1980 SPACE ZAP Arcade Machine - One Of The COOLEST Little Known Titles From Midway

[@freakywayne8790]

Man I loved this game back in 80. A little mom and pop fish and chips place had it back in Detroit. One day I was having my best game and on my way to the best score but there a a big rain storm going on and the concrete floor dipped right under the machine. The rain seeped in and formed a puddle under the machine. I started to feel electric tingles as I played while touching the machine and a few minutes later the screen went out. That’s one of those crazy 80’s moments I’ll always remember. LoL

[@chrisparks2136]

That's awesome, thanks for the memories! I got shivers just hearing the sounds from a game I played 35 years ago, lol! Loved your laugh as you were playing!

[@LyonsArcade]

it's a very special game, we never see them anymore!

[@jl4557]

Wow, that is magnificent. I love the Midway games that have that sound/ look like Wizard Of Wor. Neat games with innovative design.

[@LyonsArcade]

Yeah they made all the cabs look unique for a minute there...

[@DRZguy]

I managed a car wash, laundry mat, indoor putt putt golf course, and video arcade in 1985-86 in Canby, OR . We had a Space Zap machine, and I could rack up a bunch of bonus bases, great memories.

[@wildatom669]

I've been to your place before! Cool junk yard years ago when I was there. Glad to see you're still alive and kicking.

[@LyonsArcade]

We are too :)

[@alexanderteuman7273]

Don't chew. It's so great to see this game in action; I feel 15 year old 1980, so a simple game, but i got 180 heartbeats a second.I die everytime with you.you can not speak if you play. I saw the best play with the right hand all 4 buttons and fire with the left. I don't know my record but i have a list with all my highscores of all my favorite games of the 80's. I love this video so much, thanks.

[@LyonsArcade]

I'm not chewing, it's the auto focus on the camera!

[@slbvideoarchive]

Yes, I would watch both videos! Great content man!

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Retropolis, for a ittle while I'm going to upload the video of playing it then upload a video of fixing each game so we'll see how that goes :)

[@Coinplaygaming]

Yes there are blinking bulbs to use for Marquee. I am looking for button spring recommendations for my Space Zap!!

[@LyonsArcade]

Might want to see if the guy at ArcadeFixIt.com has NOS ones....

[@Coinplaygaming]

Bulbs are the #257

[@darkgemini666]

Joe. You got the best Job in the world my friend. Thanks for shaing

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks Erick. It's alright, i'm basically a glorified T.V. repairman :)

[@JasonTylerRicci]

My local "World's Largest Arcade" had this and I tried it. What a fun fast paced game

[@LyonsArcade]

I definitely liked it, great game!

[@arcadefussell3185]

I did not know that Space Zap used the card rack system. Sure can hear Gorf and Wizard of Wor there. Super cool. I wonder how many of those are left out there. Not many. I can not recall ever seeing one in the wild.

[@LyonsArcade]

I think there were two more but they're even more rare... so I think Gorf was the most common, then there were a bunch of Wizard of Wor's... not quite as many Space Zap's, then there was one called Robby Roto I have never seen anywhere and I believe 1 more title.... I have a Gorf and a Wizard of Wor we're going to be doing soon as I get some time! Thanks for watching Kelly!

[@chrisnizer1885]

Great classic game! I play the MAME version with a dedicated 4-way joystick and it's a blast. Kinda lulls you in with a slow pace before it goes into full hectic mode. Thanks for the video!

[@LyonsArcade]

No problem Chris, thanks for watching!

[@Electrodefender]

in 1980 in our City in Germany there was a Kiosk and the owner puts this exact machine in front of his shop. That was faszinated back then for me. just only a few years ago that i saw this machine in a museum where you can also play and knew immediately that it was this machine. As a child, I wasn't allowed to play. I didn't have any money and besides, here in Germany, only people aged 16 and over were allowed to play such machines. I was seven years old. Thanks for uploading and explain.🙂 O.k. but i had cosmic ark 4 my Atari2600 already. Similar! Oh that was so great time. In TV we have watch Star Trek and Captain Future and on TV were suddenly the chance to be a space hero 😉 btw ,very special here are the dynamic movin' pixlexplosions

[@oscarpereyra8672]

Super Awesome!!!

[@LyonsArcade]

We think it is, Oscar!

