Gauntlet II (Atari, 1986)

During the 2011 NFL season, I caught most of the New Orleans Saints games at home. I was one of the idiots who layed out over $330 for the NFL Sunday Ticket. I’m sure they’ll raise it another $30 next season. Before the Saints’ opponent’s defense would take the field I would start Gauntlet II up. The fugue it plays when it boots was meant for the opposition.

(Didn’t work so well at the end of the year, natch.)

I bought Gauntlet II from Rob “Flack” O’Hara. So, in order for you to fully track this machine’s history, may I refer you to Rob’s entry on his former game? Here!

I had wanted a Gauntlet II for a while, but never really considered it a realistic option. I guess that’s because I pay attention to the “arcade”section of Denver craigslist, and while I’ve seen a Gauntlet machine there here and again, I assumed that the machine is too massive for me to move or realistically own.

When I visited Flack for the Oklahoma Video Game Expo I took a close look at his Gauntlet II — as he said, it’s narrower than you’d think, but deeper. But it would definitely fit down my stairs.

Flack bought a new house and couldn’t take his games and projects with him. I paid him $100 for Gauntlet II and paid NAVL $360 to ship it from Oklahoma City to Denver. The side art it did have looked great, but the top was chopped off. Now…

Side art for arcade games is a tricky thing. You are never going to get the money out of it that you put into it. Spending $140 on side art doesn’t mean my Gauntlet II is worth $140 more. But Christmas was coming up, and my parents & brother wanted to know what I was interested in. $140 split three ways isn’t too bad, I thought. The side art has been laying flat for a few weeks and is ready. The machine is waiting for me to give it the heat gun and take the old art off.

Oh, there was one other thing: the video cable had an issue where the sprites were showing up improperly interlaced. I put out a request for a new one on the KLOV forum. A guy actually offered to make me a brand new cable. Perfect. That cleared the issue up.