before this (yet unpublished, picture-heavy) roadtrip celebrates its first anniversary, i want to share it with you! this time, let me start with a quote though
no gameroom is complete without a vector game. 
uahh, andré, you've tempted me way too long with this, so here we go
summer holidays - getting up at 6:51 is very unusual this time of the year
a mere two minutes later
, i'm washed, fed and ready for the road!
sunset over the beautiful valley of the tauber (that's the name of the river running through it)
because this is going to be a multiple game roadtrip, i'm turning to my favorite rental van company - and as you can see i'm not travelling alone, my favorite roadtrip buddie charlotte is also on board!
and so am i!!!
the planned schedule for the day
as we make our way north, we encounter wonderful scenery, ...
... not so wonderful construction sites, ...
... cool drivers ...
... and even cooler cars!!!
after some hours on the road, we arrive in our first destination city: braunschweig
this is where the games are located
before we get some movement on this, let me tell you the backstory of this roadtrip. one day last year a european dig dug cabinet was offered on ebay classified ads. the item description said that the seller also had other games for sale and if interested you should get in touch with him. of course i couldn't resist and here's what he told me: while renovating an old parking garage, they found a locked room in the back of the garage. after getting it open, they saw "wonderful things" (quote howard carter when he discovered the tomb of tutankhamun). more than 10 pinballs and a couple of video games as well. before someone asks, everything's long gone by now and i have no idea which pinballs were in there because they had already been sold, but i know that someone definitely got a nice deal on them, because the seller later told me he sold all of them for 1500 euros. originally i was only planning on getting one game, but i ended up taking three because one was going to chris and the other one was offered to me for cheap, so i had to take it - but more on that later!
let's head down into the garage and see how everything turned out. first, a converted universal cab and a german (?) vanguard cabinet
then, a first look at what we came for (amongst some other stuff)
another shot of the lot - including the dig dug which started it all! can you already spot chris' cab in the back?
if not, here's the same quatrain from a different angle
a quick inspection ...
... and a kiss for my first vector game!
fortunately, many helpers are present, which makes getting the games up and into the van a walk in the park
in goes vector number one!!!
no time to breathe, out comes berzerk
let's load it up
can you already spot / guess what's going to happen?
damn!!! too tall!!! berzerk is a gigantic game
as you were, soldier!
one-eighty on the cabinet
let's see if we can make this fit the other way round
looking good so far
fits like a glove
back down in the basement, vector two is "in the zone"
not that easy getting it up those winding stairs
transport completed!
no need to stand the cabinet up, just slide it in
untangeling the straps!
sometimes reaching the hooks to attach those straps is not that easy
but in the end, everything's firmly attached! those games won't budge at all!!!
but this roadtrip is far from over, we have another location to visit first ...
... so let's head out (two windmills for you guys)
on our way, we're passing this amusement game truck
back in the days, those would have been video game cabinets!
a good hour later, we've arrived at our next destination
the seller's house - idyllic, isn't it?
the seller's name is marco and he's totally into dart machines
charlotte seems to be extremely impressed by the size of those "things"
but we're here on a mission, we're here to pick up a game for dominic "rav". but this time it's not a video game, it's a pinball machine. but not simply
A pinball, it's the one which many collector's consider to be
THE pinball of all pinball machines out there: the adams family!
roll it out, marco!
stop please, i need to have a picture with me and the pinball
"pinballs suck - period!"
thx man, you can take it away now
through the garden gate and into the van, please
alright, alright, i will help you!
exhausted from nothing
or not?
enough for today, let's hit the autobahn
but before we do that, let's fill up
fill up our car ...
... and our empty stomach!
a few hours later, we're approaching the beautiful tauber valley
exit to the right, please!
but we're not quite done yet, all the games have to be unloaded
man, do i look happy!
it was so much easier in braunschweig when there were four people around helping me
but eventually the berzerk is parked at its temporary resting place
and so are the asteroids and the battlezone!
as you can see, the asteroids is in pretty good condition (apart from the rusty control panels which fortunately will be reproduced soon), but the battlezone has seen better days. to be honest, i only took it because it was cheap and because i had to rent a van for the other games anyway. don't know what to do with it yet, although having a working battlezone in my collection would not be the worst thing to have!
after dropping of the van's keys, ...
... the statistics are in
and a long day is coming to a close!
one country, four counties, 885 kilometers, 13 hours 40 minutes on the road - this roadtrip is OFFICIALLY OVER!but there's one last thing i have to do (or better: wanted to do) the next day: remove the suicide battery from the berzerk boards to avoid acid damage. i hadn't been able to inspect the boards the other day because the lock was still intact and the panel on the left couldn't be opened from the outside. so when i headed over to the storage the next day and cracked the lock open, i almost fainted when i pulled out the drawer with the boards (or what's left of it)
in case you don't know, this is what the berzerk drawer board is supposed to look like (picture taken from my own cabinet)
as you can see, most of the original berzerk boards have been removed and a moon patrol bootleg has been hacked it. fortunately, the original control panel wiring is still there and it
can be converted back, but this is going to cost some serious money and a lot of luck in finding the missing puzzle pieces. i was having a hard time telling chris, but he took it like a real gentleman and in the end we even managed to get some money back from the seller! had i known that berzerk was no longer "in there", i might have taken the cabinet myself and converted it into a frenzy, but i'm happy for chris that he got the game, berzerk is one of the best classic games around!!!
as you might know, the berzerk has found its way from germany to belgium by now and with those two vectors added to my collection, i'm happy to announce that my gameroom is indeed complete now!
but wait a second, isn't there some old ship to be raided soon setting sails on the horizon?
