For those who haven’t read everything on this site (AKA “losers” ), everything was working great on my Defender except for the joystick, which was slow and sloppy. I ordered a repro replacement from MantisAmusements.com.

These parts are an exact replica of NOS Defender joystick parts. Here is the old one before I took it apart:

If you look closely at the round hole between the 2 screws in the bottom of the picture, you’ll see the pin that sits in it. See how much room it has to move in there? That is all wear from years of people Defendering like there’s no tomorrow. That hole should be tight around that pin, so it has just enough room to move and no more. I changed these parts, and the joystick is like brand new!

I played a few rounds, and the game is awesome now that you can actually control the ship better. However….Defender totally kicks my ass! I never played it in the arcade, but I was pretty good at the Atari 2600 version. I am dying to get this in the game room now, but there isn’t room until we move everything around.