What would you do?

[RaveN]

What would you do?

So i bought a "faulty Taito pac-man cocktail table" from ebay a good while back, knowing full well it was an original taito cab with a bootleg pac-man board.

The table had been stripped of it's former identity apart from the control panels, and after alot of help from VAPS forum we managed to identify the table from looking at Taito flyers control panels - the game was ... Space Chaser.

I have restored it to it's former glory (I'm a bit of purist unfortunately when it comes to restorations), briefly putting in a 60-in-1 before i FINALLY tracked down a space-chaser boardset.

The problem is, although it looks great, recapped original Toei monitor (miniscule amounts of screenburn), recapped original PSU, the game is just a bit dull to play. I have yet to see another of these machines, either uprights or cocktails for sale so I assume it is pretty rare, but I wonder if it is rare because it was just never a particularly good game and not manufactured in any great number because of this.

While I like to restore and keep things original, I am certain to not make my money back on selling this so I have no idea what to do with it? Seems a shame to convert to SI (of which there are plenty) and lose another perhaps rare machine

Any ideas??

Cheers,

Andy

 

[tymawrcymru]

Sell it as is.

If it has been nicely restored, you should be able to get a decent price.

Just my opinion, for what it is worth

 

[trm]

Another vote for as-is. I'd hope there are other people out there who appreciate the originality and you can advertise it as suitable for easy conversion to Pac Man, assuming it's still got the right sticks in?

Or just put a reserve and if it doesn't shift Pac it and resell?

 

[IDCHAPPY]

Break it up, sell the spare and torch what you can get shot of.....

Just kidding

, try and sell as is.

 

[ZedEx48K]

The simple answer is which does your (arcade)heart or your wallet need to be satisfied the most atm.

 

[Robert]

Hi RaveN,

Before you get rid of it, I wonder if you can test something for me?

In mametesters bug 2662 ( http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=2662 ), we are discussing the speed of the missile sound, and if it should speed up or slow down towards the end of a level. Is it possible for you to determine this from your real hardware? If you find you die too quickly I can provide an avi file of how to pass the first 2 levels.

Thanks very much if you can answer this question.

 

[Robert]

Oh, also if you could dump the roms, because in MAME there is a bug when the game is set for the Hard setting.

 

[RaveN]

Thanks for the replies!
Although, wrong answers, I wanted you to all say "Space Chaser!?! That's the bestest, rarest game ever, I'll buy it off you for £2k!!"

I think I'll keep it for now. The problem is, when collecting arcade machines, you can get away with a relatively large number of uprights, all neatly stacked against the wall. But cocktails just tend to end up getting in the way.

Robert: Sure no problem, as long as you don't mind waiting a couple of weeks. I'm off skiing in a few days. I also have no way of ready 2708 roms at the mo, so I'll have to do a complete data dump from the cpu socket and split the data.

Cheers,

Andy

 

[Robert]

Thanks RaveN, enjoy your skiiing and I look forward to your findings

 

[Robert]

Here's a video of how to pass levels 1 and 2.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/9c7wn1

Make sure the game is set to Easy difficulty. Do not press the Fuel button.

Level 3 has 3 different ways of starting. The video will let you pass level 3 on the 2nd attempt.

 

[RaveN]

All sorted mate, i've sent you the url to a video.

 

[Robert]

Thank you so much, the audio there confirms my point, the sound speeds up towards the end.

Have fun with that game, hopefully you will be able to conquer it eventually.

When you get to level 9, it thereafter stays at that level. After 99,990 points the display goes back to 0 but internally it remembers. If you die at (let's say) 101,000 the highscore will say 1,000 and due to a strange bug, nobody will be able to beat it - no matter what they get.

 

[RaveN]

No problem mate, the sound certainly speeds up, to the point where it goes a bit crazy!
I'll never be able to conquer it, it drives me mad! Nice quirk with the hi-score though.