Shooters were meant to be played in the arcade. No matter how much I tried to emulate this experience, from buying an arcade stick, flipping over my TV so I could make use of the entire screen for playing vertical shooters in TATE, or firing up games through MAME and console ports, none of these alternatives could compare to playing these games on an actual Japanese sit-down cabinet with a 29" low-res monitor.So I was overjoyed when a local acquaintance from the boards offered to sell me one of his Astro City cabinets after I had informed him I was interested in purchasing one. My first choice was Matsu, a very popular SoCal-based dealer in Japanese cabinets, but I would have had to deal with shipping the thing up here for a couple more hundred...or endure a long road trip.
Just a couple months ago, I couldn't tell the difference between an Egret II to a Windy cab. Seriously, I never really paid much attention in regards to the different kinds of cabinets, because I never had plans to get one for myself. I was pretty closed off to the idea. Ever since I became more interested, it opened up a whole new level of appreciation. New names started popping up, like Blast City, Neo Geo 29, Atomiswave, Capcom Impress, etc. There was an entire new world to discover in Japanese arcade cabinets. Candy Cabinet City was a very good resource, even though the site's pretty much dead in terms of updates.
Considering it's an original Astro City, it is over ten years old--probably nearly fifteen years old at the time of this post. It works like a charm, since I can tell the previous owner took great care of it. The machine must have had a history prior to that. I would so like to know. Maybe it was once in Akihabara Hey! and was played by some of the greatest players during that time or was sitting in a quiet shop, where it was admired by the few passing kids fortunate enough to drop some yen down its coin slot. Who knows.
All I know is, this is gaming bliss.
