Sunday, July 27, 2008
It's not just for Bust-A-Move
The best part about having the real deal instead of just the playstation ports of Neo-Geo games is the fact that there is no load times and of course you don't get the ever popular complaint, "It's not arcade perfect". After playing the original games on the classic hardware for a while, it's strange how even the best emulated versions of the games can't get it exactly right to the original. You would think with the advancement of technology that they could easily duplicate the game over to new hardware but time and time again this still seems to be a great feat to overcome.
For an example the new PS2 version of KOF '98 found on the KOF '98 UM game has load times unlike the original, It's not like the game is that large a size even, I mean it was made back in 1998. Even though a difference like that doesn't effect the actual game play of the game but it does make it inferior to the original made a decade ago. So far the best emulated experience of Neo-Geo games I found is with PC emulation and well "Duh" of course since your running an actual copy of the original game but not all emulators do it justice. I find Kawaks to handle controller inputs very poorly compared to Mame or Final Burn and even Justin Wong mentioned that he wouldn't MM on a PC copy of X-men vs Street Fighter due to the fact that arcade emulation is prone to controller malfunction.
Some time soon I'll touch on my expected trip to Seattle and further insight to what's out there for arcades nowadays.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Insight to the past and what it means for the future
Well I’m a horrible writer but I thought I would take a look at what prominent arcades are left in
For the most part the second arcade boom or the fighting game generation of the early 90’s was completely diminished by 2005.
In 2006 SRK removed their APEX player ranking system from their website preferring to go with a blog style layout. The APEX system did show the names of the top players in their respective fighting games across
Not only did the APEX system back up the hype of arcade fighting games but so did Magazines. GameFan, GamePro and Tips and Tricks gave gamers insight into the coin-op industry with such
sections as Hot in the
If you take a look at what was happening locally in Winnipeg around this time Games on the Avenue was closed down in 2001 and what little player base that arcade had scattered to the UofM arcade or might have visited Magic Land. Even though RC Amusements and Phantom Amusements where still around the amount of competitive players visiting these locations where very limited and almost non-existent. In fact there were a lot of arcades left in the early 2000’s in
Some of these businesses affected included:
D.B. AMUSEMENTS
(204) 771-5558
Supplier of new and used arcade and billiard games, jukeboxes, etc.
FLIPPERS AMUSEMENTS
(204) 942-7440
Ya holy smokes huh, I never knew these places existed either until I found their contact information on a old pinball parts web site a year ago. Not only that but there where countless other businesses that I forgot to archive that where still around
This trend however didn’t just effect
The dinosaurs such as the SSF2T, MvC2, CvS2 and SF3:3S should be put to rest. But will the quality of an in person head to head competition with a complete stranger ever return? Can online gaming fill the void of social interaction and competition? Probably not.
Home or social gatherings may still occur but the ability to travel to a public place to play a complete stranger can never be duplicated. It’s the unknown and sense of adventure you get while entering an arcade that you can’t replicate. And believe me the pressure to perform in a public setting in front of strangers can never be duplicated either, even when you’re sitting comfortably in your own home playing somebody on GGPO. If you think that GGPO is pressure then you suck da balls.
I’ll continue this on a later date.