# I got this $10,000 Arcade Game for FREE!?

**Source:** RetroRalph  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2024-01-12  
**Duration:** 13m 46s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvjtIQPOMJ8

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## Analysis

RetroRalph received a Big Buck Hunter Reloaded arcade cabinet for free from family members as a memorial to his son's late uncle. The cabinet is a commercial-grade machine featuring Big Buck Hunter, Terminator Salvation, and multiple mini-games, with high-quality construction, excellent gun accuracy, and impressive audio/lighting. While acknowledging the emotional significance and quality of the machine, RetroRalph expresses skepticism about the $8-10k price point for home ownership, suggesting he would prefer to invest in a pinball machine instead.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Big Buck Hunter Reloaded is a commercial-grade cabinet that can be used in arcades or at home, with online and offline modes — _Detailed product description provided during cabinet review_
- [HIGH] The cabinet features multiple games including Big Buck Hunter, Terminator Salvation (Delta Mission variant), Monsters Island, Duck Dynasty, Doe of the Dead, and bonus mini-games — _Speaker navigated through game menu and demonstrated multiple titles_
- [HIGH] The gun has pump-action mechanics that can cause arm fatigue during extended play sessions — _Speaker noted physical tiredness from repeated pumping action during gameplay_
- [HIGH] Online mode requires a subscription fee, which adds to total cost of ownership — _Speaker mentioned subscription requirement and expressed concern about cumulative expenses_
- [HIGH] Raw Thrills games are designed to grab attention through lighting and sound, commonly deployed in Dave & Buster's and family entertainment centers — _Speaker described Raw Thrills design philosophy based on cabinet features_
- [MEDIUM] An update for the cabinet will include The Walking Dead game — _Speaker mentioned being interested in reaching out to distributor about upgrade options_
- [MEDIUM] The total cost of ownership for a home Big Buck Hunter Reloaded is $8,000-$10,000 — _Speaker stated this price range as rationale for preferring pinball investment_
- [MEDIUM] Big Buck Hunter Reloaded is one of Raw Thrills' top-grossing games on location — _Speaker noted machine is widely available in local arcades_

### Notable Quotes

> "It was an extended family member, actually my son's uncle who had passed away, and it was his machine. He used to actually host tournaments at his house and they'd bet on things and see who could be the Buckhunter The Winner, and he would do that on an annual basis."
> — **Jon (RetroRalph)**, 0:45
> _Establishes the emotional and memorial context for the cabinet acquisition_

> "I feel grateful to have received it, and I'm hoping that I can kind of get my son into it because it is a memory that he can have of his uncle and this was something his uncle really liked to do."
> — **Jon (RetroRalph)**, 1:45
> _Explains the personal significance beyond the monetary value of the machine_

> "The speaker system inside this machine is outstandingly good. So you're not going to necessarily have a kickback from the gun, but you're definitely going to hear when you're shooting and the volume on this thing is absolutely insane."
> — **Jon (RetroRalph)**, 3:30
> _Highlights quality of cabinet construction and Raw Thrills design priorities_

> "If you look at the marquee, the marquee design is really great. It's high-quality printed. And again, they go with the theme of Terminator and Big Buck Hunter."
> — **Jon (RetroRalph)**, 4:15
> _Notes attention to aesthetic detail in commercial-grade design_

> "I'd say the fact that Terminator Salvation's on it, it makes the Reloaded series more interesting to me personally, but for the total cost of ownership for something like this, I don't think that I would go for like eight to ten grand on something like this. I'd probably buy a pinball machine."
> — **Jon (RetroRalph)**, 18:40
> _Key consumer sentiment on pricing: even with quality and content, pinball investment appears more attractive at this price point_

> "Most of these modern Raw Thrills games, the gun accuracy is out of control good. If you've ever played, I think it's Halo Firestorm Team Raven or something like that. It's the new one that Raw Thrills came out. It's a Halo game. Amazing accuracy on the gun."
> — **Jon (RetroRalph)**, 19:30
> _Confirms Raw Thrills' technical excellence in light gun implementation across their product line_

> "The gun is very high quality and though it's Papa Duke weighted, so in general, long gaming sessions with this, you're gonna, you're gonna start to actually get Papa Duke tired."
> — **Jon (RetroRalph)**, 14:45
> _Identifies practical limitation of the cabinet for extended use due to physical fatigue_