[@yandman26]

Stop the music , STOP THE MUSIC ! Dear Lord this machine is beautiful. What a find. Thank you for sharing this.

[@LyonsArcade]

Yeah really pretty cool design and look to it. Very original for such a simple game.

[@stt5v2002]

If you can believe it, space zap was the first arcade game I ever played. It was most likely 1981 or 1982 and I would’ve been about eight years old. I went to the local arcade with a friend of mine. It was also overwhelming and I didn’t know which game to try first. I only had 8 quarters so I had to use them Wisely. I picked space zap because space themes were appealing, and because the gameplay was easy to understand. My friend and I actually played cooperatively. I used the four directional buttons to aim shot and he relentlessly hammered away at the fire button. It’s been 40 years or more, but the memory of that single gameplay is as clear as a high definition stream in my mind.

[@LyonsArcade]

I'll bet that was really fun, the sounds and the immersion of the cabinet would have been something else to an eight year old!

[@tomypower4898]

cool arcade space zap i love it!

[@LyonsArcade]

We agree Tomy Power!

[@tomypower4898]

@@LyonsArcade you're welcome! :)

[@bdheine2300]

I used to play this game at a pizza parlor in Portland Or. One of the keys to beating levels is to train your left hand to fire at the speed of the game's refresh rate independent of what's on the screen, then you can concentrate on changing directions.

[@alb6722]

I love this game my wife and i play it every time we go to funspot if you ever decide u need more room and wanna part with it let me know lol

[@LyonsArcade]

It's a great game, Al B!

[@djmips]

I loved that game!

[@LyonsArcade]

Very fun!

[@sjellenoff]

Cool, never saw that game, thanks for posting. Seems like it's running on the same/similar hardware as Wizard of War & Gorf since the graphics and sound seem very similar.

[@LyonsArcade]

Yup!

[@johnnyleewalker9872]

First time I’ve ever heard of this one and it would have been a who can hang on to the high score game. LOL !😅

[@forrestmcelfresh521]

Seems the fourth slot would hold an SC-01 speech board if the game had speech like Wow or Ford.

[@Practicedummy1]

The cabinet is one of the better looking ones made. :D

[@LyonsArcade]

Yeah all three of those (Gorf, Wizard Of Wor, Space Zap) looked great.

[@MrGuy4]

This may be one of the FIRST trance shooters to ever be made.

[@Paulywint]

I played this game a few times. Like the mirror inside the cabinet of the game, and while you are playing the game you at times have to work fast by pushing the set of 4 buttons to fire the aliens

[@LyonsArcade]

Yes the mirror is a very cool addition to it....

[@DarthMarino]

This is actually a color game but they shipped it with a b&w monitor and overlay to save money.

[@LyonsArcade]

I remember hearing something about that, I guess it makes sense since Wizard of Wor and Gorf were color....

[@Retro_World_Arcade]

This game is awesome and just as I saw this video 2 weeks ago I just acquired one in pretty mint shape only flaw is mines missing the colored overlay any clues or were I can get a replacement?

[@LyonsArcade]

That's going to be tough!

[@forrestmcelfresh521]

Going back to the repair video, it would seem the fourth slot as populated in wizard of wor / Gorf would be the SC-01 speech board presumably not used on space zap

[@MichaelBennett1]

That machine was a goldmine for me because the coin return would always jam and people would leave money in the slots pushed up against the edges, on the one in our arcade it had a 50p slot as well as a 10p slot so it was your birthday if someone got 50p stuck. I spent my early teens in the arcades and this was around 80/81. Never actually played the machine because I knew how finicky the coin mechanism was, Defender was what I played mainly then. I play it on MAME now and it’s rigged when you get around 60,000 on the first base, it becomes nigh impossible even with a joystick.

[@richardmarsh2317]

Even though the machine claimed to award an extra ship every 75K, that actually wasn’t true. From my own play in 1982, it awarded ships at 75K, 150K, and 300K. I suspect it would have awarded another at 450K and every 150K afterwards, but my reflexes weren’t _that_ good! Insanely fast game; great cardio workout disguised as an arcade machine. 😁

[@LyonsArcade]

Yup! Very well designed.

[@memyopinionsche6610]

Almost has the same sound affects as wizard or wor and gorf. Had no idea there form the same company.

[@LyonsArcade]

it's stuck in 1980 which isn't a bad thing.

