It looks like another Taito Type X² arcade rom has been dumped, but this time it's the King of Fighters XIII. The game that everyone has been waiting for and almost nobody (in the US at least) has played, despite it being released over a year ago in the arcades. There's a lot of people crying about this on various forums saying "Oh boo hoo! Now no one will buy the console release! We are all teh doomed!"
My response is this. I don't want to play the console version, I want to play the arcade version, (in an arcade preferably). If it was around here, I would have already spent more than the console version costs on it two or three times over by now and been happy about it.
For the record, the console versions are set to be released in North America in October.
If you want to try and get the arcade version running on your PC, you can grab the files HERE or get them off Demonoid. (I haven't had a lot of luck getting it to run, but others have pulled it off.)
I'll probably buy the console version when it comes out because I'm KOF obsessed, but I'll have to play at a friends house, because I don't own a modern home system at this point. Given the choice I'd rather have the arcade version every time though.
I think it's time to talk a little about online arcades. I don't mean those cheesy flash "arcade" sites that are all over the internet, I mean playing MAME against other people online. We'll start with my personal favorite, GGPO.
GGPO (Good Game Peace Out) is pretty much only for fighting games, but it works really well for them. People from all over the world come to play and there is some serious talent around.
Getting GGPO to run isn't really hard, but it's not dead simple either. I'll try to cover some of the more common problems people have with it.
Step 1 and 2 are pretty straightforward. Download and install Adobe AIR and the GGPO client.
Step 3 is a little more difficult. If you are behind a router you need to forward the following ports to your computer:
UDP ports 6000-6009 (inbound/outbound)
TCP port 7000 (outbound)
Basically you just need to get into your router and tell it not to block connections to your computer from the GGPO server.
Step 4
Find the folder you installed GGPO to and create a new folder called ROMS. This is where you will put your MAME roms.
Step 5
Launch GGPO.exe and you will come to a login screen. Click on where it says create account and follow the instructions to recieve your username and password. Enter your info on the login screen and click Login.
(Here is where things may get weird.)
If everything is working well at this point, great! If not, you may have to do one more thing.
You may click Login and have nothing happen at all. If that is the case, you need to download this .zip file,
and make a new folder on your desktop. Name it whatever you want, but DON'T name it GGPO. Extract the contents of the zipped file you just downloaded directly into your new folder. Create a new ROMS folder and place your roms in it. Run GGPO.exe to launch GGPO.
Now it should be (hopefully) working for you.
If you still have problems, visit the forums.
After you are in, you need to configure your controller. As far as I can tell you can only do this while you are in a match. I'd suggest playing a friend first, or challenging yourself and then taking a look at all the options available.
5 is insert coin and 1 and 2 are player 1 & 2 start respectively.
It sounds difficult to get GGPO running, but it's well worth it. Once you get to beating up a total stranger while others are watching a lot of that arcade excitement will come back!
GGPO has other neat features, like being able to watch others play so you can just chill and watch if you don't feel like playing.
Lots of people regularly set up tournaments for different games on various forums and spectators can watch and record the matches.
Here is a list of games that are currently supported:
Breakers Revenge
Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara
Fatal Fury Special
Final Fight
Garou: Mark of the Wolves
Hyper Street Fighter 2
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Karnov's Revenge
King of Fighters 2000
King of Fighters 2002
King of Fighters 97
King of Fighters 98 (by far the most popular game, it has three rooms.)
Last Blade 2
Marvel Super Heroes
Marvel Super Heroes vs.Street Fighter
Marvel vs. Capcom
Metal Slug X- Super Vehicle-001
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
Samurai Shodown 2
Samurai Shodown IV
Samurai Shodown 5 Special
Street Fighter Alpha
Street Fighter Alpha 2
Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Street Fighter II Koryu
Street Fighter II: Championship Edition
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
Vampire Savior
Windjammers
X-Men Children of the Atom
X-Men vs. Street Fighter
One last thing...GGPO seems to go down all the time, if it's not working for you then try again later or check the forums to see what the issue is.
I hope that was helpful for everyone, if you want to play sometime or need any help with it drop by the chat or our forums and we'll see what's up!
Peace out!
I made these vids of some people playing today while writing this post :)
Ahhh I love hearing about new pinball games and this TRON Legacy pin from Stern is looking damn hot! I was really hoping that the TRON Legacy movie would spawn at least one actual arcade game and not just the usual console nonsense!
From the promo material:
"Our TRON pinball puts the players in the middle of TRON movie and video game action battles. This is a fast moving game. TRON has 3 flippers, including an upper flipper to shot one of the two fabulous fast action ramps. We have not utilized a 3rd flipper in a while, and players will enjoy it. In the center of the playfield, near the top, there is a motorized 3 bank target assembly the player must hit and lower, to gain access to the illuminated, motorized spinning disc, representing TRON's Identity Disc. The spinning disc shoots the ball randomly across and around the playfield. Ramp shots take the player to an exciting Light Cycle multiball. The player shoots at the miniature TRON video game to start exciting features and collect big points."
Click for a larger view.
