Agreed. And the videos are edited and narrated so well. No wasted time; well explained; not overly long. These are a lot of fun to watch and o get excited when a new one comes up.
@@gerry-p9x Yes, but usually you lose the motion sharpness and introduce input lag, wich may make the game even harder. You can propably use some high quality screen and/or converter to get very good results, but that will be expensive.
Yep, same. As someone who is in their late 50s now, I can't even begin to guess just how many quarters I've dumped into this game. And, no, I was never any good at it -- but that never stopped me from still blasting away. 😉 I wish I could play this on my home-built MAME arcade, but without a yoke and pedals, it's pointless to try.
this may be surprising to the olds, but his look, cleaned up a bit, is actually what kids are doing now. ankle and crew socks are favored over no shows. jean shorts are acceptable again.
@@4jp I've seen some of that, but what seems to have come back in a big way with the youngsters is the late 90s/early 2000s skater/nu metal look. Big baggy heavy metal band shirts, baggy pants, skate shoes, etc. I guess it depends on where you are.
I have fond memories of playing this game after a late shift. I could stand on one leg and play more than hour on one quarter. Spyhunter was unique for two things: the music could "solo" an original melody every game and there was no upper skill-limit. The game didn't cheat, it just got harder...and harder...and harder while you, the player, were getting better and better. Eventually a skilled player could learn tactics for every situation and use feats of skill to pull off amazing tricks. A one-of-kind game.
Spy Hunter was extremely popular in the arcade when it came out. The music drew players in. It was arrangement of Henry Mancini's theme to 'Peter Gunn.'
What's even rarer is the "sit down" version of this game. Having an adjustable racing seat with built in speakers so loud it would tingle the hairs in your ears and burn the soundtrack into your brain.
Oh wow, this is one of my favorites. When I was a kid my family and I were stuck in a hotel for six months while our house was being rebuilt from a fire. The hotel had two video games in their bar, Spy Hunter and AirWolf. I played the poop out of those two games.
I'm actually really happy to see this video, because this is the first time I've seen one of those CRT restore products actually work. I've seen them a hundred times, and not once seen one improve the picture until now. It's really good to see that it's not a total scam to buy one of those kits.
@@dunebasher1971 Glad got hear it honestly. I've only seen it done a few times, and the other times, the results were the tube was no longer functional at all.
@@amostake I mean based on the book and the amount of model numbers you can get confused with, its possible that some settings were off. Its also possible it was "done before" as stated in the video. Meaning it's less effective.
As a teen in the 80s, I remember the evening our local arcade/record store wheeled this game in. SO many kids were lined up to play this game. Great job restoring this game. We appreciate it David. :)
The first arcade I loved. My dad worked at a campground and this was in the store. I would hear the attract music all the time while I was there with him. Good memories.
I was born in 1965, graduated from high school in '83, which put me in the perfect age range for the golden era of coin-op arcade games. I consider myself to be so lucky to have (not) grown up during this time period. American early gen X'ers truly had a unique experience growing up in the beginning of the information age.
I was born the last few days of '69 in the U.K. Pretty much the same experience, left school in '86 and had the boom of the late 70's and 80's in Arcades and Home Computers. Great time to be a kid then!
Sir i was born in 1982. By the time 1992 arcade was a huge success in my city. Kids hanging in there and boys its was the best day of my life hanging playing Raiden, predator with my friends. What a golden era to live
Great work guys... I was an Arcade Tech in 1986, Blackpool, North Pier, UK. We had one of these units.... I have memories of starting all the games in the morning, some were tape based, some were ROM based.......ooooohhh, fond memories.....👍
David may remember this since he's also a local - I spent a lot of time on this at Mazzios Pizza on Rufe Snow in North Richland Hills. They had the sit down version, and this was always my go-to game whenever we went out for pizza.
Released the year before I was born, but I can still hear the theme music. this was a staple go to for me when we were treated to places like Godfathers Pizza. Probably this and Outrun made a hoard of quarters from me. I may have to make the trip from San Antonio when you open the doors.
I used to play this all the time as a kid at the mall. I was never any good at it, but this and the old Star Wars games were the two I'd play every time I went. Great job on the video, these are always fun to watch.