[@LyonsArcade]

Oh I wasn't ragging on you, I was just saying it sounds very 1980 (which I like)

[@makemoneyonline8793]

Gorf, Wizard of war etc,.. all share the same or similar pc boards and manufactured by Midway.

[@TheSquaredM]

I am equally enjoy your artistic repairs as well as your game play. Thanks always for sharing. Maybe you should post the entire video if reasonable, starting with the repair then game play. Then the viewer could skip to the money shot if desired?

[@LyonsArcade]

On the upload side of things it kind of shows you how long people watch, how many people watch, what they do AFTER they watch, etc. so i've found in past if I make a really long video unfortunately people don't watch most of it, lol so I try not to go over 20 or 30 minutes... in other words if I make two 20 minute videos, I get a lot more people watching them than if I make 1 40 minute video (which takes as much work) but on certain videos yeah I might have to just do 1 big long one.... I'm filming a TON of stuff right now so we'll see what happens :)

[@TheSquaredM]

Joe's Classic Video Games, I will watch them either way. I hang there for the long ones. I have gone back and watched your back catalog after I discovered your channel. I am more interested in mid 80s and before video game repair, I especially enjoyed the Asteroids repair. All the diagnostic work was impressive. I also enjoy watching you repair pinball machines. Painting the play fields, matching the colors, is very instructive. Just keep making the videos. You say “we” a lot in your videos, how many of you are there? Who is Joe? I wish I lived closer so I could shop at Joe’s Classic Video Games.

[@LyonsArcade]

Joe's my brother, all the games we repair he does a lot of the work to before it's even on camera.

[@TheSquaredM]

Joe's Classic Video Games, Thank you and your brother for being there with a retro video game store and sharing the videos! Will try to give you a thumbs up to keep you popular and watch the entire video in case of monetization. Thanks!

[@Treeplanter73]

I remember another b/w game from that time period, where you shot sharks coming right at you. Anyone remember the name of the game??

[@alexanderteuman7273]

Klingones cheated.that was so magnifecent, thank you so much again. i comment again because sometimes youtube cut comment. Space Zap forever, i missed, worldchampionchip masters of old game retro, everybody in the world love FIFA(boring) or ego sh. or strategy is okay, but i missed the veteran world championship on the world.

[@LyonsArcade]

I agree!

[@1959blantz]

Space Zap kind of reminds me of an old game (1982) made for the Atari by Imagic called Cosmic Ark. I wonder if whoever designed Cosmic Ark got the idea from playing Space Zap.kzbin.info/www/bejne/m5i2h6WsZrpnepI

[@LyonsArcade]

I remember Cosmic Ark, we still get it in our store all the time (we sell Atari games)

[@memyopinionsche6610]

I wasn't dogging at all trust me.. Those iconic sounds are itching my nostalgic feel.. Like for instance the Deadpool pinball machine that just came out by stern.. It an ok pinball machine.. But when you play it. Holy crap.. You hear sound effects from the classic Williams arcade games sounds like Defender Robotron and Joust. And tickles that fancy in a weird way.. And go wait a minute I recognize that.. Certain gaming companies have certain sounds that go with their games.. When you hear.. Bump. Bump. Bump. Bump.. Do you think JAWS or asteroids? Or hear I NEAK A FIZARD OF FLOOR.. What do you think it's from.. Me WIZARD OF WOR! me I wasn't dissing it at all.. Certain sounds came from certain companies. In certain arcade games came from certain gaming companies like Atari Williams Midway and Nintendo. And I am a music fan from day 1.. There are certain sounds that come from certain companies. It's like the movie GONE IN 60 SECONDS.. With the character Nicolas Cage is playing can hear a sound of an engine and tell you what car is from..same thing with classic arcade machines. It's hard to explain and I am not Throwing Shade. But I love those sounds so iconic to me..

[@LyonsArcade]

Absolutely, the sounds are a huge part of the game. Sometimes we'll have a pinball machine or an arcade game with the sound or bells or whatever broken, and they're not fun at all quiet...

[@alexanderteuman7273]

If i win in lottery i call you.

[@LyonsArcade]

I'll be waiting!

[@Boomer8003]

Zap Zap Zap Die Aliens Dieeee!

[@LyonsArcade]

Yup, lol

[@forrestmcelfresh521]

Not forg, Ford. Darn auto correct.

[@LyonsArcade]

GORF i'll bet you were saying :) Thanks for watching Forrest!