Budget Atari and Capcom arcade cabinets to see release this fall!

[Flojomojo]

For comparison, here is the Ultimarc Spin-Trak that is installed on one of my cabinet's swappable control panels. Smooth as butter, with adjustable inertia weight. To be fair though, this thing cost me about $85 (CDN). You get what you pay for, I suppose. Apologies in advance for the gross looking dust that is illuminated by the camera light.

 

I posted this to Imgur so we don't have to download a 45MB file to see what you mean. Also so we don't burn up AtariAge's network bandwidth.

 

https://imgur.com/a/blXHtW5

That does look to be a nicely made control.

 

I would very much appreciate a Knob Feel type review of these units. Short and to the point, if you please.

[negative1]

a better galaga promo:

 

 

later

-1

[John Stamos Mullet]

 

They probably focused more on "can we get this cheap dial to make stuff move on the screen?" than they did "can we make this cheap dial deliver a serviceable game experience?"

THIS.

 

they cut so many corners on these things they nearly a perfect circle.

[John Stamos Mullet]

Assuming the dial diameter is similar to the arcade I think that means it's moving 4x faster than the arcade. Might help since this spinner is stiffer. The spinner reversing at high speed could be a software problem, hard to say. Lowering sensitivity in the emulator could fix that. Hardware or software it's a bug that should be fixed.

It's a DPI problem. The encoder for that wheel is reading changes at a slower DPI rate than the software (MAME) is expecting. This is typical of cheap spinners/trackballs that aren't factory tuned to the software they are being implemented for. If they did, in fact, use MAME the emulator for these roms - it could be adjusted in the trackball and spinner sensitivity settings, per game. But because these are OS locked out, no dice.

[negative1]

It's a DPI problem. The encoder for that wheel is reading changes at a slower DPI rate than the software (MAME) is expecting.

This is typical of cheap spinners/trackballs that aren't factory tuned to the software they are being implemented for.

If they did, in fact, use MAME the emulator for these roms - it could be adjusted in the trackball and spinner sensitivity settings, per game.

But because these are OS locked out, no dice.

i'm not too up on pandora's box,

but if this is accurate:

https://www.arcade-projects.com/forums/index.php?thread/6021-pandoras-box-any-way-to-edit-default-emulator/

 

"the emulators PB is using:

FBA 2.97.08

FBA 2.97.36

FBA 2.97.40

FBA 2.97.42

xmame sdl 0.106"

 

i think it depends on which version of pandoras box being used.

 

later

-1

[negative1]

That was direct from the factory; I didn't touch it, although I should have.

 

 

 

Thank you.

On the very first board (the circle), one 360 degree turn makes the player travel 1 1/3 times around. Also, you can't spin it too fast, otherwise the signals will confuse it and the player will travel the opposite direction.

here's another video of a fix:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdRPEjiazeo

 

later

-1

[mr_me]

An arcade tempest spinner only has a resolution of 72 points per revolution. The arcade 1up spinner is likely much higher. More than likely the old tempest program is too slow to process pulses given too quickly. The emulation software compensates for higher resolution spinners and feeds it to the old atari program at a lower rate. To my eyes, the movement in that last video is much too fast.

[F34R]

That was direct from the factory; I didn't touch it, although I should have.

 

 

 

Thank you.

On the very first board (the circle), one 360 degree turn makes the player travel 1 1/3 times around. Also, you can't spin it too fast, otherwise the signals will confuse it and the player will travel the opposite direction.

Oh goodness!! My son when he was 12 did a better first time job than that. I would have to clean it up lol.

[negative1]

here's a little more footage of galaga, could be some delay lag in the game,

however, its one handed play.

 

unfortunately no footage of galaxian has shown up yet:

 

later

-1

[mckafka99]

The more 'reviews' I see/read re: the 12-in-1, the more convinced that either I just got more-or-less lucky or my expectations and play style for these games is just different from many others. It's not as though there weren't/aren't a few issues which I'd prefer weren't present, but at the end of the day, I am really enjoying my cab. I've seen/played all of these games since their beginnings in the arcade (except Lunar Lander which I have played in an arcade, just not right when it came out and Liberator which I never saw in an arcade). I'm no 'expert' player for these game, but for a lot of them, I'm no slouch either and apart from Quantum, my game play experience on this cab has definitely been very positive. Here are my notes/observations:

 

Packaging - Pre-ordered from Best Buy. Arrived on the 16th with no issues/no damage. As others have commented, yes, the packaging is fairly standard for what you would find with other 'furniture' (desks/bookstands/entertainment centers) one might purchase from Walmart/Target, etc. The contents were packed tightly in separate boxes, except the two side panels which were wrapped together. Styrofoam blocks filled what small extra space was in the box. Ideally, perhaps it could have been a bit better, but it wasn't terrible either. That being said, as I believe someone else suggested, it may be better to get this in person just to eliminate the risk of shipping.

