Everyone now and then as money and time permits, various games will get cosmetic upgrades. Most of these games are around 30 years old, and spent most of their life in an arcade. As such they tend to get dirty and scratched. Case in point with the "Before" picture to the right. The Outrun floor mat is just plain filthy, from thousands of dirty kids with their dirty shoes playing the driving game. Also, the Simpsons title marquee has a large crack across it from the bulb heat over time and some of the red color has faded. I installed a new floor mat and a new Simpsons marquee. Believe it or not, the original color of the Outrun floor mat is gray, not black. It is so dirty you would swear it was supposed to be black. Thats just terrible. As you can see in the "After" picture it makes the game look so much better in each case. Another successful upgrade!

No, I didn't shoot them. I did cap kits for the monitors in both the Baby Pacman and the Stun Runner. One monitor had black jail bars and the other one had a black right hand stripe until it warmed up for a few minutes.

Every now and then in The Basement Arcade general maintennance is needed. I had never capped either of these monitors since I owned them and they were both acting up.

Installing a cap kit is breaking out the soldering iron and replacing all capacitors that tend to fail over time. Get yourself a cap kit map, and just remember to match polarity when you reinstall the new caps. If you don't, well things tend to explode. Seriously.

I must say after I finished installing the cap kits the pictures on both games look great! Success!

A month and a half ago I picked up a Vapor TRX. It was 15 minutes from my house and broken. With some time, effort and a new hard drive I got the game working again. Now the neat thing about this game is that it can be hooked up to another one for some 2 player head to head hover racing action. At the time I thought it would be great to someday find another one of these. Little did I know, this would happen sooner rather than later. The same person happen to have another one of these that was being brought out of service due to it being broken.

I contact the guy, settle on a price, and off I go to pick this up. Last time I picked this type of game up we dropped it taking it off a truck. This time I had a plan. The game seat can be removed from the main cab, and after that it could fit into my van. Getting it into my van is important because my van sits lower to the ground than a truck, which means less complications of dropping it. Unfortunately I was unloading this game solo, and it is a heavy beast even with the seat removed. I used a table as a pseudo lift to pull the game out of the van, as can be seen in the picture. I then lowered it to the ground. Initial troubleshooting of the game shows it needs a new PCB game board. As soon as I get this game running again I'll post an update. Hopefully he will be tied to his brother racer at that time.

An ad was posted on Craigslist about a whole bunch of arcade games that were being liquidated. Apparently a local company who went out of business, Warehouse of Games, had been storing their games for over 2 years at a warehouse and storage facility. Finally they let their merchandise go and the warehouse was selling off the abandoned inventory.

Myself and fellow collector showed up to pick over the games. We had 30 minutes to get what we wanted because a local reseller was coming with a trailer to haul off what was left for a lump sum. By the time we managed to pick out the good stuff the local reseller showed up. Of all people it was Dollar Dave, otherwise known as Dead Row Dave. He earned these names because at the arcade auctions he buys all the bad games off of dead row for $1 to $10 a piece. He's a good guy and all, but he is not a collector. Looks like we rescued the good stuff before he got there. He was cordial, but I don't think he was happy that we beat him out. To read more about the warehouse raid click here

The one thing I don't like in my gameroom, and that is an unplayed game. I myself am not a big dart fan, but I figured other gamerooms have dart boards. They look pretty nice all lit up against the wall. Plus, inevitably someone was bound to play this game, either adults, teenagers or kids.

Unfortunately I was wrong. The best someone would do is play 1 round of darts (not 1 game) and then walk away from it, as bored of the game as if they just had to go clean the kitty litter. I seriously don't remember ever seeing anyone play through an entire game other than myself while testing it. With that kind of reception over the last 2 years I decided to sell the game. In its replacement I will probably get some kind of sit-down driver with a steering wheel, something everyone will enjoy.

To read more about the original pickup and repair of the dart board click here.

Last weekend was Valentines Day. The day you show the significant other in your life how much you love them.

My wife decided to show her love for me by going on a road trip to pickup a Punch-Out arcade game. I used to play this game all the time at the local 7-Eleven store in my younger days.

Lucky for us we were thrown right in the middle of a snow storm. Yah, that was fun. On her part though later that evening I made her a New York Strip steak dinner. It's no arcade game, but I think she still liked it.

Punch-Out....Everyone's favorite! Body blow, body blow, uppercut, knock him out! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

To read more about the Punch-Out Road Trip click here.

This game is very rare, yet holds no fond memories for me. Since I picked it up for such a nice price to begin with, I netted a hefty profit on this game. The sales from this game partially funded my next purchase which will be posted in the days to come. The game was lucky, in that a huge pinball collector picked this up for his gameroom. At least I know it will be well taken care of. Thanks for the memories, and a pocket full of cash.

Last year I finished the arcade and gameroom, took some photo sets, and became the Gameroom of the Month for June 2009 in Gameroom Magazine. Since that time I have bought, sold and traded some games, finished a mirrored back bar and have moved some games around. I figured it was time for some updated photos of The Basement Arcade for 2010. So without further ado, on to some new photos.

A week ago I picked up this Vapor TRX game... non-working. I was hoping this would be an easy fix, that is until the game was dropped on its side while unloading it from a truck. This is one heavy game. After dropping it the game powered on with the same error at the sellers place which pointed to a faulty hard drive. So with that information I ordered a replacement hard drive from ebay. 2 days later...2 days later?!?! Yes 2 days later after purchase the new hard drive was delivered to my house. God bless that post office delivery man, I have never received anything through the mail that quickly. Now to get that hard drive installed.

I barely had that hard drive out of the box and quickly ran it down to The Basement Arcade. Waiting for this hard drive was his Avatar, and he was the brains. Without him, the Avatar, umm videogame was just an empty shell. I plugged in that hard drive and turned the game on. It had been many, many years since I played this game. I ran around to the front monitor and looked. I see lines of code starting to run and much to my shock the game booted up within 10 seconds to the demo screen. YES!

I coined up the game and started to play. The subwoofer was rumbling a deep bass sound through the seat of your hovercrafts engines. It was way cool. I start to race and start playing with the trigger buttons. I come to realize I am racing my hovercraft but the weapon buttons are not working. Ugggg... Furthermore, the marquee light is out, one start button and start light were not working and the force feedback for the flight stick isn't working. I put the game in test mode and start testing the flightstick. 3 out of 4 buttons in the flightstick aren't working. OK. I've played this song and dance before. At least the main game is now playable. In the end I managed to fix everything on this game within 1 day. To read more about this game and see more pictures click here.