As you may recall from an earlier post (or if you didn’t read it, go check it out here) I have recently acquired a few untested arcade boards, and I was worried that I’d opened Pandoras box with many problems waiting to bite me in the arse. Well, I have finally been able to test all 6 board out and the results are middling.
So before I could get testing the boards there was a few items I needed to get my hands on, Luckily there was a seller on Ebay who sells a full kit that can be used to test them, providing I had a display to play them on.
The first in the kit was a PC power supply, this one is the Seasonic SS-250SFD ACTIVE PFC Power Supply. Full spec sheet can be viewed here
Next in the kit were two SNES to Neo Geo and supergun adaptors. These adaptors allow you to connect your Super Nintendo controllers to the supergun and converts the arcades button configuration in theory to the SNES pad button configuration. Retroelectronik have updated the adapter to a version 2, which includes input mapping. I think I will eventually replace these with the V2 model as I think it will hopefully solve a few problems I have had with the mapping.
This is the real meat of the kit. This device is Retroelectroniks top of the range supergun. A supergun essentially provides all the features of a full sized arcade cabinet, condensed down to a small box or PCB. Including power input, video and audio out, test buttons and player controls. On board switches are included for power, credit, test and service mode.
When all hooked up, the supergun lights up and the display shows the voltage being supplied.
The Games
Crude Buster / Two Crude
Two Crude, also known as Crude Buster in Japan, is a 1991 beat ’em up arcade game. Players control the characters by jumping, dodging and attacking their way through legions of enemies. Because the main characters are muscle-bound brawlers, they have the ability to pick up objects well beyond their own weight (e.g. cars and traffic lights) to use as weapons. They can do the same to most enemies as well. While playing co-op, it is also possible for one player to pick up the other to use as a projectile.
Crime Fighters
Crime Fighters is a 1989 side-scrolling beat-em-up released by Konami for the arcades. The players takes control of a duo (or squad) of undercover police officers who are assigned to rescue a group of kidnapped damsels from a crime boss and his army of punks. A typical street fighting game that takes place at various locations in a city. The object of the game is to rescue the girls who have been kidnapped by the city’s crime boss. Your character can punch and kick any enemy, but once your foe collapses to the ground, you can kick him until he either gets up again or is defeated.
Vendetta
Vendetta, known in Japan as Crime Fighters 2, is a 1991 side-scrolling beat-’em-up arcade game. It is the sequel to 1989 Konami’s Crime Fighters.
The four men of the game’s hero gang, The Cobras, fight through waves of enemies to rescue Kate, The Cobras’ fifth member, who was kidnapped by the Dead End Gang. As with most beat-em-ups, the game features primarily side-scrolling action. Player score is based on number of opponents eliminated.
Outzone
Out Zone is a run and gun arcade video game from August 1990. Set in the future of the year 2097, where an alien race from the fictional planet Owagira are threatening to wipe out humanity after multiple failed attempts to defend Earth against their attacks, players assume the role of two cyborg mercenaries hired by the United Nations through seven increasingly difficult levels, each with a boss at the end that must be fought before progressing any further. Players fight enemies on foot and move upward through the level. Players are equipped with a number of bombs at the start, which obliterates any enemy caught in its blast radius, however player characters are not rendered invincible for any period of time after using a bomb.
This was a strange one, when I first tested the board prior to taking photos for the site, the game worked perfectly and I really enjoyed the game. It was only when I came to test it again when the problems started. I just could not press start on the game. It wouldn’t recognise the button press. It did work once but all the directions were messed up and I couldn’t move forward.
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat is an arcade fighting game released in 1992. The game focuses on several characters of various intentions who enter a martial arts tournament with worldly consequences. It introduced many key aspects of the Mortal Kombat series, including the unique five-button control scheme and gory finishing moves called Fatalities. players battle opponents in one-on-one matches. The fighter that completely drains the opponent’s health bar first wins the round, and the first to win two rounds wins the match. Each round is timed; if both fighters still have health remaining when time runs out, the one with more health wins the round. Two players can start a game together, or a second player can join in during a single player’s game to fight against him/her. If a game was in progress at the time, the winner continues it alone; if not, the winner begins a new game.
This board was faulty, the game thinks that the block button is pressed, the game loads up fine however it selects Kano as the character and puts me into a game instantly and I just block the opponents attacks constantly. Going into the test settings, all the chips test fine. I haven’t a clue how to solve this problem and my internet research hasn’t proved successful. I would have loved this board to be playable.
I also have the Final Fight arcade board. I couldn’t get anything out of it, nothing would display on my TV and there was no sound.
Overall this was a fun little project to get me to dip my toe into the arcade collecting thing, but I still feel really out of my depth. With my problem boards I don’t have the first clue of how to go about finding what the problems are and even less of a clue about how to fix those issues. It would be handy if I could get help from somebody who knows what they are doing with them. But I feel like selling them would be my best bet and maybe buying more working boards in the future. It’s just a shame that the best games I had were the ones with the problems.