[snazzy jazzy music]
- Greetings, and welcome to my inner child
going absolutely insane!
This is an Atari Missile Command cabinet from 1980.
And not just any Missile Command cabinet,
this is a cabaret cabinet that they didn't make
as many of as the normal upright ones
There were a couple of other types as well,
the cocktails, and the environmental, but...
I've always been really fond of the cabarets,
not only because of the shape and design,
but look at that woodgrain.
[laughs in walnut]
That is factory original Atari-installed woodgrain
and, oh man, this is just a absolute dream come true.
In fact, not too long ago I was talking about
how I don't have any arcade games,
and I've always wanted one,
and, ah, I got those little mini-arcades,
and having visited some really cool arcades
in person recently, those kind of things
just always re-ignite the desire.
Well, I finally got this one,
so let's plug it in, check it out.
Let me talk briefly about it,
because I'm so excited, oh my go-[SHAKES EXCITEDLY]
So we got the power cable here.
[dramatic synthwave music]
So yeah! It is Missile Command, aw dude!
So this is easily one of my favorites
from the early 80's and I've been thinking about
so many different types of arcade games
that I might want, if I were to ever, you know,
buy one, and get into the whole arcade collecting thing,
and, well, I chose this one for a variety of reasons.
Again, it's a personal favorite, but also just because
of the size and form factor and everything,
and if I was gonna get an arcade machine,
I want it to be unique enough that it's not
easily replicated through emulation.
There's a ton of ways to play Missile Command otherwise.
I've got a bunch of them myself.
I've got an X-Arcade Tankstick with a trackball controller,
a whole lot of Atari emulator packs,
and a lot of that's super convenient.
I'm not interested in emulation for an arcade machine,
at least not yet.
Wasn't looking for MAME machines, I wasn't looking for
emulations boxes, like the 1UP arcades that are sold now.
For my first arcade, I wanted dedicated hardware
that's vintage and unique and awesome
and, I don't know, is Missile Command, I guess.
[laughs] So okay,
maybe I don't have the most profound reasons
for picking this particular machine,
except that I wanted it, and it was nearby, and local,
it was available, and it had so much woodgrain.
It's amazing.
I love the side art on Missile Command
on the full-sized upright, but, oh man.
It does have working coin doors and slots and everything.
Some of it definitely needs a bit of repairing.
In fact, this one sticks, but for the most part
it has been really well taken care of
and restored, actually recently.
It was from a local place called Joe's Video Games
or Lyons Arcade, I don't know.
Seems to be known by couple of different names,
and they're down in Rock Hill, South Carolina
so it's a couple hours drive from me here in North Carolina
but, close enough, for sure.
I've been looking at them for a long time
and, actually, I ran across this one first
as a restoration on YouTube.
It was a series of videos that Joe did
putting this thing back together,
you know, getting the trackball working again,
and the display working again, and all sorts of
other internals and stuff like that
that I don't have to mess with if I get it from him,
and, plus, I liked the idea of buying local
and not shipping from something across the country.
Yeah.
It's just the fact that it was also, again the cabaret.
I've been in love with this design
ever since seeing one of these up in Chicago,
or outside of Chicago, I don't remember where it is,
but it's the Galloping Ghost arcade.
It's gigantic, I think it's maybe the biggest in the US now
in terms of number of individual cabinets,
but they have one of these Missile Command cabarets
and I had never seen one in this form factor before,
and I just saw it and fell in love.
You know, it's still the proper height in terms of
like, for an adult, so I can just be right here
and I'm just under six feet tall, so it's fine for that.
You just kinda have to look down
instead of looking straight forward, in a way.
I think it's a good trade-off for what I'm getting
and for what I want, and really I don't have a big house.
This is a, like, 800 square foot house, I think
so I don't even know where I'm gonna put it yet.
[storage-conscious chuckling]
I've got not a lot of room right here
but it's just here for the moment, I'll find somewhere.
Actually thinking about redoing my living room,
so I'll probably take it in there and mess around
and do that, or, who knows.
I'll figure something out.
I will sleep with this thing if I have to,
I will sleep with you!
Let's look inside here really quick,
cuz I think this is fascinating.
I've always loved coin mechanisms,
and the fact that this one works, for the most part,
[light chuckling] is pretty great!
Player two one here doesn't, really,
but this one totally works.
[coin mechanism clanking]
[thunks onto floor]
Yep, so that one pretty much works.
[clunk]
This goes down there into the coin tray
or box, or whatever, I don't really know the terminology.
[chuckles]
I'd like to find an original tray and get that going,
but man, everything in here is pretty much original
as far as I know.
That was another reason that attracted me to it.
It hadn't been modified, it doesn't have a bootleg board.
I've ordered one of those kits that lets me play
Super Missile Attack on here, too.
It just sort of plugs in on top of the 6502,
sort of a daughterboard thing.
Right in the middle there, got some dip switches,
and there's some back there, too,
and those will allow me to set it on free play if you want,
but right now, it's just taking quarters.
[fiddling with key lock] [groans of inadequacy]
I mean, I'm gonna keep the woodgrain I think,
even though it's a little bit screwed here and there.
There's definitely some spots missing,
in fact, right back here is pretty janked.
That's unfortunate, but that's also
pretty commonplace on these things.
There's also this sort of darkened glass here,
I guess it's plexi.
I'm not sure if there's supposed to be,
like, an overlay on top of that?
I've seen some of them that do have it.
I know the upright cabinet does, but I don't even know.
Here's the other thing, it also came with
some nice little service manuals
and operation things and all this.
This is handy, a whole bunch of schematics and whatnot.
