God of War, A Dad's Review

God of War (PS4, 2018 Santa Monica Studio) is the best console game I've played in 20 years. 

I've loved console games for as long as there have been consoles and gamepads for my fingers to fondle.  My relationship with consoles have been largely cock-blocked by the universe to prevent me from becoming the bleary-eyed, [late-to-work because i stayed up all night playing <whatever>] gamer-addict that I'd otherwise be naturally inclined to become.   

As a teenager, I really couldn't dedicate expansive amounts of console-gaming time because of job, chores, school, or mandatory family time.   As a young married adult, the Unreal Championship matches were thread like a needle between crazy-work hours and date-nights.  Bottle feedings instead of clan raids, tech start-ups for business equity instead of leveling up my Call Of Duty [x] stats.   

Milleniuals call this Adulting, right?..   

I do, occasionally get to eek out a mastery of a beloved title.   Played some Call Of Duty at a middle-high-level.  Tournament-level Halo before it jumped the Cortana-Terminator shark...

I think for many of us geeks-turned-dads, the barrier to entry on satisfaction for modern console games is they [have been] heavily multiplayer focused with lopsided matchmaking that requires an extensive time investment to not be frustrated.  Part of why I like arcades and pinball so much.  Coin up, play a match and move on.    For those single-player campaigns of console games that I have played, they seem shallow and a little too "on-rails" to feel any stakes for the characters.

That's what makes the 2018 PS4 release God of War such a breath of fresh air.    It feels like a game made by dads, for dads and shows a keen meta-awareness of these frustrations and solves many of them.

Don't get me wrong, I started off skeptical. 

As a fan of the original series, the smash-and-squish-and-crush rage-monster Kratos gameplay, I immediately started to side-eye this game from the first moments.  An older, kinda craggy and slow looking Kratos hugs a tree.   

In my mind:

  Wait.  I finally get to play Kratos in 4k and he is literally a tree-hugger now?  WTF is this?  The same dude that would essentially destroy the cosmos to get       revenge.  The blood thirsty Ghost of Sparta is a peace-loving tree hugger AND he's tied up in Norse mythology now?!   I AM OUT!

Then.. I played it... and it is awesome..  

The story is epic, engaging and oh - so - good..  Krato's cringeworthy screaming-one-liners from the earlier installments have been replaced by the  vocal talents of Christopher Judge (Teal'c from Stargate SG-1).    The difference is welcome and immediately noticeable.      Chris brings Kratos into a fully developed character but still maintains the often-funny use of shortened sentences and clipped delivery.    "Indeed."    The delivery is somewhere masterfully between barely-bottled rage or zen-master calm.

The story carries you through a father-son adventure that navigates partially remixed aspects of Norse mythology.  The overall story has a ton of heart - great character beats and is a fantastic ambassador to the Norse mythos.    

I went in with an unfamiliarity with the norse mythology and left wanting to learn more.   I highly recommend Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman for those of you left with a thirst for lore in this topic.   The charming Marvel-imagined Thor is replaced with the more-ominous but equally dull equivalent from Norse myth.  More of a dumbed-down Jason Momoa than Chris Hemsworth.  In the God of War franchise, the gods are vengeful, spiteful, mean-spirited assholes.  The game remixes aspects of the mythology in service of story and it works.

Kratos' new weapon, the Leviathon axe, is more like Jarnbjorn than Mjolnir and completely different than The Blades of Chaos.    You might say, it is not as clumsy or random as the Blades of Chaos.  An Elegant weapon... for a more civilized age..   Once you get acclimated, it is pretty awesome.  If you find yourself missing the circular-360-spastic glory of the Blades of Chaos, well: hang in there.  They have something in store for you, too. 

The world is expansive and you are free to explore it. It includes a myriad of travel dynamics, side quests and hidden treasure.  Some of these will keep you playing even after the primary story-line.     The main story is 16 quests and took me about 6-8 hours, spread out over a week on medium-low difficulty.  Some parts had me contemplating turning it to the lowest difficulty.  I easily spent over an hour on one um, 'mini'-boss. 

