AIR RAID... inside a Galaxian Theater :-/

[DarthNuno]

Got a couple of pictures of a 'GT-6 to Air Raid' conversion.

Thanks to Lee for the pictures 

Here's the plot :

The photos were taken at the Dave and Busters in Milpitas, California. Presumably there was some period of time where they had this unit in unconverted form, but I never saw it that way. I have seen an operational Attack of Zolgear at a different Dave and Busters location, though...
-Lee

Ok, so the game is called :



This Is Not A Drill ! Nope, but it's supposed to be a Galaxian Theater 

After 'transformation ' 











I presume that GT-6 had some problems with one of the two original games (Dragoon or Zolgear), and...well, I can understand the arcade operator would prefers to have a *working* game inside the Theater instead having a such monster (I mean the GT-6) non working... but .... hey ... that game has nothing to do at all with THE EXPERIENCE you can feel while playing 'Project Dragoon' or 'Attack of The Zolgear' 

See the video of that game 

Regarding the conversion kit Galaxian³ -> AIR RAID, I've no information about it.

TSUNAMI THEATER

I've founded inside a Tsunami Product Catalog few references to the game called 'AIR RAID', but no reference regarding that big upgrade kit.
They are selling a TsuMo MEGA Kit, only the hardware... 



... but there are some decoration items on that GT-6 conversion. In addition, the game uses the six original G³ flight yokes, and probably the rest of the original hardwares ... so I presume Tsunami has access to the specification of the original theater? A collaboration with Namco maybe ?

Three flyers of the game 'AIR RAID' are available here, on www.arcadeflyers.com, but no mention to that kit!

Don't hesitate to post if you have more details on this 

[Moon Jump]

I knew you'd already have this Nuno, but my friend and I went to our local Dave and Busters today and we saw it in the corner of the arcade and said almost out loud "What the F---?!"



They took out the old shooting gallery and they had the game over in the corner. I had no idea there was Galaxian theater even in the state of New York, but there it was right in front of me. They didn't even bother going through the trouble of doing a full conversion of the cab. As you can kind of see from this picture, they kept the "Attack of the Zolgear" marquee with the moss camo over it.



We even flipped over the side near the entrance and boom, there this was...



I don't know if it's fully converted or what, but NONE of the guns vibrate and neither does the theater when you get hit. The sound pretty much just boils down to machine guns blaring and planes flying overhead. I could hardly hear any of the music in the game, but it would have been nice to hear a commander or something yell, "12 O'clock! 6 o'clock!" like how they do in both G3 games.

If you've played ANY version of Air Raid, you'll know what to expect. The game flat out sucks. Your on an aircraft carrier and waves of planes just keep swarming till your health depletes. The boat doesn't even move. You just stay in one spot as they fly over. Sometimes they will flip the camera to the other side, but that's about it. Once and a while a ship will approach you and you can sink it, but it looks so damn bad, I just laughed out loud. I was surprised that all of the guns are color coordinated to each player's station.

I really wonder why they made this conversion. Do they have a stockpile of old G3 theaters that don't work anymore and they decided on making conversion kits to keep them making money? I was scanning the machine and the unit had a sticker that said something about Texas on it. The machine had no roof on it and the two spots were the projectors are are open and uncovered.

My friend and I took videos of the machine and I'll be editing them together tonight. The video won't be in the greatest quality because this Dave and Busters doesn't like us recording there (even when it's dead) so we had to do the videos quick and on the sneak, so hopefully they came out alright. But I should have the video up by Wednesday. If Youtube takes it down for any reason, I'll let Bruno know and send him the video and if he wants to host it here.

[DarthNuno]

Welcome back 

Thanks for these pictures.

This GT-6 in New York is interesting because it doesn't seems to be the US model (gray/white),  but a Japanese or euro model (blue/yellow) like mine  More pictures are necessary in order to verify that (general view + view of the seats).
Maybe you should ask to that D&B if they can sell you the 'Attack of the Zolgear' marquee? Ultra collector 

I've played recently that game in a GT-6 in Miami (pictures soon), and I agree with you : AIR RAID sucks 
Maybe they still have boards/laser disks from Project Dragoon or Zolgear (I would be very interested of course  ) ?

Yes, I'm also very interested about your video of course  I'll host it if you cannot upload it on you tube.

