Pleiades (aka Pleiads - 1981 Tehkan International Corp., Licensed to Centuri
Click on Marquee for KLOV listing.
The Story: There's just something about these early wood grain Centuri games
that appeals to me. Yeah, they are a little less popular and more obscure than
popular titles like Pac-Man or Asteroids, but they have a certain charm to them.
Unfortunately by the time I was old enough to learn and enjoy video games, these
gem's had come and gone while more popular titles lived on.
Perhaps a big part of the reason why I am collecting these games today is
that I was always surrounded by them, even outside the local shopping malls and
amusement halls. I had a few childhood friends who actually had games in their
homes. I remember one friend who's father had several games in his basement. All
of us "kids" thought it was just the neatest thing ever. Little did I know back
then that I would one day have a similar collection in my own home. But I
digress once again. I had another friend who was also into video games much like
I was. This was back when the Sega Genesis & SNES came out and we were among
the many who battled back & forth on which was a better system. Anyway where
was I? One day his father brought home a "Phoenix" arcade machine. While the
game was pretty "dated" even by standards back then, we all enjoyed playing it
and just once again thought about how cool it was to have an actual arcade
machine, this time in his own room.
I'm not really sure what happened to the game after that. It faded into my
memory and I'm sure it's the same story for my childhood friends. To be honest,
it was a neat game but it never really made my wanted list. I honestly just
wanted a Centuri game that was at least similar and that's all that mattered. I
recently discovered "Challenger" and have since added it to my collection. I
really had no need to add another Centuri game to my collection, but it was
because of another friend that I recently acquired another Centuri game with even
more in common with that Phoenix game from my early childhood memories.
The Score: I always talk about how great it is to make friends in this hobby.
In this case it was my friend Jim who was a big time game collector at the time.
We've done several trades together and that's how friendships get started in
this hobby. Anyway he recently decided his life was going in a different
direction and decided to sell most of his collection. And let me tell you, he
had quite the collection. Quite a shame I never really got to see it in person
as our schedule's seemed to conflict most of the time. Anyway he was able to
sell off most of the games he wanted to let go of. When it got down to the last
handful of games, that's where I stepped in and we struck a deal on the last
three games he was getting rid of. This lot consisted of a Broken Sprint 2, a
Sega Turbo upright that I happened to trade with him a few years back, and, of
course, Pleiades. This was my main game of interest in this pickup. I never
really played it much before, but the more I did the more I found the
similarities to Phoenix. This game was quickly becoming another step back in
time for me. I just had to keep this one. I had no plans to keep the other's,
but since then I had a change of heart and kept the Turbo as well. Sprint 2 was
passed on to another collector to add to his gaming museum. It was the roughest
of the trio but I'm still glad it's in the hands of a collector who would
appreciate the game. Anyway, back to Pleiades...
The Service: This game was fully operational and didn't need much aside from
the normal cleaning & tweaking. The only problem I had with it was that the
colors were off which turned out to be a purity issue with the picture tube. A
simple adjustment of the purity rings was all it needed. One thing that started
bothering me was that I discovered later on that this game was running on a
bootleg PCB. Not a big deal as the game worked fine this way. It played just
like the original game, mostly, but with a few bugs. Mainly, there was no
background music. When I first played the game in MAME, the game had no
background music there either, so at the time I didn't worry about it much. But
after watching several YouTube videos of actual games, I really began to notice
what was missing from my game. I took a chance on an untested boardset from
eBay, mainly because it was a mere $28 which included shipping. When the board
arrived, I hooked it up & turned the game on with my finger's crossed. The
game worked. No more bugs, no more missing background music. Nice.
I also discovered that the game uses the exact same harness & control
panel setup as Phoenix, meaning that a Phoenix PCB will plug & play with
this cabinet. Once I learned that I quickly set out to find a working Phoenix
boardset. Unfortunately eBay prices were just to high for Phoenix. Not sure why
as Pleiades is debatably the better game. But a quick wanted post on the forums
yielded another fellow collector with a working Phoenix boardset for sale at a
very reasonable price. He even had the mounting rack for it which made it easy
to mount in my game alongside the Pleiades boardset. Now with the simple switch
of the harness I can alternate between Pleiades as well as the first Centuri
game I had such fond childhood memories of.
Aside from all this, the game did need new molding. I quickly learned that
some Centuri cabs used a special offset molding which this one did have. I
shopped around for this hard to find molding and most who had it available also
had a 5000' minimum order in place. My only other option was ArcadeShop. They
stock the molding with no minimum. I was nervous however as research had
informed me that this molding isn't an exact match. But in my case, it would
have to do as the original had suffered some damage and had hardened over the
years. My order arrived and my research proved true. It's very slightly off, but
definitely an improvement. The only other issue was the marquee was flaking a
little bit. This seems to be a very common problem for this particular game and
replacements were expensive and hard to come by. Since mine wasn't too bad, I
decided to save it as best I could with a heavy coat of white spray enamel on
the back. Lastly, I needed to address a broken coin return bezel. Thanks to Paige for sending a replacement. While I was replacing that piece I also added a Centuri logo to the coin door.
that appeals to me. Yeah, they are a little less popular and more obscure than
popular titles like Pac-Man or Asteroids, but they have a certain charm to them.