I love this game. In one of my local arcades, back in the late 80's/mid-90's had the sit down version which I loved but hated how hard it was. 🤣 I can't imagine how much that version would go for today if it was still in the same shape.
The 8-bit guys voice over are like ASMR he is so relaxing to listen to. Whether he is talking about finding the right screws for a shelf he wants to hang or his house being completely destroyed by freeze damage. His explanation and expression is always so positive and interesting. ❤
These restaurantion videos are among the very few i don't even partially watch as background noise but completely glued to it for every second, used to watch 8bitguy a lot but lost interest, i am glad this kind of content is now back
Fantastic. I'm right at the age where these were popular when I was a kid, and Spy Hunter was my absolute favorite. Didn't realize it was so rare now, they were in pretty much every arcade back in the 80s.
Spy Hunter was one of my favorites. As for CRT Rejuvenating. I have some experience with it from the tube manufacture I used to be with. The sparking was what they called spark knocking and it was it get rid of any foreign materials or potential arc paths of leakage from the high impedance circuits. Past that what causes dim screens is loss of emission from loss of free barium from the cathode. Generally there is some reserve of barium oxide that can be reduced my raising the cathode temp to that which is used during aging in production of vacuum tubes. Same process. Unfortunately it becomes a game of diminishing returns so you generally only get one shot at it and not all types have a reserve as they were already at margin for normal operation anyways.
Oh man... I don't know how many hours I've played Spy Hunter with my brothers on the C64! What a blast from the past, thank you for this epic little gem! 😁👍
I played this ALOT in my aladins castle arcade. It was hard to play, but over the years, became fun and just iconic. I love that you are restoring these treasures. As I'm writing this, I remember friends that I havent seen for 40 years, who I couldn't live without back then. I think thats why we love things like this.
They had that at the old skating ring when I was a kid in Irvine California and it was my favorite game to play. For some reason it was by itself next to the shoe pick up area and not with all the other games on the other side of the building. That brought back memories.
I bet that you know that feeling, when you can't wait to start and it it itches you to at least sweep the dust off of it but you need to set the camera up first. I command thy restraint. Keep up the good work!
I remember Spy Hunter as a sit-down arcade game in the middle 1970s. The arcade was at a place called School's Out. It was my favorite and Yeah, I spent endless quarters to make my initials the top 3 scores!
@@brianmiller1077 Well, mid 80's was not when I regularly dropped rolls of quarters into machines in the School's Out Arcade. I did that more frequently than I care to remember from 1975 to 1977 ages 14 - 16. 1978 saw my time organizing Keg Parties and needing beer and cigarette money so again, no arcade time. After that was Military and then College, so again no time for arcades... The game I remember was a Huge seated affair with an actual steering yoke with multiple buttons and triggers on each hand for the various weapons and a very large screen with loud stereo Peter Gunn music. Not the single flight stick and buttons and stand up as you show. Also the music in your video sounds like a cheapened version, possibly because it as offloaded onto a cheaper sound card? The Peter Gunn tune I remember was a lot more orchestral in the "Driving Machine" version I recall. It sounded like a looped recording of the Peter Gunn TV show from the late 50s. Well, more like the later Emerson Lake and Palmer version than the Henry Mancini version really... But certainly Not that cheap FM synth Pack-man junk... From looking at your screens, It would have been almost impossible to not know what weapon was being used. I recall that part of the learning curve was remembering which button did what. It was very common to release the smoke screen when you really wanted to squirt the oil slick... One last detail: My Buddy at the time and I would compete for High Score. Whoever lost would have to pay for BOTH to get in the theatre. The movie was Star Wars. Summer 1977. Until my mom let my sister get a summer job, and she brought home a roll of tickets and we annoyed the audience by quoting every line of dialog because we had seen it 45 times. Also, why would anyone name an arcade after a 1972 Alice Cooper song in the early 80's? The Arcade itself didn't last until the middle 80's and by the middle 80's I was well into Home Vidiot games typically on Home computers such as the Apple II or very early IBM or Tandy machines...
