The "BEAST" Arcade Cabinet - Part II

RetroRalph·video·24m 15s·analyzed·Nov 11, 2019

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

RetroRalph tours the Beast arcade cabinet internals and gameplay across multiple classic and modern arcade systems.

Summary

RetroRalph presents part two of "The Beast," a custom four-player arcade cabinet built by Game Room Solutions featuring a 32-inch monitor, HAP competition sticks, Cherry micro switches, and a Hyperspin interface. The video showcases the cabinet's internal wiring and components, then demonstrates gameplay across multiple systems and games including Demolish Fist, Street Fighter 4, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man Championship Edition, and Killer Instinct versions, highlighting both the versatility and limitations of multi-cade systems.

Key Claims

HAP competition sticks and Cherry micro switches are 'the best of the best' for arcade controls
medium confidence · RetroRalph describing control panel components: 'Those are the best of the best. You know the HAP competition sticks are fairly affordable, the Cherry Micro switches are the best you can get.'
Modern arcade games with analog stick requirements will not map well to traditional arcade joysticks on multi-cades
high confidence · RetroRalph explaining limitations: 'Modern games will give you issues because of the fact that you need the analog stick. You only have a single joystick here, so those games are going to play better with traditional controls.'
The IPAC 4 encoder board does not come with a wire harness, requiring manual wiring
high confidence · RetroRalph discussing encoder board: 'This does not come with a wire harness, guys. So all of the wiring you see here, I had to do manually.'
Multi-cade systems should not attempt to do everything (steering wheels, guns, etc.) in one cabinet
medium confidence · RetroRalph's design philosophy: 'There is no one cabinet that does everything... I kind of view it as like, this is your multi-cade. You may have a gun cabinet and a driving cabinet. I feel like those should be separate.'
Too many game options in a multi-cade can discourage players from actually playing anything
medium confidence · RetroRalph on multi-cade design pitfalls: 'without something like this it becomes really hard to find the game you're looking for and oftentimes what you'll end up with is you'll sit in front of your cabinet and you actually won't ever decide what to play'

Notable Quotes

“These aren't faint of heart projects. So if this is something you want to do, you have to be aware that it's going to take some time, but it's going to be worth the payout in the end.”
RetroRalph@ 3:41 — RetroRalph emphasizes the complexity and time investment required to build a custom arcade cabinet like this
“There is no one cabinet that does everything. Sure, I could mount the steering wheel on it, probably look ridiculous, but it would work.”
RetroRalph@ 4:44 — Articulates a key design philosophy about multi-cade limitations and the value of specialized cabinets
“The search functionality is a much needed functionality when you have a system with this many games. This is something I've struggled with on retro pies for a long time.”
RetroRalph@ 8:52 — Identifies critical UX requirement for large game collections and cites technical debt in competing platforms
“That is one of the things that is tough about a multi-cade. That is the negative, is that there's so many games that sometimes it's hard to find the one that you want.”
RetroRalph@ 6:42 — Highlights a primary drawback of multi-cade systems despite their versatility
“I love the way Street Fighter 4 plays with HAP controls, especially these competition sticks. It plays how I remember it. Freaking awesome.”
RetroRalph@ 9:42 — Validates the quality of HAP competition stick controls for modern fighting games

Entities

RetroRalphpersonGame Room SolutionscompanyGlennperson CarlospersonHAPcompanyCherrycompanySanwacompanyArcade OnecompanyThe BeastproductHyperspinproductIPAC 4product

Signals

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community_signal: Multiple audience members ask RetroRalph about Killer Instinct compatibility with Raspberry Pi and other platforms, indicating strong community interest in this specific game
medium · RetroRalph: 'Killer Instinct is one of those games that comes up all the time. I can't tell you how many people on my channel said, can I run Killer Instinct on Pi? Can I run Killer Instinct on this or that?'
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design_philosophy: Paradox of choice problem: excessive game options can lead to player paralysis and reduced actual engagement
medium · RetroRalph: 'sometimes having more options is not always better... you'll sit in front of your cabinet and you actually won't ever decide what to play or you'll spend so much time in front of that cabinet trying to figure out what you play that you become discouraged. You don't play at all.'
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design_philosophy: Multi-cade arcade systems should specialize in a core focus area rather than attempting to replicate all cabinet types (steering, lightguns, etc.) in one unit
medium · RetroRalph states: 'I kind of view it as like, this is your multi-cade. You may have a gun cabinet and a driving cabinet. I feel like those should be separate. That's just me.'
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product_strategy: Beast arcade cabinet uses dedicated four-way joystick for classic games vs eight-way sticks for modern games, addressing specific game control requirements
high · RetroRalph explicitly shows and explains the control panel layout with four-way Sanwa stick for Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man and eight-way HAP sticks for other games
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product_strategy: Search functionality is critical UX feature for managing large game libraries in multi-cade systems

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.073

0:00

Finally, the beast has come back to YouTube. all right guys the time has come we are finally going to do part two of the beast now let me give you a little overview of what this thing is this is a game room solutions this is their four player build with a 32 inch monitor. It has a four player control panel as you can see here. Some of the unique features of it is that it has a dedicated controller right here in the middle. This is for your old school games like a Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, things that require four-way sticks. All the sticks on here are HAP competition sticks. They're also all running HAP buttons and Cherry micro switches. To me those are the best of the best. You know the HAP competition sticks are fairly affordable.

