Archived from groups: rec.games.video.arcade.collecting (
More info?)
To add to this, I too have had games go bad during shipping. One was a
Xmen Vs. Street Fighter that I sold to a guy on eBay. This game was
rock solid when I had it, I capped it, cleaned it, etc. etc. Took some
additional pictures of it working immediately before it got taken away
for shipment. When it showed up in Chicago, it had problems. Oh,
well, not my problem, since I clearly stated in the auction that I'm
not responsible for damage incurred during shipping... nevertheless, I
tried to help this guy out. I sent him many an email asking him to try
very simple diagnostic stuff (reseat the CPS cart, etc.), and to send
me a picture of the screen. Eventually he just stopped responding, but
I got the feeling he thought he'd been given a raw deal. *sigh*
My point there is that you can't assume the game was faulty when he
sold it to you. How is the seller's feedback? Any similar complaints?
Anyways, all that aside... "2 guys instead of 3" is not a fault, it's a
setting. You can change that in less time that it took you to add that
"problem" to your post. Did you happen to read any documentation on
the game at all? Not trying to be snide or elitist, but is this your
first game? Maybe you just didn't know that stuff like pricing,
difficulty, etc. is usually configured via DIP switch or sometimes in
test mode.
Also, where were you looking for the test switch for the game? On the
little panel on top of the coin box, next to the volume control? Well,
that would explain it. There isn't one there, even though there's a
spot for it. The test switch for a Tempest->MH conversion is actually
ON the coin door itself... and you need to flip the tilt switch to
advance through the tests. If you didn't know that, then perhaps you
were wrong about the seller never running it through the self test.
Hell, even if there is no actual switch there, he could still have
shorted the TEST line to GND. How many times have I done that?
prOk is correct about vector games having their own little
idiosyncracies and such... if you're looking for a game that's not
going to break, then you're in the wrong hobby, and you definitely
shouldn't own an XY or a laser game. Realistically, you should never
buy any game with the expectation that it will just work forever. I
don't think I've owned a single game yet that hasn't required work on
more than one occasion. I've owned games made as recently as the
mid-to-late 90's that still needed repairs. Take into consideration
that these are games that've been left on for 18+ hours a day over the
course of 10, 15, 20, or even 25 years.
I'm really not trying to piss all over you or anything, but levelling
accusations without really knowing how these things work is a good way
to get yourself labelled a twitchy buyer and shunned. Seen it happen
before.
Can somebody link me to the auction? I'd be interested to see the
description and whatnot.
Later,
Rob