@@brianmiller1077 Of course the tech was there. There were many very similar kinds of games. The Apple II was an incredibly popular micro computer at the time, again 1977! Of course the tech was there! And NO, I'm NOT mistaking some "Other" Game. Every other Spy Hunter version I have seen since has always been a massive let down since that sit-down plywood box version. I have this memory of a service tech opening up another one of those types of sit-down huge monitor type games and noticing that there was a large lens magnifying the screen to make it appear a tad larger also a mirror set inside the large box to accommodate a smaller actual screen. I know any cathode ray tube that big would require a much heavier cabinet... A final detail: The Only date I could even find about Spy Hunter is Wikipedia (not the best reputation for factualness!) and it says 1984 (which is clearly at least 7 years too late). I would have been deep in College by then, and way past dropping quarters at an arcade for young teens. I was hacking the ARPANET by then on the University Mini Computer! I can see that maybe 1984 being when the game hit the IBM PC or cartridge home game machines. Likely why all the later ones that I ever encountered I despised!
@@KandaJE Yeah. Apple II could produce graphics and sound like spy hunter in 1977, you keep believing that. I suppose you're going to say you used an iphone in 1997 next. I give up.
I used to play this is the car cabinet. It really made you feel like you were in the game. =) But I did get to play the same stand up cabinet in the arcade section in my old walmart.
Glad to see more restoration videos from you, they're enjoyable and inspiring. As a side note, "self-soldering butt splice" is one of the more amusing phrases I've heard in a while.
This is a wonderful trip of nostalgia for me. As a kid my family took me to Florida on holiday, the motel we were staying at had a burger shack and in there was Spy Hunter. I'd bug my family every day for Quarters to play it. It was always way too difficult for me, but boy, I loved that game.
Growing up, there was always a rumor that in addition to the boat, if you took the correct combinations of forks in the road, the car would turn into a plane. Years later, I was disappointed to find out that it wasn't true.
The plan was that at a high enough stage, the car would turn into a helicopter and fight the helicopter in the game in the air. Midway actually put that in the sales brochure. But in reality, the programmers had to drop that feature because there wasn't enough space in the ROMs to make it happen.
I bought an old arcade cabinet many years ago, ended-up gutting it and putting in a Raspberry Pi running MAME, and I didn't even think to keep the old boards or tube. So great to see your attention to detail and in keeping these games running for the next generations.
Seeing these restored with care, love, and attention to detail warms the cockles of my heart. If I take a trip to the area this year, this will definitely be my first stop. :)
Arcade cabinet games tended to be harder than their home ports. The publisher already had all the money they were going to get once you bought your home console copy, so the incentive was for that version to be finished quickly and leave you wanting to buy another game. The arcade version was a perpetual cash cow and arcade operators wanted them to be hard so that most players would game over quickly and the machine would be a quarter vacuum.
I was going to say as much. When I heard that line in the video I was thinking “since when is the arcade version easier?” The home versions are always easier. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Coleco touted its line of arcade conversions for the home, particularly the Colecovision. A lot of “B” grade games (obviously not DK, DK Jr, or Zaxxon). So more or less the CV catalog was a bunch of games I never ever EVER saw in the arcade. But then one day the local arcade got Looping maybe a year or two past it’s prime. Sitting in the back of the arcade (best stuff up front to pull in people). I thought I was good but the arcade version kicked my @$$ ! And I could play the 5200 Mario Bros for much much longer than in the arcade. Etc etc.
Absolutely fantastic! Never seen a Spy Hunter arcade cabinet looking so good! Well done for restoring this great game to look like it did 40 years ago!
@@jmpiv4 That is a custom print. We printed them on our own large format printer. The goal is that all credit buttons are yellow, with a yellow sticker. Something easy to see in the dark arcade.
Watching this brought me straight back to summers in Daly City with my grandparents playing this at the Serra Bowl! What a great restoration. Thank you for sharing it's journey back to the arcade
One of the best arcade games ever. I played endless hours on that in the arcades when it was a new release. Also loved the sit down version with the stereo speakers behind your head. Had some of the best sound of any game.
The 8-Bit Guy restores a Spy Hunter arcade game we bought a couple of years ago for the Time Rift Arcade in Bedford, TX (opening late summer of 2024).
I think Spy Hunter shared a common soundboard with another machine someone might have salvaged it from a different machine
"The 8-Bit Guy restores" I though that was team effort.
How long until the arcade opens?
I’m a dfw local. If I can help in any way I would like to.
Hey, when your having issues with removing the stickers etc use a hand steamer. There about 40 dollars but work quickly.
