Mini Arcade Alert!

[+-^CrossBow^-]

There three Fix-It-Felix minicades at my local wal-mart last night. I picked up one of them and I have to say that the graphics are quite nice on this. I can't figure out which version this is and suspect it has to be something custom done for this product. I have one of the Airwalk Genesis ones and it has the whole intro and everything just like the movie. This little min version does not. It just starts right off with Ralph climbing the building, hammering his fists and then felix comes out ready to fix and off you go. It does have the medal being awarded and Ralph getting tossed off the building but yeah..no intro and no "I'm gonna wreck it!".

 

What I find most amusing about this Fix-It-Felix release is that there was never an actual arcade cabinet of this game in the day. But yet, it was so well done in the movie in the concept and design that with the release of this minicade (First official commercial release of this as an arcade type game to play I'm aware of), that generations from now will never know that it wasn't.

[JBerel]

There were at least a few Fix it Felix Jr. arcade machines made. They were, and to my knowledge, still are installed at Disney parks. There's supposed to be a few in the Disney Quest arcade in downtown Disney in Florida.

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

There were at least a few Fix it Felix Jr. arcade machines made. They were, and to my knowledge, still are installed at Disney parks. There's supposed to be a few in the Disney Quest arcade in downtown Disney in Florida.

 

 

Yes I know about these, that is why I said for sale commercially. As in.. being able to buy them from a licensed distributor for arcade owners to put into service. There are arcades around the country that have Fix-It-Felix machines, but they are custom done using an old Popeye or DK cabinet etc. Not technically official releases. So again this would mark the first time I've seen something like this game that never actually was back in the day, get a release in mini form as if it were a classic from back in the day. All the other releases were from actual aracade cabs that could be found in the 80s at your local arcade.

 

Granted the roms used in these aren't arcade roms and most have been the NES versions, but the point still holds.

[NE146]

Unless I misunderstood, the "arcade" Fix-it-Felix machines that were found at places like DisneyWorld - Downtown Disney, etc. were basically shells for a PC running the windows executable that's been floating around for some time (attached below) with the fake startup test screen, etc. So there weren't any ROMS per-se.

 

I've attached if for some strange reason you guys don't have it.. so you can compare and let us know

 

 

 

_Fix It Felix Jr. Arcade Game.zip

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Unless I misunderstood, the "arcade" Fix-it-Felix machines that were found at places like DisneyWorld - Downtown Disney, etc. were basically shells for a PC running the windows executable that's been floating around for some time (attached below) with the fake startup test screen, etc. So there weren't any ROMS per-se.

 

I've attached if for some strange reason you guys don't have it.. so you can compare and let us know

 

 

 

 

 

Right and that is what the ones I've seen at actual arcades are using is the PC with this program running on them. But again, nothing officially released commercially.

 

Until this mini arcade version appeared that is.

Edited October 10, 2018 by -^Cro§Bow^-

[negative1]

There three Fix-It-Felix minicades at my local wal-mart last night. I picked up one of them and I have to say that the graphics are quite nice on this. I can't figure out which version this is and suspect it has to be something custom done for this product. I have one of the Airwalk Genesis ones and it has the whole intro and everything just like the movie. This little min version does not. It just starts right off with Ralph climbing the building, hammering his fists and then felix comes out ready to fix and off you go. It does have the medal being awarded and Ralph getting tossed off the building but yeah..no intro and no "I'm gonna wreck it!".

 

What I find most amusing about this Fix-It-Felix release is that there was never an actual arcade cabinet of this game in the day. But yet, it was so well done in the movie in the concept and design that with the release of this minicade (First official commercial release of this as an arcade type game to play I'm aware of), that generations from now will never know that it wasn't.

i posted the link to the video comparison for this game:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/255982-mini-arcade-alert/page-31?do=findComment&comment=4130154

 

later

-1

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Yes but none of those are still quite exactly the same as what is on the bridge direct units. It is most similar to the Apple store release shown at the end of that video but still not quite the same.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I multiquoted during my 10am break. Will add you to the list.

