36 replies to this topic

[reesclissold]

Pretty awesome, dig that "retro chic" !

I guess they're entirely mechanical or use a fairly basic LCD with overlays at that price...

[Vic George 2K3]

Now portable Space Invaders as it should be:

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

A slightly modified Commodore SX-64....I bolted a 3.5" disk drive to the outter case. Only reason: The internal 1541 didn't work, and it was too much hassle to mount it inside the case.




Edit: I was going somewhere with this.......OH!!! I'll be someone will buy up these things, just for the color screen.

Edited by [d2f]Iggy*SJB, Sun Dec 11, 2005 8:16 PM.

[foxglove9]

Wow, I can't believe those tabletops are reborn! Don't really care if they don't play that great either. Though $25 is a bit steep, especially since I paid less than that for my coleco frogger a few years back.

Love the mod idea too..hmm....

[NE146]

foxglove9, on Sun Dec 11, 2005 10:26 PM, said:

Wow, I can't believe those tabletops are reborn!

They're not.

[minorleagueguy]

I tried these yesterday at the local Spencers..while the joysticks FEEL mushy, they are pretty responsive, as are the buttons.
Frogger was pretty easy, but SI I had a little trouble hitting the aliens when they were moving,if you are not close, it looks like the shots are going right through them.
Nice, but not for $25...maybe$15, and I'll get 'em both.


minorleagueguy

[Vic George 2K3]

The pictures I posted are all just mock-ups.

[foxglove9]

I bought both tabletops Monday. I've been too busy to spend a lot of time with them but I played with both a few minutes to see what they're like and comparing them to my other vintage tabletops. They pretty well made and run on 2xAA batteries. Both games have been available before in a different form, whether a keychain game or similar. The technology used is a little different. I'm not sure it's VFD like the Coleco's, I'd say it's more like the LCD colorized stuff Nintendo released with their Tabletops (ie: Donkey Kong Jr., Cement Factory, etc...).

The Frogger kinda puzzled me because the screen looks reflected off a mirror, very much like the old Donkey Kong Jr. Tableop if I'm not mistaken. Didn't really see the need to do that honestly. The music sounds almost sampled from the arcade or maybe just recreated, and much better than any of my older handhelds. Joysticks and buttons play great as well. And the game plays pretty good too.

The space invader screen is not refected off a mirror and to me looks more crisper because of it. I have a version of this already and I really like how this game plays. Definitely as good as but not drastically better than Coleco's Galaxian. Sound effects are real good as well.

The artwork on Frogger is almost the same as the coleco version except the "by Sega" is removed, and things were shrunken or enlarged to fit the space better. Excaliber, the company that released these, felt the need to stink up the marquee graphic and put a small version of their logo there. That ruins the look if you ask me. The tabletops are I'd say 5% smaller than coleco's tabletops, the top hood being noticable shorter. Also missing is artwork on the screen itself. That was a real nice touch the Coleco's had and these don't.

Overall I like both machines. I do also feel they are both a little overpriced (15-20 is a better pricepoint), and gameplay isn't really dramatically different than the tabletops made 20 years ago. Should make a good gift for crazy retro game collectors like myself.

I hope they make more of these. Maybe price points will go down once stores other than Spencers (which tends to overprice stuff) gets their hands on it.

[tillenterprises]

I saw these a few weeks ago, as I was walking in the mall past Spencers. I saw the Frogger one out of the corner of my eye through the window, and did a doubletake (kind of like when you walk into Goodwill, and you catch a glimpse of an old electronics item with some woodgrain on it, and immediately think it might be an Atari 2600!). I thought to myself "Nah... it couldn't have been!" I went inside and was amazed to see these things. I was thinking of buying both, but I agree with the consensus here, $25 is a little steep, perhaps $15. It would look cool sitting right next to my original Coleco tabletops, though!

[retroillucid]

Vic George 2K3, on Tue Dec 6, 2005 7:24 PM, said:

Might as well post them all (and remember, these are NOT actual units!):

Very great idea!

... Now I need a Palm

[hhwolfman]

This looks cool to. http://www.handheldm...ewiePinball.htm

[oky2000]

I've been looking for a table top electronic game with a cab wide enough to accommodate a Toshiba Libretto 100/110 inside it. The hope was then to hard wire the MAME keys on the keyboard to the joysticks and two fire buttons and select etc.

This would be really cool as then you could get a huge amount of 80s games in there and utilise the original widescreen TFT setup in true arcade portrait mode. I couldn't find anything wide enough though to take the pieces so gave up. I really fancied the Grandstand Astro Wars casing for this