I was sort of thankful I didn’t get any actual games for Christmas this year. With my backlog already extending across three rooms and various hard drives, I am a bit overwhelmed. I still got some gifts that are gaming related, and I figured I’d share them.
Between a gift of a new coin mech and some cash that let me buy another one, I was finally able to complete my Donkey Kong cabinet’s coin door. This has had two gaping holes in it for years now, but now it’s ready for operation. If you come to my house, you better bring your quarters!
My to-do/to-buy list has been weighed down with framing these two pieces for three years now, and my wife surprised me by getting it done. Now they hang in our office (a.k.a. The Donkey Kong room) where sun and casual visitors won’t see them.
The picture is a little blurry, but these are two prizes from 1up after E3 in 2010. They had developers autograph and sketch on the big poster. It’s filled with some big names, like Cliff Bleszinksi. There are a ton on there I have yet to decipher/figure out and the 1up crew never said who everyone was. Hopefully I can figure most of them out over time. Another part of the project! The smaller one is a sketch of Shank, which was about to release around then.
Finally, I also got a subscription to PC Gamer, which I’m pretty excited about. I’d just decided to let my EGM subscription lapse since it wasn’t doing it for me anymore, and I like PC Gamer’s writing and topics more these days. Bundled with the subscription was an issue of Retro Gamer, which is always a treat I never buy for myself.
Hope you all got some cool stuff from others or from yourself.
That's awesome you got a Donkey Kong cabinet. Kinda sucky we have to pay to play it lol. If I ever win the lottery I want to buy a Killer Instinct arcade.
I only charge 25c per play. A real deal. I also have a jar of quarters at hand you can dip into, but only for Donkey Kong games.
You can set it to cost $1.25! Could you imagine in 1981 the machine being set to cost that much?
That would be pretty steep in the 80s. I went to a penny arcade once in San Antonio. It was amazing! They had a ton of great games too. It kinda makes me sad that arcades are dying off.
You should look around your area for some sort of arcade and give them your support. There is somewhat of a minor rebirth at the moment between bars with arcades and just stand-alone places. Aurcade.com has a search tool that could be helpful if plain old google doesn't help you.
I'm a big proponent of arcades and want everyone to go if they can!
I got a couple old games for Christmas, plus the 30th Anniversary Capcom Character Encyclopedia from my brother (very cool!). So it was a good Christmas.
That looks like a cool book!
I like PC Gamer a lot too. Now I just need a better gaming PC than this crappy laptop... 
Same here, man.
While I really didn't get anything video game related, it's cool to hear about other peoples' stuff. I always wanted to find a Super Mario Bros. cabinet, myself. Is Retro Gamer a good magazine?
It is pretty great. It's British, though, so they focus on some stuff we don't care too much about in the states. Lots of C64 and Spectrum articles, but normally I find it interesting anyway. They also have nice, purdy layouts normally too. Getting a subscription is out of the question since it's about a hundred bucks to get it shipped here. You can get single issues at Barnes & Noble and it's not too pricey once in a while.
There's nothing like a real arcade machine. I can think of several I wish I had.
Those are some awesome framed/signed pictures to have on your Donkey Kong wall. It's also cool you have a Donkey Kong cabinet. So is EGM still doing print subscriptions, or was it a digital sub you cancelled?
They had bi-monthly print issues. The articles were normally pretty out of date at that point, as you can imagine. I love print magazines, though, so I wanted it to work out, but alas.
Awesome pickups! I like how you have a jar of quarters by your cabinet. Are you going to get another cabinet?
Retro Gamer is always one of those magazines I'd look through whenever I made a trip to the Barnes & Noble. It's fun to look back at the games and consoles I grew up with.
I have a Gyruss in my garage. There's only room for one cabinet in the house, so Gyruss is going to stay out there for now. I've though about making half the garage a mini-arcade after our plans to move to a bigger house went away. I was planning to acquire games over a couple of years and then make a dedicated arcade room, but we decided to stay put.
Oooh I'm jealous over the Gyruss game. That game took a lot of quarters from me, and I played the hell out of the NES cart from High School to College.
It's a good one to have in a cabinet. The joystick works well rotating your ship in a circle whereas a d-pad is workable, but not as cool. Glad you have good taste in underappreciated shooters!
That's cool you have a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet. I have a Pac-Man arcade cabinet in my garage.
Good. Of all people, you deserve one!
I love Retro Gamer. I subscribe to the digital version for my Nook, mostly because it's cheaper. Still great, though.
That's a good idea. If I had a real tablet, I'd probably consider it.
Now that's nice! Always good to see game room set ups and all the work that's put into them. especially with coin-op machines.