> "if you have one of these though and you're a big Big Buck Hunter fan and you pay the subscription to do the online services you can play this game against anyone else in the whole world anywhere these are on location they're online you can play those people"
> — **Jon (RetroRalph)**, 22:10
> _Describes competitive online feature that adds value but requires additional subscription cost_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Jon | person | Host of RetroRalph channel; received Big Buck Hunter Reloaded cabinet as memorial gift |
| Big Buck Hunter Reloaded | product | Commercial-grade arcade cabinet by Raw Thrills featuring hunting game and multiple mini-games, featured in this video |
| Raw Thrills | company | Arcade game manufacturer known for light gun games with high-quality cabinet construction, lighting, and audio design |
| Terminator Salvation | game | Game included on Big Buck Hunter Reloaded cabinet; features Delta Mission variant with pump-action rifle mechanics |
| The Walking Dead | game | Upcoming update/upgrade available for Big Buck Hunter Reloaded cabinet |
| Halo Firestorm Team Raven | game | Raw Thrills light gun game referenced as example of company's gun accuracy excellence |
| Dave & Buster's | organization | Family entertainment center that hosts Raw Thrills arcade games including Big Buck Hunter Reloaded |
| RetroRalph | person | YouTube channel host (Jon); arcade and pinball enthusiast who creates equipment review content |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Arcade cabinet quality and construction, Raw Thrills game design philosophy, Light gun game mechanics and accuracy, Home arcade machine pricing and value proposition
- **Secondary:** Pinball vs. arcade games as home entertainment investment, Online competitive gaming and subscription models, Commercial vs. home-use arcade equipment, Memorialization through gaming equipment

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.6) — Positive toward the machine's technical quality, build, and emotional significance, but skeptical about the $8-10k price point for home use. Expresses gratitude for the gift while being honest about consumer value concerns. Would not personally purchase at this price despite acknowledging the product's merit.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Subscription requirement for online competitive play adds to total cost of ownership, creating barrier to full feature utilization at home (confidence: high) — Online mode does cost a subscription fee. So for at home, that isn't really anything I'm interested in.
- **[market_signal]** Big Buck Hunter Reloaded positioned as top-grossing Raw Thrills location game, indicating strong commercial performance and consumer appeal in arcade venues (confidence: medium) — this game is on location almost everywhere. It's like one of the top grossing games that Raw Thrills has on the location
- **[market_signal]** Speaker expresses skepticism about $8-10k home purchase price for Big Buck Hunter Reloaded, stating preference for pinball investment at similar price point (confidence: high) — I don't think that I would go for like eight to ten grand on something like this. I'd probably buy a pinball machine.
- **[announcement]** The Walking Dead game update available for Big Buck Hunter Reloaded cabinet, expanding game library post-release (confidence: medium) — I will mention they do have an update for this machine, which includes The Walking Dead. And I'm very interested in that.
- **[product_concern]** Pump-action gun mechanics cause arm fatigue during extended play sessions, limiting practical usability for long gaming sessions (confidence: high) — long gaming sessions with this, you're gonna, you're gonna start to actually get Papa Duke tired

