So, with some decent weather around these parts over the past couple of weeks, I thought I’d make a start with the restoration of the Defender upright that I picked up. Catch up on the details here. Our starting point isn’t exactly great, but there’s enough here that’s complete to get this thing back into…
Tag: eugene jarvis
Weekend Pickup! Williams Defender
If you’ve been following this blog over the years, you will know that space is now at a premium here at Arcade Blogger Towers. Simply put, I cannot see a way of squeezing another cabinet into the loft arcade space that I have, so future acquisitions in theory are not possible, unless I start selling…
Classic Arcade Gaming Postmortems
Every year in San Francisco, the Game Developers Conference (GDC) brings the game development community together to exchange ideas, solve problems, and shape the future of the industry across five days of education, inspiration, and networking. Attendees include programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, and business leaders. A whole series of events and talk…
Weekend Pickup! Robotron Cabaret
Well “Weekend Pickup” is maybe stretching things a little in this case, but still. I’ve been on the lookout for one of these cabinets for years. I regarded it as one of my “grail” arcade cabinets, but the potential cost has always been a hindrance to my acquiring one. Not to mention, the cabinet was…
The Development of Robotron
Is there a classic arcade game player out there that doesn’t like Robotron? Released by Williams Electronics in 1982, it is the quintessential arcade shooter. Ferocious enemies, panic-inducing gameplay and sounds that match the action on screen like no other game of its time. Having spent 18 months developing the wildly successful side-scrolling shooters Defender…
Williams Robotron (EU) Restoration 3
So I’m in the home straight here with my Robotron upright restoration. If you missed Part 2, you can quickly catch up here. In short, we left the cabinet last time having just used filler to tidy up the bottom edges, which were disintegrating quite badly, and I wanted to patch those up so that…
Williams Robotron (EU) Restoration 1
You might recall I picked this cabinet up last year. It was in unrestored condition having been bought from an operator some 20 years ago, then stored. A good honest cab overall. If you missed the post I made at the time, do take a look here. It was an opportunity simply too good to pass by….
Where did all the Defenders go?
It’s hard to resist Defender as a classic arcade game. Recognised as one of the best shoot-em-ups of all time, Eugene Jarvis’ monumental arcade game for manufacturer Williams remains top of the pile in every sense of the word. Aside from a Pong clone released a few years earlier, Defender was the first arcade game…
Robotron Cabaret Restoration 1
If you’re not familiar with Williams’ Robotron arcade game then you need to seek it out. A cornerstone of classic arcade gaming, it delivers relentless twitch shooter action in absolute spades. This is a game that delivers even today. Frenetic and colourful with sound effects to die for (literally), its gameplay pumps adrenaline through your…
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