 

Assembly - Really easy/straight forward. From box opening to assembled unit - easily under an hour. One issue I did have; one set of holes on the marquee piece of wood were drilled on the wrong edge. Easily fixed of course, but I wasn't psyched about having to pre-drill additional holes on the correct edge. The 'wood' these are made of is ok, but definitely not something one should make a habit of altering if it can be avoided. I was slow and careful and had no issues but would have preferred not to have had to drill into these edges.

 

Display - Overall, pretty good. I haven't noticed any viewing angle issues. However, the Centipede screen seems to sit just a very small amount too high; i.e., the score seems to be a smidge higher than it should be and for the Millipede screen, the left edge seems to be a sliver cut-off. It doesn't affect game play but it is a tad annoying when I notice it. These two items are annoyances that I wish weren't present but I don't really notice them unless I make a point of looking at them and they absolutely have no affect on my game play experience.

 

Audio - Seems decent enough to me. (Edit - I forgot to include on my initial write up that I also do hear the very, very slight audio lag that others have reported. I only tend to really notice it in Asteroids (fire button press and the 'pew-pew' sound are off a tiny bit) when I notice it at all.) I think I may hear a few quality issues once in a while, but nothing so drastic as to alter my experience

 

Cab - Seems sturdy enough. I have it on a carpet in my office. No balance issues. For my use, it will probably hold up ok. I dont have scratches or worn places yet, though given what others have experienced, I am thinking I should probably still reach out to Arcade1Up for the protective control cover. I love the artwork on all the panels. Though I wish the control panel had interesting artwork, I also dont mind the simple black backgroud it has.

 

Controls

- Buttons - I like them and they work perfectly fine for me. They are 'clicky' but I tend to like them that way, at least these are not to a degree that would bother me. The tension on them is fine for me and my game play style

 

- Trak-Ball - I have had no issues with me and it works as good (for me) as any Trak-Ball I ever encountered in an arcade. It's size/sensitivity works just fine for my style (with the exception of Quantum). I have never liked 'super-rolly track balls in an arcade as they always resulted in too much sensitivity for me. There is fine line (for me) between a track ball that is too tight (little to no free roll) and a really 'loose' track ball (spin it hard and it rolls forever). The track ball on my unit is just fine.

 

- Spinner - Yes, like everyone else, this is my biggest disappointment on the unit. The 'clicky' spinner thing is just not something I like and it really is a shame they didn't do a better job with this. That being said, despite a # of reviews saying that Tempest and Major Havoc were unplayable, that was not my experience. Both games were definitely playable; although it did require a more 'heavy-handed'/'ham-fisted' style than I liked. More on the spinner below

 

Gameplay

Centipede/Millipede - Nothing off as far as I could tell (except Millipede screen noted above). I've been playing these since they first arrived on the scene in the eighties and while I was never an expert on either, my scores on this cab are matching what I am used to being able to pull off. For these games, I prefer to use 'finger-tip' control when possible (as opposed to 'palm' control). I rarely ever found myself wanting to try a full 'fast-palm-roll' in the arcade so that element doesn't tend to factor in to how I play. Once in a while I do encounter a situation where I wish the response/speed on this track ball was a little faster, but generally speaking, it simply doesn't factor in or ruin any gaming experience. In the arcades, I encountered plenty of terrible trackballs; the trackball with my cab is far better than many of them. Room for improvement, sure, but mine works perfectly fine.

 

Quantum - Despite never being any good at this game, I always loved me some Quantum. I consider myself lucky to have actually been able to see and play it when it came out. However, as has been noted in other reviews, the software settings for this game are just off for the trackball; the sensitivity is just too low. Quantum is difficult with a normal and overly sensitive trackball but in this cab, it is difficult because it is not sensitive enough. One needs to be able to move the 'probe' faster with less effort than is currently required. The game is playable, it just requires a more rough approach to the game play which is not a good thing for the type of game this is. I keep hoping that there is some 'secret' button combination that someone will discover that will access to the control settings. (Edit - since my initial write up I have been playing this more and I am not sure if it is just me getting used to the response that does exists in this game for the trackball or if there is some chance that the more I play games with the trackball, the more it is 'loosening up' just a bit and getting a little bit more responsive, kind of like getting 'broken in'. This game is getting a bit more playable for me.)