I'll never get tired of these repair videos. it's always satisfying seeing old busted machines getting lovingly restored
Exactly this.
Agreed. And the videos are edited and narrated so well. No wasted time; well explained; not overly long. These are a lot of fun to watch and o get excited when a new one comes up.
And the circle jerking echo chamber is here, good job, losers.
these old arcade machines make for some of the best restoration videos for sure
I second and third that emotion.
Let me hit it with some compressed air.
Brings out giant leaf blower.
The greatest 8-bit Guy who ever lived.
It was a regular sized leaf blower and it still does technically compress air
@@Akotski-ys9rr A leaf blower doesn't compress air, it blows air.
@@RandomTechWZ air does not move unless it is compressed in some way
@@RandomTechWZ think of when you slap the air with your hand. You’re compressing that air in front of your hand that’s why you feel some resistance.
I'm 64 years old. This was one of my favorite games back in the day. I really loved the Peter Gunn soundtrack.
Dusting that off without a mask is mad man’s work
the mesothelioma arcade
My first thought was wow Spy Hunter I remember that! Followed by Good Grief wear a respirator you nit wit!
he dousnt know some of the cabinets had asbestos in the particle board..... crap wood.... its bit of wood glued together..strength = zero
I thought the same. I restore all kinds of electronics and I always take the item outdoors to blow out dust. Even in the winter.
Guy who fixes 80s computers friends with guy who fixes 80s cars, it just makes sense
Nah most of those were Z cars from the 1970s.
@@ashleighelizabeth5916 thank you for fact checking, a vital service
Can a modern LED screen be fitted
@@gerry-p9x Yes, but usually you lose the motion sharpness and introduce input lag, wich may make the game even harder. You can propably use some high quality screen and/or converter to get very good results, but that will be expensive.
@@ashleighelizabeth5916yeah funny thing is, i also got my megasquirt ecu from then for my 1975 280z
I can't even begin to fathom the amount of time I spent playing Spy Hunter in the 80's.
Yep, same. As someone who is in their late 50s now, I can't even begin to guess just how many quarters I've dumped into this game. And, no, I was never any good at it -- but that never stopped me from still blasting away. 😉
I wish I could play this on my home-built MAME arcade, but without a yoke and pedals, it's pointless to try.
I never had much money when I was a kid so I had to choose which games I played. Mostly millipede, centipede or (super) Hangon.
I loved this game. I never had the money to give it a serious go, but I always spent what little I had to get as far as I could!
🤣👍
Yes. Spy Hunter, Golden Axe, and later TMNT and Afterburner were always the ones I looked for.
Yeah, sit down version!
Jorts, crew socks, and white New Balances. Please never change David.
Mike here... oh he won't. Trust me I've tried.
@@TimeRiftArcade lol that was basically my uniform back in the day too. Love your channel.
this may be surprising to the olds, but his look, cleaned up a bit, is actually what kids are doing now. ankle and crew socks are favored over no shows. jean shorts are acceptable again.
@@4jp I've seen some of that, but what seems to have come back in a big way with the youngsters is the late 90s/early 2000s skater/nu metal look. Big baggy heavy metal band shirts, baggy pants, skate shoes, etc. I guess it depends on where you are.
Wearing jorts makes Steve Austin guzzle beers somewhere.
I have fond memories of playing this game after a late shift. I could stand on one leg and play more than hour on one quarter. Spyhunter was unique for two things: the music could "solo" an original melody every game and there was no upper skill-limit. The game didn't cheat, it just got harder...and harder...and harder while you, the player, were getting better and better. Eventually a skilled player could learn tactics for every situation and use feats of skill to pull off amazing tricks. A one-of-kind game.
Hi guys I was a game mechanic back in 1977. I loved all 20 years of it.. thanks for the memories.....
Spy Hunter was extremely popular in the arcade when it came out. The music drew players in. It was arrangement of Henry Mancini's theme to 'Peter Gunn.'
I used to like the sit down version with the speakers right next to your head.
What's even rarer is the "sit down" version of this game. Having an adjustable racing seat with built in speakers so loud it would tingle the hairs in your ears and burn the soundtrack into your brain.
