You may be able to guess that my grail is Tempest, since I've restored three of them. Galaga is another of my favorites, along with Omega Race. I'm happy playing Galaga on my MAME cabinet, but Omega Race is one of those games that emulation just doesn't do justice to. The stand up version of Omega Race is quite a unique cabinet. It has a light up marquee panel at the top like most arcade games, but it also has one just under the control panel. The artwork on the front of the cabinet is also special, as it is on every panel.

The special features continue to the inside of the cabinet, as there is a black light that illuminates brightly colored artwork inside the cab. There's a mirror inside the cabinet that reflects the image from the monitor so it appears that the picture is floating in the middle of the illuminated artwork. The game uses a black and white vector monitor - the same type as Asteroids.

One reason it's hard to find a working Omega Race game is that the main game PCB has a rechargeable battery soldered to the top of the board. If the batteries aren't removed from the PCB, they eventually leak acid all down the PCB. This means that although there may be quite a few Omega Race cabinets left, working game boards are hard to find.

I got this game from a local arcade operator, who told me he turned it on and could hear it playing but the monitor problably needed some work. When I got it home I found that the monitor was not plugged in. I don't know if it was that way when he tested it. He also gave me a cap kit for the monitor, so I'll go ahead and install that before I try it.

I'm going to take the whole thing apart, clean it, install the cap kit on the monitor and then put it back together and hope it fires up. I'll post pics of the progress I make, and any problems I run into. Unlike the Tempest restores I've done, I don't plan on making this cabinet look like new. I'm perfecly happy with the condition it's in now, it has just the right amount of authentic used arcade feel.