REVIEW: Gamebox 450

shardian

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I got this in the other day and got to install and use it last night.

First off, the unit is a PC ( a 900mhz I believe) with a custom arcadeVGA card. It makes no attempt to hide it either, because upon powering up you see the bios screen for about 10-15 seconds. I find that to be a minor annoyance, but I can live with it. It would be nice though to have some sort of interface board that would block the video signal for 15 seconds to hide it.

Functionally, it is simple but nice. It loads into the menu and you're off. It does keep track of overall coinage on the menu, which is super nice. I need to do a bit more testing to see what happens if I leave coins on a game, exit to the menu, then go back into the game. The load screens can be lengthy depending on the game, just like in MAME. That probably is due to the low PC specs used. It also gives you a time limit to select a game or it will pick a random one. While it can be annoying since you don't have time to read the whole list, long term it is a good thing to minimize screen burn. Without a dedicated exit button (which is an option I chose not to use), you will lose your credit at this when you have to hold in the start button to get back to the menu. No biggie in a home setting, and hopefully noone is really putting these on location.

Exiting back to the menu is as simple as holding in the P1 start for 5 seconds. Since I am so used to the 48/1 boards, it was a pleasant surprise to know the machine stays in the game until you exit to the menu.

I played a good majority of the games, and they played true to form as expected. Of course they should, since it is just a MAME PC. I would probably turn about half the games off since I wouldn't play them and still have quite a good selection of games to play. About 100-150 games is all a Multicade should have anyways.
I do wish the Mortal Kombat games and NBA Jam made the gamelist cut. They did include Tattoo assasins though (unfortunately). I can officially say I have played that total and utter train derailment now. Wow...
One last note, the board does have a few gun games and driving games on it. They are fully integrated to use the joystick controls. And yes, it makes them darn near unplayable. To a kid though they would still be fun.

I need to borrow my Father-in-laws video recorder thing to make a video for you guys. I'll ask him tonight for it. Hope this helps anyone who was wondering about ordering one.
 
Sounds exactly like the 412 Gamebox I picked up a few years back. My question.. is it all one unit/powersupply and all? Mine is this small red box that even has a handle on the top.....
 
Need more info. How do the games play? Which play perfectly and which don't? I find it's usually by the company. How easy is it too access the add/delete game menu? Some pics of the menu, unit and stuff would be awesome.
 
Need more info. How do the games play? Which play perfectly and which don't? I find it's usually by the company. How easy is it too access the add/delete game menu? Some pics of the menu, unit and stuff would be awesome.


All of the games I played that I was familiar enough to tell played perfectly. I've heard Capcom stuff plays funny on the babystar, so I worked with them. The Marvel/capcom series of fighters played perfectly in my opinion. If there is a specific game on the gamelist you are worried about, I can test it for you. Nixs has the gamelist in the old BST thread.

It is an all-in-one unit. You plug in the PC power cord, the jamma harness and you are done. As for accessing the menu, I haven't messed with that yet. There is a pushbutton on the gamebox case next to the jamma harness you press to get into the menu system. The manual lays it out in a striaght forward manner, and it appears to be easy to add/delete games.

I haven't had a chance to do pics/vid yet, but I will. I'm pretty busy right now with other things, so it might be tomorrow night or the next day before I can get to it.
 
Sounds exactly like the 412 Gamebox I picked up a few years back. My question.. is it all one unit/powersupply and all? Mine is this small red box that even has a handle on the top.....

No handle, but yeah it is pretty much the same thing with a slightly different gameset.
 
how does it handle extra buttons? do you have to wire them to the jamma harness? I hate having to modify my jamma harness... Maybe it has its own kick-harness pins?
 
You MUST either modify your existing harness or replace it with a fully loaded harness. 2 of the buttons (6th buttons) are where ground wires are, so you still have to modify it.

You can buy ready to rock pre-crimped split pin wires from Bob Roberts if you want to do it yourself. If there is a demand (so as not to have to mess with Bob's shippiong minimum charge), I could crimp up a pile of wires and sell them here.
 
regarding the menu system, I paid a bit more attention to the coin system the other day. When you start a game, one credit is taken off the menu counter. When the game fires up, one credit is added. If you add 10 credits in the game, they will NOT follow out to the main menu. They stay in-game.
 
Is it kind of like this one that Prairied1ll0 makes? http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=124888

I'm going to have to buy one eventually as I don't have the skills to make it even though he says it's really not that hard but it takes some time and parts.

Thanks for the review. I appreciate it since it will help me decide what multiboard to go with.
 
Thanks for the review, sounds good so far but some video would be great.:)

Can you tell us if it's the same as the one on Youtube?
They almost look the same but different.


Thanks
 
ok so i saw. chase hq nd turbo outrun.. super mario bros. ghosts n goblins, and black tiger. curious as to how those play on there.
 
And how about the sound. Does it suck like the 60 in 1 or do the games sound good or some good and some not so good?:)
 
ok so i saw. chase hq nd turbo outrun.. super mario bros. ghosts n goblins, and black tiger. curious as to how those play on there.

Vs. Mario plays like it should
Racing games suck. Chase HQ does not auto return to center.
Shooting games are pretty much unplayable too. The only people who would enjoy racing/shooting games on this are 5 year old kids who don't know what is going on anyways.

I haven't played G&G or Black Tiger.
 
Ok two more questions should do it.
How good is the sound?
Does it have a hard drive or some type of card?
Thanks
 
I just got a gamebox 100 and it looks similar to the bottom video in this thread. Some of the roms I have throw up errors or don't work. I read somewhere you can upgrade or just swap the compact flash card. Have any of you tried this?
 
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