Oh wow, this is one of my favorites. When I was a kid my family and I were stuck in a hotel for six months while our house was being rebuilt from a fire. The hotel had two video games in their bar, Spy Hunter and AirWolf. I played the poop out of those two games.
I spent a lot of Quarters in that machine at the Roller Skating ring when I was about 12 years old. I miss the arcades we had in the late 80s.
Roller Palace, Beverly, MA had Spy Hunter. I'd sneak into the rink just play the arcades.
You make repairs and restorations look easy but there is a lot of knowledge, skill, patience, and planning involved.
An angel gets their wings when an 80s arcade machine is lovingly restored.
Only the deceased guy that where in the coin exchange cage ... those guys stole ever dollar from us kids in 70s/80s...
I'm actually really happy to see this video, because this is the first time I've seen one of those CRT restore products actually work. I've seen them a hundred times, and not once seen one improve the picture until now. It's really good to see that it's not a total scam to buy one of those kits.
CRT rejuvenators are legitimate repair equipment that have been around since the 1950s. Most definitely not a "scam".
Not all crts will take well to being rejuvenated. I believe sony crts hate it the most and like to lose the red gun.
@@dunebasher1971 Glad got hear it honestly. I've only seen it done a few times, and the other times, the results were the tube was no longer functional at all.
@@amostake I mean based on the book and the amount of model numbers you can get confused with, its possible that some settings were off.
Its also possible it was "done before" as stated in the video. Meaning it's less effective.
As a teen in the 80s, I remember the evening our local arcade/record store wheeled this game in. SO many kids were lined up to play this game. Great job restoring this game. We appreciate it David. :)
That game was a coin gobbling demon. Game manufacturers made arcade cabinets hard for a reason.
Great game and great video!
This is one of my favorite games and I am happy to say I had the chance to play it today. Also got my opening day monthly pass! Super excited!!!
i remember playing a sit down version of this, and it had an ash tray , so you could smoke and play at the same time.:)
The first arcade I loved. My dad worked at a campground and this was in the store. I would hear the attract music all the time while I was there with him. Good memories.
I have fond memories of playing spy hunter at my local convenience store. That music always drew me in.
I was born in 1965, graduated from high school in '83, which put me in the perfect age range for the golden era of coin-op arcade games. I consider myself to be so lucky to have (not) grown up during this time period. American early gen X'ers truly had a unique experience growing up in the beginning of the information age.
I was born the last few days of '69 in the U.K. Pretty much the same experience, left school in '86 and had the boom of the late 70's and 80's in Arcades and Home Computers. Great time to be a kid then!
Sir i was born in 1982. By the time 1992 arcade was a huge success in my city. Kids hanging in there and boys its was the best day of my life hanging playing Raiden, predator with my friends. What a golden era to live
These videos are so relaxing. I wish I had the space to do one or two of these myself
Restoring these games is almost a public service. Awesome work!
Great work guys...
I was an Arcade Tech in 1986, Blackpool, North Pier, UK.
We had one of these units.... I have memories of starting all the games in the morning, some were tape based, some were ROM based.......ooooohhh, fond memories.....👍
David may remember this since he's also a local - I spent a lot of time on this at Mazzios Pizza on Rufe Snow in North Richland Hills. They had the sit down version, and this was always my go-to game whenever we went out for pizza.
I grew up in DFW and got a hit of nostalgia from the word “Mazzio’s”. That memory has been buried a long time! 😂
I played Spy Hunter as a teenager in the arcades. This machine was very common in my area.
Released the year before I was born, but I can still hear the theme music. this was a staple go to for me when we were treated to places like Godfathers Pizza. Probably this and Outrun made a hoard of quarters from me. I may have to make the trip from San Antonio when you open the doors.
Man these videos REALLY make me want to open an arcade. Alas, Orange County, CA is just too expensive for the warehouse space you'd need. ALAS!
I used to play this all the time as a kid at the mall. I was never any good at it, but this and the old Star Wars games were the two I'd play every time I went. Great job on the video, these are always fun to watch.
Spy Hunter is my favorite arcade game. The game play and music are the best!
Rejuvenating crt's just blows my mind. It's so great that you and others care enough to preserve this old tech.
One of my favorite games growing up!!! Glad to see that one restored. I hope it stays that way!! Thanks.
I used to play Spy Hunter at Yesterday's Arcade all the time. I sure miss the arcades from the 80's!!!
