LeeB99
Active member
Orlando report from Disney Quest and King of Kong arcades...
Ok,
So I just got home this afternoon from our family vacation to Disney World this week. My son and I went to DQ for a couple of hours on Wednesday and we really didn't have enough time to do "everything" we would have liked. But, I was able to look over the selection of classics. Knowing about all of the issues and concerns that have been aired on here, I was completely expecting the worst and hoping for the best. The most notable things that I observed during the visit were:
Asteroids Deluxe had some sort of ROM modification that changed the "explosion" noises to (get this) what sounded like MUSICAL NOTES??? Never heard of this before! WHY???
Discs of Tron worked, and this is the ONLY time I have ever seen one on location. After looking at images of other people's games, I think that the monitor needed work as the text was not yellow but a plain white (black and white looking). It APPEARED to be functioning mostly, but after playing it a couple of times, I'm not going to be losing any sleep not having one in my collection next to my original Tron. Speaking of which, the Tron sitting immediately to the left of it (although the monitor looked MUCH better than the Tron on the floor below) had a joystick that was tilted back like it wasn't mounted anywhere near properly and didn't always move "up" when you pushed up on it.
The Robotron had graphical glitches on the screen, but amusingly, was not resetting due to the RAM issue that was certainly causing it. It looked like vertical garbage in a column just to the right of center on the screen. Didn't bother trying to play it, as I have a properly working one in my collection.
There were 2 Galaxians, which I was initially excited to see, but the one on floor 4 had two different control issues. First, the original joystick was replaced with a bat handle style joystick that didn't always respond to your command properly. But that was NOTHING compared to the fire button issue. It was so bizarre. Apparently it would stick in the "closed" position so that your ship would not "fire" until after the button became un-stuck. The strange thing about this is in order to time the shots, you had to pop the button with authority and the then shot would execute upon button release. Here is where things got really weird. Every time a bullet hit an enemy, your next bullet would AUTOMATICALLY fire without you pressing the button. Is this some sort of modified version of the ROM, or is this a result of the button sticking issue? I've never seen anything like this before. Anyhow, there was ANOTHER Galaxian on the 5th floor, but it was occupied by someone who was REALLY into it, and I never got a chance to try it out.
Many of the classics had various monitor adjustment issues or simply needed to be re-capped. They had a Tron Pinball (regular pro version) that my son and I played a couple of times. The volume was too low to hear everything that was going on.
One of the surprises was a Donkey Kong with a 25" monitor. I really wish I would have made a video of it, as the difficulty seemed to be CRANKED UP on it really high. The barrels and fireballs were FAST, even on the first screens. Of course, I am sure that the monitor being larger means that they have to physically travel a further distance over the same period of time, which could leave the perception of an increased pace. Regardless, the high score was not very high, and I was able to match it on my first man. I've never tried adjusting the difficulty on DK, but it was SURELY different. Whether it was a hack or just an adjustment, I have no idea.
On my way back home, I decided to look up the "King of Kong" arcade. When I first got there, no one was there at the counter. Inside the glass case were T-shirts with quotes from Billy Mitchell on them and some various bottles of hot sauce. There was both "Rickey's" wing sauce as well as "King of Kong" hot sauce labeled as being from the "World Famous King of Kong Arcade Orlando Florida". There were also some collectors "Trading Cards" with Billy and Walter Day on them. On the back of each of these cards were their high scores and dates that they were set. After picking up a couple of bottles of sauce and running off grab a bite to eat, my curiosity regarding the "baseball style cards" got the best of me. I just HAD to go back and find out what the hell they were. My wife thought I was crazy, and that I was just feeding Billy's ego by even having a passing interest in them. I went back and sure enough, they were available for sale signed by both Billy and Walter. I thought that they were just so over the top that I just HAD to have a pair. They were a whopping $2 each. A no-brainer...
As an aside, I asked the attendant if Billy had anything to do with the arcade, and she told me that he was the owner. When I asked about how far away he lives from Orlando, she said that it is a 3 hour drive that he has to make to get there when he needs to. I then asked if the equipment was provided by Apollo Amusements (which is from Billy's home base area) and she had no idea. Then, I popped the FINAL question: WHY ISN'T THERE a Donkey Kong or PAC Man machine here? She said they were working on it, but it has been hard for them to make it happen. So, let me get this straight: they were able to have all of this custom wall art, T-shirts and posters printed out, put in a Terminator Salvation, redemption equipment, air hockey and "Maximum Tune?" or whatever the new Namco racer is called and they CAN'T seem to be able to get a $800 Donkey Kong machine to an arcade that is themed after it? Not even one of those units from the "Kong Off" at Richie Knucklez? After all, those fully restored examples sold for a FRACTION of what that new equipment costs. So, I suppose that there is STILL a little mystery surrounding this place. I can only imagine what the rent must be like per month for such a prime location...