Can your kids play it?  Well, that's a parenting decision you'll have to make based on your sensibilities and the maturity of your kids.  The M rating alone, typically means No - not for kids.  If you are a strict sort of parent that shields your kids from the secular evils of the world, you won't want them playing.   If you are a "video games as a babysitter" sort of parent you'll probably let them play.  If you play video games with your kids, it is an opportunity to pass the controller back and fourth and talk casually about the violence and language when it arises and how they fit into your world view.     You do: you. :)

God of War has always been a mature franchise.    A little sexual innuendo, language and gore were staples of the franchise.  This one has no sexual content or nudity (some muscular dudity, though) some language and plenty of gore.   The majority of the language in this game comes from the blue dwarf, Brok.    I feel like the M rating is mostly attributed to a handful of F-bombs from this single character and is mostly gratuitous.   

The majority of the gore is in the creative deaths of mythical creatures and bad-guys.   Game-of-thrones inspired ice zombies spirt blue blood, etc.   There are a number of brutal hand-to-hand fistfights with powerful humanoids. There is head smashing, limb-breaking, stabbing and a particularly messy impromptu cardiac procedure with one large foe.  It doesn't "sound" like the gore is tamed down but it did "feel" a little more tame than previous games in the franchise.

Ultimately, the themes of the game story are about family, honoring those we've lost and aspiring to be better than we have been.  Excellent work Sony Santa Monica Studios.    Speaking on behalf of all of the Dads I can speak for - you rock and I'm looking forward to the next installment in the franchise.

My Dome / Environmental Game Pod - 4 years later

Just floating this out there..

Thinking about parting with my Prototype Dome Environmental setup in order to re-arrange the space a little / make it less cramped. I'm pricing it at $2800 obo.. Partial trade for games on my list:

(DK Cabaret, Ms Pac Cabaret, Galaga, Tempest, Ice Cold Beer or Zeke's Peak, Street Fighter II)

I'm also considering just stowing it away for a season and picking it back up as a version-2 enhancement down the road... but where does one store a 60+" Dome? :)  

The backstory was, I left from a Dave & Busters and after playing Mach Storm and Star Wars BattlePod - I got the wild hair to try to build something like it but that would support any HDMI input source.  

The dome was formed and cut to my specifications by SSD Plastics and Design in Denver, CO.
 

Projection

Mach Storm and The Star Wars Battle Pods both use an NEC NP-PE401H 4000 Lumen 1080p projector.  They use direct-projection through what is essentially a planetarium fisheye lens.  The design  is nice because it puts the projection booth above the player and frees the floor of the cabinet from obstructions.    The downside is that a Hemistar 180degree planetarium lens starts at about USD$8500.  The lens reduces the brightness by a factor of ~40% and limits the projectable area.    This means the projector is essentially 2400 lumen and the resolution is downscaled to 720p.

My dome operates off of reflected-projection.   The wonderful concept of light traveling directionally in vectors means that if you'd like to project onto a 180degree surface, you can bounce the light off of a 180 degree reflective curve.   The light bends and reflects back in proportion to the angles and VOILA! - science is awesome.

Upsides to this:

• Very little reduction in light intensity

• Very little reduction in projected size

• Cost. 180 degree mirrors are cheaper than planetarium fisheye lenses.

Downsides to this:

• Mirror and Light at your feet.

• You can't sit with your knees closed without making leg-shadow-puppets in the projector reflection.

• Image quality is directly related to mirror cleanliness, especially on white scenes
  

More about my dome

The seat, is from a Mercedes sports car, the enclosure was hand built. Prototype-level woodworking, not spit-and-polish of a commercial product but about as good as most arcade cabinets we encounter in this hobby.