 

Crystal Castles - Always liked this game in the arcade, works just as well now (for me) in this cab. And for me, the trackball in the cab (combined with my preference for 'finger-tip-control') allows for better control of moving around on the screens in this game.

 

Missile Command - I wasn't ever all that good at this game but I have seen really good players before and will concede that for this game, a faster/smoother trackball would be better. As I have no great expectations for myself when I play this game, the trackball is decent enough for me to enjoy playing this game. (Edit - Since my initial write up I have played this some more, and while I was never really any good at this, I found myself getting better at this game just a little bit and seeming to experience a little bit better action with the trackball than initially {see Quantum comment}).

 

Asteroids/Asteroids Deluxe/Gravitar/Lunar Lander - Games work/play just fine and my experience and scoring is the same as I had in the arcades. For Asteroids/ Asteroids/Gravitar, yes, the button placements are a bit different than the arcade originals, but they are not so different that they impact anything (for me). For Lunar Lander, despite the controls being different from the arcade, I actually prefer being able to play this game with the 'Asteroids' button setup. I love these games and they play great for me on this cab.

 

Tempest - So, as noted above, the spinner has issues that does affect the gameplay. As Tempest is my favorite game of all time, this spinner has been a real disappointment. Out of the box, I could still enjoy Tempest with this spinner (it wasn't unplayable) but it did knock it down a bit. However, I applied the '#6 washer/sliver of black tape' mod along with a little bit of silicone spray and Tempest gameplay for me is now really good (though still not perfect of course). See below:

 

(

)

 

Similar to the trackball, my style for playing Tempest never requires being able to launch the spinner into an 'endless spin'. Quick short, fast movement over short distances (especially between a given track and those on the left and right of it); yes, an absolute must. And yes, I would absolutely prefer a smooth spin. But for less than 10 minutes, a tiny piece of black tape and 2 small #6 washers, it is possible to make this spinner give a much improved gaming experience, one that I can live with.

 

Major Havoc - Using the spinner instead of a roller is a great change for this game (to me). With the un-modded spinner, with the already mentioned caveats in place, I still found this game quite playable. With the modded spinner, it's even better.

 

Liberator - The one game I have yet to put through the paces. As I have never really played this game before, I dont know what to expect.

 

 

Summary - I think it is too bad that so many people are having some quality issues with these units as my experience has definitely been a good/positive one. Hopefully Arcade1Up is paying attention to some of these issues and works to get them sorted out for future releases. I would definitely recommend to seek these out locally, try them out and see if they work for you and not be quickly put off by some of the negative reviews and comments that are circulating. Yes, a RaspPi, other homespun/purchased components and some leg work could get you something better, maybe for a little cheaper, but for the little effort required to get to the end goal of playing these games (properly licensed) with an arcade like experience (in a cab with some nice artwork), I have no regrets with spending the $$ on one of these. I'm also looking forward to see what AtGames has up their sleeves and look forward to giving their cabinet a spin.

[atarian63]

An arcade tempest spinner only has a resolution of 72 points per revolution. The arcade 1up spinner is likely much higher. More than likely the old tempest program is too slow to process pulses given too quickly. The emulation software compensates for higher resolution spinners and feeds it to the old atari program at a lower rate. To my eyes, the movement in that last video is much too fast.

looks a bit slow to me

[mr_me]

looks a bit slow to me

We already have confirmation that it's about 4x faster. The arcade1up tempest travels about 19 level one spaces per revolution compared to five on an original arcade tempest. If the emulator sensitivity setting is left at 100% that would mean the arcade1up spinner has about 300 points per revolution. A turbotwist spinner has 1200 ppr, overkill for these old games. Edited October 22, 2018 by mr_me

[negative1]

looks like theres more screen issues, and glitches.

 

never seen sprites that become semi transparent before:

 

 

 

later

-1

[negative1]

the first short review of galaga, no sign of galaxian yet:

 

 

later

-1

[NE146]

OK! Well I went to Walmart and they had a Centipede on display

 

So I gave it a shot and was able to finally have my own opinion:

 

1. The trackball as been said, is cheap. It doesn't glide smoothly and kind of gave me the feeling like something like a piece of cardboard is scraping it underneath. That's obviously not the case but I'm just trying to describe the "feel" it gave me. Once you let go of it, your dude stops moving. So rolling smoothly across the screen to spray a wall in Missile Command is harder as you end up doing halting movement, with a hard stop after each roll. Ditto for chasing that last Centipede head on the bottom of the screen. You can roll it really hard and get some kind of residual movement, but it's not exactly ideal.

