Is it already February?!!!

So.  It's a new year.

2015.... will be a good year.

The transition between 2014 and 2015 was rife with excitement for me!
I picked up in the span of four weeks (mid-December through mid-January)...

- an Outrun (grail for me),
- a Galaga (another strong desire), and two project machines,
- Double Dragon in a Moon Patrol cab,
- and X-Men vs Street Fighter working, just no monitor.

Let's talk about each one.

First came the Galaga.  Saw a CL ad for a Galaga near me for $200, said the sprites were mess up or something. I show up at the address and it's a business, and they are moving.  He's got a Donkey Kong (already spoken for) that worked, and this Galaga.

It's not actually playing blind or anything, it's got a single line down the center (vertical collapse?).  I was hesitant about putting money down for it, but the cabinet was in really nice shape.  Just really needed new art and that was that.  I could even let it slide if I really wanted to.  Almost no swelling, which is unusual for these cabs.  I looked in the back, and saw it had a WG 4600 in it.... which had a daughter card on it... which looked loose to me.... hmmmm...

I offered him $120 for it... we eventually agreed at $150. I took it home, reseated the card, and it fired right up!  W00t!..... Just so you know, this is not a normal price for a decent working Galaga.

Anyway, next came Outrun.  It's always been my favorite driving game (unless you're talking about San Francisco Rush 2049 of course!).  I picked this one up for an okay price from a guy down south of Macon.

I probably paid a little too much for it in it's current condition. It still needs a new bezel (they are always cracked), and it has a small amount of wood damage on the back, but that's easy to fix.  Also, the fan on these things sound like a 747 is taking off in your house, so I'd like to replace that.

Finally, the shaker motor is a little too much on this thing... wonder if the springs are bad, or need some work... likely. I'll have to order the repro gears for the steering, put the shaker motor on a switch, and eventually source a new bezel (or do a little fiber glass repair work).

Also, it's running Turbo Outrun, which I don't like as much as Outrun, but oh well.  It's hard enough to find one of these in the South.

Then came the project machines.

Local dealer had a Double Dragon for sale. I don't really care about that, but it was in a Williams Moon Patrol cabinet, and you could still see the blue paint underneath the black sides.  I mainly got this to either convert back to Moon Patrol, or make into a Multi Williams.  Or finally have a small MAME machine. I dunno.

Finally, he also had a working X-Men vs Street Fighter in a nice dynamo HS-5 cab, that was only missing a 25" monitor.  I traded him one of my spare 25" monitors (ironically) for it.  Don't worry, I have 3 more!  So I'm putting one of the spare WG 25" K7000's into it.  Should be nice.

It's always fun to have a Street Fighter type fighting game. I'll likely put in a spare Marvel vs Capcom CPS-2 board I have in it.  I may even look into getting a custom Multi-Capcom cardboard bezel made up for it, so I can switch games out.

Anyway, here's hoping the rest of 2015 will be just as good!

Thanks,
Steven