A couple videos:

Hydro Thunder Gameplay Example

Star Wars Racer's Revenge:

link to video: https://images.eyedyllic.com/Hobbies/The-Dome/n-89bNkQ/i-Nf975tD/A

WipeOut HD:

Link to video: https://images.eyedyllic.com/Hobbies/The-Dome/n-89bNkQ/i-5HHqkSX/A

High Res Photo Gallery:

https://images.eyedyllic.com/Hobbies/The-Dome/n-89bNkQ/

Game Systems / Interior Capability

Electronics:

Optoma 3D 1080p 3200 Lumen Projector
Klipsch ProMedia THX Speaker System
Wii U
PS3
xBox 360
Spare Circular Mirrors
Experimental Lens (for direct projection prototype, future enhancement)

Seeing the World through a GoPro

If you've ever been to an IMAX, you know somethings translate well to the dome distortion and other things: not so much. 180degree dome distortion works great for flight-type applications, especially in cases where the horizon is expected to curve.    Space-stuff is awesome.   Walk-around-type 1st or third person games are hit-or-miss.

I, umm.. piloted a drone once from inside the dome and that was... surreal.

Logistics and Qualification

I've observed that folks that are prone to motion sickness can't last in the dome for very long.  On the other hand, I've seen kids disappear into the dome for hours on end.   If you are prone to motion sickness, this probably isn't for you.

This is not a completely novice ownership experience.    It measures about 60" deep by 75" wide.

T-Rex Gamer

The Death of Tubby

The universe is cyclical.  Fail, win, fail, win.  Fail fail, win win.   There are patterns.   The Buddha put forth that we find meaning in life through struggle. I found a little meaning this week.

The last minute, packing for Southern Fried Gameroom Expo, I decided to remove some key tools from my usual toolbag and carry a tote with some essential pinball-arcade repair tools to the show.     Stuff like:

A Hakko Soldering Tool
A Hakko Desoldering Tool
A Fluke 7x Series Auto-sensing DMM
Glass Puller
Deoxit
Cleaner, a Solder Sucker
A Wreck-it-Ralph Nesquick containter with hot glue implements
Nut Drivers
Various and Sundry other hand tools

Somewhere in the madness of packing up - the tub evidently was left behind at the hotel near the loading dock.   This is my fault.

When I finished rounds of unloading back at home and sat down to set up my pin in it's home, I realized the tub of tools was missing.   I put up a few feelers with the hotel lost and found and after getting hung up on a couple times and getting barely comprehendible responses other times it was clear to me that hotel was not going to be my best bet.   (Although I did send a small gift basket to the hotel Loss Team manager to try to encourage better service.  Looking back and with full-knowledge of events, that turns out to have been ineffective)

Tubby, Rescued
 

The show organizers and volunteers of SFGE on the other hand are superheroes.  They work their butts off at this show and every year it's bigger, better and still feels like a big family.    I really.. really didn't want to impose on them with my careless tubby-handling..

But, alas I swallowed my pride and engaged the game bringer and facebook groups to sleuth out what happened.

Between facebook groups, facebook messenger and GAPAS email list, the fate of the tub was quickly brought to light.   

A well-meaning game bringer saw it as he left and placed it on the inside stairwell near the freight elevator.   Even though the hotel claimed they looked, they really didn't.   One of the event volunteers went back days later and found Tubby, all alone at the bottom of the stairwell.

 

I was already feeling shitty about having imposed on the group and beyond appreciative that Joe took time out of his day to go fetch Tubby.   When he asked about my shipping preference, honestly I was more worried about not inconveniencing him with finding a box that it would fit in.   "Whatever's easiest!"

As the week passes, we have these running conversations about "Where's Tubby?" and "How's Tubby?" and I try to find some small way to show my appreciation for his efforts in getting the tub shipped back.  The tracking info starts showing some sketchy entries but I chalk it up to our local Mayberry-like split-postal arrangement between two post offices.   

Eventually, though - a box arrives..  and tubby's corpse is inside it.
 