1:06

the Cherry Micro switches are the best you can get. So I'm going to raise the top a little bit so you can see all of the wiring and work that had to go into making this possible.

1:18

All right, now that we've popped the hood, you can take a look real quick. You've got your trackball right here in the middle. It also has a spinner. This is actually Glenn's Retro Show Spinner. It was a little bit smaller than, or it was a little larger hole than normal so I actually had to drill this out. This was already pre-drilled for a spinner. I think it was the Ultimark one. So Glenn, good job. It's a cool spinner. Works great. So we got our track ball. This isn't a HAP track ball. It's sort of a HAP clone but still works really good. It's got an LED light that changes as it's sitting there. All of the micro switches, like I said, they're all Cherry micro switches. The controls are all HAP competition sticks except for the one controller right here which is a Sanwa with a four-way gate on it. Everything else is eight ways as far as the joysticks go. You will notice inside there's two Xbox 360 controllers. These are here for if you wanted standing your other player three and player four and not on the control panel you could do that but it's also here for games that don't really map well to arcade controls. So ones that require an analog stick and things like that. Those just aren't going to map to these kind of sticks. It's just how it is. So there are limits to multi-cades, guys. I want to make that clear because I feel like with the new at-game system out there, people are getting all excited about all these modern games. Modern games will give you issues because of the fact that you need the analog stick. You only have a single joystick here, so those games are going to play better with traditional controls. So that's why these are in here. And you'll notice they're all wireless. So I have this Xbox 360 wireless receiver here. This actually is here so that it accepts those controls. And actually, the whole entire cabinet can be driven from these too. I'll get to that later. The amp is tucked in here. I have the amp right here. You can adjust the volume as needed. I don't adjust it too much, so I just lift the top and adjust it if I need to. And then I also have a keyboard in here. So if there's any modifications or any kind of tuning or tweaking I need to do to it, I have the keyboard right here because after all it is running a PC. So if I do need to dive down into, you know, command line or anything like that, I have the ability to do that. You will notice that the encoder board on here is an IPAC 4. This does not come with a wire harness, guys. So all of the wiring you see here, I had to do manually. It took a long time, but it was totally worth it and a really fun project. But these aren't faint of heart projects. So if this is something you want to do, you have to be aware that it's going to take some time, but it's going to be worth the payout in the end if this is exactly what you want to achieve. Sort of one of those cabinets within your game room or man cave or arcade that really has the bulk of the games you want to play. And then maybe you have some dedicated cabs for machines that you think are worthy of that, you know, dedicated cab system, or if you're into arcade one-ups and things like that. But this is going to do and handle a plethora of the stuff that you want. Basically, almost all of it. And obviously it doesn't have a steering wheel and things like that. It doesn't have guns, although I could have put guns on it. I just feel like trying to get one cab to do too many things, you're going to find the limitations. So I kind of view it as like, this is your multi-cade. You may have a gun cab and a driving cab. I feel like those should be separate. That's just me. You know, I just think that's how it should be done. So anyways, it's a little bit of a purist view, but you'll have a better experience. Trust me. There is no one cabinet that does everything. Sure. I could mount the steering wheel on it, probably look ridiculous, but it would work. So anyways, that's up to you. Now, closing this thing up real quick, I'll give you the lay of the land of the front. You've got player one, player two, player three, player four. It's all labeled across the front. This control panel is fairly heavy, obviously, because it has all this stuff in it, and it's made with this nice half-inch wood, so everything is very, very stable. This actually can be moved because I have it on a wood floor, but if you had it on carpet, you're probably going to need some help moving it. So anyways, let's get into the interface now and if you want an overview of the other components you can go check out the first video but this one we're gonna dive into some gameplay and the main interface right now. Alright guys so we are in front of the cab and I just want to be able to somewhat articulate the versatility of a cabinet like this. So when you first log in this is a hyperspin build again I told you it was from a company called Arcade One Carlos over there is awesome probably some of the best hyperspin builds I've ever seen. So it would be really hard for me to show you every single system that's here, you could go to his website to find that out, but you've got Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD, you've got Sega Saturn, you've got Naomi, Sega Genesis, Dreamcast, 32X, a plethora of consoles, but tons and tons and tons of arcade systems as well So the list just goes on and on and on and on You got Atari Jaguar you got Atari it even has some really cool vintage commercials for different arcade systems It got magazines as jukebox functionality. It's got an arcade music trivia challenge. I mean, it has Windows-based games, which actually have Street Fighter 4, 5, and others, Mortal Kombat 10. So there's just so many. There's Atomos Wave, which is a system I'm really, you know, a big fan of. As a matter of fact, we'll start with one of my favorite Atomos Wave systems, or not systems, sorry, but games, which is actually called Demolish Fist. So we'll find it on the list here. Now, that is one of the things that is tough about a multi-cade. That is the negative, is that there's so many games that sometimes it's hard to find the one that you want. So I went into this video knowing exactly what I wanted to do. So let's launch a demolished fish. Fish.

Street Fighter 4game

Pac-Man Championship Editiongame

high · RetroRalph demonstrates search feature and explains: 'The search functionality is a much needed functionality when you have a system with this many games... without something like this it becomes really hard to find the game you're looking for'

technology_signal: Modern analog-stick-dependent games create fundamental incompatibility issues with arcade stick controls on multi-cade systems

high · RetroRalph states: 'Modern games will give you issues because of the fact that you need the analog stick... Those games are going to play better with traditional controls. So that's why these are here.' (referring to Xbox 360 controllers)