• Published on

    Ace Driver: Victory Lap

    Picture
    Picture

    This is starting to look like a video arcade restoration blog rather than a pinball one! However, I am running out of space with too many projects sitting in the queue, so I need to sell some games to make space. Naturally, that means the larger games, particularly the twin driving cabinets, have to go!

    It hasn't been too long since I finished with my Cyber Cycles restoration, and now, I'm onto another Namco game. This time it is Namco's Ace Driver: Victory Lap (1996). It might be a little confusing why I have two game flyers at the top of this page. One for Ace Driver, and another for Victory Lap. That's because Victory Lap was not a complete, standalone game. It was sold as a conversion kit for the original Ace Driver (1994), and used the same cabinet and hardware. This restoration was mainly a cabinet tidy-up and go-over, as the game was mostly working when I first powered it up.
  • Published on

    Cyber Cycles

    Picture

    It's not often I work on arcade machines, but after grabbing this Cyber Cylces (Namco, 1995) as a part of a bulk arcade machine deal, I found that it was in need of a fair bit of work. So, I figured this blog post would be a good way to record the journey of learning about this game and board system. The pinball purists will have to forgive me, but even though I am a pinball die hard I still have a soft spot for video arcade games, particularly driving cabs. Cyber Cycles runs on Namco's Super System 22 hardware system, which I would say is a difficult system to repair due to a lack of schematics and general repair information. However, if I decided to sell this game, it would need to be in good working condition for the next owner, so I figure that posting some of my successes (and failures) during this repair may help out other Cyber Cycles owners in the future. Jump on, and let's ride...