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## Transcript

 Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. If you saw the thumbnail, then it probably would seem like I'd be really excited to get a machine like this for free. But the way it came to me is not actually very exciting. It was an extended family member, actually my son's uncle who had passed away, and it was his machine. He used to actually host tournaments at his house and they'd bet on things and see who could be the Buckhunter winner, and he would do that on an annual basis. So imagine anybody that is close to their uncle, like my son was, your uncle is always the cool guy, right? And that's exactly who he was. He was a cool guy, nice guy, great heart. And unfortunately, he's no longer with us. But later on, a year after he had passed, one of the family members, extended family members, reached out to me and said, hey, we think it'd be cool for you to have this because, you know, your son has such fond memories of the way they would interact with each other. You know, everyone loves their uncle, right? And so I said, okay, are you sure? You know, I definitely, you know, it's number one, it's really expensive, and I just wanted to make sure that that was what they wanted, and it was. So I feel grateful to have received it, and I'm hoping that I can kind of get my son into it because it is a memory that he can have of his uncle and this was something his uncle really liked to do. So anyway so I don't want to bring the whole room down but I wanted to at least and I debated on how I would even explain this in the video. So we're going to shift gears to the game itself but I wanted you guys to know how I acquired it because to get something this expensive for free I wanted you guys to understand the backstory and that it wasn't necessarily a happy backstory. Without further ado we're going to switch gears and talk a little bit about Big Buck Hunter Reloaded. Let's first start with the cabinet itself. This is the Big Buck Hunter Reloaded Mini. This is a commercial grade cabinet. It can be used at an arcade or an arcade setting and at a home. There is also the ability to put it online or offline. Mine's currently offline. If you want it online, you get some perks and also it does cost a subscription fee. So for at home, that isn't really anything I'm interested in. You'll notice reloaded. What does that actually mean? Well, this isn't just a Buckhunter game. This is actually Buckhunter and Terminator, and there's a bunch of other mini games on here as well. So it isn't just one game. So if you're not like the biggest Buckhunter fan and you love Terminator, there's a version of Terminator Salvation on here. I think it's called Delta Mission. So it's not the same exact game as the other Terminator Salvation that Rothrills made. It's actually a variant of it that's built for this cabinet and built for the fact that the guns have pump action. Now speaking of the guns, the guns are really great quality. These things are pretty awesome and definitely commercial grade. You don't have certain things in it though. There isn't like a force feedback mechanism. However, the speaker system inside this machine is outstandingly good. So you're not going to necessarily have a kickback from the gun, but you're definitely going to hear when you're shooting and the volume on this thing is absolutely insane. So like most of raw thrills games, they put a ridiculous amount of attention to detail on the cabinet itself, the lighting and the sound. Speaking of the lighting, it has led team holding on it, which is really cool. So, uh, you can actually buy this nowadays. I don know if you guys know that but you can buy led team holding It kind of expensive though but they do put that on this machine and it does interact with the different game modes Like for instance if I playing Terminator Salvation and I getting hit it will light up red and even the speaker in the center will also light up red. So that's a really cool little attention to detail thing. And after all, it is Raw Thrills. They make these games for big family entertainment centers and big arcades like Dave & Buster's and stuff like that. So they want all eyes on their games. And if you've ever seen a Raw Thrills game like Antonio Cruz and Blast or any of their other games they have, Dirty Driving, the lighting and everything about them is all to grab your attention and bring you to that machine. They did that same thing here, a very attention-grabbing design. The screen itself is a 42-inch screen. It does come part of the machine, and it's mounted to it. And the whole machine itself is on wheels, so you can move it around really, really easily. And it's honestly not that bad for a home setting. It doesn't take up as much space as you'd think. Actually, it's a pretty slimline cabinet. It's not that deep. It's definitely not as deep as some of my full-size arcade cabinets that I have that are, you know, the older ones. So I really like that. When you look at the marquee, the marquee design is really great. It's high-quality printed. And again, they go with the theme of Terminator and Buck Hunter. There's even like a zombie game on here. So there's a bunch of different things. And there's some really cool mini games as well that we'll check out in a little bit. There is a separate topper you can buy for this, like a Terminator head and some other things. I think that's actually an added item. I don't think that comes as part of it. If it did, then I didn't get it, but yeah. When you first started up, you got two options, Big Buck Hunter or Reloaded. If you go to Big Buck Hunter, it's going to be the Big Buck Hunter games. You got Pro, which you got to unlock, Casual, and Versus mode. If I go back, though, if you want to play the additional games, you go to Reloaded, And in Reloaded you have Monsters Island, you have Duck Dynasty, you have Terminator Salvation, you got this one called Doe of the Dead which is like a zombies game. And then you have bonus stuff which is really fun. There's like this one where the guy is like drunk on moonshine, you gotta shoot his moonshine barrels. We'll start with Buck Hunter. Now I am terrible at this game so just expect to uh, for me to embarrass myself here. Okay I'm gonna select casual, one player, you can play up to four players on this cabinet. I'm gonna do, I don't know, Irish elk, I guess? These are extinct. I'm shooting extinct Irish elk. Alright, let's do it. Alright, don't shoot the does. I got this. Don't even worry about it. Pump to reload. Come on, let's do this. Alright, shoot the bulls. I got this. Don't shoot the cows. Sorry, don't shoot the cows. I got this. Don't shoot the moo-moos. Alright. R-A-L-P-H. Boom. Alright, let's go. You can shut off the girls, by the way. It's like the adult mode or whatever. If you want to do that. Alright. Let's go. Okay. Alright, I got