Review of 1/6th Replicade Amusements' Centipede mini cab...

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Back in 2017, if you were a Kickstarter backer of New Wave Toys' upcoming 1/6th scale Replicade Amusements cab of Centipede, you could've gotten one for a mere $90.00 USD. It has a MSRP of $159.99 USD on amazon.com and on New Wave Toys' site as well after a slight delay (due to production issues) before finally being released in September of 2018. It features a custom made PCB that seems to run Android OS (as shown with the powering down screen prompts) with a custom front end that boots up to the actual Centipede game itself. The internal Li-Po battery pack is a hefty one and will require a good 2.1 or 2.4 amp A/C charger @ 5 volts to charge it up properly in a few hours time. The miniature trackball controller is spot-on compared to a full-sized trackball setup on a real Centipede upright/cabaret/cocktail-table cab.

Only 5,000 of these Replicade Centipede cabs will be made for distribution worldwide.

There have been some initial reports of others getting their Replicade Centipede cab and the trackball controlller wasn't working (no matter how many times they'd reboot it) or get the trackball controlller to work after a simple rebooting and all is back to normal. There have been other reports of having internal Li-Po battery drainage issues (as the IC board that controls the trackball controller itself continues to draw power even if the mini Centipede cab is turned off) -- it's a matter of doing a simple "On/Off" switch modification to the battery to prevent this dreaded battery drainage issue from happening again. This isn't my YT video but this does discuss the internal Li-Po battery drainage issue here -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyx8IvjrVuw New Wave Toys has said to just keep the Replicade Centipede cab plugged in with an USB A/C charger to overcome the slow Li-Po battery drainage issue, otherwise they'll issue a refund if you've already acquired one.

There isn't any way to adjust the arcade operator's settings of Centipede with this Replicade cab setup and thus have to make do with the default settings (earning an 1up at 12,000 points, difficulty setting is at ? {which could only be at the Easy or Hard setting and no more than those two listed as on Mame/Mame32}, English language is default setting indeed, etc). (I do know that you can change the default scoring of 12,000 pts. from 10,000 pts. > 12,000 pts. > 15,000 pts. & finally 20,000 pts. to earn the next 1up on Centipede through Mame, of course.)

There's an option to turn off or on the front backlit Centipede marquee if so desired. How cool is that?

Eleven brightness settings are at your disposal with the built-in 3.5" backlit LCD screen setup.

High scores and high score initials are save for posterity with on-board non-volatile RAM. In fact, your last play session that ended will appear the next time you boot up the Replicade Centipede cab. A small plastic baggie with four miniature Replicade tokens are included as a bonus (with one side showing the stylized "R" and the other side showing a 25 cent denomination for completeness).

Am not sure if this cool Replicade Centipede cab can be hacked to play Atari's Millipede arcade rom or any of the other various Atari Inc. arcade IPs that used a traditional trackball controller and a single fire button scheme (i.e. - Centipede, Millipede, Quantum prototype, Marble Madness, Marble Madness II prototype, etc). It'd be fun if other arcade roms could be added and played on it.

Here's a teardown video of the Repilcade Centipede cab by another user (not mine): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6ZzRVijuVU During the teardown video, it's revealed that real wood is used to construct the actual cabinet itself rather than the use of plastic (hence the higher production costs and end resulting retail price in the end).

https://newwavetoys.com/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07F7 ... VQBXXS48V5

The 2nd Replicade cabinet release by the name of Atari's Tempest will be out on November 15, 2018 courtesy of Amazon with a real "rotary knob spinner" in two different sizes to suit your playing style & preference setup: https://www.amazon.com/RepliCade-Tempes ... Y76N11Z03J

The 3rd upcoming Replicade cabinet licensed by Capcom is Street Fighter II sporting an 8-way micro joystick + a six button scheme. No further details as to when it will be made available at retail (assuming for a later 2019 release date).

Here's a short web article with the designer of the Replicade Centipede cab: https://comicbook.com/gaming/2017/10/31 ... mes-atari/

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~