Once again, thanks for the pictures... I'm looking about EVERYTHING regarding THE theater 

[Moon Jump]

http://blip.tv/file/2301392

Video's up on Blip, their usually pretty good and don't take videos off, I have no idea what was on the other video you posted because Youtube took it down.

It seems like a couple of Dave and Busters have the game, I was mentioning the game to a friend of mine and he said he thinks he saw the game at one near him in Connecticut. So it makes me think again, did Dave and Busters or Tsunami buy up any unused or broken Galaxian3 units and install these? Even before this I never heard of a Dave and Busters having the game. This is only the third unit I've ever played, the one I showed you in New Hampshire and another one in Niagara Falls Canada.

If I see anybody that looks like their in charge at the D&B, I'd like to ask them about snagging that Zolgear Marquee. I still can't believe how "ghetto" the conversion job on the machine was. Just throw some camo on it and take the markings off the back of the chair and nobody will notice! Some of the seats still had the gunner numbers with the color and crosshair on it while others didn't. They took the coin slots out and they have the slide card on the side of it (But then you said you played it in Florida already)

I don't know what to think about this game. If the sound in the game was better and the machine vibrated like G3 did it would have been a little bit more fun. But as you can see from the video all you do is shoot wave after wave of enemies in the same spot. Since I grew up in the Atari 2600 days I could care less about graphics, but Air Raid looks worse then the early polygon graphics in G3. I still remember going through hyperspace for the first time when I played it as a kid with the sound blasting and it's a feeling I'll never forget because I know you can't do something like that again, even if I got a projector and played my PS1 copy with a huge surround sound system.

It would have been cool to see Namco themselves do something with it, because their still making arcade games so seeing a Galaxian 4 would be awesome instead of Air Raid or something else from the Tsunami company.

[DarthNuno]

Thanks for the video 

I got the same feeling than you when I played Air Raid inside a GT-6 : not a so bad game, but nothing to compare with the original Namco's game!
There is no 'soul' in Air Raid... it doesn't use the specificities of the theater : no impressive surround sound, no flashlight... and there's no story : only shooting enemies 
I would be curious to know why Tsunami company created that conversion kit... because there's no a lot of GT6 around... Why Namco didn't release a new mission, or an improvement kit that would replace the laser disc player for example (so the game would be more reliable)?
The fact is that the GT-6 (Galaxian Theater) is not really what we can call 'an arcade game' but more an attraction park ride... so maybe Namco didn't want to spend money for a so low number of theater around the world?
By the way, I would be curious to know who many GT-6 released worldwide?

[ataritoobin]

I had thought I remembered seeing a converted Galaxian Theater at this location.  An internet search landed me here  .  

I stopped by the location today, and where I believe this stood now sits 8 linked Daytona U.S.A.s.  No Galaxian Theater/Air Raid to be found any longer .

Though this possibly means there's one in storage waiting to be converted back - or worse, one less in the world .

[DarthNuno]

I had thought I remembered seeing a converted Galaxian Theater at this location.  An internet search landed me here  .  

Since all these years, most of the (non Japanese) Galaxian3 links lead here! 

I stopped by the location today, and where I believe this stood now sits 8 linked Daytona U.S.A.s.  No Galaxian Theater/Air Raid to be found any longer .
Though this possibly means there's one in storage waiting to be converted back - or worse, one less in the world .

Damn! Next time try to ask someone there what happened to that Theater... and so if they still have so parts of it?! 

[Geosword X]

Hello! The name is GeoswordX and I am new to this forum. I happened to find a converted Galaxian 3 to Air Raid at a Dave and Busters several miles away form where I live. I never paid attention to it until I found out about Galaxain 3 itself while looking up NAMCO arcade boards.

I recorded a small video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76fV2Bi90x8


I hope this can count as a small contribution on finding existing Galaxain 3 theaters.

[HHaase]

If you guys are referring to the Dave and Busters in Islandia, NY.... I used to live about 15 minutes from there.  Never went to the place too often as the games were mostly ticket spitters, and all the interesting games were usually broken. 

About 4 months ago before I moved to South Dakota it was still there, but had been moved to the other side of the facility and was still dressed as Air Raid.  I never played it though, it looked dull and too much like Beachhead 2000.   Really didn't understand what it was at the time either.

-Hans