I love it! I played this and loved that it had a gas pedal and hi-lo gear shifter! I so miss arcades so, thank you for what you do! Amazing work! 😎
Really 🤞 that Time Rift is a success when it opens!
I love this game. In one of my local arcades, back in the late 80's/mid-90's had the sit down version which I loved but hated how hard it was. 🤣 I can't imagine how much that version would go for today if it was still in the same shape.
Played this in the local bowling alley back in the day. Shame it was torn down decades ago. Good times. 🕹️
The 8-bit guys voice over are like ASMR he is so relaxing to listen to. Whether he is talking about finding the right screws for a shelf he wants to hang or his house being completely destroyed by freeze damage. His explanation and expression is always so positive and interesting. ❤
That was my favorite game as a kid . These kids now and days have no clue what so ever what true games like that meant to us back then.
These restaurantion videos are among the very few i don't even partially watch as background noise but completely glued to it for every second, used to watch 8bitguy a lot but lost interest, i am glad this kind of content is now back
Fantastic. I'm right at the age where these were popular when I was a kid, and Spy Hunter was my absolute favorite. Didn't realize it was so rare now, they were in pretty much every arcade back in the 80s.
Spy Hunter was one of my favorites. As for CRT Rejuvenating. I have some experience with it from the tube manufacture I used to be with. The sparking was what they called spark knocking and it was it get rid of any foreign materials or potential arc paths of leakage from the high impedance circuits. Past that what causes dim screens is loss of emission from loss of free barium from the cathode. Generally there is some reserve of barium oxide that can be reduced my raising the cathode temp to that which is used during aging in production of vacuum tubes. Same process. Unfortunately it becomes a game of diminishing returns so you generally only get one shot at it and not all types have a reserve as they were already at margin for normal operation anyways.
I'm not gonna lie, this was fun to watch!
Good lord the dust! I hope you have an air cleaner in the shop.
yeah, blowing that into the shop vs vaccuming it up?
@@TheSulrossor blowing off outside
Awesome restoration. Thank you for keeping arcades alive.
You hit that dust with the air hose and I started sneezing.
Haha It makes my eyes itchy too
@@RetroPC-vy3kt And have a higher chance of ESD.
well, it was very dusty, so not surprising - that dust went everywhere!
😂😂😂
I spent SO MUCH MONEY on this game as a kid! Easily one of my favorites of all time. It’s great seeing it Get so much love now!
Same!
This was one of my favorite games when I was a kid. I especially liked the sit down cabinet version.
At our age I think we enjoy watching these getting fixed more than we do playing the games. Thanks for sharing. Beautiful machine.
Oh man... I don't know how many hours I've played Spy Hunter with my brothers on the C64! What a blast from the past, thank you for this epic little gem! 😁👍
I used to play on NES - I can still hear the theme music in my head.
I first saw that rejuvinating tool on Adrians Digital Basement really neat
Saturday afternoon, I was a bit demotivated, saw this video pop up. Mood restored 🙂Thanks!
I played this ALOT in my aladins castle arcade. It was hard to play, but over the years, became fun and just iconic. I love that you are restoring these treasures. As I'm writing this, I remember friends that I havent seen for 40 years, who I couldn't live without back then. I think thats why we love things like this.
They had that at the old skating ring when I was a kid in Irvine California and it was my favorite game to play. For some reason it was by itself next to the shoe pick up area and not with all the other games on the other side of the building. That brought back memories.
I bet that you know that feeling, when you can't wait to start and it it itches you to at least sweep the dust off of it but you need to set the camera up first. I command thy restraint. Keep up the good work!
Always a pleasure to see you work. Great job
I remember Spy Hunter as a sit-down arcade game in the middle 1970s. The arcade was at a place called School's Out. It was my favorite and Yeah, I spent endless quarters to make my initials the top 3 scores!
Wouldn't have been mid 70's, Space invaders was 78. Mid 80's would be correct.
@@brianmiller1077 Well, mid 80's was not when I regularly dropped rolls of quarters into machines in the School's Out Arcade.
I did that more frequently than I care to remember from 1975 to 1977 ages 14 - 16. 1978 saw my time organizing Keg Parties and needing beer and cigarette money so again, no arcade time. After that was Military and then College, so again no time for arcades...
