It seems no one is interested but I'll tell the story anyways because I think it is good. The game was on Ebay with a starting bid of $19.99 but was only a 3-day auction. Watched until the last minute and somebody put in a bid. I really didn't want it but it was under an hour away so I put in a bid of $29 thinking the other bidder had at least a $50 bid. Won it for $26. I set up a time to pick it up and started to do some research and came up with not much. Omori if it is the same company makes automtive guages now. All I could find was that it was released Feb 79.
When I get to the owners house it starts pouring, nice all the way there and then boom. The game is missing the top glass but otherwise it is in really nice shape. The owner's father sold coin mechs and a partner in Japan sent him this game to give to his son and they marked it on the inside of the cab when it was given as Dec. 79. Turns out the seller grew up less than a mile away from me in the next city over near Cleveland. We knew alot of the same people and used to hang out at the same (only local) arcade back in the early 80s. Amazing how far you can move and run into people.
He had the game since '79, think how cool it would have been to have a SI clone in '79 if you were a kid. That is why I felt kind of bad taking this game he carried around for 31 years for $26, but he honored the auction and was a super nice guy. I brought some wrap with me but he had more and we wrapped the hell out of the game which was a good thing. It rained heavily all the way home and most of the night so it sat in my truck all night wrapped up. When finally unloaded it was dry as a bone.
Pretty much everything but the missing glass is perfect on this game. The monitor has a color overlay directly on the tube. The middle 1" is not covered but the top and bottom go from green to yellow to red. It is seperate pieces of tape directly on the monitor, it really makes it look full color when you play. There are a few differences from SI. The invaders look pretty much the same but the laser base/tank is different, the shields/bases are different as is the saucer which comes out pretty constantly. When you start a game a number generator comes up going from 500?-5000. When you hit start whatever number is showing is when you get an extra life. Sometime more invaders spawn and add to the mix. The original owner told me when you get farther sometimes an invader will come down at you. After the game is over it just shows a display of a game but none of the shots either way hit, just the tank and invaders going back and forth never hitiing each other. There is no title screen or anything else, is it maybe because of the other features they added they had to cut it out because of size limitations? That is one of the reasons I believe him about when he got the game, the monitor has zero burn. The scores are alwyas displayed along with bases and such but no burn at all.
I have not been able to find much information. I have checked MAME and the game is emulated but not fully and for the cocktail version it says it is being worked on. From what I have seen of the MAME version the cocktail is different, it does not say player 1 or 2 above the scores or tanks left, it displays the numbers but does not say what they are above them. There are no dipswitches on the board so maybe there are jumpers to change settings (if you even can)? My default settings seem to be 2 coins to start but with 6 lifes. Whatever number you hit at start seems to be the only bonus life you are awarded. The seller said that the top glass had some graphics but was mainly Japanese writing but I can't find anything.
This game is super clean on the inside, seriously looks like it was just made excpet for a few coins on the bottom. The wiring and setup inside is really well done, seems like a lot of effort for a pirate company. The only real reference I found was a post by somebody on facebook saying they found one but I contacted him and he said it was totaly stripped. Anyone have one or pictures of one? I would really like to try and reproduce the top glass to original as close as I can but I can not find anything.
If anyone is interested I will post pics but who knows if anyone actually made it all the way to the end of this.