 

2. The response on the unit I tried was lacking.. it'd be ok for a lot of the game, but every now and then it wouldn't roll where I wanted. This was easily reproducible.. here I am just on the menu, simply trying to move upward with as consistent movement as I could. It's a 30 second video but you can especially see the lack of response at the 0:18 mark and above where it simply doesn't move. This obviously manifests itself in the games pretty annoyingly.

 

 

Now.. all that aside, I WAS able to have a relatively enjoyable game of Centipede and Millipede! Missile Command was just "ok".. as you really had to do a lot of rolls to get to where you needed to get to across the screen. I didn't try Crystal Castles.

 

Centipede was the only one I was looking to buy, but they only had Asteroids for sale, so it made my decision whether to buy easy, and I went home without one. . But yeah I don't know.. after experiencing it myself I'd have to say my outlook on it is "iffy" right now. If they improve the gameplay with the trackball hardware I'd be all over it.. cheap cab & rubbed out stickers and all. It's all about the gameplay for me and in that respect it just fell short of what I wanted, which is simply good trackball control that brought that aspect of the real arcade games home on the cheap. Now that said.. it wasn't exactly super "BAD" either! I did enjoy playing it for what it was worth. On a scale of 1-100 looking purely at Gameplay, I'll have to give this a score of 75%. Fix the trackball, and it's a no-brainer.

[negative1]

OK! Well I went to Walmart and they had a Centipede on display

 

Now.. all that aside, I WAS able to have a relatively enjoyable game of Centipede and Millipede! Missile Command was just "ok".. as you really had to do a lot of rolls to get to where you needed to get to across the screen. I didn't try Crystal Castles.

 

Centipede was the only one I was looking to buy, but they only had Asteroids for sale, so it made my decision whether to buy easy, and I went home without one. . But yeah I don't know.. after experiencing it myself I'd have to say my outlook on it is "iffy" right now. If they improve the gameplay with the trackball hardware I'd be all over it.. cheap cab & rubbed out stickers and all. It's all about the gameplay for me and in that respect it just fell short of what I wanted, which is simply good trackball control that brought that aspect of the real arcade games home on the cheap. Now that said.. it wasn't exactly super "BAD" either! I did enjoy playing it for what it was worth. On a scale of 1-100 looking purely at Gameplay, I'll have to give this a score of 75%. Fix the trackball, and it's a no-brainer.

thanks for the video, and thoughts.

 

i wish other walmarts would actually let you play games,

whats the point of putting a galaga out there, and covering up the controls. dumb.

 

i don't think there's a way to fix the gameplay, period. i think it's hard coded into the encoder and

the software is reading the values.

 

 

here's what the true measure is :

 

Trackball Games: Game Name, Notes

Trackball Hardware

Trackball	resolution	Notes
Happ 2.25 inch trackball	149.2 (no wear)	2.25 inch ball, 0.362 inch roller, 24 tooth encoder disc
Happ 3 inch trackball	167.4 (no wear)	3 inch ball, 0.43 inch roller, 24 tooth encoder disc
Atari 4.5 inch trackball	330.6 (no wear)	4.5 inch ball, 0.49 inch roller, 36 tooth encoder wheel
Trackball Games

Game	Trackball	Multiplier	Notes
Crystal Castles	Atari/Happ 3 in	2x	

Crystal Castles, 1st screen BB moves length of line above his head from center of trackball moved to one side
Centipede, 1 trackball move 1 end to other (stock tb) 2 1/2 mushroom length

later

-1

[JBerel]

Like I said from the beginning, these things are just cheap kids toys manufactured to make a buck at X-mas. Neat on first inspection, evoking visions of happy play time, and delivering marginal amusement and frustration. They're ill conceived, poor imitations of what they try to duplicate, but they accomplish their goal of getting people to buy them. [/thread]

 

[atarian63]

Latest spinner mod update I have found

 

 

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-GYbrK_6UGI%26t%3D22s%26fbclid%3DIwAR0LAx7GmwjqanU0hR0HTwRWiic_p-4QV-CXA0sTguoK1fMkLKp_UjKRsRY&h=AT3txL5QGpRLW9JKo0CivYzG68qITUFavqRVMCOh3Ct-f2A9RLbZjZYcMoD_8cooOXwO4hN0ymuBPFRhHjMh2Gkvrji54pU7qawSQNabYoOVyPa0eGy2EaVmUti2CFYTQCI

[negative1]

Latest spinner mod update I have found

 

 

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-GYbrK_6UGI%26t%3D22s%26fbclid%3DIwAR0LAx7GmwjqanU0hR0HTwRWiic_p-4QV-CXA0sTguoK1fMkLKp_UjKRsRY&h=AT3txL5QGpRLW9JKo0CivYzG68qITUFavqRVMCOh3Ct-f2A9RLbZjZYcMoD_8cooOXwO4hN0ymuBPFRhHjMh2Gkvrji54pU7qawSQNabYoOVyPa0eGy2EaVmUti2CFYTQCI

Good job, but it still doesn't solve anything.

you never need to spin the dial fast to play the game properly.

especially when you to the red levels and beyond with the pulsars.