It's sad to see a 75 cent per game tag on it though, I hope you get more than three balls per game.
In other "news"....
We're just kinda sitting around waiting for CAX in July, but here are some movies to get excited for that are out now, or will be out in the coming months.
Doctor Kong
About Hank Chien, the current Donkey Kong world record holder and plastic surgeon.
(This post does not necessarily represent the views of everyone at Arcade Perfect, it is merely my own opinion. ~hex)
I was at the flea market with my friend DoctorC yesterday and we came upon a Japanese kid selling all these import lanyards and keychains. He had a bunch of fighting game character keychains and I got stoked when I saw a Sakura keychain... until I saw a Nakoruru keychain. He said something to the effect of "You're picking Nakoruru over Sakura?" I casually replied that I've switched sides and am now a full blown SNK fan and that Capcom is almost dead to me. I thought everyone knew how I felt, but he seemed surprised (and outraged).
I'm going to try and explain what happened, but you may be able to guess the reasons.
NOTE - This post is entirely based on fighting games. Capcom has other non fighting games that are superb, I just don't care about them as much.
Back in the day I loved both companies quite a bit, but I always liked Capcom slightly better. Until recently.
Arcade VS Console
Capcom no longer cares about arcade players. With their new fighting game releases going straight to consoles and no arcade releases in sight it makes me very unhappy to say the least. SNK Playmore gives top priority to arcades, with console versions second. Look at this interview with Masaaki Kukino where the question is posed to him: *translated from the French
"Contrary to did Capcom with Super Street Fighter IV you present a version of arcade, think that the market arcade is always priority?" (and he answers)
"It is true that for the versus fighting the majority can be played on line on console, but we want to preserve this aspect of the versus fighting where the players can clash in truth on terminals. Before offering a version comforts we preferred privileged the players of arcade."
Style
Capcom has completely sold out in the style department when it comes to fighting games. Street Fighter 4 and Marvel VS Capcom 3 both look completely ridiculous in my opinion. Capcom is clearly moving all of their fighting game style to a 3D, polygon/cel shading based style that looks terrible. Street Fighter is their flagship and I'm ok with them doing whatever they want with it, even if it is disappointing, but then they went and did it AGAIN with Marvel VS Capcom 3 and I don't think there's any end in sight. I'll be amazed if Capcom ever releases a new 2D hand drawn sprite based fighting game again.
Consider this screenshot from the upcoming straight to console Street Fighter X Tekken.
"Unfortunately I must say that in Europe there is no market actually, and in America
our small presence is relegated to maybe a few shopping centers / arcades.
On the other hand, in Japan, we are practically one of the few gaming brands still
making 2d games, (ie, ARC with BlazBlue on the same Taito Type X2 platform), so
we are putting great effort on being protagonists in the arcades, as we can count on
our unique content."
"We made a 2d game in this day and age, and even if we could be considered
"crazy", we are really proud of making games like we always did. We are sure our
fan base will agree with that, and that it will probably increase."
Gameplay
While SNK fighters still require a great level of skill to master, the games Capcom has been pumping out are ridiculously easy to play and don't require a lot of thought. The first time I played MvC3 at a friends house I button mashed my way through it and beat Galactus on the hardest difficulty setting on my very first attempt. The game has one button supers for cryin' out loud. Just sayin'.
Overall I just feel that SNK Playmore cares more about the fans that have cared about them for all these years than Capcom does. I'm just not feeling the love from Capcom as much anymore. I still like them, but I'm not liking the direction they are going. I'm probably just getting old and resisting change like people do when they get older, but it's how I feel.
If there is any particular background music or sound effects from a video game that you want, let us know and we'd be happy to try and rip it for you.
I'm putting all the filled requests in this post, which will be updated as needed.
If you have a request, tell us in the comments or on the Facebook page and we'll see what we can do!
Play it loud!
Filled Requests:
Arcade
Altered Beast 獣王記
Sega
The BGM for Altered Beast is pretty dark and epic, it's good stuff.
Download the whole thing as a .zip file HERE. (38 MB)
PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16
Ninja Spirit最後の忍道 Irem
Games for the PC Engine have a rather unique sound.
The BGM for Ninja Spirit is like a cross between traditional Japanese music and 8bit techno.
Well the Kong Off has come and gone, here are the results.
1. Hank Chien – 994,400
2. Steve Wiebe – 986,900
3. Eric Howard – 941,800
4. Dean Saglio – 912,800
5. Vincent Lemay – 851,900
6. Ben Falls – 846,800
7. Billy Mitchell – 821,200
8. Ben Mazowita – 817,800
9. Mark Kiehl – 774,600
10. Ross Benziger – 765,200
It was pretty fun to watch, the sound of all those Donkey Kong games going at once was insane and the award ceremony they did after the contest was really nice.
There are a bunch of video's posted on Richie Knucklez' Justin.tv page. if you want to check it out.
Apparently Roy Shildt aka Mr. Awesome was banned from the Kong Off by Richie, which is hilarious somewhat. Richie did a little interview with him afterward, I'm going to post it here because it's quite funny :)
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