- Greetings, and welcome to my inner child

going absolutely insane!

This is an Atari Missile Command cabinet from 1980.

And not just any Missile Command cabinet,

this is a cabaret cabinet that they didn't make

as many of as the normal upright ones

There were a couple of other types as well,

the cocktails, and the environmental, but...

I've always been really fond of the cabarets,

not only because of the shape and design,

but look at that woodgrain.

[laughs in walnut]

That is factory original Atari-installed woodgrain

and, oh man, this is just a absolute dream come true.

In fact, not too long ago I was talking about

how I don't have any arcade games,

and I've always wanted one,

and, ah, I got those little mini-arcades,

and having visited some really cool arcades

in person recently, those kind of things

just always re-ignite the desire.

Well, I finally got this one,

so let's plug it in, check it out.

Let me talk briefly about it,

because I'm so excited, oh my go-[SHAKES EXCITEDLY]

So we got the power cable here.

[dramatic synthwave music]

So yeah! It is Missile Command, aw dude!

So this is easily one of my favorites

from the early 80's and I've been thinking about

so many different types of arcade games

that I might want, if I were to ever, you know,

buy one, and get into the whole arcade collecting thing,

and, well, I chose this one for a variety of reasons.

Again, it's a personal favorite, but also just because

of the size and form factor and everything,

and if I was gonna get an arcade machine,

I want it to be unique enough that it's not

easily replicated through emulation.

There's a ton of ways to play Missile Command otherwise.

I've got a bunch of them myself.

I've got an X-Arcade Tankstick with a trackball controller,

a whole lot of Atari emulator packs,

and a lot of that's super convenient.

I'm not interested in emulation for an arcade machine,

at least not yet.

Wasn't looking for MAME machines, I wasn't looking for

emulations boxes, like the 1UP arcades that are sold now.

For my first arcade, I wanted dedicated hardware

that's vintage and unique and awesome

and, I don't know, is Missile Command, I guess.

[laughs] So okay,

maybe I don't have the most profound reasons

for picking this particular machine,

except that I wanted it, and it was nearby, and local,

it was available, and it had so much woodgrain.

It's amazing.

I love the side art on Missile Command

on the full-sized upright, but, oh man.

It does have working coin doors and slots and everything.

Some of it definitely needs a bit of repairing.

In fact, this one sticks, but for the most part

it has been really well taken care of

and restored, actually recently.

It was from a local place called Joe's Video Games

or Lyons Arcade, I don't know.

Seems to be known by couple of different names,

and they're down in Rock Hill, South Carolina

so it's a couple hours drive from me here in North Carolina

but, close enough, for sure.

I've been looking at them for a long time

and, actually, I ran across this one first

as a restoration on YouTube.

It was a series of videos that Joe did

putting this thing back together,

you know, getting the trackball working again,

and the display working again, and all sorts of

other internals and stuff like that

that I don't have to mess with if I get it from him,

and, plus, I liked the idea of buying local

and not shipping from something across the country.

Yeah.

It's just the fact that it was also, again the cabaret.

I've been in love with this design

ever since seeing one of these up in Chicago,

or outside of Chicago, I don't remember where it is,

but it's the Galloping Ghost arcade.

It's gigantic, I think it's maybe the biggest in the US now

in terms of number of individual cabinets,

but they have one of these Missile Command cabarets

and I had never seen one in this form factor before,

and I just saw it and fell in love.

You know, it's still the proper height in terms of

like, for an adult, so I can just be right here

and I'm just under six feet tall, so it's fine for that.

You just kinda have to look down

instead of looking straight forward, in a way.

I think it's a good trade-off for what I'm getting

and for what I want, and really I don't have a big house.

This is a, like, 800 square foot house, I think

so I don't even know where I'm gonna put it yet.

[storage-conscious chuckling]

I've got not a lot of room right here

but it's just here for the moment, I'll find somewhere.

Actually thinking about redoing my living room,

so I'll probably take it in there and mess around

and do that, or, who knows.

I'll figure something out.

I will sleep with this thing if I have to,

I will sleep with you!

Let's look inside here really quick,

cuz I think this is fascinating.

I've always loved coin mechanisms,

and the fact that this one works, for the most part,

[light chuckling] is pretty great!

Player two one here doesn't, really,

but this one totally works.

