Drew's Arcade Project

Pikachu, I Choose You!

2007-08-02T18:58:00.000Z

There's been another delay to my arcade project. Instead of spending money on wood and joysticks, I've just bought myself a new DS. A limited edition Yellow Pikachu DS :D

As you can see, it's rather yellow :P It's the same yellow as post-it notes, The Simpsons, lego men and my bedroom wall :)

The box is rather funky too!

I've also bought some special cases to carry it around in. I don't want to get it scratched now, do I? :P

More pictures can be found on my Flickr page :)

By the way, I'd advise everyone NOT to use Parcel Force. It took 2 days to get from Japan to England, but 6 days to travel the final 66 miles! Useless!!!

*goes back to playing Taiko Drum Master DS*

M.A.C.H. 3 - Missing in Action

2007-07-21T21:00:00.000Z

I saw a video of someone playing a fighter jet game the other day that I'd never seen before. I had no idea what it was and spent ages trying to find out it's name. It was driving me mad, but thankfully Dazism found out that it's called M.A.C.H 3 (Military Air Command Hunter) and is for the Laserdisc.

I've spent the quite a bit of time this week trying to find it, but I've had no luck at all. I've got the ROM for it, but with it being a Laserdisc game you need the video and audio files too. I can't even find the original Laserdisc to buy anywhere either! So I may be stuck :( Can anyone out there help me?

I never thought about the Laserdisc when I came up with the idea of "Every Game for Every System". It might be a little harder than I though, since Laserdisc games are some of the rarest games in the world! :P

Segagaga - I need this game!!!

2007-07-13T08:37:00.000Z

Segagaga has got to be one of the most unusual/coolest games out there. It's an RPG where you play as kid who has to save Sega from bankruptcy by making new products and gaining market share. Plus final boss is a Sega Saturn!! You can't get much better than that :P

Epic Final Boss Stage:

It's a must have for any oldschool Sega fan :P I mean, what other company out there would take the mic out of them selves when they're failing? And show one of their biggest characters working as a shop assitant? :P

I can get hold of a 'backup' of this game, but I'd like the real thing. I can't find it anywhere though, so if anyone can find it for me, I'll be a very happy chappy! Then again, with it being so rare, I don't imagine it'd be cheap :P

I suppose it's not the sort of game most people would put in their Arcade Cabinet, but I MUST have it :P

Update!

2007-07-11T05:41:00.000Z

So, after months of nothing, I've decided to come back to my little (well, rather large :P) project. I still don't have any spare money, so I can't really do any buying or building :( I have started updating the site a bit though, and I'm going to try and get my final plan sorted in the next few weeks, so when I do get a bit of spare cash I'll be able to get cracking straight away!

In addition to updating the site (I now have a front page, a FAR from finished image gallery, and a slightly updated shopping list) I have now got myself a YouTube account where I can stick lots of exciting videos, like the one above ;) That's just a video of me testing Street Fighter III on the new CPS 3 emulator. I only made it so I could have a go at posting a YouTube video into my blog :)

*Ignore the bad editing of the video. I was being lazy :P*

On Hold

2007-01-28T11:58:00.000Z

Unfortunately, my little project has been put on hold due to lack of funds. The above picture shows some of the reasons I have no money. The Wii's, Christmas in general and lots of other things mean that I probably can't do anything else for at least 2-3 months. Maybe longer! :(

If anyone out there wants to donate towards my cabinet, then feel free ;)

The Design

2006-11-26T20:50:00.000Z

So I've finally made a start on the actual design of the cabinet. First off I had a look at the plans in my book and made a life size toilet roll version on my floor so I could get a good idea of the shape and size of it (I have no other materials to hand, so toilet roll was the only option ;). I don't like the shape of it at all though, or a lot of the other designs I've seen online, so I think I'm going to make my own design based on the Q*Bert cabinet.

I'll probably follow the same colour scheme too, although the yellow will be much brighter than the one in the picture. I do have the plans for the Q*Bert cab, but it's too small for a 2 player control panel, and for a normal front facing screen. I don't want one laying on it's back like in the original Q*Bert cab, so that means I've got to change all the measurements from the origianl plans to make it big enough for what I need. It's not quite as easy as it sounds when all you've got is a measuring tape and toilet roll. I should really go out and buy some proper supplies ;)

Guns and stuff

2006-11-26T13:44:00.000Z

Rather than just having a PC in the cabinet, I've figured that I should probably throw a Saturn in there too. Mainly for gun games really, so I've gone out and bought myself two Saturn guns, Virtua Cop 1 & 2, HOTD and Area 51. That's what was in the box :P

What's in the box?

2006-11-18T08:38:00.000Z

Lots of shredded paper, that's what. I love shredded paper! I think I'm going to have to get myself a shredder cos their cool :) There was more than just paper in the box though. Something for my project...kind of. Any ideas? :P Being up at 7am on a Saturday morning to answer the door to the postman isn't too fun though!

Blip, Blip, BLAM!

2006-11-17T17:01:00.000Z

I've spent my first bit of money on my project. I've bought a book! I've heard it's very good, but it looks kind of thick. I better start reading if I want this thing built and pretty much finished by Christmas :P

Shopping List

2006-11-14T21:21:00.000Z

The first version of my Shopping List page has gone online, and it's not looking good! My total is currently at £183.01 and I've not even started to price up the materials to build the actual cabinet yet, plus I'm probably forgetting loads of stuff I'll need. I hope it doesn't cost too much, cos I'm not a very rich boy! ;)

(Thanks to Bob for making the green tick for me :P)

The PC

2006-11-13T21:49:00.000Z

I'm saving a lot of money by not having to buy a PC. Over the years I've probably collected enough bits and bobs to build 2 or 3 PC's, so I've put all the bests bits together and stuck them in a case to make my Arcade PC. It's not a bad little machine too! Although the 20gb hard drive that Windows is installed on seems a bit iffy, so that might need replacing. It's got a 80gb HD for ROMS/games too, and I'm not quite sure if that's going to be enough. We'll have to wait and see :)

One thing I will have to buy though is a new graphics card. The onboard one is perfectly fine outputting to a monitor, but my cabinet is going to be running on a TV so I'll need a graphics card that has TV out. I'm sure they're not much though.

I've got it setup temporarily on my landing. No idea why there, cos it's not exactly the best place for a PC, but ah well :P It's Windows XP on now plus a few games (Street Fighter II Turbo in the picture) and all seems to running well :) Not sure if it'll be staying in that case though. Might put it in a different one.

Introduction

2006-11-12T11:13:00.000Z

Winter is coming, as is the bad weather and riding a bike in the rain, wind and snow is not fun! So I figured I needed a hobby/project to replace my weekend bike rides until the weather gets better, and that project is building an Arcade Machine :D

Like this one, but different!

Everyone seems to be building them these days, so it's nothing special really and mine probably won't be that much different than anyone elses, but I've always wanted one and I have a big empty space in my spare bedroom that needs filling ;)

Another part of my project isn't just to have Arcade games on (using the MAME emulator like most cabinets run) but to have EVERY game for EVERY games system from Pong up until the start of Saturn/Playstation days. I don't know if it's possible yet, but it'd be pretty cool saying that I have every game that came out before 1995! Well, maybe 'cool' is the wrong word, but you know what I mean :P

This site/blog is mainly just for me to keep track of things and for me to look back at in years to come and think "Wow, what a crap job I did" or "Oh yeah, I remember when I started that thing and never finished it" which is probably quite likely to happen ;)