Delighted for you Davy

CRT's always give out a faint hum so that's normal.
Unless it's significantly louder than the average crt I wouldn't worry about it
Great cabinet, beautiful for any mancave.

TNT came back and said the sound is normal. Suspected as much. They recommend not leaving it running for long spells if not playing the game either which makes sense. I won't be doing that anyhow - on average it'll be a couple of hours a week I suspect.

Really glad the old girl's up and running Davy, made up for you mate.

Do high-scores save when the cab's turned off? If so, how much is it gonna piss you off if someone gets the top spot on your Asteroids machine?

That is a great feature, I was always slightly irked by Point Blank wiping the scores in the student union every day. Just meant I had to get #1 back the next day ofc, but still.

Speaking of Defender, this might be the right crowd to convince that AQUA KITTY Milk Mine Defender DX (numerous modern formats) is legitimately Godlike.  



I'm currently two stages from the end in the main mode, superb stuff.

2013 apparently, the DX one is an upgrade.  Just noticed that there's a more recent Bone version with an added scrolling shmup mode.

Resoguns the real deal though.

Feels a bit like the Pac-Man CE of Defender, great stuff.

‘Strategise your weaponry’ feels like something I’d read on the back of a Spectrum cassette box in John Menzies.

Went to a retro expo this Sunday, was way more fun than I hoped it'd be! I've never really played an arcade cabinet before, so seeing some nice ones set to free play was great!

They had an area with a lot of retro games for sale, some artists (B got some nice shirts), I saw "zombified" amiibo's and other tat, loads of game related patches/stickers etc. people made. Quite nice. 

Middle area was set up with about any kind of CRT you can think of (apart from "really big") and had loads of consoles connected. Played some Parodius, Alien Hominid, Super Mario Kart, B played some Zone of the Enders, Sin and Punishment (the Japanese one, not the Wii virtual console) and a shmup where he was a witch on a broomstick.
Loads of people playing Halo, saw a little boy playing Ocarina of Time while his dad sat next to him, and the boy that took over the witch shmup from B sat there for at least an hour.

Last area of the hall was set up with the arcades and pinball tables. Played some Virtua On, Hang On, some light gun game (guns were connected to the cabinet, and just a bit too low so uncomfortable), R-Type, Ms. PacMan, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Asteroids Deluxe (pretty sure that was one of the bigger cabinets there @Davy), Snow men (? think that was it, B played that a lot as a kid), Joust, Centipede, Galaga and some Neo Geo where you were a helicopter shooting dinosaurs and saving people. Small cabinet, couldn't sit on my knees for too long. Also did some Metal Slug with B, played quite a few in co-op. Ended that session early for a kid dressed up at Link, he liked the zombie's I guess and wanted to give it a go. 
Most of the cabinets were fairly beat up though, some games weren't controlling that great thanks to the sticks. Games were still playable, but without putting any real time in I haven't seen more than the first couple stages at most.

DavyK wrote:

Jesus I'm crap at this game. Have yet to break 20K....

I don't think I got over 2k.... This game's hard to control if you're not used to it. Was impressed by it's looks, and would have given it more love if I hadn't ran out of credits and could find the guy who reset the cabinets every once in a while

Billy Mitchell was there, and so were the Mortal Kombat movie actors. Didn't even know there was a movie.. They had some tournaments going for most of the day, a live band playing soundtracks outside so it was all pretty complete for a fairly small set-up. Found out later there was another expo close by, which I think was bigger.
Still had a lot of fun, B even considered a Saturn so I might know what to get him for his birthday in July. One of the best things I noticed is that actually anyone that was there was having a good time, no bored kids or parents, and it was fun to see all the females glued to the Bubble Bobble machines.

No pictures as it wasn't that great for taking photo's, it's just a big hall filled with tables in the end.

Aqua Kitty looks great btw

The Defender genre is very compulsive. I love DropZone which was Archer Maclean's take on it. The NES game was silky smooth and lightning fast (and was PAL optimised). The SNES got an upgrade which is very nice too - still play it occasionally - might propose it for the retro club if I get a chance.

Top 30 games systems of ALL TIEMZ (according to Retro Gamer readers)

With additional comments by me, you lucky people, you.

Let the nitpicking begin!

List was fun, explaining to a moaning colleague that it's voted for by readers after every page turn less so, but the Castle of Illusion (Master System version) article is the best thing this month.

Miles better than the MD version.  

No real surprise with that poll given the 16bit era is still considered golden by many retor gaming folk. I'd say it says more about the age of the readership than anything else.

I would rate the SNES highly too but the fact is I rarely play SNES games any more. I eye up my SNES collection and consider its worth on the market.....