Were one of you dudes going to review the Fix-It Felix mini arcade game? Because I wanna know what it's like... what hardware it's running and all that.

I will attempt to allot some time next weekend to shoot a gameplay video, no promises. I'm curious how it stacks up to Dra600n's (nintendoage / segaage) homebrew release version.

Super wasted right now. Just got done with episode 1 of Atari 7800 drunken theater. Possibly the first and the last. Look it up in the "Journey of Snail" thread. I do not disappoint...

[Tanooki]

Of all the weird stuff, today I got the 3 newer Tiny Arcade devices despite the shipment being lost in the mail and refunded days ago. Now I've got all 7 cabs considering I've got the 2in1. Not really sure what to think of it, but hey there's Frogger at least while the other 2 are on that multi-cab as DigDug is a 3rd hiding on it. I think the code was Upx3, Downx3, L R L R L (chimes, DD loads up.)

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Quick game play of the Fix-It Felix Jr. mini-arcade up close. Gives you a good idea of how it looks and plays exactly.

 

[negative1]

 

 

-It is the Arcade ROM that plays full speed, and has proper Trak-Ball control.

it's NOT a proper control, its a miniature scaled down replica of a real trackball that

can never match the actual arcade one.

it's like trying to play a joystick game, with a tiny thumbstick like on the micro arcade machines,

it can do the job sometimes, but is nowhere near proper.

 

A trackball IS the proper control for Centipede. All the others have joysticks. It's a 1/6th scale machine with a 1/6th size trackball.

 

 

too bad the trackball isn't actually 1/6 scale, and neither is a lot of the other

parts.

 

 

according to this, the width is 5.2 inches [mistaken on other pictures]

 

 

so doing the math it's : 2 1/4 inch * 1/6 = .375 inch for a real one at 1/6 scale

but the actual one is much bigger at 29/316 * 5.2 inch = .477

 

 

so they are off on all the sizing also..

 

so much for being scale accurate,

 

and actually playable.

 

later

-1

[Tanooki]

I haven't seen so much complaining about the size of the ball. The pretty uniform disappointment (other than price) is that the trackball has no travel to it. You can't treat it like the arcade where you can just run your hand across it, and once you're off, it still rolls causing your shooter to keep going. Instead if you stop(let up) it stops cold so you're stuck having to do a lot of repeated micro rolls or whatever to get it where you need which could get annoying and also hamper your play pretty badly if you were a free roller on the big machine.

 

Because of the handling on the two so far I'm hoping they don't screw it up with SF2CE given it's just a joystick and 6 buttons so hopefully it clicks right. You know the bitching will be humongous among the community of SF2 lovers if they can't do their moves.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Tanooki

[negative1]

looks like ms pac man is messed up on the dual ms pac man / galaga machine.

 

too bad it wasn't pac-man instead, then i wouldn't be duplicating ms pacman.

 

 

later

-1

[Tanooki]

looks like ms pac man is messed up on the dual ms pac man / galaga machine.

 

too bad it wasn't pac-man instead, then i wouldn't be duplicating ms pacman.

 

later

-1

Too bad what? He got a defective unit. I have it right here on my desk and it doesn't have broken visuals like that.

[Andromeda Stardust]

looks like ms pac man is messed up on the dual ms pac man / galaga machine.

 

too bad it wasn't pac-man instead, then i wouldn't be duplicating ms pacman.

 

 

later

-1

Holy craap that's messed up. I wonder if Galaga was equally fubar'ed. Looks like a corrupt flash ROM.

 

In other news, those 1/6 scale minicades for $200 are gonna be facing real competition from those ikea-style assemble-it-yourself arcade games for $300 each. Walmart cleared out an area formerly held by the My Arcades and some other small stuff, and had upc stickers out for the new $300 3/4 scale diy arcades. We don't have spare room at the house for any standups, but the cabs look like a deal. I spent more on my Porta-Pi arcade MAME cab. And it looks like the standups will have arcade boards that can be swapped out. I forget the name but it's a great time to be arcade enthusiasts.

