So now that you have a system and few games you'll of course want to play them. Your cartridges will probably have to be cleaned. This is super easy and quick. You'll need a common q-tip and some Isopropyl Alcohol (common rubbing alcohol 91% or better). Dip the q-tip in the rubbing alcohol and rub the moist cotton end on the contacts of the cartridge (Contacts are the shinny metal connectors that look like teeth) Do this a couple times to remove any dust, dirt or old Mountain Dew that may have built up over the game's life. Make sure you change up the q-tip once it gets all cruddy. Also Isopropyl alcohol can leave a residue so be sure not to use too much...you would have to use a lot but I've seen it happen.
I've written a blog series on hooking up old systems so check that out if you get confused between the old systems and your new TVs.
You'll want to find somewhere to store your games. Since you are going to be collecting a lot of these pick somewhere with a bit of space to grow into. Also things with shelves are a plus so that you can see your games without having to dig into them too much. I currently use a storage ottoman from Target, it keeps my games out of the way and seals so they stay pretty much dust free in there. I've drawn up plans to build specialized storage shelves for them in the future, but I don't have the space now. Also once your collection grows a bit you will want to keep it organized so you can find the game you want when you want it.

• Q-tips! Q-tips! Q-tips!
• Some old CD systems will not play nice with CD Buffers (the crank things that remove scratches) Beware!
• Keep you carts stored away from moisture and dust...also don't spill Mountain Dew on them - it doesn't make them awesome like you hope it will :(
• Don't forget you'll also have to store controllers, I recommend "Over/Under Cable Wrapping" this is important so you don't break the wires inside the cable. (Here is a video tutorial)
• Q-Tips!
  

The easiest way to get started is with a system. Think about a system you used to have this way some of the leg work of game selection will already be done for you. You'll remember the games you liked and the ones you didn't. An easy system to start with is the Sega Genesis. While a lot of you may say that the Nintendo Entertainment System is better the faulty design of the cart reader makes it a little less than awesome. Genesis games are just as easy to find as NES games and the systems are a bit more rugged. If you want to collect NES carts, NES system repair isn't rocket science and there are plenty of NES clones that work better than an old dusty NES will.

 So how many of you collect classic video games? How many of you want to start collecting classic video games?
 
Since you are on this website I bet you have more than a passing interest in video games. Am I right? Well eventually you are going to want to start amassing a collection of classic titles. It happens to all of us, it'll happen to you.  Collecting video games is easy, storing them is easy, maintaining them is easy and rehabilitating them is easy.
I'll be breaking down the who, what, where, why and mostly the how of classic game collecting.
 
A lot of people believe that the only games worth their time are the newest the biggest the awesome-est and the most game of the year award winning-est games on the market. Those people are severely short sighted. Classic games are viewed through the rose colored glasses of nostalgia. This makes each and every game better, or at least makes you think it is better. Each classic game in your collection will come attached with the story of "how and why" you got it. If your lucky some the games you love will be better than they were originally. (most will be worse) I encourage making your collection a deeply personal effort, don't just try to buy every NES title buy the ones you played. This will help maintain your hunger for classic games.
People will also tell you that you can just play it on an emulator with a PC Gamepad. That's right you can, you can also only drive sport cars in low gears and watch TV in black and white. The truth is that a computer will never stand in for a well maintained game system. Is it cheaper to emulate? Yes. Is it easier to emulate? Yes. Is it worth it? No. Is it the 'same'? Not in a million years.
 
If you want to build a good collection don't listen to the nay sayers just do it. I'll help.

 Gamers and Non-gamers alike always seem to ask me what the "best game ever" is. The good news is there are a lot of ways to answer that question, the bad news is that there are a lot of ways to answer that question. I have a few favorites, and I have a few easy picks and there are tons that we can all agree on but I'm going to start with a bit of a dark horse; Dark Wizard for the Sega CD.

There were a few really good reasons to own a Sega CD, Sonic CD, Eternal Champions CD, Lunar and a few others. (cough Night Trap cough) Dark Wizard was a game that flew under the radar even during the Sega CD's peak. A strategy RPG released at a time when strategy RPG's were not popular meant that Dark Wizard was doomed for the bargain bin. I picked my copy up from the local Funcoland, no manual, no box, just the disc and a paper sleeve.  I was in way over my head - over my head in awesome!

