Aero Table - rare cocktail shmup goodness

Browsing KLOV a few weeks back, I found a guy selling a Sega STV board with a Die Hard cart and natural curiosity got me to click on the post and see what's up, even though I already have an STV board with a Die Hard cart.

Once I clicked on the clink, I saw a pic of the game playing in - what's this! - a Sega Aero Table, a rare, Japanese cocktail candy cab.

I contacted the seller and told him I wasn't interested in the game but I was in the cab and we struck a deal fairly quickly for little money. I was stoked.

Getting the game was a bit of a pain, but the seller was good about finally delivering it while I was in Las Vegas, loading it into the trailer as we were preparing to leave, so kudos to him for the good timing!

We brought it back, Dave and I, driving back across country from our big trade show and I was stoked as hell to try it out. The previous owner Kryloned it, but it doesn't look to bad, so I may keep it that way for a while as I assemble all the stuff to make it really nice - like a good CP, some Sanwa sticks and buttons and a monitor fix as it has a nasty pincushion issue.

We popped in DDP DOJ and played a number of credits and both of us were blown away by the crisp, clean picture from the Nanao dual-res monitor. This thing looks even better than my Astro City!



We had it up on the pallate jack as its a bear to move around - no fiberglass on this one - but the angle at which you play it is very natural and it should be alot of fun to game on. The monitor also rotates very easily - more so than my Astro City - and I can even turn it upside-down to play Beastie Feastie, which will be great.

It's missing the coin door and the coin mech, but I'm not too worried about those. I may get something fabricated in the future, but for now, I'm going to see how sharp I can get it without a paint job, one piece at a time. I have a very good condition cp on the way from mastercello on shmups and I'll be ordering a new monitor bezel from Happ, which is on my way home from work and some new sticks and buttons from Lizard Lick Amusements.

On the bonus side, it does have the fore mentioned Nanao dual-res monitor for when I feel like getting Ikaruga or Crackdown. The seller also cut and painted a new piece of glass for the cocktail top so its as clear and perfect as it will ever be.

It's a very nice addition to the small stable of machines I own and I'll be keeping it at work for a while, installing bits and pieces and hopefully getting someone to work out the pincushion issue before I bring it home to its stablemates.