Also has 14 inch color TV monitor, yes.
It is the original monitor in there.
In fact, there's a little bit of burn-in.
I've already gone through a few of these.
These PCB's were for the trackball.
You got these little optical sensors on there,
and all three of these were like, dead,
and when I was picking this up at Joe's,
it was not working right on the x-axis.
It would work fine going left, but not right.
Up and down was pretty much perfect on the y-axis, but yeah.
So we replaced the bearings, and swapped these out,
and [laughs] one thing after another, man.
We were trying all sorts of things.
Cleaning them, trying different versions of it
and, you know, lubing things, and switching out.
Like the whole trackball had been rebuilt already,
he already did that before I got it, but anyway.
Eh, let's go ahead and play a round.
I've got a lot of other things that I wanna say about this
and I'll probably do a video, more involved, once I
get it all fixed up, but for now, I just wanna show it.
I'm just excited, man!
This is so cool.
All right, so, filming this has proven
to be an interesting challenge.
It's definitely not as easy to capture as a proper upright
or even a cabaret, but that's one reason I don't think
I ever made a review of the one in Galloping Ghost.
I did film footage for a review during
Arcade August years ago but, yeah, anyway,
like I said, I'll cover this in some enhanced fashion
in the future, but let's get a quarter in there.
[quarter plunks into machine] Oh yeah.
Yes, I could put it on free play with the dip switches,
but, screw that.
[siren]
Quarters are fun.
And that right there, that was the sound of happiness.
[loud explosions]
I love the POKEY sounds on this.
[rhythmic thudding]
[siren]
[laughs]
Oh, yes.
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
Yeah, playing an angle because of the camera
is kind of weird.
Let's see, maybe this will be better.
Yeah, this is a little more comfortable.
[loud siren]
I also have it on these furniture casters
so I can slide it around, so,
if it's shaking a bit, that's why.
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
What the...
Aww.
[laughs]
Ah, that was pretty bad.
[rhythmic thudding]
[siren]
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
I love this game, I seriously do.
I'm not amazing at it, yet,
but it's just so friggin' fun, I don't know.
There's something delightfully simplistic
and yet immediately engaging every single time I play.
Aw, suck.
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
Pfft.
Welp.
[laughs]
[rhythmic banging]
[siren]
[rhythmic beeping]
[loud explosions]
Aww.
[groans]
[laughs] Totally screwed this round up very quickly.
Oh, dear.
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
Well, whatever.
Got that bonus city, who cares.
[bonus city beeping]
[siren] Doesn't it sound great?
Augh!
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
I hate those things.
Pfft.
Yeah, well, ya know.
[laughs]
Oh, wow, that didn't actually destroy everything?
That's amazing. [siren]
It's getting lenient.
All right.
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
Why are those so hard to do?
There we go, I got one of 'em.
I lost everything, but I got one.
[laughs]
Stupid smart bombs.
Okay, but yeah.
This is an absolute delight to have.
I am extremely fortunate to be able to afford to have this
and even have a space to put it.
This is so cool.
Absolute dream come true in every single way.
So, yeah.
Now I want, like, ten more arcade machines,
[laughs] and, I mean, I've got a lot of
work to do in here still, I mean, not a ton.
The fact that it was in such good shape
and had been recently restored was pretty awesome.
You know, the rebuilt trackball
and all sorts of other things.
The CRT wasn't working back...
Yeah, if you just wanna go and check out those videos
of the restoration, I'll link them in the video description.
I'm gonna cover this at some future venture
and, I don't even know, man,
just enjoy the crap out of it, I guess.
Until then, I got one more play, so.
[coin clanking]
Yeah. [siren]
Such a peaceful first round every time.
It's just like...
I think that's what so intoxicating about this.
[loud explosions]
Because there's like, nothing going on here
at the beginning, after all that craziness
of the last quarter.
[rhythmic banging]
Ah.
I was up 'til 4:30 in the morning last night just playing.
[laughs]
I haven't done that since, ever.
I don't know.
Never had an arcade machine, so I've never done that,
but I have now.
Dude, it's fun.
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
Yeah, there we go.
Usually takes me a good four or five rounds
to get back into the groove.
[siren]
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
[rhythmic banging]
[siren]
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
Nope.
Argh, lost one.
Dangit.
[chuckling at failure]
[rhythmic banging]
Isn't it neat? [siren]
So neat.
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
I guess this is just 'LGR Arcades' now.
Just playing arcade games.
Oof, nope, nope.
All right.
Coulda gotten worse. [rhythmic banging]
[happy bonus city beeping]
[laughs] POKEY chip!
Ah, it's like having an Atari 8-Bit computer,
just, like, chillin' over here in this giant cabinet.
It's not even that giant.
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
Oh, that one's going really fast.
[rhythmic banging] Such crunchy sound.
[siren]
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
The way it reverberates through this wooden cabinet
and all the metal and everything in there,
it just sounds wonderful.
[laughs]
[rhythmic banging] This thing weighs
190 pounds,
by the way. [siren]
This is a very heavy machine
for being smaller.
[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]
Oh, this sucks.
[frustrated groans]
Yep, welp, that's the end of that.
[laughs]
That wasn't the worst score I've had lately.
So yeah, anyway, got nothing else to say
and now I'm just wasting time.
I'm gonna keep playing this,
put this video together really quick and post it.
Uh, yeah.
I have something much more involved here for you
on Friday, but in the meantime, just wanted to share this
because it makes me happy, and I hope it makes
somebody else happy, and, yeah.
Thanks for watching!
[outro synth music, game sounds play]