aria
Former Moderator
- Joined
- Dec 4, 1977
- Posts
- 39,546
There is already a California thread <a href="http://www.neo-geo.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=009704" target="_blank">HERE</a>, but it was started for Northern Californians and neither group is willing to drive for 4 hours to get to the other.
As for Los Angeles, the arcade Zorro, BIG Psyche and I found SvC:C at is College Arcade on Vermont, just across from Los Angeles City College (a few blocks north of the 101).
THE EXPERIENCE
This arcade is lackluster: Picture a grimey version of the classic arcades of the 80s. They have a lot of working games, but they're all pretty dirty and the staff are... interesting. There are two arcades next to each other and between them they do have about 20 neo cabs and 3 Hyper 64 cabs as well as 2 CvS2s.
The arcade had a great 8 tokens for $1 deal with just a ton for $5 (there were bonus tokens for higher denominations. I put in $5 and had to give a ton to Zorro). SvC was their most expensive cab at 3 tokens. That works to be less than .50 -A good deal, no doubt.
The cab they put SvC:C in is a big one, but the monitor was awful -bleeding whites an overall way too dark (as compared to the play test).
The staff at College Arcade consisted of an old guy (seemingly of Eastern European heritage) who just grumbled and didn't think the game was all that good, and didn't want to give me the time of day or give me the address of the arcade we were standing in. He was, to put it shortly, an asshole wasting away in a dead end job. Good for him
The other guy was more pleasant and enthusiastic about the game. Still, he seemed a few quarts low.
It was definitely the star attraction when we got there. Unfortunately, as Zorro pointed out, there was this annoying ambiguous duo hogging Player 2. Why were they annoying? They weren't playing to learn the entire game in all its intricacies, they were just playing to master using Ken in tournament mode. So that meant they did that whole "rotate each round" style and combo-throw-cheap-anythinged their way to win rounds against anyone on the machine. They picked no other player. Just Ken. Only to face other players. I understand the reasons they did this, but it was annoying because this was the only machine we found after searching and calling no less than six arcades around town between the three of us. This was the only machine, and it was hogged by the ambiguous duo* (see below for more on them).
Example of why I was annoyed by them: Everyone stopped playing them to let them go on to play the CPU. We watched them get through Dan, Guile, then watched them get their asses handed to them by Orochi Iori. They didn't continue and just cancelled their continue option. I know that, under the ethics of gamers, that what they did is okay. I didn't complain, though I was irked (Particularly since I wanted to see the bosses mention in News and Rumors). What really annoyed me was, as soon as they got off, Zorro got on and polietly asked them not to play, but they hopped on anyway. Again, it was their right to be a pair of ambivilant jerks -but it still pissed us off.
There were some other guys playing. There was one African American guy, about thirty and bald, who had a solid Terry Bogard. He sat next to the machine and watched a lot of rounds before occassionally taking a stab with different characters (and winning a few rounds). Big Psyche and I got in some rounds. Zorro put up a good fight with his Chun-Li (neobuyer, BIG Psyche, and I can confirm that he's very good at CvS2), but the duo was too strong. One of the operators tried a few times too.
The funniest guy was this one guy in a baseball cap who started talking to me when we got there, he said "Man, I just can't get into this. It's only got 4 buttons. What's with that?"
I grinned and explained the difference between CvS and SvC, he appreciated the information and it made sense to him, but he still said he prefered Capcom games (his perogative, though I told him it was odd for SNK fans to get 2 new buttons as well as have some of our moves removed). Nice guy, classic conversation.
* Now, I realize some of you might wonder why the three of us keep refering to them as ambiguous. Well, I'll be honest (and as some of you know, I'm very pro-gay rights and anti-hate): I could not tell the sex of one of them. They were both Japanese, but very quiet (they would sort of whisper to each other so I couldn't even tell what language they wre speaking). One was clearly a guy. The other... well the other was a total mind fuck. He/She had this sort of mild-orange hair dye and semi-long hair that I've seen sported on both Japanese men and women... She/he also wore loose (not baggy) cloths that hid any remote sign of curvature (if any). The two acted chummy enough to either be related, or some kind of romantic couple. But again -they weren't exactly touching each other like a romantic couple -more like whispering and having these sort of asexual "moments". It was really bizarre -Even for LA.
