California Extreme 2012

Last weekend was California Extreme XVI, AKG and myself went to check it out. They had it at the Hyatt Regency again this year, but the layout was slightly different. If you read the post about last years show, all the same sentiments apply here, except we stayed for both days this trip. We made lot's of friends, played tons of games and had a great time! I took more pictures than it would feasible to show, but you can see the whole set on our Flickr page if you're interested.

Gizimnoic did a really nice walkthrough pointing out some of the more unusual games:



We picked up some killer schwag as usual:

Our sweet press badges.

Here are a few pictures from the show:

Some X-Men tables

AC/DC

Spectrum

Eight Ball Deluxe

Gigi

Corral

Foxy Lady cocktail pin

Star Castle cocktail

Star Trip cocktail pin

Electric YoYo

Cleopatra

Rollergames

Comet

Space Shuttle

A Pac-Man pinball game

Space Harrier

Pole Positions

Cosmic Venus (working movie prop)

Royal Guard

Thayer's Quest

Thayer's Quest control panel

Time Traveller

Genie

Jungle King

No one escapes the Black Hole

Joust cocktail

Heavy Metal Meltdown

Mini Pool

Thank you to everyone that helped make this show possible! Long live California Extreme!

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Farsight Studios and The Pinball Arcade

Normally a game like The Pinball Arcade is something that I wouldn't find out about until it's already been out for years, but I got lucky on this one. Farsight Studios made a game in 2009 called Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection. I just recently got a copy of it for the PS3 and was pretty amazed by it, I thought it was a game that would do really well in the DLC department, but I couldn't find any tables to download for it. After looking into it, I discovered The Pinball Arcade.

Farsight Studios has made a new download-only pinball game with four tables to start with (Black Hole, Tales of the Arabian Knights, Ripley's Believe It or Not, and Theatre of Magic.) Farsight is claiming that they will release two new tables every month for the next several years, which is incredible. These pinball games that they make are so well done, that it's hard to describe.They are easily the best video pinball tables I've ever seen.

Check out a making of video:



...and the trailer:



I brought all this up to let you know about it, so that you don't miss out and also to mention that certain tables that they want to make have such high licensing costs that they can't really afford to make them.
Twilight Zone is an example. Farsight Studios has started a Kickstarter campaign to help raise funds for licensing the Twilight Zone table.

If you can afford to, please consider donating a little money to Farsight Studios for this project. I think it's important to chip in to help make things that are awesome.
That's all for now!
Play Pinball!

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King of Fighters '99 Character Portraits

I ripped the character portraits from The King of Fighters '99 for a project I'm working on, but I figured other people might have some use for them too, so here they are. I'm not used to making sheets and it looks pretty messy, but the sprites are all there so....yeah. Enjoy!

The King of Fighters '99 character profile sprites.

If anyone has any tutorials on putting sheets together so they don't look like #$*%!,that would be helpful :P

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Flynn's Arcade Closing and the Death of the Starcade

I finally made it inside Flynn's Arcade when I was down in Disneyland last month. I'll say that the arcade was just ok. It's a good thing I got in there when I did, because I just got word that Disney is closing Flynn's (and ElecTRONica) down on April 15th. It is being replaced by The Mad T Party, a (Tim Burton) Alice in Wonderland attraction.

Flynn's Arcade had a definite 80's vibe to it, in that a lot of the games would eat tokens, buttons/joysticks  didn't work, etc. The TRON Pinball game was turned off with an out of order sign on it, same with the air hockey table. I actually chuckled when things didn't work well, it was almost too authentic. Overall it wasn't bad though. There was a good amount of classics to choose from.

The arcade was waaaay off in the corner of California Adventure. ElecTRONica was pretty cool and although the arcade closed at 10:00, the cast members working there locked the doors and let everyone stay as long as they wanted after. It was good to hear people exclaiming "Whoah I haven't seen this game in soo long!" "Duuude, check it out!!!" etc. Some couple was playing Gauntlet when I left and they were on level 90 or something, pretty dedicated I'd say.
Here some pics of Flynn's Arcade's final days.

Flynn's Arcade

Good lighting.

 

Lots of people were playing.

Mr. Do and Donkey Kong Jr.

They had some great neon on the walls!

Space Paranoids is MUCH easier on the computer!

Space Paranoids side art.

Asteroids and Solar Fox.

Home of TRON

Meanwhile, over in Disneyland.....

The Starcade used to be one of the best arcades in California, two stories and in Tomorrowland, it was on a completely different level than Flynn's arcade, you kinda had to be there to understand how awesome it was. It's had a steady decline over the years due to poor management. It was pretty terrible the last time I was there, but it was still at least trying to be an arcade. The writing is on the wall for the Starcade.

If this sign is still there a year from now it will be a miracle.

Inside the Starcade.

That's right.....it's a gift shop now. :'(
They still have a handful of games, pushed way into the back. The Mini Neo-Geo is still there and there was a kid playing Spinmaster as usual, but this arcade is doomed.

What's left of the Starcade.

The Pirates of the Caribbean Pinball game was shoved over into a corner, with tape over the dollar bill acceptor and both coin slots. I removed the tape and the pin worked perfectly. I must say, it's one of the funnest modern pins I've ever played and it was in beautiful condition :)

Pirates of the Caribbean Pinball.

I took some pictures of the Grizzly Game Arcade at the Grand Californian Hotel this time also:

Grizzly Game Arcade

Arcade 102

That was a long post, but it's probably the last time you'll have to hear about arcades in Disneyland on this site. If you go down there, play some games while you still can.

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