Friday Flyers Break...For Tron Legacy!

Tron Night 2010. Was it worth a combined driving time of 7 hours to see 30-35 minutes of scenes from the upcoming movie? I believe my friend Bit from the original Tron says it best, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes."

I've included this little 55 second clip by way of ComingSoon.Net just to wet your whistle without really giving anything away. I will say my head was spinning after watching the preview last night, wanting to talk about every little thing that made my synapses explode in utter geek happiness. The film seems to be far more dramatic than it's predecessor. There is a dark tale I believe we will all enjoy when we get to see the full feature on December 17th.

Let us hope, dear readers, that this will not turn into another Scott Pilgrim incident where the fan base just doesn't show to support the film. Let's hope that Disney has a blockbuster on their hands and we shall get to see more of Sam Flynn and his adventures on the Grid.

Friday Flyers.

Click the pics to make 1998 size!

I never had the chance to play the Lost in Space pinball game but I sure wish I could have because the flyer makes it look like it was a nice little table. Check out some of the awesome table action thanks to YouTube and the Pinball Wizard!

Now of CarnEvil I can proudly say that I have beaten it, not in an arcade but at a local gas station...on a Halloween night dressed as Ash from the Evil Dead series. I loved this game so much but it sure ate the quarters. Check out the incredibly awesome opening from YouTube!



I'm not quite sure just how much money I've spent playing Monster Bash, I'd probably be too afraid to know the real answer but for many years it was at a local amusement center and I would stop off after work in the afternoon and plug in at least five dollars worth of tokens! Check out this table review by dadofducks from over at YouTube.

Saturday Flyers?

Click the pics to make 1986 sized!

Those darn Radium Chimps accidentally locked me in the decontaminate chamber the other day thereby causing me to miss a Friday Flyers post! Luckily my good robotic friend, Tupa01, heard my cries of protest and has set me free. So let us make up some lost time shall we?

I haven't been able to really find any information about Express Raiders but thanks to Youtube we can watch a few minutes of gameplay...hit the coyote for points!


Empire City 1931 appears to be a first person shooter using an 8-way joystick. Thanks again to Youtube we can see some of the arcade action, not to mention how sorry we feel to see whomever is playing this shoot that innocent lady.


Darwin 4078 was released into the arcades by Data East and was a vertical shooting/spaceship game much like Xevious. There is an interesting use of Darwin's law as your ship which looks like a tiny microscopic organism may transform up to 10 ten times with varying weapons and defense capabilities. Once again we go to the all powerful YouTube for some footage of the gameplay!

Friday Flyers.

Click the awesome pics above to make 1980 sized!

There is not a single pinball machine pictured in these flyers that I wouldn't put good money down to be able to play this very evening. I'd probably have to pick the Buck Rogers one as my favorite for this week.

When you are finished reading the flyers above make sure to hop on over to the Retroist site, you might even find a couple of movie reviews that I have done. Give it a look and join the rest of us in the enjoyment of retro discussions on the forum at www.retroist.com

Friday Flyers.

Click on the pics to gaze at the majesty of 1973!

Would you believe I have not been able to find any real information on these arcade titles? I will say that the Duck who has been shot on the cover of the flyer for Fowl Play oddly looks happy to me.

Sorry about the short post but at least it will give you plenty of time to hop over to the Retroist, they've started the Halloween celebration early, while you are there you should check out the amazing game reviews already submitted...maybe even submit your own! In fact why don't you sign up at the forums and join us all on some wonderful retro discussion? www.retroist.com

As always a big thanks to the Arcade Flyer Archive for the scanned images posted above!

Friday Flyers...Sick Day Edition.

Due to feeling like loyal reader, CritAnime, has somehow transmitted his plague symptoms to me electronically and the warm reception to yesterday's post I'm using a sick day and posting pictures of the rest of the Pac-Man car.

This car went from having neat tires to becoming a vehicle of legendary status! A big thanks to Vinvectrex for requesting what the rest of the car looked like.

Now if I could just get someone to come in and work for me...I'd go home and straight to bed. If I get to feel better I'll post some Flyer tomorrow perhaps.

Friday Flyers.

Click the pics to make 1985 sized!