Anyway, if anyone finds a cab in better condition, please let us in LA/SoCal know
<small>[ July 28, 2003, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: Bobak ]</small>
As for Los Angeles, the arcade Zorro, BIG Psyche and I found SvC:C at is College Arcade on Vermont, just across from Los Angeles City College (a few blocks north of the 101).
THE EXPERIENCE
This arcade is lackluster: Picture a grimey version of the classic arcades of the 80s. They have a lot of working games, but they're all pretty dirty and the staff are... interesting. There are two arcades next to each other and between them they do have about 20 neo cabs and 3 Hyper 64 cabs as well as 2 CvS2s.
The arcade had a great 8 tokens for $1 deal with just a ton for $5 (there were bonus tokens for higher denominations. I put in $5 and had to give a ton to Zorro). SvC was their most expensive cab at 3 tokens. That works to be less than .50 -A good deal, no doubt.
The cab they put SvC:C in is a big one, but the monitor was awful -bleeding whites an overall way too dark (as compared to the play test).
The staff at College Arcade consisted of an old guy (seemingly of Eastern European heritage) who just grumbled and didn't think the game was all that good, and didn't want to give me the time of day or give me the address of the arcade we were standing in. He was, to put it shortly, an asshole wasting away in a dead end job. Good for him
The other guy was more pleasant and enthusiastic about the game. Still, he seemed a few quarts low.It was definitely the star attraction when we got there. Unfortunately, as Zorro pointed out, there was this annoying ambiguous duo hogging Player 2. Why were they annoying? They weren't playing to learn the entire game in all its intricacies, they were just playing to master using Ken in tournament mode. So that meant they did that whole "rotate each round" style and combo-throw-cheap-anythinged their way to win rounds against anyone on the machine. They picked no other player. Just Ken. Only to face other players. I understand the reasons they did this, but it was annoying because this was the only machine we found after searching and calling no less than six arcades around town between the three of us. This was the only machine, and it was hogged by the ambiguous duo* (see below for more on them).
Example of why I was annoyed by them: Everyone stopped playing them to let them go on to play the CPU. We watched them get through Dan, Guile, then watched them get their asses handed to them by Orochi Iori. They didn't continue and just cancelled their continue option. I know that, under the ethics of gamers, that what they did is okay. I didn't complain, though I was irked (Particularly since I wanted to see the bosses mention in News and Rumors). What really annoyed me was, as soon as they got off, Zorro got on and polietly asked them not to play, but they hopped on anyway. Again, it was their right to be a pair of ambivilant jerks -but it still pissed us off.
There were some other guys playing. There was one African American guy, about thirty and bald, who had a solid Terry Bogard. He sat next to the machine and watched a lot of rounds before occassionally taking a stab with different characters (and winning a few rounds). Big Psyche and I got in some rounds. Zorro put up a good fight with his Chun-Li (neobuyer, BIG Psyche, and I can confirm that he's very good at CvS2), but the duo was too strong. One of the operators tried a few times too.
The funniest guy was this one guy in a baseball cap who started talking to me when we got there, he said "Man, I just can't get into this. It's only got 4 buttons. What's with that?"
I grinned and explained the difference between CvS and SvC, he appreciated the information and it made sense to him, but he still said he prefered Capcom games (his perogative, though I told him it was odd for SNK fans to get 2 new buttons as well as have some of our moves removed). Nice guy, classic conversation.
* Now, I realize some of you might wonder why the three of us keep refering to them as ambiguous. Well, I'll be honest (and as some of you know, I'm very pro-gay rights and anti-hate): I could not tell the sex of one of them. They were both Japanese, but very quiet (they would sort of whisper to each other so I couldn't even tell what language they wre speaking). One was clearly a guy. The other... well the other was a total mind fuck. He/She had this sort of mild-orange hair dye and semi-long hair that I've seen sported on both Japanese men and women... She/he also wore loose (not baggy) cloths that hid any remote sign of curvature (if any). The two acted chummy enough to either be related, or some kind of romantic couple. But again -they weren't exactly touching each other like a romantic couple -more like whispering and having these sort of asexual "moments". It was really bizarre -Even for LA.
Anyway, if anyone finds a cab in better condition, please let us in LA/SoCal know
<small>[ July 28, 2003, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: Bobak ]</small>
BUT THEY HAD THE NEW F-ZERO CAB