 

I also picked up a Basic Fun Fix-It-Felix cab and a Ms Pacman from Walmart. The Basic Fun Ms Pacman is the best looking port yet, but oddly they got the fruits wrong. They got the fruits correct in the manual, but wrong in the game. Instead of Cherry -> Strawberry -> Orange -> Pretzel -> Apple -> Pear -> Banana, It's Cherry -> Apple -> Strawberry (that's as far as I got). Otherwise it seems to play very well, and better than the Super Impulse version where oftentimes one or two of the ghosts never come back out from the ghost house after being eaten.

[Yakumo1975]

The Chinese have put together a Neo Geo Mini wanna be recently known as the Retro Arcade but it's basically the RS-97 in a new case. Some seem to be calling it the RS-07.

First impressions are pretty good if the truth be told.

 

[Tanooki]

Ok one thing I should add to my post earlier on that clip about the Mini's. Can we either ask the questions about this video in relation to... Is this guy in the tank to get free stuff? (or) Is he really that blind? Unless I'm forgetting something he didn't bring up the dropped out visuals and wonkiness with Ms-Pacman and didn't even touch Galaga to see if it was fubar too. It seems a bit bad to just gloss over that and someone with that so called level of experience being yet another classic gaming sub whore on youtube to get some view cash should notice such things. Shouldn't they? I mean they're calling themselves Arcade USA and that's one jacked up mini arcade after all. I find it very strange.

[negative1]

Holy craap that's messed up. I wonder if Galaga was equally fubar'ed. Looks like a corrupt flash ROM.

 

In other news, those 1/6 scale minicades for $200 are gonna be facing real competition from those ikea-style assemble-it-yourself arcade games for $300 each. Walmart cleared out an area formerly held by the My Arcades and some other small stuff, and had upc stickers out for the new $300 3/4 scale diy arcades. We don't have spare room at the house for any standups, but the cabs look like a deal. I spent more on my Porta-Pi arcade MAME cab. And it looks like the standups will have arcade boards that can be swapped out. I forget the name but it's a great time to be arcade enthusiasts.

 

I also picked up a Basic Fun Fix-It-Felix cab and a Ms Pacman from Walmart. The Basic Fun Ms Pacman is the best looking port yet, but oddly they got the fruits wrong. They got the fruits correct in the manual, but wrong in the game. Instead of Cherry -> Strawberry -> Orange -> Pretzel -> Apple -> Pear -> Banana, It's Cherry -> Apple -> Strawberry (that's as far as I got). Otherwise it seems to play very well, and better than the Super Impulse version where oftentimes one or two of the ghosts never come back out from the ghost house after being eaten.

there's a huge thread already on the mini cabinets here also:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/275757-budget-atari-and-capcom-arcade-cabinets-to-see-release-this-fall/page-45

 

different markets, different needs. the mini up to 1/4 scale are just for looks and collectors.

the bigger 2/3, 3/4 scale are for kids, and adults that don't care for accuracy, and prefer looks over gameplay.

 

i had a list of about 20 things wrong with the ms pac man unit earlier in this thread.

finally got to the junior boards on it:

---------

the ghosts go back way too quickly to the ghost home

the fruits follow the wrong path

the fruits move at the wrong speed

the intermissions use the entire screen, instead of just the normal vertical area.

 

its only ms pac man in name, pretty much everything else about it is wrong.

 

later

-1

[Andromeda Stardust]

there's a huge thread already on the mini cabinets here also:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/275757-budget-atari-and-capcom-arcade-cabinets-to-see-release-this-fall/page-45

 

different markets, different needs. the mini up to 1/4 scale are just for looks and collectors.

the bigger 2/3, 3/4 scale are for kids, and adults that don't care for accuracy, and prefer looks over gameplay.