At the time I rarely used my Sega CD outside of Sonic CD and the Sega Classics Collection. The game starts with an anime-styled cutscene that just didn't appear anywhere else at the time. I was still a few months away from getting Lunar and this first brush with FMV blew me away. The game lets you choose from four characters, a prince, a soldier, a wizard and a vampire. I picked the prince because he kind of looked like me and I was 12. Each of the four characters has an extensive opening cinematic that relates their motivations for entering the war against the Dark Wizard. Being a 12 year old dork with a deep love of Dungeons and Dragons I ate this stuff up.

Fifteen minutes after pushing start I was at the game screen, A hex based battle map with color coded units on it. My enjoyment came to a crushing halt. With no manual I had no idea how to play; I could move the cursor around but I had no idea what attacks what units did or how movement was calculated or even how to recruit new units. I was stuck. One of the reasons I love Dark Wizard is because I mastered it myself. I taught myself how to play the game through trial and error. I remember first discovering how to recruit units and feeling reinvigorated. After an hour of stumbling around in the dark I figured out one of the cornerstones of the game and I was hooked. This was an era before FAQs and Walkthroughs you had to figure it out on your own or take the game back to the store. After seeing that intro I wasn't taking it back to the store.

My first campaign in the world of Dark Wizard was a slow and painful one. Not knowing which units were good against other units was a major hurdle so was equipping units correctly. The real genius of Dark Wizard is how it scales to you, you can skip most of the management stuff and just play it. I loaded an old file up and found that I had beaten the game with a group of characters whose armor and weapons had never been upgraded. The game didn't make the enemies easier but my use of strategy adapted to the game. There is a lot of depth to Dark Wizard both story-wise and gameplay-wise the strength of the game is that it plays well no matter how shallow you want to play it. By the far the most game time wasn't taken up by me and my failures but by battle animations. Dark Wizard takes place on a Macro level you float above the battle doling out orders but the battles would load you into a different screen full of bad sprite based battles. Everything always looked like a jumble of pixels and none of the spell effects looked that cool. Eventually I found the option to turn those animations off in the options menu but until then it was slow going. Sega CD wasn't known for speedy loading times. Good news is that that option is off by default.

Eventually through determination and a good notebook I mastered the game. Dark Wizard would be a great game on any system but what makes it "the best game ever," is that it is still a deeply personal game. I've never met anyone else who played it, or has even heard of it. Unlike some of its contemporaries it has never been remade. Dark Wizard has always felt like 'my game.' I'll keep shouting its praises but it always seems to fall on deaf ears. A Google search turns up a few fan sites but nothing really in depth. If I had the time and money I would love to produce a guide for the game; something real nice with interviews from the staff. The type of thing I would like to buy now and keep on a coffee table. Dark Wizard deserves to be up there with Shining force, Phantasy Star and Chrono Trigger, it just didn't get its time to shine.

"I eat video game peripherals like you for breakfast." 
"You eat video game peripherals for breakfast? Gross." 
 
I've had a week with Sony's Sharpshooter attachment and I can safely say it is fun. After a few days I started to acclimate to the Sharpshooter, it did take a bit of time to readjust. I'm still tweaking the settings of Killzone 3 to make the gun the most intuitive and comfortable. That digital trigger makes a world of difference. Squeezing the trigger and having an instant feedback cannot be understated. When the sound is up and your blood is pumping the Sharpshooter melds with the game perfectly. It makes the game slower and more tactical; you can't just run around with a shotgun. The only downside is that you're going to get tired using the Sharpshooter. Yeah, after about an hour you'll need a break. I still fully endorse the Sharpshooter and am glad I bought it.

