If you've ever wanted to get your hands on the long-forgotten arcade classic Turkey Shoot, you're in luck. The ultra-rare Williams-produced game from 1984, which involves wasting villainous turkeys with a light gun, will be available for play at ZapCon 2014. Ditto for similar rarities like the practically Paleozoic 1972 mechanical shooter Haunted House, the 1982 pinball game Thunderball, and the Japanese import Super Spacefortress Macross.
In fact, there are several choice titles in ZapCon 2014's list of classic arcade and pinball games, which was revealed by organizers late last week.
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The rundown, which can be found on the website for the mid-April event, includes many of the favorites that were featured at last year's ZapCon -- ranging from A.P.B. to Zaxxon -- as well as many old-school gems that are new to the convention (such as Crystal Castles, Solar Fox, Bubbles, and Toobin').
The list also features such back-in-the-day games as Centipede, Defender, Mario Bros., Arkanoid, Gauntlet, Joust, Pole Position, R-Type, Spy Hunter, and Pac-Man (natch).
The pinball lineup includes such offerings as Addams Family, Judge Dredd, Space Shuttle, Terminator 2, Revenge from Mars, Fish Tales, Pinbot, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Wes Cleveland, ZapCon's co-organizer, also says that the weekend-long event inside the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel's Pueblo Ballroom will boast the latest Star Trek pinball unit and a couple of Japanese games like the fantastical Senko no Ronde.
He also promises some titles that no one's ever heard of, like a homebrew Metroid arcade game that a ZapCon participant is cooking up for the event.
"He's working on a custom [game] based on Metroid that hopefully will be done in time for the show," Cleveland says. "He's converting an old shooting game that was wrecked."
The ZapCon organizer is looking forward to playing it (if it's ready, that is), as well as the aforementioned Turkey Shoot.
"That's pretty rare. It's a really bizarre concept," he says. "I'm excited to give it a whirl."
As of this writing, ZapCon's game list contains a total of 63 different arcade games and 68 pinball units, all of which were culled from the collections of Arizona gamers. It's slightly less that last year's convention, but Cleveland anticipates that those numbers will grow over the coming weeks.
"We're still a couple months out," he says. "I'm always fishing for more."
ZapCon 2014 takes place on Saturday, April 12, and Sunday, April 13, at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel. One-day admission is $25, weekend passes are $35.