The game I remember was a Huge seated affair with an actual steering yoke with multiple buttons and triggers on each hand for the various weapons and a very large screen with loud stereo Peter Gunn music. Not the single flight stick and buttons and stand up as you show. Also the music in your video sounds like a cheapened version, possibly because it as offloaded onto a cheaper sound card?
The Peter Gunn tune I remember was a lot more orchestral in the "Driving Machine" version I recall. It sounded like a looped recording of the Peter Gunn TV show from the late 50s. Well, more like the later Emerson Lake and Palmer version than the Henry Mancini version really... But certainly Not that cheap FM synth Pack-man junk...
From looking at your screens, It would have been almost impossible to not know what weapon was being used. I recall that part of the learning curve was remembering which button did what. It was very common to release the smoke screen when you really wanted to squirt the oil slick...
One last detail: My Buddy at the time and I would compete for High Score. Whoever lost would have to pay for BOTH to get in the theatre. The movie was Star Wars. Summer 1977. Until my mom let my sister get a summer job, and she brought home a roll of tickets and we annoyed the audience by quoting every line of dialog because we had seen it 45 times. Also, why would anyone name an arcade after a 1972 Alice Cooper song in the early 80's? The Arcade itself didn't last until the middle 80's and by the middle 80's I was well into Home Vidiot games typically on Home computers such as the Apple II or very early IBM or Tandy machines...
@@KandaJE Night Driver was 1976 but that was "first person" and no enemy cars or weapons. The tech wasn't there in the 70's
@@brianmiller1077 Of course the tech was there. There were many very similar kinds of games. The Apple II was an incredibly popular micro computer at the time, again 1977! Of course the tech was there!
And NO, I'm NOT mistaking some "Other" Game. Every other Spy Hunter version I have seen since has always been a massive let down since that sit-down plywood box version. I have this memory of a service tech opening up another one of those types of sit-down huge monitor type games and noticing that there was a large lens magnifying the screen to make it appear a tad larger also a mirror set inside the large box to accommodate a smaller actual screen. I know any cathode ray tube that big would require a much heavier cabinet...
A final detail: The Only date I could even find about Spy Hunter is Wikipedia (not the best reputation for factualness!) and it says 1984 (which is clearly at least 7 years too late). I would have been deep in College by then, and way past dropping quarters at an arcade for young teens. I was hacking the ARPANET by then on the University Mini Computer!
I can see that maybe 1984 being when the game hit the IBM PC or cartridge home game machines. Likely why all the later ones that I ever encountered I despised!
@@KandaJE Yeah. Apple II could produce graphics and sound like spy hunter in 1977, you keep believing that.
I suppose you're going to say you used an iphone in 1997 next.
I give up.
I used to play this is the car cabinet. It really made you feel like you were in the game. =) But I did get to play the same stand up cabinet in the arcade section in my old walmart.
Another great result, the machine looks fantastic. Very satisfying to watch it all come together.
Thank you David I am enjoying your new channel partnership with your brother. Cheers
This is my all time favorite arcade game. 1quarter and you can literally play forever!
Spy Hunter was one of my favourite games in the arcade!
I spent way to much money on this game as a kid. Thank you guys for keeping this machine alive.
Spy Hunter was my childhood in the 1980s. Probably my favorite game of all time from that era.
Yeah that soundtrack though, I can still hear it clear as day in my head! 😄
My favourite game of all time and the first thing I look to play in a real Arcade. Thank you for the video- RIC.
I can still remember when that game showed up in the vestibule of the local Walmart, probably put 200 bucks into that machine that summer.
The arcade I went to the most was at the local bowling alley. I remember playing this one quite a bit. Awesome restoration!
You are a hero for saving such gems. Thank you.
I can't tell you how much money I put into this arcade game, back in the day. One of my favorites! You guys did an excellent job with the restoration.
I'm surprised you used a Sharpie for touchups.
I would have used acrylic paint markers.
Very well done resto on that old machine. It's always great to see the classics getting new life put back into them.
Glad to see more restoration videos from you, they're enjoyable and inspiring. As a side note, "self-soldering butt splice" is one of the more amusing phrases I've heard in a while.
More arcade cab restoration videos, please. It's a genre of video I didn't know I needed but really need.