Hey one of my tax returns showed up today! Time to spend that dough before it burns a hole in my pants that might reveal my unsightly bits to the masses.
Who wants to hear a deep dark personal secret? 
I like the Playstation Move! I know, I'm weird, but I do. I really honestly like opening up my apartment on a warm day and tossing some virtual bocce balls around in Sports Champions. It feels good, feels like a work out and feels intuitive and real(ish).
One downside I've run into while using the Move is the fact that I usually use the dualshock 3 in my off hand. This is mostly fine except in Heavy Rain. While Heavy Rain works fine with the dualshock I want to stand up while playing it, that is awkward. Basically the dualshock isn't meant to be held in one hand so when I use I rest on my lap. 
With all this is mind I set off to my local big box retailer to fix my problem.
I picked up the little navigation controller and the PlayStation Move Sharpshooter. The Sharpshooter works as advertised so far. I feel like all the problems I've been having in Killzone 3 are my fault not the controller's. When the Sharpshooter 'clicks' with me and I'm swinging it around in a firefight it is amazing. The more I've used it the more these moments spring up but even after an hour or two I'll still find myself staring at my feet in frustration. Next week after I've gotten used to it I'll post some more thoughts.
 
Bonus Points

• Apparently all Move add-ons make me look the worlds largest idiot
• My wife giggled the minute I pulled my new "Toy Gun" out of the box
• I managed to slap myself in the cheek with the rifle's stock after snapping a Helghast's neck (it kills the mood)
• "I may look like a dork but I feel like a badassss!"
• It works in Time Crisis:Razing Storm; but the special "Reload Button" on the Clip doesn't...kind of killed my buzz
• Now I need more light gun games
• "Ohhh it comes with stickers!"
• Can I use this in the Archery game? Please Sony please!
  

Time for a few Wrap up questions;

I followed your instructions and my cabinet looks horrible what happened?

Since there are a lot of different cabinets it is hard to pin this down but look at the small details. Does the bezel match? Did you do a good job of hiding the monitor's case? I had to use black construction paper to cover the  monitor's edge.

The monitor hangs out the back and it isn't lined up right?

I had to build my own monitor support into the Chelnov cabinet. It didn't take long and really only consists of one block of wood but it works. Sometimes you have to get creative. Also most computer CRTs will hang out the back of the case

You never went over how to mount the pc inside the cabinet.

I 'll have to fall back on the every cabinet is different excuse again. With Chelnov the coin vault enclosure actually made a very nice and secure shelf for the pc to stand on. I used two furniture straps to make it secure and called it a day. Once again you'll just have to get creative.

What is your next project?

I've "inherited" an Asteroids stand up machine and a Space Invaders clone cocktail table machine, both non-working. Next spring my friend Dave and I are going to try and get them back up and running without a MAME PC inside of them. As for the blog I think I am going to finally tackle storage solutions for games.

Remember how I said you have to consider a lot of things when picking out a cabinet? Paramount among them is space. The space that the cabinet takes up and the space it has for modification. Our cabinet "Chelnov" was only ever meant for 1 player. This is a huge problem since my friend and I love 2 player co-op beat 'em ups. We set about dismantling the control box (the part of the arcade that houses the controls and wiring) and quickly realized there was NO WAY we could fit a 2 player setup in the cabinet comfortably. Most people at this stage would just build a bigger control box into the cabinet. I didn't want to do that because it always looks like you are trying to build wings onto the cabinet. I feel this kind of ruins the illusion of having an Arcade cabinet in your home. More importantly it makes the arcade cabinet bigger which is something my buddy's and my wives would not enjoy.

The easiest solution was to buy 2 usb game pads from Gamestop and wire them so they could be held in your hands. This kind of ruins the illusion of having an arcade cabinet in your home but it is cheaper and easier. An added bonus is that if I ever do decide to wire up a built in control box I can use the guts from the controllers to save on money. They sell a lot of high priced solutions for home arcades, X-Arcade is a big one, but if you want to keep it cheap you have to go the DIY route.

Once the control box is finished you'll have to hotkey stuff. Hotkey-ing is setting your system so that your controller can actually control the games. I actually wrote my own program that I thought would hotkey for me, basically if a button was assigned the "jump" command it would always be button 1, this went down the line for "attack" and "punch" etc. Well that didn't work none of the games would take the hotkey commands. I tossed the program along with the few days of work I spent on it. The good news is that most versions of MAME come with an internal hotkey system. Load a game and hit 'tab' on the keyboard and select 'input commands (general)' this will set up the default hotkeys for all games. This is the quickest and easiest way to go about hotkeying, it doesn't always work perfect but you can change hotkey configurations for specific games by running the game pressing 'tab' and selecting "configure inputs (this game)"

My MAME cabinet is finished so next time we will wrap this project up and answer a few questions.