Lee
Ok,
So I just got home this afternoon from our family vacation to Disney World this week. My son and I went to DQ for a couple of hours on Wednesday and we really didn't have enough time to do "everything" we would have liked. But, I was able to look over the selection of classics. Knowing about all of the issues and concerns that have been aired on here, I was completely expecting the worst and hoping for the best. The most notable things that I observed during the visit were:
Asteroids Deluxe had some sort of ROM modification that changed the "explosion" noises to (get this) what sounded like MUSICAL NOTES??? Never heard of this before! WHY???
Discs of Tron worked, and this is the ONLY time I have ever seen one on location. After looking at images of other people's games, I think that the monitor needed work as the text was not yellow but a plain white (black and white looking). It APPEARED to be functioning mostly, but after playing it a couple of times, I'm not going to be losing any sleep not having one in my collection next to my original Tron. Speaking of which, the Tron sitting immediately to the left of it (although the monitor looked MUCH better than the Tron on the floor below) had a joystick that was tilted back like it wasn't mounted anywhere near properly and didn't always move "up" when you pushed up on it.
The Robotron had graphical glitches on the screen, but amusingly, was not resetting due to the RAM issue that was certainly causing it. It looked like vertical garbage in a column just to the right of center on the screen. Didn't bother trying to play it, as I have a properly working one in my collection.
There were 2 Galaxians, which I was initially excited to see, but the one on floor 4 had two different control issues. First, the original joystick was replaced with a bat handle style joystick that didn't always respond to your command properly. But that was NOTHING compared to the fire button issue. It was so bizarre. Apparently it would stick in the "closed" position so that your ship would not "fire" until after the button became un-stuck. The strange thing about this is in order to time the shots, you had to pop the button with authority and the then shot would execute upon button release. Here is where things got really weird. Every time a bullet hit an enemy, your next bullet would AUTOMATICALLY fire without you pressing the button. Is this some sort of modified version of the ROM, or is this a result of the button sticking issue? I've never seen anything like this before. Anyhow, there was ANOTHER Galaxian on the 5th floor, but it was occupied by someone who was REALLY into it, and I never got a chance to try it out.
Many of the classics had various monitor adjustment issues or simply needed to be re-capped. They had a Tron Pinball (regular pro version) that my son and I played a couple of times. The volume was too low to hear everything that was going on.
One of the surprises was a Donkey Kong with a 25" monitor. I really wish I would have made a video of it, as the difficulty seemed to be CRANKED UP on it really high. The barrels and fireballs were FAST, even on the first screens. Of course, I am sure that the monitor being larger means that they have to physically travel a further distance over the same period of time, which could leave the perception of an increased pace. Regardless, the high score was not very high, and I was able to match it on my first man. I've never tried adjusting the difficulty on DK, but it was SURELY different. Whether it was a hack or just an adjustment, I have no idea.
On my way back home, I decided to look up the "King of Kong" arcade. When I first got there, no one was there at the counter. Inside the glass case were T-shirts with quotes from Billy Mitchell on them and some various bottles of hot sauce. There was both "Rickey's" wing sauce as well as "King of Kong" hot sauce labeled as being from the "World Famous King of Kong Arcade Orlando Florida". There were also some collectors "Trading Cards" with Billy and Walter Day on them. On the back of each of these cards were their high scores and dates that they were set. After picking up a couple of bottles of sauce and running off grab a bite to eat, my curiosity regarding the "baseball style cards" got the best of me. I just HAD to go back and find out what the hell they were. My wife thought I was crazy, and that I was just feeding Billy's ego by even having a passing interest in them. I went back and sure enough, they were available for sale signed by both Billy and Walter. I thought that they were just so over the top that I just HAD to have a pair. They were a whopping $2 each. A no-brainer...
As an aside, I asked the attendant if Billy had anything to do with the arcade, and she told me that he was the owner. When I asked about how far away he lives from Orlando, she said that it is a 3 hour drive that he has to make to get there when he needs to. I then asked if the equipment was provided by Apollo Amusements (which is from Billy's home base area) and she had no idea. Then, I popped the FINAL question: WHY ISN'T THERE a Donkey Kong or PAC Man machine here? She said they were working on it, but it has been hard for them to make it happen. So, let me get this straight: they were able to have all of this custom wall art, T-shirts and posters printed out, put in a Terminator Salvation, redemption equipment, air hockey and "Maximum Tune?" or whatever the new Namco racer is called and they CAN'T seem to be able to get a $800 Donkey Kong machine to an arcade that is themed after it? Not even one of those units from the "Kong Off" at Richie Knucklez? After all, those fully restored examples sold for a FRACTION of what that new equipment costs. So, I suppose that there is STILL a little mystery surrounding this place. I can only imagine what the rent must be like per month for such a prime location...
Lee
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