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Saturday, October 16, 2010

HAAG Arcade Expo! (Part 1)

As entertaining as topics from MadPlanet or Fallguy? Little chance of that! But, given the topic of the HAAG Arcade Expo, well, I can't screw it up too bad!! This is the first of 2 or 3, or maybe 4 or 5 posts (not sure when this will get horribly boring) about the Expo; both MadPlanet and I made it both days. To start, it was a great time and there's rarely a chance to spend about 20 hours playing lots of cool games over a 30 hour period. Some games never showed up (Death Race, Crazy Climber, etc), but there were also some games you rarely see (Joust pinball, Varkon pinball, and some old school stuff) that made up for it. The second post will have video of every game that was there, for now you'll have to put up with some mindless chatter about what we came across and my general impression of the event.


First, and most important, as of Saturday about 8:45 PM I had high score on Millipede of 94,125. Not sure how it finished up at 2 or 3 AM, but I am pretty damn proud of that accomplishment. I've got to believe (really, it's the only inspriation I have at this point) a few half-way decent players were on before me. Plus, MadPlanet already confirmed that his high score on his cabinet at home was only 92k and some change; nice being the king of the hill if even for a short time. I'm guessing that on return from the NE, MP will have already beaten or make it a mission to beat my score and it will fall within 2-3 weeks; feel free to let me down on this one.





So, on to things that other people care about. The games at the Expo included the following:

Cabinets (53 total):
  • Bubbles
  • Robotron
  • Joust
  • Mystic Marathon
  • Make Trax
  • Mystic Marathon (Prototype)
  • Battle Zone
  • Millipede
  • Journey
  • Gravitar
  • Joust 2
  • Dig Dug
  • Root Beer Tapper
  • Qubes
  • Defender (sit down version)
  • Track & Field
  • Astroids
  • Lunar Lander
  • Star Gate
  • Mario
  • Popeye
  • Donkey Kong
  • Galaga
  • Pong
  • Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
  • Spy Hunter
  • Ms Pacman
  • Tutankhan
  • Tempest
  • Major Havoc
  • Quantum
  • Black Widow
  • StarFire
  • Space Encounters
  • Return of the Jedi
  • Star Wars
  • Star Trek Voyager
  • Star Trek
  • Off-Road
  • Bubble Bobble
  • Guitar Hero
  • After Burner
  • RoboCop
  • Asteroids
  • Great 1,000 Mile Rally
  • Xybots
  • Tron
  • Baby Pacman
  • [plus 5 I couldn't ID from the video]

Pinballs (51 total):

  • Fish Tales
  • Eight Ball
  • Arena
  • Gophers
  • High Speed
  • Indiana Jones
  • Star Wars
  • Varkon
  • Adams Family
  • Doctor Who
  • Revenge from Mars
  • Check Point
  • Junk Yard
  • Gophers
  • The Who's Tommy
  • Johnny Mnemonic
  • Demolition Man
  • Fish Tales
  • WhirlWind
  • Joust (2-player)
  • Gilligan's Island
  • Elvira
  • NBA
  • Pin Bot
  • EarthShaking
  • Pinball Magic
  • Diner(?)
  • Bad Cats
  • Batman
  • Iron Man
  • 24
  • CSI
  • Corvette
  • Roller Coaster
  • Frankenstein
  • Scared ???
  • Attack from Mars
  • Champion Pub
  • Black Hole
  • Star Trek
  • Eight Ball
  • World Cup
  • Flash
  • High Speed
  • Jungle Lord
  • Lethal Weapon 3
  • Star Wars
  • FunHouse
  • Avatar
  • Attack from Mars
  • [plus 1 I couldn't ID from the video]

Old Scool Pinballs (8 total):

  • Unnamed (Flags)
  • Sally
  • Flipper Pool
  • Kings & Queens
  • Sing Along
  • Bank-A-Ball
  • Hi-Score Pool
  • Suspense

Old Scool Cabinets/Pinball-ish (5 total):

  • Baseball ???
  • Strike Zone
  • Unknown (Crazy marble game)
  • Little League
  • Shooting Gallery

Other:

  • Atari 2600
  • Atari 5200
  • Atari 7800
  • Comodore
  • Vectorex
  • ...and some others I can't ID on the video
So, what's next? Part 2 will hopefully be the videos showing all the games, and part 3 should include a bit of commentary on some of the games. There were a few that were surprisingly good, and a few that fell short of expectations.......to be continued.........











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9 comments:

MadPlanet said...

Thanks for the post Pungent! Yep the Expo was definitely a blast. It was a little surreal having an Imperial Stormtrooper playing the game right next to us. There were several rarities there that I had never seen before like Varkon and the Joust pin. Seeing the guy with the fire-breathing art car added another odd twist. I'm in Rhode Island tonight kicking off my vacation and will be spending most of the day tomorrow at the Classic Acade Game Museum so when I get back I'll post about it.

Now that the niceties are aside - rest assured, with the gauntlet now officially thrown, your days atop the Millipede leaderboard are numbered!

MadPlanet said...

Also, 1 of the 5 missing games on your list was Karnov. Can't recall others

AtariAge said...

The console games setup at the show were:

Atari 2600 (5)
Atari 5200 (2)
Atari 7800 (2)
ColecoVision (2)
Atari XEGS (XE Game System)
Commodore CDTV
Sega Genesis

There were also three tournament console systems, a 2600, an NES and a Genesis.

MadPlanet said...

Thanks AtariAge - one of my favorite websites on the net BTW. Somehow I completely missed the CDTV which annoys me greatly because I was just talking about the fact that I had never gotten to play one before. I did finally get to experience the notorious non-centering 5200 joystick which was interesting. I can see why people didn't care for it. I enjoyed playing the consoles. Thanks for bringing them!

Fallguy40 said...

Sounds like a great show. Sorry I wasn't able to attend. Hey MadPlanet, have you ever topped Skip's Missle Command score on your cabinet?

Good luck catching PO on Millipede.

MadPlanet said...

Nope. SKB still stands on Missile Command. I tried several times but didn't come close. I never was very good at that game and I never really cared for it much either so it's tough to make myself want to keep trying too. Damn you Skip!

MadPlanet said...

Even though Death Race didn't make it to the Expo I finaly got a chance to play it in New Hampshire. A surprisingly fun game!

Fallguy40 said...

Pics or it didn't happen.

MadPlanet said...

I'll do ya one better, I got video. I'll post it when I get back.