The contents of the tub were mostly gone.   Both Hakko's, the DMM, all tools but one screwdriver and a glass puller. Really, the loss feels quite surgical.  Anything of a certain dollar amount - gone.  I'm not implying that there's a postal worker, soldering enthusiast running amok with my tools, though.    I can smell bureaucratic bullshit 300 miles away and this case reeks of risk mitigation by part of the post office.    

I've spent hours traversing the postal service phone tree trying to follow these directions.  Sadly, the phone tree literally had no series of options that would allow me to speak with the Mail Recovery Center or to initiate a search. Lots and lots of frustrating dead-ends and no humans.

I've since filled out all of the relevant stacks of forms and have set my expectations appropriately low for what comes next.   I've started shopping for tools to replace the missing ones... cha-ching, stimulatin' some economics.

Take-Aways:

• Atlanta Renaissance Waverly Lost & Found - They don't find lost things. 
• SFGE Organizers, Volunteers, Fellow Game bringers - Are awesome examples of humanity
• US Postal Service Phone System - Makes me want to break things.
• US Postal Service Web Portal - 6/13/2018 isn't a valid date?   Dead Links.  Horrible.

Finally..  hold on to your Tubby's and tell your Hakko's you love them.  You never know, one day they m they may not be there. 

RIP Tubby
2015-2018

Moving On in Memory of Tubby

Slowly, I'll start replacing the lost tools.    To replace the Fluke Multimeter, I upgraded slightly from the 73 series Fluke to the Brymen BM235.    For the soldering iron, I'm sticking with the Hakko 888D.   

The hakko desoldering gun is the most bitter financial pill to swallow.  I'm going to wait until I have an impending need or the off-chance USPS actually finds the other one before I commit to that $325 Amazon Cart.  I see cheaper options that are compelling but I loved the other tool, probably best the save up and buy the one I know I'll like versus buying something that might be a let-down.

Update 2 Weeks Later

After painstakingly recounting the contents of tubby in both the "search for lost mail" and "file a claim" areas of the USPS website, this arrived in the mail a couple of days later..

No, "My bad." or "Sorry for your loss."    Just the cold, calculated efficiency of a government bureaucracy accounting and indemnification department. :)

As  I look to add on the missing de-soldering pump to the toolbag, it looks like at the time of this writing, https://www.tequipment.net/hakko/ is the place to get it.  

Ordered the Soldiering station and the FR-30x from Tequipment.    Happy with the price point and fast shipping.

SFGE 2018

The Calm before the Fun-Storm.

Southern Fried Game Room Expo continues to be my favorite show each year. It just feels like family :)

If.. my family was way more awesome and there are 300 games, an indie movie festival, music, wrestling all sorts of awesomeness..

If.. my family was way more awesome and there are 300 games, an indie movie festival, music, wrestling all sorts of awesomeness..

The Load Up

The thing about our local arcade community is: we have super-solid people. There aren’t a lot of us but we help each other out!

Charlie pulled the trailer and handed the rental and brought up Monopoly, Genesis, Lord of the Rings just to name a few. :) Cody brought Creech (and a super cool special presentation) and I took my Data East Star Wars this time and it got 682 plays over the weekend - and was rock solid :)

Gaming Floor Walk-Through

Family Fun

Cody’s Creech!

You ever seen an environmental Creech? If you were at SFGE 2018, you did. Cody’s CFTBL is gorgeous and mean to play, which makes me love it even more for some reason.

ohm-matched surround sound. yeah!

Vendors!

SFGE always has a good Vendor game and this year was no exception. Plenty of space and plenty of cool offerings from really friendly and enthusiastic vendors.

As always, Marco Specialties brought their A-Game with this epic pyramid of new Pinball. Show specials, parts, shirts & Swag - a little bit of everything and a whole lot of NIB Pinball to flip.

Flip N Out Pinball has been a solid supporter of SFGE every year that I’ve attended. They bring some of the harder to find Premium titles and sometimes you’ll find industry-folks in their show space. They brought the latest from Jersey Jack Pinball, Chicago Gaming / Planetary Pinball & American Pinball. Also, Escalera’s are awesome.

