Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Global Arcade Championships

Namco is sponsoring a really big Tekken Tag Tournament 2 competition with some insane prizes. This competition is ARCADE ONLY, for a welcome change!

Qualifiers are being held in various arcades around the world, with the one or two winners from each country being flown to Korea to compete in a country vs country world tournament and a $10,000 grand prize.

For USA:

 

The tournament qualifiers are being held at the Puente Hills Round 1 in SoCal.
Hella details on the USA qualifier HERE.
I was just at (Moreno Valley) Round 1 at the beginning of the summer. When I went for the second group of visits, the arcade was re-arranged and they had some new games. One of them was Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Unlimited. Not only did this machine have a working Bana Passport reader, with cards available to buy at the counter, but it was also set on free play for some reason.

It was probably a mistake of some sort, but I'd like to think that they secretly set random games on free play every once in a while for fun (I would). When I came back the next day, free play was not set. We got to play tons of TTT2 during that last set of visits. So, long story short, I fully caught Tekken fever. I haven't really played any Tekken games since Tekken 4 and I had no plans to buy the PS3 version of any Tekken game. Thanks to the arcade, I went out and picked up TTT2 and Tekken 6 for PS3. It just shows that arcades are important in driving console sales (duh).

I think it's a super rad move that Namco is hosting an arcade only tournament. I've heard some people complaining about it, but seriously, console tournaments are a dime a dozen. Arcades need to have some special love. Thank you Namco!

Namco posted the tourney news on the Tekken-net, but I heard about it on the Avoiding the Puddle show.
If you care at all about Tekken, fighting games in general, or arcades you should definitely check it out. It's pretty super.



The World finals are going to be held on October 26th 2013 in Korea. Cafeid is going to be streaming the event on their twitch.tv channel.
Good luck!

Round 1 Moreno Valley

2012 saw a second Round 1 opening in California, this time in the Moreno Valley Mall. We decided to go check it out. Having just opened in September, it has a kind of a "new arcade" feel to it. I think it still has room to grow.

When you first enter the mall, a fancy sign greets you.

It's a pretty large presence.

Dark Escape 4D. A fun shooter, but it's $2.00 a game. It's loud and nice looking though.

Dark Escape 4D side view.

The famous Round 1 UFO catchers take up massive amounts of floor space.

A good mix of new and old fighters running on modern HD candies.

A pair of working DJMax Technika 3's, with working card readers.

Round 1 has a Pop'n Music Fantasia! Super fun!

Pop'n Music Fantasia sits between the Technika 3's and a employees only door that seems to have heavy traffic.

A Blast City and a New Net City stand proudly near the modern candy section.

A wild ReRave appears! I personally think (the cabinet) looks a bit silly, but it was loud at least!

Dance Dance Revolution X2

Pump It Up Fiesta 2 - They had the volume up to 11 on this one ^^

Lots of deluxe ticket games are around waiting to take all your credits. Here is a Bejeweled.

I don't know what this is, but it looks crazy. I think it's a pachinko type game.

Some Skee Ball

Winners Cube

Private Karaoke rooms make up the back wall of the arcade, near the Bemani/music game section.

A giant Purikura booth sits near the entrance.

This Round 1 sports an entire room for ticket prizes. GOOD prizes abound, making the ticket games tolerable.

A Pac-Man Battle Royale! Not quite as fun as I'd hoped, but it still looks impressive.

The mandatory Initial D racers. (they had lot's of racing games)

Some Dead Heat I think...

doodle jump........I have no idea.

KOF XIII (arcade, not climax) is in the house.

Some older favorites are lurking about; Let's Go Island 3D.

View the rest of the pics on our flickr page.

Overall it's a nice arcade and we had a great time during both visits. I finally figured out the pricing system and I'm not sure why I was confused before as it's pretty simple. It is possible to spend quite a bit of time in this arcade without spending very much money if you have any skills at all and stay away from the ticket games. If you come with the kids, better be ready to drop some funds though.

When you go, I'd recommend staying away from the unlimited credits for an hour pricing deal, the games that are set for unlimited play (green swipers) are games that don't cost much and take a good deal of time to play anyways if you are any good.

