Questions about a Gyruss cab?

[BenG76]

I have found a guy that has this game for sale. He said it was made in the early eighties. He said it has been sitting in his house a while and he didnt play it for quite some time. He told me that when he decided to sell it he plugged it up and turned it on and it works fine. He also claims it is in very good condition. I hope to go look at it within a couple of days. I guess my first question is what should I look for and check when I look at it? Is there any problems this game has I should look out for? Would this be a good buy for my first arcade game? Also if its in the condition he says how much should I try to buy it for? It looks like these can go from $250 or more in ok shape on Ebay. Thanks in advance for any comments. I rarely see arcade games up for sale in my area so I thought I would check this one out.

[Flack]

For some reason Gyruss isn't as popular as many other games from its graduating class, but it should be -- it's a terrific game and a blast to own and play. I see these going anywhere from $100-$300, depending on condition. $350 would probably be top dollar for a dedicated machine.

If the game works, and it sounds like it does, I'd definitely pick it up.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Gyruss is an EXCELLENT take on the Galaga type shooters, one of my all-time favorites with a rockin' thumpin' sountrack that was pretty groundbreaking for that era of games, if everything is in good working order and you can get it for a good price I'd say go for it.

[InsaneDavid]

Third for this being a great game. I was actually thinking of picking up Ken's (co-creator of the show) Gyruss cabinet from California Extreme for $286.00 (yeah, that was the stickered price, or offer). However I could tell it would need a cap kit soon and there were some odd glitches (crap flickering in the middle of the screen, usually a random enemy sprite or the Earth from the attract screen) as well as the leaf switches for the joystick needed some rebuilding. I ended up passing on it since I was going to offer no more than $150 and I didn't want to insult the guy. That and I didn't want to lug it upstairs.

Cool cabinet design though, with the control panel set back into the cabinet. $300.00 would be my limit for a perfect condition one since as Flack said, it never really was super popular.

[Flack]

Also, I've never taken one apart personally but from the pix I've found on the web the joystick looks kind of unique. It actually kind of looks like my Karate Champ sticks that have the permanently soldered on leaf switches. Repairing these things might turn out to be a pain and it wouldn't surprise me to find a lot of these with replaced sticks.