Hard to Find Titles

I was able to get 2 balls in on JJP POTC but unfortunately the game kept breaking down every time I tried to play it. I took it as a personal rejection, not a quality issue w/ the pin. Maybe it just didn’t like me - seems like others really enjoyed it!

Speaking of Rum…

Seeing my old POTC on the show floor was a little bit like seeing an ex-girlfriend happy with her new beau. Probably shouldn’t have sold this game but at least it went to a solid dude who appreciates it!

KingPin

Mark Ritchie’s KingPin was provided on the floor by Circus Maximus for us to flip. They were selling art, toppers & Swag to help fund the project. I’m a huge fan of MR games, this one shot great!

Star Wars LE

Finally got a chance to play Star Wars LE and they had the sound cranked all of the way up, which was nice. :) I liked it.

Games!

Did I mention there are alot of games? Like.. over 300 or so… this becomes the largest Arcade in Georgia and probably the largest functional arcade in the Southeast for the weekend.

Charity!

Project Pinball is an excellent charity, run by an awesome group of people.

Pinvasion!

Pinvasion V really stands out as a next-level pinball tournament. This year it was moved off into a different portion of the hotel, which seemed to work really well. This is always a super-well-organized and highly attended tournament.

This year, my daughter really wanted to try her hand at some competitive pinball. She was already IFPA listed from a previous tournament and was feeling the competitive itch.

Ultimately, in order to (really) compete in the tournament takes a level of dedication and focus that we lacked this year but she still had a great time.

Shenanigans!

We were… on the other hand, dedicated and focused in taking part in some Shenanigans. Jena’s inflatable T-Rex is always a hit. :)

BRRAAAAIIIINNNNSS! (No, really - brains!) Cody is an incredible player and wealth of pinball and arcade knowledge from rules and play to anything repair related.

If you stand still long enough, Billy might sign you.

Personalities & Industry Celebs

This was the year I developed a crush on Cabarets. Tried to buy this one, actually but it was some sort of relay-phone dead-drop communication scenario where you left a message under a park bench with your offer and someone randomly scribbled on a piece of toilet paper in the center bathroom stall if your offer was excepted. Err.. something like that. :) Ah, well - sweet game - look forward to finding one!

That’s a Wrap

It is funny how the truck always ends up coming home a little more full than when we arrived. :) Keep an eye on your games, they will multiply before you know it!

After an awesome weekend we were loaded up and headed back to the Gulf Coast with only one casualty. RIP Tubby.

My Full Photo Gallery from 2018 SFGE is here: https://images.eyedyllic.com/Hobbies/SFGE-2018/n-LxrDNw/

Data East Star Wars at SFGE 2018

This year, I took my Data East Star Wars to SFGE.   

Star Wars in it's cubby hole in the game room. Thankfully Kylo had a good game, so he didn't go wacky with that saber.. :) 

The pinsound + flipper fidelity is capable of drowning out the surrounding pins in John Williams awesome-ness.  Hopefully you'll be able to hear it but I want to be a good pin-neighbor on the show floor. 

Download link for this Pinsound Orchestration: 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0rejma4nsqspz7m/Star_Wars_OST_By_BD2a.zip?dl=0

Playfield Photos

The illuminated flipper bat kit is RGB and can be pretty much any color.   I liked the stark white to play off the Storm Trooper art.  Though, Red, Green, Blue gives you the lightsaber feel.    You can get this kit here:  

http://www.planetarypinball.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PPS-FLIPLIGHTUP-KIT
 

I've tried many different types of lit flipper buttons.  The ones I like the most are from Pinball Life.  I feel like they hold up better than the L-Board alternatives.

Get them here:  https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=catalog&mode=search&search_in=all&search_str=brite+buttons

Power Stuff

Auxillary switching power supply to aide mods and reduce power load from Power Driver board.

