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geecab

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Hey!

Just thought I'd say hello! Probably the one arcade machine that sticks in my head and got me hooked was Pole Position. When I was too young to reach the steering wheel I remember watching my older brother playing the upright version of it at Luton airport and being amazed.

I remember my folks taking us to some nice Spanish holiday destinations as I grew up, and I always looked forward to mastering whatever arcade game they had in the hotel bar area and the arcades along the beach front. One hotel had bubble bobble where I met some Italian girl called Julia, she didn't speak a word of English, but she used to love hammering that fire button for me when I picked up a yellow sweet. Ah what memories. I think we were about 10 years old at the time, I bet she's hot now..

Later in life I moved to Portsmouth that I chose on the basis of its seafront arcades. Clarance Parade Pier still had a few classics (Pole Position Cockpit, Starwars Cockpit, Super Sprint) but the real gem was the 1979 Monaco GP, wow I so loved that game! Such a shame it hasn't been perfectly emulated (I still check to see if it has been from time to time). I then went through a phase of being really into Virtua Racing, Daytona and Sega Rally. I could complete them all on expert level (Virtua Racing being my favorite)! Just also want to mention GP World (Laserdisk game from 1984), I used to play that at an arcade in Great Yarmouth, really loved that game too, doesn't seem to be many of those machines around at all these days..

Recently I built my own arcade machine from scratch, my house is a bit limited on space so I wanted something relatively slim but without looking like its obviously a mame cabinet. I'll attach some pictures to this topic in a mo.

Right well that's it, just thought I'd say my bit, great to be a part of this forum and happy arcading everyone!!

geecab
 

strykr

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Welcome to UKVAC Geecab,

I was the same growing up, the highlight of the european holidays was finding out what cabs were there
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, how i developed a love for Sidearms, speed rumbler, and I too had a family holiday in europe where they had a bubble bobble, I remember me and my bro would line our lira up the side of the screen and spend the night completing it!
strykr2012-02-16 23:03:32
 

geecab

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Cheers guys, its good to be around people with this cool obsession
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Here are the pics of my cab, enjoy!

Bought a cheap set of controls from ebay for about £30, did the keyboard hack of an old HP PS2 keyboard..

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Me playing a bit of 1942

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Plays amiga games too...

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Horizontal games don't look the best on the vertical screen, but playing around with mame screen options can make bubble bobble look decent enough..

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Elaine isn't quite as the Italian girl was, keeps going for the red shoe and looses many lives in the process!

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All finished in my living room...

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geecab

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Also, something I decided to do is build myself a paper model of the starwars cockpit arcade machine (I know I probably need to get out more). I couldn't find anyone that had tried to make it on the net so I had to make my own designs...

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cliff_poole

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Thats a nice little run through in the history of racing games that you have had. Wasn't Pole Position the very first of the third person type of racing games ?. I always think of later games of that ilke as being "like Pole Position", anyway
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geecab

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Hey glad you like my run though. Yes, I really loved racing games back then, being able to spin the wheel as you hit a corner, without any force feedback, on say super sprint or pole position was really cool. Racing games of today look amazing, but something has been lost and in its place has come a bit too much realism if that makes any sense?!? Maybe I'm just getting old!!!!!

You know, I think you are almost right about Pole Position, I think it was the first 3D / 3rd person racing game that featured corners. Before Pole Position there was 'Turbo' that was 3D / 3rd person but was just a straight road. Turbo was a sort of 3D version of Sega's Monaco GP. Loved them all anyways
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