This arcade is a winner and I will certainly be back. If you are in Southern California, do yourself a favor and pop in for awhile. Now if only Round 1 would open some of these up north more....

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Round 1 USA

(This post is for AKG ^.^)
I took a little trip to Round 1 in City of Industry, California last week.
Round 1 is a large amusement company in Japan, with over 100 arcades in that country.  The California location is the first one in the USA and only opened in 2010. Hopefully there are more coming.

Aside from the arcade, Round 1 also has bowling, darts, karaoke, billiards, ping pong, and a restaurant. It's inside the La Puente Hills Mall and it is massive.

Round 1 entrance

The arcade itself is a Japanese style arcade, with  lots of candy cabinets, super deluxe games, super deluxe UFO catchers, purikura photo/sticker booths, air hockey tables, and tons of redemption games. They have quite a few games that are hard to find elsewhere, including Technika 2, Raiden IV, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion, Elevator Action Death Parade, and Super SF IV.


Everything runs on an overly complicated card swipe system. Some games cost credits, or you can buy unlimited games by the hour. Bemanistyle.com has a pretty good explanation of the pricing HERE.
I'm not a fan of card swipe systems, but the system at Round 1 works surprisingly well. I went ahead and bought the club card for an extra $5 and it looks classy, plus they gave me an awesome Round1xHello Kitty keitai strap!

Round 1 Club Card

Club Card rear.

Hello KittyxRound 1 keitai strap.

Anyways, here are the rest of the arcade pictures :)

The redemption center has lots of GOOD prizes!

UFO catchers galore!

A 100" super deluxe Terminator Salvation.

Super Street Fighter IV cabs.

Some candy cabinets.

A mega Mega Stacker.

Initial D Arcade Stage 6

Dead Heat

More candies.

Some shooters.

They have DJMax Technika 2! I didn't get a chance to play, because I was kinda short on time and the line was long, but it looks awesome!

Technika 2 cabs!

An alternative to putting your token up.

Technika 2 again.

Even MORE candy cabinets :)

Smart Smacker.

Round 1 has some serious UFO catchers, some of them cost $5.00 USD to play! It's a casino for kids!

Kitty catcher.

Rilakkuma catcher.

Snack catcher.

Ice Cream Catcher

Wonka Sweetland.

More UFO catchers.

There's a lot more going on at Round 1 than I could get pictures of, the place is seriously gigantic. I really hope they build one of these in northern California soon!

Here's your list of games :)
Fruit Ninja FX
Mega Stacker
Smart Smacker 50
Pump it Up 2011 Fiesta EX
Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2
Guitar freaks XG
Drum Mania XG
Pump it Up PRO
Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition
Guitar Hero Arcade
Terminator Salvation
Sega golden Gun
Typhoon
Galactix (redemption)
The fast and the Furious Super Cars (4p)
Initial D Arcade Stage 6 (4p)
Midnight 3 EX Plus
Hummer Extreme Edition
Tank! Tank! Tank! (4p)
NASCAR Team Racing (4p)
King of the Road Harley Davidson (2p)
Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (2p)
Nirin (2p)
Dead Heat (4p)
Elevator Action Death Parade
Pump it Up 2010 Fiesta
Dance Dance Revolution Supernova 2
Sega Rally 3 (2p)
Need For Speed: Carbon (2p)
H2Overdrive (2p)
Let's Go Jungle
Let's Go Island
Ghost Squad Evolution
Razing Storm
Outrun 2 SP (2p)
Nicktoons Nitro
Panic Museum
Big Buck Hunter: Open Season
Big Buck Hunter Safari
RAMBO (the shooter)
Deadstorm Pirates
Metal Slug 5
Guilty Gear xx
DJMax Technika 2
Raiden 4
Shikigami No Shiro episode 3
Virtua NBA
SVChaos: SNK vs Capcom
Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
Marvel Vs Capcom 2
Tatsunoko Vs Capcom
AfterBurner Climax
House of the Dead 4
Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion
The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match
BlazBlue Continuum Shift
Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting
Hammer 2


That's all for my review of Round 1. I thought it was an absolutely wonderful arcade and would recommend it highly! I wasn't able to get any tokens this time, if anyone has any they want to part with, please let me know!

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