And so it begins ...
I think I'm either bored or crazy. Ok, perhaps a touch of both. While experiencing a pre-midlife crisis earlier this year, I decided to relive one of my most cherished childhood memories: playing oldschool videogames on a full size arcade cabinet. Hundreds of dollars later (and some quite colorful language exchanges while sawing wood outside in the snow with Becca and my bro-in-law), I accomplished my task. I based the cabinet loosely on Midway's quarter-consuming Defender; a pure classic for a gaming junkie of that time. Unfortunately my impatience in the project led to many (costly) mistakes. One of the biggest reasons for me to build an arcade cabinet in the first place was my undying nostalgic pining over the animated arcade amusement, Dragon's Lair. I refer to the years of 1984-85 as my personal Great Depression, as whatever money I could slyly obtain would be immediately gobbled up by the game’s insatiable appetite. When I wasn’t dropping quarters into a gluttonous slot, I was buying up pack after pack of Dragon’s Lair collectible trading cards – complete with stale, bland gum. To pay homage to these self-imposed exiled times, I created a slightly altered Dragon’s Lair marquee to adorn my makeshift machine. The icing on the cake was to come a few months later when I had my marquee signed by Dragon’s Lair creators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. The arcade cabinet was complete, and yet I remained unsatisfied. Something was wrong. While it looked good for a n00b rush job and played most MAME games flawlessly, I never stopped to even consider if I could actually play Dragon’s Lair on the cabinet! A few years ago I got the Dragon’s Lair 20th Anniversary DVD set and had been feeding my addiction on my PS2. Since MAME requires a PC anyways, I just assumed that it would all work out in the end. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Yes, I could plop my PS2 into the cabinet’s innards, disconnect the controls from the PC and disassemble the control panel to map the button layout each and every time I wanted to play that game, but that grew old on day one. The other issue was that my PC/PS2 swap method totally negated the necessity of a coin door. I could still play the game just fine, but to me there’s nothing like plunking in a couple quarters to totally relive the arcade experience. (Home arcade cabinets make GREAT piggy banks!) Unfortunately there was no workaround for this problem. (Note: I wasn’t aware of Daphne at the time or I found it totally frustrating to comprehend. I forget which it was.) The coin door I bought for the cabinet was relatively expensive, so I wanted to ensure it would be used. It never hurts to invite a few friends over to admire your new toy, especially if they just happen to be carrying some spare change. I love playing MAME games on my cabinet - especially Marvel vs Capcom. The existing design and control panel configuration suits it best as a fighting machine. To that resolve, I have decided to do two things this winter: As I stated at the opening of this entry, I think I'm either bored or crazy. Either way, hilarity is ensured to ensue!