Last time we went over cabinet selection and repair; this time we are going to look at the PC guts inside. You won't need a state of the art PC to run most arcade games. Remember these are games released more than a decade ago. The Pc we are using is an off the shelf Compaq Presario from 2006. A 1.6 ghz single core processor with 2 gigs of ram. When building a Mame cabinet you'll need to consider what games you are going to run on it and more importantly what front-end you will use. A front-end is a game selection interface, this will be the menu you use to pick which game you want to play. We are using the Hyperspin front end a simple, free, good looking frontend that while not a breeze isn't too hard to setup.

Next time, I'll discuss control choices and hotkey mapping.

The "cabinet" is the shell that you'll build your new Arcade Monster inside of. You can build one on your own (but I suck at carpentry) or you can buy kits that snap together like ikea furniture (but I'm broke) you can also find an old cabinet and rehab it.

Two important things to remember when finding an old cab to rehab:

- You're only interested in the shell; so if it is missing parts that is cool

- You should never scrap ANY working parts; hold onto that stuff.

There are three types of arcade cabinets, and you've probably seen them all out in the wild.

- Stand up - Classic 6 foot tall regular arcade machines

- Cocktail - tables set up so you play the game in the table top

- Bartop -  basically a stand up cut off below the control panel so it can rest on a table or bar

Within these three 'types' there is a lot of variation in size. For instance our "Chelnov" cabinet we are rehabbing was only made for one player so it is very narrow. It was made in the late eighties so it is taller than most older arcade cabinets by a few inches so it grabbed more attention in the arcade. "Atomic Runner Chelnov" is not ideal for two player setups which is why we are using removable gamepads and not true arcade controls.

Picking it out

• decide on what type of arcade you want
• before making you final decision be sure to think about where it will end up
• Also remember to consider the games you want to play. (Cocktails aren't good for beat em ups)
• Be sure to inspect the wood, if there is a lot of water damage, take a pass. 
• Be sure to inspect for any holes, you don't want the sides to look like swiss cheese
• Ignore any missing electronics
• Try to get one with a "coin door" and some "bezel glass"
• Try to get all the service panels (these are large pieces of wood that go on the back to cover the electronics

Fixing it up

1. Take inventory of all the parts
2. Remove all wiring and electronics (be sure to dismantle and keep track of all electronics)
3. Remove non-wood parts (Bezel glass, coin door, control panel and marquee art)
4. Unless you have the keys remove those locks
5. Sand down any bubbled paint
6. Sand out any scratches (it doesn't have to be perfect but the more you do the better it will look)
7. Use wood puddy on any LARGE holes or REALLY BAD scratches
8. Decide on a paint and paint

"Chelnov" like most latter day arcade machines was just basic black, originally a glossy enamel black but that had faded. It was pretty clear "Chelnov" spent most of its time in a bar from the tobacco stains and deep scratches at about cocktail table height. NO scratch on "Chelnov" was deep enough to need wood puddy. One problem with "Chelnov" was a giant vinyl Data East logo on the control box, originally we thought it was cool but after trying to clean off the tobacco stains we decide to ditch it. The main problem with the vinyl logo was the glue would tear off the wood underneath. So instead of removing the logo I spent the better part of an hour giving it a wood grain by scoring it with harsh sand paper in one direction. This ruffed up the vinyl so the spray paint would stick to it and makes it fit in with the rest of the cabinet. There was a lot of wear and tear on the back corner from where the cabinet had been dragged around but nothing so bad that it needed fixing, it might become an issue down the road. Some sanding and two coats of paint later "Chelnov" looks ready to go back into service.

Cleaning it up

• When cleaning any glass or Lucite be sure to soft scrub stuff, stay away from harsh chemicals as much as possible.
• Remove stickers from the marquee and use rubbing alcohol to gently remove the left over glue.

"Chelnov" 's marquee had seen much better days. The ratings stickers were four deep and an auction sticker was slapped right in the middle. The ratings stickers peeled off one by one but the auction sticker was a paper and glue monstrosity that took me two hours and 4 different cleaning products to get rid of.

Next up; building the PC and what software you'll need.