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[/CENTER]An open road, blue skies and helicopters!? This journey was more Cruis ‘n Blast than OutRun!
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[/CENTER]The destination was a remote location off the beaten track, west of the M25. We drove through woodland and saw birds of prey circling overhead as we approached.
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[/CENTER]We arrived early. Picture the Evil Dead cabin, but with some dilapidated fruit and casino machines outside and you won’t be too far off.
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[/CENTER]I had a quick scan of the skip, but there didn’t appear to be anything video game related.
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[/CENTER]We had a bit of time to wait and so we ventured to a nearby garden centre for a bite to eat.
The parsnip and carrot soup was excellent.
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[/CENTER]They also had a nice range of cakes, chutneys, beers and wines.
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[/CENTER]Cactus. Or should it be cacti?
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[/CENTER]However there was no time to hang around looking at cactus (or cacti?), we had a Raid to go on! We made our way back to the Evil Dead cabin.
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[/CENTER]The workshop was mostly filled with fruit machines. The Op had taken over the business from his father. He said that they used to supply a lot of video games to neighbouring pubs, universities and colleges.
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[/CENTER]I climbed over the fruit machines at the back of the cabin to find a Nintendo PlayChoice-10. It had obviously been sat there for a long time.
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[/CENTER]There was also a generic cocktail cab.
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[/CENTER]Checking the shelves for video game parts.
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[/CENTER]At the back there were a couple of boxes of boards and random parts, which included various buttons, joysticks and guns.
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[/CENTER]I also picked up some monitor chassis and a Sega driver dashboard.
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[/CENTER]They also had a couple of old jukeboxes.
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[/CENTER]Today’s pick ups.
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[/CENTER]The boot loaded up.
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[/CENTER]Raid Highlights
These Capcom CP System II titles all came complete with motherboards, which was a nice bonus. It was also the first time I’ve come across the grey Asian type.
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[/CENTER]As I was carrying Marvel Super Heroes I heard something rattling round inside the case. Further investigation revealed that the battery had disintegrated, spewing corrosive fluid across the board.
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[/CENTER]Unfortunately the PCB’s had been stored badly and there were a lot of sports titles, including six Tecmo World Cup ’90 boards no less! However there were a couple of interesting games, including Sega’s obscure Dark Edge and the Konami classic Juno First.
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[/CENTER]Dark Edge is a game I hadn’t come across before.
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[/CENTER]Released in 1993 on System 32 hardware, Dark Edge is Sega’s first attempt at a 3D fighter, using sprite scaling to simulate a 3D playfield. Unusually for this type of game, it has a sc-fi setting. It’s definitely one I’m looking forward to playing.
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