 

i had a list of about 20 things wrong with the ms pac man unit earlier in this thread.

finally got to the junior boards on it:

---------

the ghosts go back way too quickly to the ghost home

the fruits follow the wrong path

the fruits move at the wrong speed

the intermissions use the entire screen, instead of just the normal vertical area.

 

its only ms pac man in name, pretty much everything else about it is wrong.

 

later

-1

That thread was about the Atari / Capcom models. There are also Namco standups coming in 3/4 scale. The Walmart things selling for $299 according to the placard (stock was not placed on shelf yet but the upc codes were there). It appears the arcade boards are odular and can be swapped, which likely means generic controls and cabinet artwork. It will be interesting to see if people buy them and outmod them with MAME installs. It would be cheaper than commissioning full on custom build cabinets. I have an ~15 year old WinXP shuttle PC that could tuck nicely inside one of those cabs.

 

The 1/6 scale minis aren't perfect either. I noted scaling artifacts due to non-integer scaling on the low resolution screen. The screen should either match the arcade sprite size, be a multiple of the arcade sprite size, or be sufficiently high def that scaling artifacts are rendered invisible. They used a 272x480 screen with 224 / 240 wide arcade scaled to fit. Some of the walls ere fatter than the others and it looked bad imo. With all the detail that went into creating the cab, scaling artifacts such as this, at a $200 price point, are unacceptible. They should have used a 480x800 screen with 2x integer scaling, and partially covered the top and bottom with the marquee.

 

The cheaper kits have multiple issues which are imo acceptable for the price point. If you pay $20 and get $20 worth of fun, you got your money's worth and accept whatever flaws come with it.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I had some play time with my Ms PAcman / Galaga Super Impulse cab last night. Overall it is what I expected it to be. Ms PAcman is too easy: Galaga is a choppy mess with ememy swarms and animation. I made it to the bonus round, with double ship in tow, and the bonus round is so choppy it's borderline unplayable. Patterns are mostly straight lines before they turn and the choppy frame rate makes it hard to hit anything. I think I got 21 out of 40 with multiple fire. I made it to wave 4 where the flies break up into the three little bugs. So they got some stuff right. I have not tried the secret codes yet, gotta look those up online.

 

One neat thing with the new Ms PAcman / Galaga combo unit, is each game saves a separate high score (unlike previous units modded to access multiple games with shared high score), and the high score data is retained when you power off the device using the toggle switch. Previously they only were retained while in sleep mode.

[Tanooki]

You know I wonder if you could rig up one of those iCade 60in1 or larger in 1 mini PCBs into one of these $300 cabinets? I think that would make for an interesting project as you can get the 60in1 for like $30 more or less on ebay/aliexpress as it is and the game selection is solid. They're already tuned to screw around working through a VGA jack to a LCD screen anyway. Even the larger stuff like the pandora boxes that have more advanced NeoGeo/Capcom CPS level stuff on them work through such pathways.

[twalk]

You know I wonder if you could rig up one of those iCade 60in1 or larger in 1 mini PCBs into one of these $300 cabinets? I think that would make for an interesting project as you can get the 60in1 for like $30 more or less on ebay/aliexpress as it is and the game selection is solid. They're already tuned to screw around working through a VGA jack to a LCD screen anyway. Even the larger stuff like the pandora boxes that have more advanced NeoGeo/Capcom CPS level stuff on them work through such pathways.

 

 

Someone has already hacked the lcd to have a hdmi connection then set it up with a retropi. So yeah, you'll see people do all kinds of this stuff with these cabs. That said, why? For $300 there's much better options if you just want to gut and hack it

[Andromeda Stardust]

You know I wonder if you could rig up one of those iCade 60in1 or larger in 1 mini PCBs into one of these $300 cabinets? I think that would make for an interesting project as you can get the 60in1 for like $30 more or less on ebay/aliexpress as it is and the game selection is solid. They're already tuned to screw around working through a VGA jack to a LCD screen anyway. Even the larger stuff like the pandora boxes that have more advanced NeoGeo/Capcom CPS level stuff on them work through such pathways.