[coin mechanism clanking]

[thunks onto floor]

Yep, so that one pretty much works.

[clunk]

This goes down there into the coin tray

or box, or whatever, I don't really know the terminology.

[chuckles]

I'd like to find an original tray and get that going,

but man, everything in here is pretty much original

as far as I know.

That was another reason that attracted me to it.

It hadn't been modified, it doesn't have a bootleg board.

I've ordered one of those kits that lets me play

Super Missile Attack on here, too.

It just sort of plugs in on top of the 6502,

sort of a daughterboard thing.

Right in the middle there, got some dip switches,

and there's some back there, too,

and those will allow me to set it on free play if you want,

but right now, it's just taking quarters.

[fiddling with key lock] [groans of inadequacy]

I mean, I'm gonna keep the woodgrain I think,

even though it's a little bit screwed here and there.

There's definitely some spots missing,

in fact, right back here is pretty janked.

That's unfortunate, but that's also

pretty commonplace on these things.

There's also this sort of darkened glass here,

I guess it's plexi.

I'm not sure if there's supposed to be,

like, an overlay on top of that?

I've seen some of them that do have it.

I know the upright cabinet does, but I don't even know.

Here's the other thing, it also came with

some nice little service manuals

and operation things and all this.

This is handy, a whole bunch of schematics and whatnot.

Also has 14 inch color TV monitor, yes.

It is the original monitor in there.

In fact, there's a little bit of burn-in.

I've already gone through a few of these.

These PCB's were for the trackball.

You got these little optical sensors on there,

and all three of these were like, dead,

and when I was picking this up at Joe's,

it was not working right on the x-axis.

It would work fine going left, but not right.

Up and down was pretty much perfect on the y-axis, but yeah.

So we replaced the bearings, and swapped these out,

and [laughs] one thing after another, man.

We were trying all sorts of things.

Cleaning them, trying different versions of it

and, you know, lubing things, and switching out.

Like the whole trackball had been rebuilt already,

he already did that before I got it, but anyway.

Eh, let's go ahead and play a round.

I've got a lot of other things that I wanna say about this

and I'll probably do a video, more involved, once I

get it all fixed up, but for now, I just wanna show it.

I'm just excited, man!

This is so cool.

All right, so, filming this has proven

to be an interesting challenge.

It's definitely not as easy to capture as a proper upright

or even a cabaret, but that's one reason I don't think

I ever made a review of the one in Galloping Ghost.

I did film footage for a review during

Arcade August years ago but, yeah, anyway,

like I said, I'll cover this in some enhanced fashion

in the future, but let's get a quarter in there.

[quarter plunks into machine] Oh yeah.

Yes, I could put it on free play with the dip switches,

but, screw that.

[siren]

Quarters are fun.

And that right there, that was the sound of happiness.

[loud explosions]

I love the POKEY sounds on this.

[rhythmic thudding]

[siren]

[laughs]

Oh, yes.

[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]

Yeah, playing an angle because of the camera

is kind of weird.

Let's see, maybe this will be better.

Yeah, this is a little more comfortable.

[loud siren]

I also have it on these furniture casters

so I can slide it around, so,

if it's shaking a bit, that's why.

[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]

What the...

Aww.

[laughs]

Ah, that was pretty bad.

[rhythmic thudding]

[siren]

[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]

I love this game, I seriously do.

I'm not amazing at it, yet,

but it's just so friggin' fun, I don't know.

There's something delightfully simplistic

and yet immediately engaging every single time I play.

Aw, suck.

[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]

Pfft.

Welp.

[laughs]

[rhythmic banging]

[siren]

[rhythmic beeping]

[loud explosions]

Aww.

[groans]

[laughs] Totally screwed this round up very quickly.

Oh, dear.

[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]

Well, whatever.

Got that bonus city, who cares.

[bonus city beeping]

[siren] Doesn't it sound great?

Augh!

[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]

I hate those things.

Pfft.

Yeah, well, ya know.

[laughs]

Oh, wow, that didn't actually destroy everything?

That's amazing. [siren]

It's getting lenient.

All right.

[rhythmic beeping] [loud explosions]

Why are those so hard to do?

There we go, I got one of 'em.

I lost everything, but I got one.

[laughs]

Stupid smart bombs.

Okay, but yeah.

This is an absolute delight to have.

I am extremely fortunate to be able to afford to have this