recommendation! I had looked through there back when it was still on Series 6 but never subscribed since the videos rarely say what system the games are for and whether or not they're imports for normally region locked systems in title, which was a little annoying. I don't mind picking up imports for region free systems like the Game Boy/Color/Advance, or the Saturn if I get another one at some point (since it's so easy to bypass region locking with an Action Replay cart), but I'm not down for buying foreign systems or getting one of my systems modded just to bypass region encoding for a few games. Nevertheless, I'll still take a look at Bullet Heaven Series 7 and see if anything jumps out at me.

Hey there everyone. Of all the game genres out there, one of my absolute favorites is vertically scrolling shoot 'em ups (AKA "shmups"). While there's no shortage of websites dedicated to this genre of game, I'm in a bit of an odd spot when it comes to finding new shmups to try out because I seem to have some pretty peculiar preferences when in regards to these type of games. You see, the kind of shmups I enjoy the most are vertical scrolling ones with simple gameplay mechanics, relatively low difficulty, and not too much happening on the screen at once; which is pretty much the exact opposite of what most shmup fans look for in a game. To give you an idea of what I mean, here's a current list of my Top 9 (because I have yet to find 10 that I really like ) favorite vertical scrolling shmups: 9. Star Soldier (NES) 8. Truxton (Genesis) 7. Iridion II (Game Boy Advance) 6. Project S-11 (Game Boy Color) 5. River Raid (Atari 2600) 4. 1942 (Arcade & NES) 3. Raiden Trad (Genesis) 2. Xevious (Arcade & NES) 1. Solar Striker (Game Boy) I love all of those games for their relatively low difficulty curve, simple and approachable power-up mechanics (if they have any at power-ups at all), and the fact that none of them almost ever clutter up the screen with too many enemies/bullets/power-ups/hazards flying around at once. I've tried playing lots of vertical scrolling shmups that get almost universal critical acclaim, such as Raidant Silvergun (Saturn), M.U.S.H.A. (Genesis), Space Megaforce (SNES), Zanac (NES), and Ikaruga (GameCube) and found all them to be either too "busy" on screen to keep track of what is happening or just plain too difficult to have fun playing them. With that in mind, I'm starting to get a little tired of wasting boatloads of money on critically acclaimed shumps that end up being not quite my cup of tea and having to resell them shortly after purchase; so I'm hoping that the fine folks here at AtariAge might be able to recommend me some simplier vertical scrolling shmups that could be a little more to my liking. For reference, the systems that I currently own are an Atari 2600, NES, Genesis, PS1, Wii, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance SP; though I'm completely open to the idea of purchasing other systems at some point if there are lots of games I might enjoy on them. Any suggestions?

I play a pretty wide variety of games across a dozen or more systems made from 1978 up until now, but I think the type of games I enjoy most can all be lumped into one easily defined category: Arcade Style Games. Most of my favorite games are all the kind of games that you might find in an arcade. They're the sort of games that you can pick up, play for a few minutes, enjoy some fun reflexive challenges, then move on to something else. Games that are easy to learn but difficult to master, and designed to munch quarters by the handful. For this reason my all time favorite home consoles are the Atari 2600 and Sega Genesis, because both feature innumerable quantities of these arcade style games across an enormous range of sub-genres. From maze games like Ms. Pac-Man to vertical or horizontally scrolling shooters like Thunder Force III and River Raid, fixed shooters like Centipede and Millipede, racing games like Pole Position and OutRun, fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II, beat 'em ups like Golden Axe II and Kung-Fu Master, and all kinds of other odd ball arcade style games like Frogger and Super Breakout. The one sub-genre of arcade style gaming that the Atari 2600 and Sega Genesis are somewhat lacking in though happens to be one of my favorite type of games: Light gun shooters. For those type of games I like the PS1, Wii, and NES, which give you access to all kinds of wonderful light gun shooters like Area 51, Crypt Killer, Time Crisis, House of the Dead 2 & 3, Freedom Force, Hogan's Alley, and many more. I'm pretty partial to the PS1 for these kind of games due to it's compatibility with the Nyko Super Cobra light gun (an utterly amazing light gun that feels like it was straight out of a real arcade cabinet, complete with force feedback vibration and LED lights) but with the aid of a Nyko Perfect Shot pistol grip attachment for the Wii remote there is still a lot of fun to be had on the Wii if you like light gun shooters. Arcade style games of all kinds are my real love when it comes to gaming.