one. Okay. Okay. Oh, man, oh, man! I'm a real man. I'm kind of feeling pretty confident right now. I going to go real buck hunting Come on let do it I needed Cowboy Retro Ralph for this Yeah Hooray Come on, let's see what I can do here. Oh, shoot. All right, I got one bull. And I got a cow. Don't shoot the moomoos. Alright, so anyways, you get the point on Big Buck Hunter. It's actually surprisingly a fun game, even though it's not a game I really like that much. But what we're going to do is we're going to go over to the Salvation side so you guys can see that. I'm probably going to have to do a separate video to check out all the games, because honestly, there's a lot of games built into this. Okay, we're going to switch gears to Terminator Salvation. Now, if you've ever played the original Terminator Salvation, you'll know there isn't a pump rifle like this. but this game gives you the ability to have a minigun and when you do choose the minigun you can now have an automatic weapon but it only lasts for a little while so you kind of use this sparingly you don't really want to just like throw your bullets everywhere because honestly it's a lot easier to play it with this minigun than it is the pump rifle that'd be my only complaint i wish you could like have a setting that you could tune that would just automatic give you the minigun the whole time because the pump action does get a little bit annoying after playing it like long periods of time I'll say that but you know if you've ever played Salvation you'll love this it's the same game essentially it's just like a separate mission so the storyline is like a bit different than Terminator Salvation is but like I said you know what I'm saying like my arm's gonna start to get really tired and the other thing I'll say is the gun is very high quality and though it's pretty weighted, so in general, long gaming sessions with this, you're gonna, you're gonna start to actually get pretty tired. So I'm gonna let this expire, and I'm gonna show you one of the minigames, and then I'll just give you my final thoughts on Buckhunter Reloaded. Okay, we're gonna check out the bonus-only stuff. Now, you can create a playlist of bonus games, up to four of them. So I'm gonna do, I kind of like, let's see, which one was it that I like? I think it was Duck Hunt's Cool. So it's like modern duck hunt. I like that one. I like the Moonshine Factory. I'm a big fan of the Moonshine Factory. I don't think I've ever done Colossal Foot. I don't think I've done that. It's like Bigfoot. We'll try that. And then we'll do Garden Gnomes. That should be fun. Actually, there's a Wild West. Damn, I don't know. There's so many I don't know. We'll do the Garden Gnomes. All right, I'm going to put up the volume real quick. And yeah, you guys get to check out the bonus games, which I'm telling you are pretty fun. These are fun like party games if you have a bunch of people over. All right, let's do it. All right, well, that was decent. 72% accuracy, I'll take it. Okay, this is the moonshine guy, this is the best. I love this. It's Pappy, Pappy's moonshine. Pappy, hey Pappy, how you doing? Shit, did I kill him? Oh no, you can't shoot him, all right. Oh, you can shoot the pig. All right there you go that the moonshine factory So yeah these are really fun man They just like these little mini games but they really cool when you play with multiple people I played with Kim and it was a lot of fun All right, whatever. Anyways, that is the bonus game, but now let's talk about my final thoughts about Big Buck Hunter Reloaded. I'm not the biggest Big Buck Hunter fan, but if I was, it would be really damn cool to have something like this in my house. Obviously, the cabinet it is constructed in an amazing way because this is a commercial grade device that is meant to be on location somewhere. The gun accuracy is really, really good. Most of these modern Raw Thrills games, the gun accuracy is out of control good. If you've ever played, I think it's Halo Firestorm Team Raven or something like that. It's the new one that Raw Thrills came out. It's a Halo game. Amazing accuracy on the gun. They do a great job. So they've really perfected light guns on modern displays, so no issues with that. I'd say the fact that Terminator Salvation's on it, it makes the Reloaded series more interesting to me personally, but for the total cost of ownership for something like this, I don't think that I would go in for like eight to ten grand on something like this. I'd probably buy a pinball machine, but the cool thing is this game is on location almost everywhere. It's like one of the top grossing games that Raw Thrills has on the location, so if you see one in your local arcade, give it a shot like definitely play it but I'd like to know in the comments below if this is something you would actually buy it's unfortunate the circumstances by which I got it but I am grateful to have it and it is something that my son and I can do that hopefully reminds him of his uncle that that's no longer with us so so so hopefully that's something that him and I can do together and that will be a special moment for him but that's it guys I like the game I think the game is great I like I said I'm buying a pinball machine though if you're telling me I gotta fork a big grant for this, but it is very cool. But if you're the biggest hardcore Buckhunter fan, then you would probably be super stoked to have this. And then Salvation and all the bonus games is just like icing on the cake. I will mention they do have a update for this machine, which includes The Walking Dead. And I'm very interested in that. So I'm going to reach out to my distributor here locally and just see, you know, what would it cost to upgrade this? I will say if you have one of these though and you're a big Buckhunter fan and you pay the subscription to do the online services you can play this game against anyone else in the whole world anywhere these are on location they're online you can play those people so you can go head to head with anyone I'm sure those people are amazingly good at the game the hardcores but you can play them if you have the online version but like I said that does require a subscription so even more money that you gotta fork down so anyways guys that's all for this video let me know what you think about this like Would you consider having one of these in your house? Like, I don't know. There's probably a lot of big Buckhunter fans out there. And maybe this would be like your grail to have one of these at home. I don't know. But let me know in the comments. Thank you so much for watching. Give me a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Consider subscribing to the channel if you enjoy content like this. And that's it for now, guys. We will see you on the next one. you

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 8d1ac90c-1efb-4854-ad7d-f9ff876c8bdf*