Custom built molex connectors and a breakout board, DKTap power out

Power Breakout Board:
https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=4234

DKTap:

http://www.kimballspinballs.com/dk-pinball/

Original DE MPU - batteries replaced in January 2018, no damage here.   Rottendog Playfield Power Board and Power Supply, though I have working originals.   The RD power boards seem to provide cleaner power than the original boards.

Flipper Fidelity for Pinsound:   https://flipperfidelity.com/pinsound.html

Original Playfield Power board.   Works.

Original Power Supply.  Works but the board has some heat cracking on the back.  The RD board seems to provide cleaner power anyway.

Sound Board - Parts Side

Sound Board - Solder Side

Sound board is replaced by Pinsound.

Original Speakers

Original Cabinet Speaker / Sub

Game Audits from the Show

I freed one stuck ball all weekend.   The pin help up great all weekend and had a steady line of people on it, which I really liked to see!

25 Year Old Pinball or Boxed Wine

Newer isn't always better.  

Increasingly I feel like that craggy old shotgun wielding archetype that Robin Williams would go to for laughs in his routines..  You know the one.  He's sitting on his front porch with a stained trucker hat with a dirty slogan.  A highball in an unironic "old fart" coffee cup sits on a folding table next to a rolled up newspaper and his rants about kids these days are hard to make out around the wad of chew in his mouth.   

New in Box Pinball isn't for me.   They just don't make them like they used to, etc etc.

Except for... I'm not even 40 yet, I don't like mouth and throat cancer, I happen to like loud music and I'm quite optimistic about where "kids these days" will lead our future society in terms of not being assholes to fellow humans and improving life through technology.

Except for pinball.   You see: "In my day we didn't need HD screens, instead w..."

On podcasts like Kaneda's pinball podcast there are recurring themes, paraphrased:

• New Pinball is Best
• Remakes are better than Originals
• We need more collectible, exclusive pinball

Pinside posts with themes of "DMD is now VHS" and  "LCD games dethroning the DMD juggernauts" leave a narrative that the future of pinball is about media immersion, LCD screens, run by PCs and surface-mount modernized components.

I couldn't disagree more.

New Pinball is Best

New pinball is new.  The best pinball ever, is the new one just around the corner.  Until 4 months from now when the next-new one is shipping.  Somewhere in this cycle of FOMO-fueled madness, there probably is some good pinball.   You know how you'll find the best pinball experiences?  With time.  Over time, you'll discover the best pinball machines of the current release generations.   

 

Remakes are better than Originals

The remakes are cool.  Not necessarily better.   The remakes have bigger, color displays and modern components.  Modern components that are modeled in design off of disposable consumer electronics.  Surface-mount components and a closed, non-modular system are found on the remakes.  You loose customization and repairability and trade them for a miniaturized components.  Hopefully, they hold up over time because these remakes are being applied to some of the best pinball ever made.  That's a $9k, 20 year gamble.

 

We need more collectible, exclusive pinball   

Pfft.  Pinball as a collectible.  Seriously?  Pinball is meant to be played, not idolized.  It's a game to be enjoyed with friends, not a trophy to lord over your jealous peers.  $30k pinball machines to sit in some rich guy's trophy room does nothing to spread the love of the hobby.

For me, I'm watching for known-awesome Bally / Williams titles more than NIB pinball.

Some pondering that led me here, your mileage may vary:

• Theme alone, can't save a pin but can sink it.
• The Pinside Top 100 List is good but also skewed temporarily by new-pinball
• Stern will keep the line running, no matter what. 
  • If you are holding a Stern title as a collectible, that probably isn't going to work out, long term
  • Expect re-runs of past titles to augment disappointing sales or delays on new release titles (ac/dc recently)
• Stern will address quality issues but to an operator's-level of satisfaction. 
  • Check your collector quality OCD at the door.
  • Expect issues to be blamed on mods
  • Go through distributor to get repairs, even out of warranty
• Stern's licenses often require protections that lead towards hostility towards game customization businesses. 
  • Alternate translite artists get take-down notices
• SAM-games were over-built in a good way.  Electronics, playfield, clear coating, cabinet, welds and connector solder - all better in SAM titles.
• SPIKE v2 isn't there, yet. But will get there.
• JJP titles are well built in terms of cabinet and playfield but the electronics are less proven and may not age well.
  • how many 20 year old PCs do you have that are still working?
  • support is problematic
• JJP Production tooling time is too high to release themed games on a schedule relevant to IP
  • Last POTC movie was released in Summer of 2017.  In Summer of 2018, you still can't own the POTC pin in your home.
• CGC Remakes are good but different in important ways.
  • The electronics may not age well
  • They can't be customized
  • They emphasize bling over truth-to-the-original
• Spooky Pinball's commissioned titles lack replay-ability and depth, they are missing that x-factor. 
  • TNA will end up being the Medieval Madness of this era of Pinball
  • Extra attention to the BOL tells me they have a keep eye on bottom line, don't expect lots of code updates long term 
    • Except for TNA - Danesi will continue to make it a great experience, on his own time and probably dime.
• American Pinball is hopeful but still a gamble.  Houdini plays well but production ramp up is taking forever. Probably not sustainable.
• Dutch Pinball - Expect them to fail.
• Heighway Pinball - They are in the process of failing.
• Deeproot Pinball - Too early to tell, expectations are currently low.

I recently found this stash of 25 year-old single-grain (yes, grain) Scotch rebottled by "That Boutique-y Whiskey Company".    It is tasty and more affordable than one might imagine.   You can drink Boxed wine or a 3 year old blended Whiskey.  They'll both go down.   Me?   I'm thinking quality of quantity.  You can have your new in box LCD pinball.  Keep selling those Bally-Williams titles to make room for the new Sterns.   They'll be making about 4 a year until the cows come home.   

You can stare at your $40k SUPREME pinball or your $15k Super-Limited Edition Re-themed Batman. I think I'll grab a $12 bottle of wine or $80 bottle of aged scotch and go play my players quality $5k AFM with a buddy.

Robotron in the House

Robotron is one of these games that I've only recently discovered a love for through the recommendation and good-advice of friends.   It is a slightly older title than I would have normally identified with as an arcade-dweller kid but wow - what a fun game! 

After spending some time with it on a friend's MAME setup and on my ArpiCade card I decided that it was the next arcade cabinet for my gameroom.  I recalled having seen one locally in a local basement a few years ago helping a friend pick up a game.  I figured it would already have sold but was surprised to find it was still available.  Not running but still available.

After some light haggling we can to terms and I agreed to buy it.  Another good friend and purveyor of arcade goodness, David - even picked it up for me while servicing the seller's Burgertime.

In condition, the game's technical condition had deteriorated a little since a couple of years ago.  I recall it booted to a memory error back then, these days it didn't boot at all.

The original power supply apparently had some issues (though was thankfully still in the cabinet.) .  This power supply sat atop the coin door. The owner would reach in and power on the game by flipping this PS on and off.   

I'm not really judging whomever did this as a fix, more so I'm just really thankful that these days Arcadeshop, highscoresaves, twisty wrist and others provide viable adapted power supply modernization options that allow you to preserve the original game harness and introduce a switching power supply.

This stuff might not have been around when the tech did the fix or maybe the owner opted for quick-and-easy route, "Just get it going."

At any rate, the original interlock switch and cabinet power switches were all bypassed by this inclusion.

When modernizing a power supply situation, I'm a fan of these Power Supplies (pictured below) that I usually get from Arcadeshop.  They have a pretty handy, well-diagrammed on/off remote wiring capability, which makes them versatile.   If you aren't a purist or working with a modern-or-remade cabinet, you can cut a hole in a cabinet and have it protrude like a PC power supply out the back of a cabinet.   No, of course I didn't do that with Robotron. 

