Arcade & Beers

Share unrelated electronics stuff, ideas, rants, etc!
Post Reply
User avatar
uze6666
Site Admin
Posts: 4801
Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:13 pm
Location: Montreal, Canada
Contact:

Arcade & Beers

Post by uze6666 »

Hey Clay, is that your arcade? ...And you even serve beer in there? Man, must be the coolest arcade I've ever seen! :mrgreen:
http://www.groundkontrol.com/arcade/index.php
havok1919
Posts: 474
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:44 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA
Contact:

Re: Arcade & Beers

Post by havok1919 »

uze6666 wrote:Hey Clay, is that your arcade? ...And you even serve beer in there? Man, must be the coolest arcade I've ever seen! :mrgreen:
Yep! That's Ground Kontrol. We're in Portland, Oregon, USA. I think we have the largest collection of operating pinball machines on the west coast and are probably pretty close to the top for overall arcade size west of the Mississippi. We're a "classic" arcade, so we try to just have the best of the best over the decades. Mostly we're focused on the 80's and 90's with some newer stuff added as we go along. We used to have more games from the 70's, but as our clientle started to trend a little younger we've extended the gamut of games to cover more hits after the 80's (TMNT, NBA Jam, Marvel vs. Capcom, California Speed, etc.). We still have some older stuff for us 30-40 somethings-- Space Invaders, Asteroids, Tempest, Burgertime, Ms. Pacman, etc.

I think we're around ~70 video games (some with multiple games inside each cabinet using some switching hardware I manufacture) and 25 or so pinballs. Our newest pinball machine is Spider-Man (2007) and our oldest is King Pin (1973?).

If you ever decide that you just have way too much free time and money on your hands and you'd like to spend every spare moment you have crawling around inside old cabinets fixing 25+ year old electronics, I highly recommend starting a classic arcade. :lol:

But seriously, it's pretty cool as long as you're there to play. :D

If any Uzeboxers ever find themselves in Portland with some time to kill, let me know and I can give you the tour and hook you up with some free play!

Our myspace page has more photos and stuff too. (Which apparently hasn't been updated because of the holiday yet. D'oh!)

http://www.myspace.com/groundkontrol

-Clay
User avatar
codecrank
Posts: 66
Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2008 10:13 pm
Location: Denver, Co

Re: Arcade & Beers

Post by codecrank »

woooaaahhh. Awesome !

I must recommend this one: D&D tower of doom. One to be the best 4 player coop platformer. Back in high school, my friends and I dropped tons of money in it on a weekly basis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCnJgJjH ... re=related ( couldn't find a video with more than 1 person playing )

now I know who to harrass when I get sarted on a mame cabinet next year :)
User avatar
uze6666
Site Admin
Posts: 4801
Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:13 pm
Location: Montreal, Canada
Contact:

Re: Arcade & Beers

Post by uze6666 »

If any Uzeboxers ever find themselves in Portland with some time to kill, let me know and I can give you the tour and hook you up with some free play!
Will do! And it would be the perfect place for an eventual Uzebox convention! ;)

Uze
AnthonyB
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:47 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Arcade & Beers

Post by AnthonyB »

Yours makes me jealous!

All I have is a Donkey Kong cabinet that I made myself. :o
AnthonyB
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:47 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Arcade & Beers

Post by AnthonyB »

Good god!

You have a 720 *drools*
havok1919
Posts: 474
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:44 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA
Contact:

Re: Arcade & Beers

Post by havok1919 »

codecrank wrote:I must recommend this one: D&D tower of doom. One to be the best 4 player coop platformer. Back in high school, my friends and I dropped tons of money in it on a weekly basis.
We've had a few requests for the D&D games! We actually picked up a D&D: Shadow Over Mystara but it was in non-working condition and we haven't finished fixing it up yet. The four player machines are definitely popular though. We just added Sunset Riders to go with The Simpsons, Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, NFL Blitz, and TMNT. We had an original Gauntlet 2 out until recently, but the cabinet needed work and we needed space for some new games so we rotated it out. Never lacking stuff to tinker with... ;-)

-Clay
User avatar
codecrank
Posts: 66
Joined: Sun Nov 16, 2008 10:13 pm
Location: Denver, Co

Re: Arcade & Beers

Post by codecrank »

:shock: man, that's better than most arcades I've been to lately

in your opinion,if I wanted to build a cabinet, should I spend the time ( and risk death ) and use a CRT, or cheat and use a DFP and turn on scanlines in mame ?
havok1919
Posts: 474
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:44 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA
Contact:

Re: Arcade & Beers

Post by havok1919 »

codecrank wrote:in your opinion,if I wanted to build a cabinet, should I spend the time ( and risk death ) and use a CRT, or cheat and use a DFP and turn on scanlines in mame ?
Depends on what you really want to do with it. If you just want to play MAME (never any original games), by far the easiest/cheapest solution is to just use a PC monitor and like you said-- an LCD *will* work. Depending on the level of realism you're after an LCD may or may not fit the bill. I'm a long-time arcade guy, so I like the look of CRTs when playing older games. If you're more interested in newer games, an LCD probably won't detract from the experience much!

-Clay
Post Reply