Hm. Green Beret certainly looks like it might be what we in America called Rush'N Attack. The major difference being of course that the Green Beret flyer is missing the kind of psychotically frightening woman on the Rush'N Attack flyer. Wow. That guy beside her is looking a little tense to me, check out that clutched fist...I think he wants to play that game so bad he is willing to hit that kid in the back of the head. LOOK OUT KID!

The third offering this morning is Samurai Nihon-ichi and I was unable to find any real information about its release or popularity. I did however find a video of its gameplay thanks to the mighty YouTube...looks like it was a fun title! As always you should probably double click on the video window to go straight to the YouTube page.

As always a very large thanks to the Arcade Flyer Archive for the above scanned images!

Friday Flyers...Movie Pinball Edition!

Click the pics to Embiggen!

As you can tell from the title, this posting for Friday Flyers deals with a few of the motion pictures that have lent their names to pinball tables.

Robocop was released in 1990 by Data East Pinball. I've played this once or twice and both times if I remember correctly it was during an art class school trip. I recall it having digitized speech from the film as well as Robocop on the main playfield with his visor glowing red. Not sure what that was about, I can't recall if it meant some feature was in play during the game.

Maverick was released in 1994 and is of course based on the Richard Donner motion picture adaptation, though I say it is a sequel to the classic television series. I've not had the pleasure of playing this table but I have to say I'm very impressed by the Lauren Belle's River Boat. I'm not much of a fan of country music but I do admit I enjoyed Clint Black's song "A Good Run of Bad Luck" from the movie so I can imagine how fun it must have been to hear that while playing the table.

Back to the Future also debuted in 1990 and if you look at the backglass, zoom in if you can, you'll see that Marty doesn't look anything like Michael J. Fox. He apparently refused to have his likeness anywhere on the pinball machine so Paul Faris, the artist on the table, used his son as a stand-in for Fox. The table allowed you to travel through all three movies with the music changing for each every time you got a ball lock, if I remember correctly.

As always a very big thank you to Arcade Flyer Archive for the pics posted above!


Doubleback - ZZ Top

Friday Flyers.

Click to Embiggen 1987 size!

Aaargh! was released to the arcades back in 1987 by the Melbourne House for Mastertronic's Arcadia System, an arcade machine that ran on custom hardware for the Commodore Amiga! The goal of the game was to control one of three monsters and use them to destroy everything in their path in different lands and varied periods of history. The creatures the player could choose from were a Cyclops, Dragon, and an Ogre.

Released by Sega, Alien Syndrome, had players take on the role of either Ricky or Mary as they fight their way through eight-way scrolling levels. Besides blasting the aliens they must rescue hostages on their way, rescuing enough of them will open the exit doors and allow the player to face off against an end level boss.

Arkanoid II: Revenge of DOH was released by Taito and is of course the sequel to the very popular Arkanoid, which had been released a year earlier. This release offered a new feature to the gameplay in the form of Warp Gates, basically allowing the player the choice of what level they wanted to visit next. Two new bricks were introduced in the title as well. Notched silver bricks, like the normal silver bricks, took a few hits to destroy but if left unbroken they would repair themselves to full strength. There were also moving bricks in the game, they moved from side to side so long as they weren't obstructed.

Thanks as always to the Arcade Flyer Archive for the scanned images above.

Klendathu Drop - Basil Poledouris (Starship Troopers Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Friday Flyers.

Click the pics to Embiggen 1985 size!

Sorry for the late post today but the reason why will be made clear in another post later this evening. All is good, no tragedy or anything like that to be worried about. We have a new employee here at the Victory Vault and my hands were full trying teach him all the security codes, etc.

Look at what we have today! Bogey Manor...who wants potential buyers to know that it has a theme similar to Ghost Busters! Yes, you can tell that this game hit the arcade in 1985. I found a Youtube video of its gameplay...looks interesting to me.





That flyer for Gauntlet is something I have never seen before, I assume it was it meant to be an handout to the players in the arcade to get them interested in the game...back in my youth I didn't need the flyer to make me pump hundreds of quarters into the Gauntlet machine but the coupon would have been nice to have.

I've never seen the Peter Pack Rat arcade game out in the wild but I did see it in an episode of iCarly! My small amount of research says that Atari only 500 units were ever produced either as a 'standalone' cabinet or as an upgrade to existing cabinets. I really like the cartoon style of the game, I was also able to find some YouTube goodness for this title.