The 4-pin connector gives you a nice ability to wire into an existing cabinet power switch and wiring loop.   I made a couple of connectors and boom the cabinet switch is back in service, as is the safety interlock.  Even though they are more annoying than helpful in most cases..

The boards have some head-scratching black paint overspray. The black paint seems more like rhino-lining material than spray paint but who knows.    Also a fair number of board repairs and trace workarounds on the mainboard.     I spent a few hours troubleshooting voltages and reseating chips before deciding, for now, the original boards are not a priority for me.

There, the game sat.  Pulled out from the line up, parts strewn about everywhere as I tried to work in free moments to continue troubleshooting.   Kids running in and out of the game room, parts everywhere.  As I opened the Nest app one night to set the temperature I saw the B&W footage of the game in the basement and this stirred decision time..

After only a few hours here and there troubleshooting voltages and reseating chips.  I decided for now the original boards are not a priority for me.   Let's just get it playing.. 

I could throw hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours at the original board stack and maybe power supply or I could throw hundreds of dollars and a few hours and do a non-permanent Multi-Williams conversion and have not only Robotron but Joust and Defender and Stargate and others..

In what is probably equal parts of impatience and curiosity, justified-after-the-fact: I ordered a bunch of stuff from ArcadeShop.  I didn't want to do any permanent conversions to the cabinet or control panel but decided to order a Multi-Williams fPGA board and control panel, related cabling, etc.

I pulled everything, the original wiring harness, control panel, power supply, boards.   I have to admit I felt a little guilty for doing this.   I made no additional cuts to cabling, I cleaned it all as best I could, wrapped it all in paper, bubble and pallet wrap plastic and stowed it in the cabinet.

It still felt wrong..  like removing the games' vital organs or something?  I guess all of these years of watching KLOV threads and watching people get thrashed for multi game conversions has made me sensitive to this.   

I kept.. everything.  Documented it all with photos and my thoughts are that one day, I might decide to put the game back into an original state.  As the KLOV trolls might put it:

You neutered the unicorn but at least you put the balls in a jar, in formaldehyde. 

For now, though - I'm running the Multi-Williams board which is directly booting to Robotron.  

I wanted to get my Joust and Defender on, so I added a Multi-Williams control panel from ArcadeShop as well. 

The assembled Multi Williams control panel with slightly modified IL-stick joysticks and repro ball, sticks and shafts.

Then, I fell down the WICO leaf-switch hole and got stuck on trying to find a way to get WICO's working in the reproduction control panel.

I borrowed the WICO joysticks from the original control panel.  Which, it turns out isn't so original.  Looks like a converted Bubbles control panel. I rebuilt the WICO sticks with new shafts, balls, leaf switches, grommets and washers.  I crimped on new pinch connectors on the old control panel - and stowed it away for later.

The original control panel being wooden and the repro Multi-Williams being metal creates a height issue with the existing sticks.  There isn't a spacer and e-clip configuration that would allow me to get the height in range of being correct, so I came up with something that might be janky but seems to be working well, so far:

I cut square spacers out in the relative shape of the WICO from some 3/4" nominal cabinet-grade scrap leftover from another around-the-house honey-do project.  I shot it with a couple of coats of rattle-can clearcoat to give the dust washer a nice slick surface to glide over.

This gets us a closer-to-accurate height and lets me have dust washers sandwiched between the control panel underside and WICO top.   I used standoff's to mount the blocks and WICO's to the repro control panel's existing screws.

..and... after a night of installing everything and another evening of tweaking.. It lives!  Robotron in the house ya'll.   The direct-boot option on the J-Rok is pretty awesome. The game boots straight to Robotron and if it were not for the control panel you'd never know it was a Multi-Williams board.    P1 Start + P2 Start and you get to the game select menu where you can switch games.   A few games included on the board are vertical but all of the horizontals play very well.

Nathan was the first person to get a High Score recorded on the High Score board for Robotron. It is a hotly contested spot, though with Justin currently in the lead. :)