Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Operation Wolf Arcade

Had the Operation wolf and Lethal Enforcers arcade machines arrive today.
both non working machines full of cob webs inside!!!  It will take a few weeks of work to get these running.
Nice to see Taito Operation Wolf cabinet again, always liked that game, first had it on the Commodore 64, it never used to load properly dispite waiting for an age for it to load on tape!
interestingly both these machines have the monitor screen facing upwards and its the mirror reflection you are looking at.  same trick i used in Midways Space Invader cabinet in 1984 when i opened the back door.  


There are two operation wolf cabinets available I have the UK version I believe which is the lower one here. i think it maybe just screen size being the difference


Thursday, 5 July 2012

Dragon's Lair

I remember playing Dragon's Lair around the time of 1984 at Barry Island in Wales it was actually the same arcade that the fictional charactor Nessa played by Ruth Jones in Gavin and Stacy worked in the show.
I recall seeing the aracde for the first time and was blown away by the
amazing animation!! it was near the Spy Hunter Arcade another great game.
Looking at the graphics it seemed to good to be true was this really a game!! I was used to buying home computer games for my Dragon 32k and Commodore 64k and being impressed with the cassette cover artwork portraying the game and always disapointed how the game looked on the screen nothing like the cover!

  The animation was mainly done by Disney's Don Bluth which took 6 years to draw! the voices were the actual animators too. I was also blown away by the price per go £1 !! thats a fortune back then when most games were 10p I could buy an ice cream and bag of chips for a £1 back then!
I still had a go and straight away was totaly confused at the game play or lack of I should say!
To anyone that hasn't played this game before it runs of a laser disc, its actually just a series of video animation clips you have to push buttons and move the joystick in the correct direction at certain points during the fast paced scenes. The timing has to be pretty precise from what i recall you get a time frame of a second and most of the time you just die. If you hit the control in time it moves to the next scene where straight away you have to a gain make a split second decision. The game is extremely hard! if i remember correctly the next time you have a go the scenes are not in the same order so the next time you are learning again. very frustrating

i've not played this game since 1984 but
the animation and sound is timeless on this game, a really work of art
 Its one of those games if you did played it back then you will never forget it
I don't think it was as popular in the UK as it should of been due to laser disc reliability issues, the cost per play and the lack of game play that confused many.
still its a ground breaking game that has stood the test of time
DVD version fot his game are available on ebay for under £10 well worth buying a copy

i'm looking forward getting to run on my arcade, its very tricky to setup!
it is now available on the iphone/ipad but reviews say it is a bad port and nothing like the arcade version




Wednesday, 4 July 2012

Killer Instinct Game 1994

killer instinct arcade cabinet
killer instinct arcade cabinet 1994


killer instinct arcade cabinet
I was playing Killer Instinct tonight, I missed this game first time around in the arcades in 94. A pretty knifty fluid fighting game very much like mortal kombat Midway, Nintendo and rareware were behind it. lovely looking early 90's style cabinet!