Pacman at the Library

I may be oldskool, but Pacman just ain't my bag. Although this is too funy to pass up!

No Pants Allowed

Ran across this today on the shmups forum, and it is a bit dated (being last summer), but worth mentioning. Barcade (located in NYC) hosted a "No Pants Allowed: The Underwear Arcade Video Game Gathering", blog entry here, and flickr photos here.
Warning: links & images are not exactly work safe (PG-13).

Two projects completed

Lack of updates to my blog should indicate my work/life job balance has been leaning almost entirely on the work side of the equation. But I had managed to finish two projects which I began back in December (mentioned in my 12/19 blog entry). I finished repainting the Sega Astro City 2 cabinet, and also finished routing a new control panel/table.

I completely disassembled this cabinet (almost every single screw came out except for two which were stripped :-( ) and repainted the inside and outside with Krylon Fusion spraypaint. Although this stuff is supposed to make a molecular bond to any type plastic, it does not bond well to fiberglass. :-( So I'm not too happy with the outcome, but looks nice for now.

Before (yuck! check out the mold under the control panel):


After (clean as a whistle):





Here is my completed console control panel project. Disregard the masking tape on the top, its there because the hinges currently have a problem when I open/close the top. Should be fixed soon enough.


[update]Here is a pic of the panel with hinge from homedepot.[/updated]

ESPGaluda

Icycalm has been on a role recently, now with a writeup (here) of another Cave fan favorite ESPGaluda. Warning, this review assumes you have prior knowlege of Cave's earlier work, especially ESP Ra. De, which ESPGaluda is loosely based off of. It also goes into detail on the play mechanics which can be pretty deep/complex.

I hope he doesn't mind, but I've blatenly stolen his banner, as a tribute to this awsome arcade game (which I do have in my collection). I'll put back my banner in a week or two. :-)

Ibara Black Label

Icycalm has another report from Hey Arcade, this time on the Ibara "Black Label" location test. Checkout his Insomnia website for details, along with a 169M video walkthrough of Hey Arcade!

Ibara 2 (Pink Sweets) and Trigger Heart Exelica

Hey Arcade, and Club Sega are two of the biggest and most famous arcades in Japan. And Icycalm, from the shmups forum, is our inside man in Akihabara Tokyo, getting some pics and movies from both of the two location test sites for Cave's new Ibara 2 (Pink Sweets), and Warashi's Trigger Heart Exelica.



You can read about Icycalm's expierence on his Insomnia website. Don't miss some of his previous posts on imaging Tokoyo or Yokohama wide-angle lens.

Shooter Parodies

As pointed out recently on the shmups forum, 1up has published a nice 3 page article on shooter parodies, titled "Schtick 'em up: What happens when a straight-laced genre gets weird?" . The first paragaph puts my passion for arcade shooters into perspective:

"Shooters are the foundation of the video game industry, dating back all the way to the 1960's with Steve Russell's classic Spacewar. Since that time, the genre has been responsible for bringing much depth to the world of interactive entertainment, popularizing vital concepts like the power-up and the end-of-level boss which are still used in many of today's greatest games."

To quote again from the article, here is the general idea behind shooter parodies:

"In the early 1990's, the designers at Konami felt like having some fun at the expensive of its first shoot-em-up, the genre-defining Gradius. They whipped up this spin-off which replaced the killer satellites, the laser cannons, and the combat droids of Gradius with waddling penguins, fifty-foot tall Vegas showgirls, and treasure chests loaded with hornets."

Its nice to read today's gaming journalists still acknowledging the shooters genre, much less the small faction of shooter parodies. A fun read, which even has a reference to my favorite defunct TV show Futurama!

Build Your Own Piece of Crap

There is this fantastic site that I've been a part of for over 5-6 years now, called Build Your Own Arcade Controls (BYOAC for short). Pretty much the place where Mame cabinet building started on the Internet. Tons of FAQ's, message boards, and a project pages - all on how to build, fix, or modify arcade cabinets. Well someone decided to go through all the user submitted projects and critique the worst cabinet designs (31 reviews in total so far). I'll start you off on #4 as the first three are just too lame to mention...it only gets better from here.

Warning: some foul language is used, but honest/funny feedback none the less.
http://www.wickedretarded.com/~crapmame/4.html
(click on the "next" link at the bottom to go to the next review)