On Monday I went into the Value Village in Charlotte to look around. As I browsed, I heard a worker yelling at another associate to "Get Away from Donkey Kong!, Get Away From Donkey Kong!".
I had absolutely no idea why someone would yell that across the store, and continued looking around. Then I heard the music. I quickly scanned the store, but didn't see an arcade anywhere. Then the same woman started again yelling, "Get Away From Donkey Kong!, Get Away From Donkey Kong!"
Well this time I paid attention to where she was pointing and followed the music up to the front. And thats were I found this old thing. It was priced $250, which I thought was a decent price. In fact, a few weeks ago I resurrected an old thread here, asking if an arcade perfect port of donkey kong had ever been released on a home console. So here it is my "arcade perfect" DK, and in a Cocktail version- which would allow me to put it in the house without too much re-arrangement. Awesome!
It seemed in pretty good condition, that is until I looked closer. It looked like there was a problem with the CRT. You can see in the pictures, that the left side of the screens vertical resolution is compressed. Well, I figured that I'd think about it and do some research online to see if it was worth buying, even with this problem.
That night I inquired here on the forums, and Arcade Antics responded assuring me it was a good deal. Not only that but the problem was fixable. Of course, I have yet to determine if I am capable of the fix. Anyway, I alsdo talked to the GF about it a bit and she also said... "why the hell not." But on the other hand... it was a long drive (45 minutes - 1 way), there was no guarantee it would be there, and I honestly don't need to be spending the money right now. So after and hour and a half of internal deliberation I decided to go back for a second look. Fuck it.
Anyway so I went back, with the hope it was marked down a bit... which I could then justify purchasing. Well, it was still $250. I told the manager-looking dude, that I'd like to take a closer look and wanted to know if he had the key for the coin drawer. He didn't. Then I described to him the screen problem, and showed him what I was talking about. As I opened it up and started playing with the picture controls he offered to take $50 off. Not bad, but I told him I'd think about it for a while. Anyway after he walked away I looked at it for a while and then closed it back up. I gave him his screwdriver back (which I used to open the lid), and said $200 was still too much, especially if I had to fix it. I said thanks anyway and headed for the door. He then said... how about $150. Without hesitation I said "I'll take it."
So here it is. I've only had it about 3 hours now, but I'm still excited-because it's my 1st arcade. I figure $150 is well worth it even if I have to get it professionally fixed. I know it's not the find of the year, and a lot of you have seen these before, but I'm happy as fuck about it and thought I'd provide some pics. So enjoy some classic game pornography...