Unfortunately by the time I was old enough to learn and enjoy video games, these
gem's had come and gone while more popular titles lived on.
Perhaps a big part of the reason why I am collecting these games today is
that I was always surrounded by them, even outside the local shopping malls and
amusement halls. I had a few childhood friends who actually had games in their
homes. I remember one friend who's father had several games in his basement. All
of us "kids" thought it was just the neatest thing ever. Little did I know back
then that I would one day have a similar collection in my own home. But I
digress once again. I had another friend who was also into video games much like
I was. This was back when the Sega Genesis & SNES came out and we were among
the many who battled back & forth on which was a better system. Anyway where
was I? One day his father brought home a "Phoenix" arcade machine. While the
game was pretty "dated" even by standards back then, we all enjoyed playing it
and just once again thought about how cool it was to have an actual arcade
machine, this time in his own room.
I'm not really sure what happened to the game after that. It faded into my
memory and I'm sure it's the same story for my childhood friends. To be honest,
it was a neat game but it never really made my wanted list. I honestly just
wanted a Centuri game that was at least similar and that's all that mattered. I
recently discovered "Challenger" and have since added it to my collection. I
really had no need to add another Centuri game to my collection, but it was
because of another friend that I recently acquired another Centuri game with even
more in common with that Phoenix game from my early childhood memories.
The Score: I always talk about how great it is to make friends in this hobby.
In this case it was my friend Jim who was a big time game collector at the time.
We've done several trades together and that's how friendships get started in
this hobby. Anyway he recently decided his life was going in a different
direction and decided to sell most of his collection. And let me tell you, he
had quite the collection. Quite a shame I never really got to see it in person
as our schedule's seemed to conflict most of the time. Anyway he was able to
sell off most of the games he wanted to let go of. When it got down to the last
handful of games, that's where I stepped in and we struck a deal on the last
three games he was getting rid of. This lot consisted of a Broken Sprint 2, a
Sega Turbo upright that I happened to trade with him a few years back, and, of
course, Pleiades. This was my main game of interest in this pickup. I never
really played it much before, but the more I did the more I found the
similarities to Phoenix. This game was quickly becoming another step back in
time for me. I just had to keep this one. I had no plans to keep the other's,
but since then I had a change of heart and kept the Turbo as well. Sprint 2 was
passed on to another collector to add to his gaming museum. It was the roughest
of the trio but I'm still glad it's in the hands of a collector who would
appreciate the game. Anyway, back to Pleiades...
The Service: This game was fully operational and didn't need much aside from
the normal cleaning & tweaking. The only problem I had with it was that the
colors were off which turned out to be a purity issue with the picture tube. A
simple adjustment of the purity rings was all it needed. One thing that started
bothering me was that I discovered later on that this game was running on a
bootleg PCB. Not a big deal as the game worked fine this way. It played just
like the original game, mostly, but with a few bugs. Mainly, there was no
background music. When I first played the game in MAME, the game had no
background music there either, so at the time I didn't worry about it much. But
after watching several YouTube videos of actual games, I really began to notice
what was missing from my game. I took a chance on an untested boardset from
eBay, mainly because it was a mere $28 which included shipping. When the board
arrived, I hooked it up & turned the game on with my finger's crossed. The
game worked. No more bugs, no more missing background music. Nice.
I also discovered that the game uses the exact same harness & control
panel setup as Phoenix, meaning that a Phoenix PCB will plug & play with
this cabinet. Once I learned that I quickly set out to find a working Phoenix
boardset. Unfortunately eBay prices were just to high for Phoenix. Not sure why
as Pleiades is debatably the better game. But a quick wanted post on the forums
yielded another fellow collector with a working Phoenix boardset for sale at a
very reasonable price. He even had the mounting rack for it which made it easy
to mount in my game alongside the Pleiades boardset. Now with the simple switch
of the harness I can alternate between Pleiades as well as the first Centuri
game I had such fond childhood memories of.
Aside from all this, the game did need new molding. I quickly learned that
some Centuri cabs used a special offset molding which this one did have. I
shopped around for this hard to find molding and most who had it available also
had a 5000' minimum order in place. My only other option was ArcadeShop. They
stock the molding with no minimum. I was nervous however as research had
informed me that this molding isn't an exact match. But in my case, it would
have to do as the original had suffered some damage and had hardened over the
years. My order arrived and my research proved true. It's very slightly off, but
definitely an improvement. The only other issue was the marquee was flaking a
little bit. This seems to be a very common problem for this particular game and
replacements were expensive and hard to come by. Since mine wasn't too bad, I
decided to save it as best I could with a heavy coat of white spray enamel on
the back. Lastly, I needed to address a broken coin return bezel. Thanks to Paige for sending a replacement. While I was replacing that piece I also added a Centuri logo to the coin door.