 

 

Someone has already hacked the lcd to have a hdmi connection then set it up with a retropi. So yeah, you'll see people do all kinds of this stuff with these cabs. That said, why? For $300 there's much better options if you just want to gut and hack it

DIY projects can get expensive.

 

My Porta Pi MAME cab ($340 diy kit) cost more than these things and not counting the Pi itself, tools, finish, glue, etcetera. Honestly setting up and configuring MAME on the Pi was more of a pita than the actual physical build.

 

So if these are easily hackable by plugging in an HDMI or VGA internally (or use an converter / adapter if necessary for your specific device) then more power to you.

 

Fact is, commercial Ikea style arcade cabinets exist and will be readily accessible / hackable to the modding community. In fact, it would not surprise me to see some Chinese studio make a "60-in-1" arcade board specifically for this device like they currently do for Jamma, and sell it on AliExpress for $30. I would imagine people will start making vinyl appliques for all sorts of arcade games. I for one would love to make a home Donkey Kong Conversion.

 

The cab is mostly empty space and would be more than adequate to house an old Athlon era Shuttle PC running Win XP, which could utilize a more up to date version of MAME than the 0.37 b5 or whatever Emulation Station / PiMame used.

[negative1]

That thread was about the Atari / Capcom models. There are also Namco standups coming in 3/4 scale. The Walmart things selling for $299 according to the placard (stock was not placed on shelf yet but the upc codes were there). It appears the arcade boards are odular and can be swapped, which likely means generic controls and cabinet artwork. It will be interesting to see if people buy them and outmod them with MAME installs. It would be cheaper than commissioning full on custom build cabinets. I have an ~15 year old WinXP shuttle PC that could tuck nicely inside one of those cabs.

 

The 1/6 scale minis aren't perfect either. I noted scaling artifacts due to non-integer scaling on the low resolution screen. The screen should either match the arcade sprite size, be a multiple of the arcade sprite size, or be sufficiently high def that scaling artifacts are rendered invisible. They used a 272x480 screen with 224 / 240 wide arcade scaled to fit. Some of the walls ere fatter than the others and it looked bad imo. With all the detail that went into creating the cab, scaling artifacts such as this, at a $200 price point, are unacceptible. They should have used a 480x800 screen with 2x integer scaling, and partially covered the top and bottom with the marquee.

 

The cheaper kits have multiple issues which are imo acceptable for the price point. If you pay $20 and get $20 worth of fun, you got your money's worth and accept whatever flaws come with it.

we have covered every single model that arcade1up has mentioned there:

pac-man and pac man plus

galaga and galaxian

space invaders and deluxe

 

there's a final fight cabinet coming out next year too.

 

it's about all of them, and all the issues with them, etc...

 

later

-1

[Tanooki]

I know they're not worth putting much into vs doing it yourself as it won't be much over that cap, it's why I brought up the $30~ iCade 60in1. More than enough selection there, most the games run on 2 buttons though a few can be toggled (like Gun.Smoke) to use more, and has a jack for a trackball they sell too which you can mount. The iCade has Centipede within it and there is a Centipede cab if that's your choice of art to go by too. I was just thinking aloud really on this one because the board is so easily and cheaply sourced, if it could just simply plugged in, or basic attachment of a wire, a plug, and a few spots of solder could solve it for a few dollars there's some real potential without having to waste any money more than a night out at a sit down restaurant worth of cash.

 

As it is I have the board within a modern cocktail setup, I wouldn't replace it, but if the cocktail were somehow damaged/destroyed carrying that little board inside would be pretty special.

 

 

Edit here - This is the trackball I'm talking about for the iCade = https://www.highscoresaves.com/trackball-for-60-in-1-jamma-icade-multigame-pcb-board.html

Edited October 17, 2018 by Tanooki