General Arcade & Retro Chat' Special Championship Edition

I just discovered the Pi1541 project, it has cycle accurate emulation of the 1541 drive for the C64 and even works with any raspberry pi including the first raspi if you overclock it! The hat module is cheep cheep on eBay and etsy too.

I still have the 1541 Ultimate II.

Need to update the firmware and check out the latest features as it's been years since I updated it.

What's the quality like on the versions you're watching? Mine are absolutely potato vhs transfers I downloaded an eternity ago. Would be great if someone did some sort of upscaling to fix them up with modern tech.

Anyone buy the zero tolerance collection?

You can unlock a playable version of the prototype! @o1s1n that should keep the soviets off your back! 🤣

NOOOOO my prototype value just went through the floor 😂

Edit - oooh it looks to be a prototype of Beyond Zero Tolerance, not the original game.

The Hinds will continue circling over my house…

Perhaps now's a good time to lash it up on ebay given it has a bit of visibility with this compilation release.

Token' Champion Edition

Ita a shame it's closing but it's an even bigger shame how little the machines were maintained. They were just moved into the site and run into the ground from what I saw.

There was an amazing period when it first opened and everything was working great. Beer and videogames, what more could you want. Maintenance apparently! :eek:

You should have brought a soldering iron and went near as many machined as you could.

It is a shame that Token is closing down alright but I have to say that the quality of the machines and their maintenance did irk me over the years, not gonna lie.

Most of the machines had issues with their screens… controls and the Mario Kart GP (when it was there, I think its gone now) barely worked on the left hand side.

They really needed someone onsite to maintain the machines properly.

Sad really as I was in there only a few weeks ago with work people and the food was amazing as ever. Went looking for a few of the machines that had been there for years like Crazy Taxi and apparently they had sold them off a few weeks ago… that should have tipped me off that something was wrong.

I have no doubt that they'll end up re-opening up somewhere probably outside of the city as rents are crazy.

I have a bunch of tokens left but I'll probably keep them as a souvenir (or adjust the coin acceptor in my Blast City to take them).

Not no more! Thank you @MrVestek.

As for Token, very sad to hear. I don't think there sounds like an immediate plan to return unfortunately, not by the sounds of it, but maybe something in the future. Retro arcade machines generally don't earn a huge amount of money, even in a dedicated space, almost a loss lead some but I respect a place who goes that route. Air Hockey, Basketball, Prize Redemption all necessary unfortunately for a lot of places. I was in Token week #1 when it opened and backed in on Kickstarter, it was always a long trip for me but enjoyed it while it lasted when I got to visit, the bar/arcade scene in Ireland is small so a lot have helped eachother/ vise versa over the years. Also on maintenance, retro arcades are incredibly difficult to keep running 365 days per year/7 days a week. You definitely need people who will passionately maintain them there are very few of us doing that in Ireland now, adding in rare Japanese machines is even more mental, and even then there are days you walk in after a busy weekend and it seems a lot of things are broken. Hopefully maybe they can collaborate with another bar or something/ use a free space elsewhere, they had some nice machines. I think it's unlikely there would have been the few arcade/bars in Ireland if it wasn't for them so hope the best for the future.

Ohh no doubt that maintaining those machines in such a busy environment isn't an easy job but certain machines always seemed to have the same faults every time I went in, so I just feel like they could have done a slightly better job at it.

That said though still very sad to see the place go. Even the Decor was amazing, the fact that they had Teletext menus and things like that.

I really must travel down to LevelUp at some point and check it out. I still have about 40ish tokens that I found inside the Blast. :-P

It begins 🙂

Can only be that can't it? I mean, why wouldn't a failing business want to liquidate its assets?

A new huge arcade I visited on my travels, not in Ireland but not far across the seas, called Gravity. Great if you're ever going to The Olympic stadium/West Ham as right outside, opened last week. I think one of these would do well in Dublin if the chain were to expand with a slightly different model, full of influencers but decent spot, good games. And great to see some decent arcade games still being made Asphalt 9 VR is excellent, Vr Agent decent, Apex Rebels deluxe is decent, Mission Impossible not too bad. I wish they had more retro but the fact they have a Outrun 2 super deluxe is mental, Outrun 2 still does great numbers in any arcade. Big go karting track, bar, karaoke, mini golf, etc too, place is bananas size, a good place to spend a few hrs, a lot different to their other venues ive been to, no expense spared pretty sure the Asphalt 9 VR is like 80k alone. Probably would give it a 8/10 overall, missing some older games and pins like their other venue but i reckon they will add them as its only opening week. Also fairly sure it's Sega Amusements who run the arcade side to good to see them back too, sorta like a modern take on Sega World, along with Deith Leisure for the rest of the entertainment concept by the looks of it.

Just released a new t-shirt over the weekend and always makes me wonder why there was no street sharks game?

Seemed like a pretty big licence back in the 90s with a load of toys produced and would have been ripe for a beat em up

Great shirt! Looks like someone was making a Street Sharks game in Unity if that's any use to you :D

Yeah I'm 99% sure the Outrun 2 SP SPDLX unit I have ended up with is the one from the Atari Expo, that was I was told anyway, although the other cars were shipped abroad.

A menace haha, I'm sure the system admins head was melted!

I actually ended up with 5 Naomi cabinets recently, Virtua Tennis, Striker, NBA, etc. and pretty sure/ was told they all came from the old Atari Expo (although not through the same person as the Outrun 2 SP SDX), there was a bunch of cabinets stored elsewhere for years. I've just passed the Naomi's on at cost and kept 2 for myself as I always regretted leaving my old one go, now that I think about it pretty sure your new Club kart Naomi came from there too. Always find it amazing how cabinets pop up years later being tucked away in some warehouse.

A new Evercade bartop has just been announced for release in November. There are 2 variants with 6 Capcom games each. There is also a deluxe version of both variants with Sanwa parts from Blazes own store, Funstock. Pretty well priced considering they're cheaper than what Game sell the Arcade 1up bartops for here, and with better hardware with the deluxe models.