Picked up a Phoenix yesterday. Bootleg?

Stormy151

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Hi, everybody! First post!

Recently we got a Ms Pac Man cocktail at my work, and I got re-bitten by the arcade gaming bug. Went to an auction yesterday, and wound up impulse buying a Phoenix. It worked, looked to be in decent shape (plywood is a little banged up at the bottom) and was $125, so what the hell!

Upon doing a little investigating at KLOV, I think maybe I have one of the bootlegs that were produced.

The screen at the bottom says, "G.G.I Corporation", and the marquee and side art are different then the Centuri version.

The BIGGIE is that the control panel has a 2-way joystick instead of the buttons on the Centuri version.

Am I correct? Can anyone tell me a little more about this unit? I'd like to restore it, but I'm unsure whether to restore it as it is, or convert it into a Centuri style cabinet. Are the ROMs different between the two?

Thanks in advance for any info you guys can provide.
 

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Not sure if it's a bootleg or not (the MAME guys don't know either...it says "bootleg?" ). I guess as long as you like Phoenix, and it plays the same, who cares? :)
 
Kool looking cab but Phoenix gameplay just sucks to be blunt

Yeah, it's certainly no Galaxian- it TRIES to be, though, LOL. The fact it has a stage boss is kind of neat. I REMEMBER this game- I don't love it, to be sure. Not a favorite, or a must have for me or anything. I mostly picked it up for the price and to cut my teeth on restoration work.

Lots of dust, some rust, but for a 30 year old game- pretty good condition.

EDIT: Tearing this thing apart, cleaning it up- NO graffiti, no water damage, overlay plex has light surface scratches I think I can polish out. No vendor or amusement company decals. I'd LOVE to know where this thing was for years. It was taken care of.
 
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Looks like GGI has a few different clones/hacks of games besides the Phoenix:
Rambler clone of Scramble
Frog Clone of Frogger
Galaxian Part 4- Hack/enhancement of Galaxian

Guessing then it's a bootleg, I believe the only official licenses for Phoenix were to Centuri and to Taito
 
But a nice cab with a working game. I would have bought it too. Nice looking solid cab. You could always put a 60-in-1 board in it (no hacking) and have an attractive multigame for cheap!
 
I played your machine a couple of times before the auction started. It seemed to be working well, and was a lot of fun. I thought the joystick control suited the game.

Phoenix is one of the greatest arcade shooters of all time. It was widely ported to home systems, widely copied, and bootlegged often. It's up there with the best of them IMHO.
 
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