Tuesday, August 4, 2009

New cab: vs. Castlevania (woohoo!)

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I'm so stoked on the cab, I can't even begin to tell you. I have been after a vs. cab in which to house my vs. Castlevania pcb for a little over a year and even started looking at vs. cabs 5-10 hours away, just so I could get it up and running.

A little while after I almost pulled the trigger on getting a vs. The Goonies in Iowa (about ten hours round trip), I found this vs. cab on Craigslist Milwaukee about an hour and a half away and pounced on it like a fat man on a free cupcake.

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It started life as a Donkey Kong and became a vs. Golf and now lives on as a vs. Castlevania. It was in amazingly good shape and had very few problems: the marquee light was burnt out, two microswitches missing from the controls, few cigarette burned buttons, cracked t-molding. All are easily fixable and I did fix a number of them last night when I spent four hours stripping the parts out of the cab, cleaning it and reassembling it. Those of you who know me rather well, know I can be a bit anal. I even rebuilt the buttons for the cp - ones which I will be replacing shortly.

The monitor is in excellent shape, the cab has no water damage whatsoever, both coin mechs work, all the trim bits are in the cab, the bezel is in near mint condition and the side art is 95% there.

I started to take it apart and wanted to make sure the board fired up and popped it into the cab and viola - it fired up right away. The speaker sounds great and actually throws out some bad ass bass that makes the game sound even more awesome (if that's even possible).

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Last night, I played about a dozen games as I was cleaning and making trips back and forth to Home Depot to replace hardware and other bits and loved every second of it. Playing with a joystick is awesome and allows you even greater control over Simon.

I played one game this morning after getting to work and 1cc'd it with Dave watching, only dying once on Dracula, who can kill you in three hits. Brutal.

I do have a vs. The Goonies kit on the way for it and vs. Golf is actually one of my secret favorite NES games, so that will definately get some play time as well.

Thanks to Linda who contributed to the vs. cab fund for my b-day present, Jason (shackleford) for the vs. Castlevania pcb and Scott over at Hyperspace Arcade Entertainment (http://www.hyperspacearcade.com/) for the mint NOS marquee.

11 comments:

Dave said...

very nice.. very nice.

watching the 1cc was pretty intense. I was honestly a little worried when I thought you weren't going to make it. Glad you didn't screw it up and punch the cab.

drboom said...

I was never not going to make it...

I did also order some t-molding for the cab as what's on there is chewed up.

So awesome.

gunbird18 said...

That is awesome! Can't wait to play it!

Arcade Fever said...

Congrats drboom, looks minty fresh!

drboom said...

I thing the camera I used kinda smoothes out the blemishes. :) It is a bit rough, but in extremely good shape for what I paid. Thanks for the love.

Now you guys need to come by the the Chicago meet in - tentatively - October. Check out the Shmups thread for more details.

Pete@arcocoffee.com said...

Hi,
I'm working on a vs castlevania now. Bright orange orange orange. I'm confused though since klov says the game is alternating 2 player and I can only seem to get one player working. Is klov wrong guys??

drboom said...

Yup - klov is wrong. Lots of info out there on vs games is wrong, unfortunately. 1 player only and you take twice the damage of the NES version, timer is shorter by a good deal (need to run through second stage to avoid timing out).
Good luck with your cab!

Pete@arcocoffee.com said...

Thanks much. Any one here want this cab?

drboom said...

Not interested in keeping it? Awesome game for sure - hard, but fun as hell.
How far along is your project?

Pete@arcocoffee.com said...

We were left with an operators warehouse of games and pool tables when he did not pay his rent and closed his business.
Sooo, even though is is a cool game, this one and a bunch of others have to go.
The cab is in fair condition, really orange, a couple scuffs, and such but the monitor is great and the harness is unhacked.
I have super mario and a duck hunt nintendo cab left too.

drboom said...

Wow. :)
I wish I had room for more cabs, but frankly, I have one too many - the vs Castlevania is in the garage at the moment!
I would suggest going onto the klov forums and you'll probably get some action - especially if there are some classics.