This one is everywhere, but just in case: inside a North Korean arcade. For a bit of contrast, see inside a South Korean arcade.
FEIST, a Mac OS X platformer by Florian Faller and Adrian Stutz. More (including beta download info) at IndieGames.
Parallel Kingdom is probably the one upcoming title I’m most looking forward to on the iPhone. touchArcade has a brief overview.
Michael Moore’s new film, Slacker Uprising, has been released as a free download.
It begins.
Here’s where the bulk of the games were located. The facility is one of those places on the edge of town where they rent out shipping containers and trailers; the containers were stacked everywhere, with trailers lined up behind them. Looked like a level out of Rainbow Six or something. Every now and then, F-15s and F-16s from Nellis would scream right over us, close enough to read the numbers.
I wasn’t forward-thinking enough to bring sunscreen, but thankfully the worst of the summer heat had already passed; the temperature was a comparably balmy mid-90 degrees or so.
Okay, pictures!
Thank God for the forklift.
Ray takes a ride while the seller drives. Loose gravel added excitement to the day, as every now and then the forklift would spin out or get stuck, scaring the hell out of whoever was stabilizing the load.
There was a nice selection of laser disc games, all in decent shape. M.A.C.H. 3, an upright and cockpit Interstellar Laser Fantasy, and an Astron Belt cockpit. Additionally, we pulled out an upright and cockpit Firefox, both of which the seller unfortunately kept.
Two Star Trek cockpits. One went to Pete, one back home with Ray. Behind em to the left is the Firefox cockpit.
Here’s the upright Interstellar, and the only cabinet I personally claimed from the day.
Mappys! Adam Isgreen is now the proud owner of the one on the right.
Two Turket Shoots. What a strange collection of games in this trailer.
Ray poses with the loot.
And finally…
That’s not a farmer’s tan, that’s dirt.
Okay you can stop checking out my feet now. Here’s the final tally:
Games I’m keeping
I, Robot (Choplifter converted)
Interstellar Laser Fantasy
Xevious
Neo Geo MVS-2-13 cabaret & a 6slot mobo
Games I’m cleaning up to sell
Zombie Raid
Paperboy
Super Monaco GP
Nintendo VS Dualsystem upright (Super Mario & Dr. Mario)
This year I decided to focus most of my game-playing time on classics, great games of previous generations that for one reason or another I’d missed.
Last weekend I took that to its extreme.
There are two things every arcade game nerd should do: attend an auction, and participate in a warehouse raid, the finding of an old stash of arcade cabinets, usually belonging to a former operator, and the retrieval adventure that follows. Visiting an auction is something one can plan, but warehouse raids requires luck, timing, and persistence. Fortunately, I stumbled across someone who had all three, and I got to ride along.
It begins.
The cabinets were split up between two places, which made for a bit of a logistics puzzle. The smaller lot was a group of about a 10-15 cabinets in storage units, so we took care of those during the evening and night of the first day.
Out of this group, Ray (the one who got this whole thing rolling) took home a Star Wars cockpit, Q-bert, Ms Pac-Man, Mappy, Track n Field cocktail, Make Trax, the Pole Position cockpit, and a handful of others. There was also a Road Riot 2-player cockpit that a former coworker came by to pick up the next day.
I took home a Xevious, the Neo MVS-2-13, and a Choplifter-in-an-I, Robot (missing the hall effect stick and boards, unfortunately). A Zombie Raid, Paperboy, Nintendo VS (Super Mario and Dr Mario), and Super Monaco GP are also in my garage waiting to be cleaned up and sold.
After a bit of cleaning and rebuilding the guns, this Zombie Raid turned out to be in beautiful shape. A few cosmetic blemishes, but the guns work great and the monitor is bright and clear:
I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but I am a very tall person.
Day two tomorrow.
The Liberty Belle B-17 bomber is at the North Las Vegas Airport this weekend:
There’s no need for a time machine this weekend – just make your way to the North Las Vegas Airport and you’ll set yourself back about 60 years.
The B-17 Bomber, named “Liberty Bell,” is visiting Las Vegas for the weekend and giving valley residents a unique opportunity to physically touch and see an airplane once used for combat during World War II.
There were originally 12,000 of these airplanes, but now only 14 remain.
Tour flights will be held this weekend – however, they will cost you $438 for a 30-minute flight.
The flights are pricey, so the crew does allow spectators to walk inside the grounded airplane before the first and after the last flight of the day for free of charge.
Saw her sitting on the runway this morning as we drove out towards Nellis to load up the arcade cabinets. Beautiful airplane, hopefully I’ll have time to go by before they fly out.
This is from last month, but just in case you missed it like I did (hey, I’ve got a lot of feeds to keep up with), RPS put up a three part interview with Ragnar Tørnquist, mostly covering storytelling.
THE XBOX 360 “LIFESTYLE” EXPOSED
NFGcontrols, a new site about video game controllers.
Dubai retailers have unearthed 100 factory-sealed Virtual Boys. Poor souls.