 

later

-1

[Video]

I was these mini arcades at Wal-Mart for $300 I think. They look nice, and the demo set up seems to have good arcade controller on it. I was expecting it to be super cheap, and while not high end arcade, it's much better than I expected. I kind of want one, but set on a shelf it still felt a bit low, maybe intended to be a sit down machine? Anyhow, had fun with street fighter, pretty awesome, wish they had the tempest one set up.

 

I may get one, but will likely build a pedestal for it.

[128Kgames]

2. The response on the unit I tried was lacking.. it'd be ok for a lot of the game, but every now and then it wouldn't roll where I wanted. This was easily reproducible.. here I am just on the menu, simply trying to move upward with as consistent movement as I could. It's a 30 second video but you can especially see the lack of response at the 0:18 mark and above where it simply doesn't move. This obviously manifests itself in the games pretty annoyingly.

 

I can tell you firsthand having replaced the control panel on my Centipede cab a better trackball makes a world of difference.

 

The one in your video was somewhat worse than the original one that came with my cab - it wouldn't spin freely. Missile Command was not fun, and Crystal Castle was unplayable. The control panel I have now has a trackball that actually spins and spins good - which as expected makes a world of difference. Everything plays better! The cab just became a hell of a lot more fun to play, so I would suggest anyone not happy with the way their trackball response reach out to Arcade1Up for a replacement.

 

I haven't put my Atari cab together yet, but if I run into the same issue with the trackball I'll now what to do. If the "spinner" turns out to be as bad as I've read, I will definitely touch base with them on what they plan to do to resolve the issue (I could care less what they've told other people). Having a Star Trek: SOS cab at home I'd be happy to explain the difference to them.

 

Like I said from the beginning, these things are just cheap kids toys manufactured to make a buck at X-mas. Neat on first inspection, evoking visions of happy play time, and delivering marginal amusement and frustration. They're ill conceived, poor imitations of what they try to duplicate, but they accomplish their goal of getting people to buy them.

 

Well, I assume you have no interest in purchasing one, so we'll have to agree to disagree. Toys? Sure, but so is every other video game ever made, as far as I'm concerned. Frustrating? At times yes, and having to wait for new parts sucks but right now I have a playable cab and its a heck of a lot of fun. Even my Wife has asked to play, so if it can get my whole family involved, I'm satisfied.

[JBerel]

I wouldn't fault anyone for buying them. I just find all the mental gymnastics about these not being quality or requiring upgrades kinda pointless. They are what they are. I would have thought that was self evident from the get go.

[128Kgames]

I wouldn't fault anyone for buying them. I just find all the mental gymnastics about these not being quality or requiring upgrades kinda pointless. They are what they are. I would have thought that was self evident from the get go.

 

Understood. I'm used to fixing things having spent a good portion of my life as a technician, so I'm OK with it, to a degree. I will reserve judgment on the spinner until I actually try it out.

 

On a side note, anybody who pre-ordered Galaga be on the lookout for an email from Walmart: they say the ship date is delayed and will be providing a $50 credit to make things right. New ship date should be emailed in the next few days.

 

From the Galaga play video it looks like Arcade1Up got the buttons and joysticks right, so I think Galaga should be a lot of fun. Now $50 cheaper.

[atarian63]

Good job, but it still doesn't solve anything.

you never need to spin the dial fast to play the game properly.

especially when you to the red levels and beyond with the pulsars.

 

later

-1

Yes you do or it's not Tempest, I had this actual machine and that IS how it needs to be , that "brr" "brr" sound from the spinner. +1

[atarian63]

I was these mini arcades at Wal-Mart for $300 I think. They look nice, and the demo set up seems to have good arcade controller on it. I was expecting it to be super cheap, and while not high end arcade, it's much better than I expected. I kind of want one, but set on a shelf it still felt a bit low, maybe intended to be a sit down machine? Anyhow, had fun with street fighter, pretty awesome, wish they had the tempest one set up.

 

I may get one, but will likely build a pedestal for it.

sadly the joysticks are japanese Sanwa type,which is fine for Streetfighter. but classic games need a us type happ joystick, had to convert my Pandoras 5S box to fix this. Still this is a nice start and doing the mods can be fun.