First a few housekeeping items. I mentioned this on Facebook, but not here yet, by request, the new Knapp Arcade website can now be viewed with either a black or a white background, like the original site. The mobile version has a toggle button between the two in the menu and the desktop version of the website has a button at the top of the page.
Second, I had to shut down the e-mail alert system for the past couple of articles because we had too many subscribers for the old mass e-mail system to handle. My son and I were just approved (yes you have to apply) to use Amazon Web Services, which can now handle up to 50,000 e-mails per day. That should be implemented shortly along with the import of subscribers from the old website.
OK, enough of that. Let's get to the fun stuff. As I mentioned, today is Friday. That means it's Factory Friday at Stern Pinball. They shared a peek of their latest game King Kong: Myth of Terror Island on the production line earlier today.
Next up, let's talk about Alan-1, the fairly new arcade manufacturer of games like Asteroids Recharged and Avian Knights. I have this company on the brain because I just saw the massive 3-player Asteroids Recharged cabinet at the recent sneak peek party for Barcade FiDi. That thing was a blast to play with two friends, whose butts I proceeded to kick at it (sorry guys lol). I have a picture of it on location below for everyone to check out.
Alan-1's second game in its Recharged series of cabinets for Atari is Missile Command Recharged. It made its public debut at the California Extreme arcade show a couple of weeks ago. It also will be available for folks to play this weekend at the Utah Retro GameXpo. Check it out, it looks awesome.
Utah Retro GameXpo
Missile Command Recharged on the floor at the Utah show
The HUGE Asteroids Recharged cabinet on the floor at Barcade FiDi
Town and Country Magazine recently conducted an interesting interview with Jersey Jack Pinball's founder, Jack Guarnieri, about pinball collecting.
Are Pinball Machines the New Picassos?
Last up, two really cool new retro arcade game collections launched on Steam this week. I just bought both this morning.
The first is a collection of awesome Konami side-scrolling games in the "Gradius" series. I remember playing so many of these as a kid, Life Force (1986), Gradius (1985) & sequels. So good.
The second collection is four classic games from Taito. Dubbed "Operation Night Strikers" the collection includes the iconic arcade shooters Operation Wolf (1987), Operation Thunderbolt (1988), Space Gun (1990) and Night Striker (1989), a flying car shoot 'em up.
Gradius Origins
Operation Night Strikers