I can't wait to come play all these!
Spy hunter was one of my FAVORITE games ever! So cool!
I’m pretty sure the CRT rejuvenates it by replacing your store of electrons for the electron gun to shoot at the screen. 😂
This is a wonderful trip of nostalgia for me. As a kid my family took me to Florida on holiday, the motel we were staying at had a burger shack and in there was Spy Hunter. I'd bug my family every day for Quarters to play it. It was always way too difficult for me, but boy, I loved that game.
Growing up, there was always a rumor that in addition to the boat, if you took the correct combinations of forks in the road, the car would turn into a plane. Years later, I was disappointed to find out that it wasn't true.
You just made me remember the plane rumor. I don't think I ever got far enough in the arcade version to get to the boat but I did in the NES version.
Sounds like a good rumor to start if you're an operator and want to get kids to keep dumping quarters into it.
The plan was that at a high enough stage, the car would turn into a helicopter and fight the helicopter in the game in the air. Midway actually put that in the sales brochure. But in reality, the programmers had to drop that feature because there wasn't enough space in the ROMs to make it happen.
I bought an old arcade cabinet many years ago, ended-up gutting it and putting in a Raspberry Pi running MAME, and I didn't even think to keep the old boards or tube. So great to see your attention to detail and in keeping these games running for the next generations.
wonderful!
Seeing these restored with care, love, and attention to detail warms the cockles of my heart. If I take a trip to the area this year, this will definitely be my first stop. :)
Arcade cabinet games tended to be harder than their home ports. The publisher already had all the money they were going to get once you bought your home console copy, so the incentive was for that version to be finished quickly and leave you wanting to buy another game. The arcade version was a perpetual cash cow and arcade operators wanted them to be hard so that most players would game over quickly and the machine would be a quarter vacuum.
I was going to say as much. When I heard that line in the video I was thinking “since when is the arcade version easier?” The home versions are always easier. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Coleco touted its line of arcade conversions for the home, particularly the Colecovision. A lot of “B” grade games (obviously not DK, DK Jr, or Zaxxon). So more or less the CV catalog was a bunch of games I never ever EVER saw in the arcade. But then one day the local arcade got Looping maybe a year or two past it’s prime. Sitting in the back of the arcade (best stuff up front to pull in people). I thought I was good but the arcade version kicked my @$$ ! And I could play the 5200 Mario Bros for much much longer than in the arcade. Etc etc.
Absolutely fantastic! Never seen a Spy Hunter arcade cabinet looking so good! Well done for restoring this great game to look like it did 40 years ago!
Should have preserved the original artwork, imperfections and all. Thats the history
Instead of drilling for a new button for the free play, I would probably try to hook up the coin return button as a free play button instead.
I'm sure that would work fine for an arcade in your home. But at the actual arcade, almost nobody would be able to figure out how to start the game.
@@TimeRiftArcade they can do a custom print on the button and have it a brighter color
@@jmpiv4 That is a custom print. We printed them on our own large format printer. The goal is that all credit buttons are yellow, with a yellow sticker. Something easy to see in the dark arcade.
My favorite arcade game of all time... Love this restoration!
Watching this brought me straight back to summers in Daly City with my grandparents playing this at the Serra Bowl! What a great restoration. Thank you for sharing it's journey back to the arcade
Spy Hunter hits me right in the feels. Used to play that a lot at the skating rink back in the day.
I played Spy Hunter in an arcade for the first time in Chicago. Definitely my favorite arcade game
To this day, this was my favorite 8-bit Nintendo game from my youth.
I still "hum" the theme music!
One of the best arcade games ever. I played endless hours on that in the arcades when it was a new release. Also loved the sit down version with the stereo speakers behind your head. Had some of the best sound of any game.
I was 10 when this was released in '83, and I loved playing this in arcades back in the day! Awesome game for its time! Love the top-down aesthetic 🔥
I loved dropping my quarters into this game... Oh the memories! ❤
I loved this game. I was lucky enough to play it in an arcade with the full "sit inside" cab. Happy days!
This was one of my favorite games growing up. So happy to see this restoration.
Absolutely amazing rescue. Someone needs to make a tv series all about this.
Very nice restore! I was lucky enough to play this arcade when it was out in the wild in the 80s, so this brough back good memories.