See you all a bit later in the day and I'll introduce you to the newest member of the Victory Pellet staff!

Friday Flyers.

Click the pics to make 1991 sized!

Friday Flyers Break For X-Wing GPS!

X-wing Targeting Computer Clock from Christopher Caleb on Vimeo.

Loyal reader, Denethor the 2nd, was kind enough to send me this video link yesterday. Using Adobe AIR for his Droid phone this guy created a GPS that many of us wouldn't mind having attached to their dashboards...at least I wish I had one. Right now.

Friday Flyers.

Click the pics above to Embiggen 1989 size!

I'm going on record here and stating that the top most flyer, Prehistoric Isle, might possibly be the greatest flyer ever created or at the very least shown on this site. I've never had the pleasure to play any of the three games presented today but I'd be willing to give up a lot of my milk money to do so now.

Thanks to the Classic Gaming site I was able to dig up a bit of info on Prehistoric Isle. It's full title is Prehistoric Isle in 1930, it is a side-scrolling shooter from and has you tasked by your country to investigate an island that has appeared in the Bermuda Triangle, an island full of Pterodactyl that are causing all sorts of destruction and mayhem...but once you arrive on the island you find it 'infested' with all sort of dinosaurs. Your pilot's idea of investigation is to go about flying your Bi-plane all over the island and eliminating every single dinosaur you happen to see...plus some cavemen along the way.

Apache3 is also a side-scrolling shooter released by Data East. That is about all I've been able to find in way of info...I'm going to assume this was a bit like Super Cobra in gameplay.

Beast Busters was released into the arcade by SNK and later ported to Commodore Amiga and Atari ST home computers. A city has been invaded by the undead and it is up to Johnny Justice, Paul Patriot, and Sammy Stately (Wow...no better names came to mind?) to make sure that everything undead goes back to being plain dead. A bit of trivia from Wikipedia:

"According to Paul Theroux, Michael Jackson owned a Beast Buster arcade machine and frequently took it with him on tour via cargo plane."

I Heard Ramona Sing - Frank Black (Scott Pilgrim Soundtrack)

Friday Flyers.

Click the pics to make 1994 sized!

I've only seen one of these arcade games pictured above, Eagle Shot Golf (The golf game where you can hit a ball so hard that an eagle shoots out of it!), but I cannot decide which game I would have wanted to play more...Fighter's History Dynamite/Karnov's Revenge or the China exclusive arcade title Deadly Sport.

What to know about Fighter's History? Well, Data East had itself a chart topper in Japan when it was released and became so popular that another company known as Capcom realized the fighting system was a little too familiar to their own Street Fighter series. A lawsuit gauntlet was thrown down but the Judge determined that the 'copied' elements were scenes a faire and Capcom lost, Data East also cited that their classic Karate Champ was responsible for the fighting game genre to begin with.

Now doing a little more research tells me that Fighter's History Dynamite/Karnov's Revenge was the second offering for the franchise and for some reason Karnov is the bad guy of the game...how could my beloved Karnov from the NES have gone to the dark side? I just do not know the answers to that, my friends.

Deadly Sport was released only in China and by the looks of it was a digitized fighting game in the vein of Mortal Kombat. But it sure looks awesome! Just how could you pick one person as favorite from that flyer...you have a viking...a guy in a shirt and tie with a shoulder holster that appears to be a robot...a vampire as the main bad guy possibly...and is that woman really a woman? I can find nothing on this title beyond a mention on a message board for a MAME request.

Eagle Shot Golf was a staple in at least three gas stations in my neck of the woods. I just included it in today's post because I loved that picture of a very, very angry Eagle. We here at the Victory Pellet Vault are easily amused.

Exploration - Bruno Coulais (Coraline Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Friday Flyers.

Click the flyer pics to make 1984 size!

I was and still am more of a fan of arcade games than pinball but I certainly recognize their rightful places in the arcades of my youth. The three featured Pinball machines shown above show that the companies spent just as much as their pixelated playing brother machines when it came down to creating an eye-catching flyer for selling their products.

Though I wonder what Attila the Hun would have thought if someone travelled back in time and explained his 'likeness' was on a game.

Thanks as always to the Arcade Flyer Archive for the above pics.

Pinball Wizard - The Who