neowave and awnet

awnet is up and working for neowave now. cards are 500yen. to use the card you stick it in the slot after starting a game (you get a 10 second window to put it in). there is a menu with about 4 options, i didnt read them too closely but one of them is play a normal game, another is use a team that youve set (seems you can set up 3 or so).

not sure how the shop works but you earn points if you win vs matches, beat the computer, etc.

when you play it displays the amount of times youve used that particular character above the energy bar. in the left or right corner of the screen is your total wins. above the time it displays whether its a low rate battle or a high rate one (seems to be an average of the "how many times youve used the character" numbers. dont know what effect it has.

after a battle you get a display of wins/losses and a total of matches played, also how many points you have and how many you earned this time, etc.

one card can be used for 500 games.

didnt see any custom colours or secret characters today.

some 2k2 glitches (kula juggles on LK, etc) seem to have been corrected from 2k2.

lots of kings (powerful), some ioris, lots of goros, lots of chois.

this game is one of the most popular ive seen on release in the last 2 or 3 years. to b honest i am surprised by its popularity at this point, with 8 linked machines in monte carlo (4 pairs) you have to wait to play (for quite a while too). its constantly packed, the card seems to be part of the attraction.

this has to mean quite a bit of profit for playmore id say...

The secret characters are Geese, Orochi CYS, Kim, Ramon and Vanessa.

More info on the cards:

http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~mmcafe/forums/bbs/messages/20410.shtml

Heh. Graphic whores maybe, beelze? Or this game can be considered better than 2k2, gameplay wise?

An AW game being a success?

Amano Jacu said:

An AW game being a success?

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I dunno, The Rumble Fish (love it or hate it) still seems pretty popular here in Tokyo.

tsukaesugi said:

I dunno, The Rumble Fish (love it or hate it) still seems pretty popular here in Tokyo.

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I want that game real bad. I just need the price to go down I can't afford 800 for the game and aw. On a related is there a special harness for the extra aw buttons?

No, all 5 AW buttons are in the JAMMA harness. 1, 2 and 3 are in the regular JAMMA spots, 4 and 5 are where the D and select button for MVS are.
I am also looking forward to some AW games to drop in price so they are affordable.

tsukaesugi said:

I dunno, The Rumble Fish (love it or hate it) still seems pretty popular here in Tokyo.

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is that in a comp arcade or a casual gamer one? the machine (of which there is only one back to back in monte) is a ghost town...

@verythrax. hmm couldnt say at this point though i still prefer 2k2s graphics and character lineup. the feel of 2k2 is nicer imo as well.

rumble fish..... game makes me want to burn people.

Dude thanks for the update! I was thinking about getting a card. I have a VF card and it makes me join VF.net, which is 300 yen a month. Does sammy's card have any monthly charge?

beelzebubble said:

is that in a comp arcade or a casual gamer one? the machine (of which there is only one back to back in monte) is a ghost town...

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The Club Sega in Akihabara has four of them (two linked head-to-head), and whenever I go there, there are usually a couple of people playing them.

Most casual arcades have at least one set of linked machines.

It's getting way more play than Rage of the Dragons or Matrimelee ever did. Both of those games disappeared off the face of the Earth a couple months after release.

: (

RBjakeSpecial said:

rumble fish..... game makes me want to burn people.

Dude thanks for the update! I was thinking about getting a card. I have a VF card and it makes me join VF.net, which is 300 yen a month. Does sammy's card have any monthly charge?

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doesnt seem to have a monthly charge. not for just sticking it in the machine anyways. what goes on at the website is a whole different story i guess.

RBjakeSpecial said:

rumble fish..... game makes me want to burn people.

Dude thanks for the update! I was thinking about getting a card. I have a VF card and it makes me join VF.net, which is 300 yen a month. Does sammy's card have any monthly charge?

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If the KOFNW cards are anything like the Isuka cards, you might stumble across one that's worth over 10,000 yen!

As beelz said, no monthly charge for the card.

You can even 'save' the last team you used (ifit's anything like the loke test cards).

tsukaesugi said:

The Club Sega in Akihabara has four of them (two linked head-to-head), and whenever I go there, there are usually a couple of people playing them.

Most casual arcades have at least one set of linked machines.

It's getting way more play than Rage of the Dragons or Matrimelee ever did. Both of those games disappeared off the face of the Earth a couple months after release.

: (

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Club Sega.. what a cool place. Do they still have the Final Fight Revenge game there?

I guess this kind of popularity is good in so far as it keeps 2d fighting games alive.

DevilRedeemed said:

Club Sega.. what a cool place. Do they still have the Final Fight Revenge game there?

I guess this kind of popularity is good in so far as it keeps 2d fighting games alive.

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Nope, but you can find it at the Try Amusement Tower.

If you want variety, you're better off going there or to Hey which is three doors down.

@beelze, you think due to the success so far in the game centers that we will see a port of this fairly quickly?

Or do you think once '04 is announced/released this will die instantaneously?

I'm really looking forward to '04, but the reason I'm excited for this to do well is so that it creates lots of revenue and more popularity for SNK. I think everyone will agree with me there.

Tsuka, RBJake: If you signed up for AW-Net from the Ueno Loke test, your points carry over! I'm only less than 1000 points away from getting Orochi Chris!

So far I got Terry's "Another Color 3". Haven't seen it yet, though.

I went ahead and bought two cards. I think the Geese card will be worth a little more later.



Further proof of the extra folks:

ill tell you what this game plays nice i find at this point. its a little different from 2k2 and im still not sure about the feel of the actual controls but the system, feel of the game itself is nice. the game gets lots of play and challenging is fun with such big crowds.

how bout others playing it.. how do you feel about it?

Didn't even get a chance to play it when I went to Club Sega in Akihabara on friday...a large number of people were playing it. They had 4 sets of linked machines there, and it was funny; the expert players were all on one side, and everyone else was lining up to get killed by them on the other. I watched one guy totally trash people with Jhun and Choi; his Jhun was amazing and at one point, he stopped looking at the screen to talk to the guy next to him, and beat the other guy doing nothing but standing kicks.

One thing about KOF Neowave that I noticed is its visuals, especially at another arcade nearby that had almost all the KOF games put next to each other, and that is that Neowave is by far the best-looking KOF in recent years. It doesn't matter that 2003's backgrounds have more going on, and it doesn't matter that 2003 has some new sprites...Neowave has a much sharper and colorful look to it; the sprites have never looked better, and they don't stand out against the backgrounds as some screenshots seem to make them look like they do. Couldn't hear the music; hopefully it's going to be better quality than the BGMs found in MVS games.

I'm going back to Aki tomorrow to see if I can play it (and get my butt kicked!) I'll be very happy if it's true that Kim and Vanessa are hidden characters, too.

This game may be a total rehash, but being a tweaked version of KOF 2002 isn't exactly a bad thing. If this was a Neo-Geo game, there's no way in hell I'd recommend anyone buy it for $300+, nor would I ever buy an AW for this, but I'll definitely pick up a PS2 port whenever it comes out.

I am definitely much more excited about the release of KOF Maximum Impact next week though; IMO that should have been released in arcades, not Neowave.

For beelzebubble, eight one:

How did you register your AW-Net cards? In Singapore they're selling them too, but so far I've yet to hear of any Singaporeans users actually utilising the AW-Net features.

http://www.awnet.jp/pc/awnet.html

By the looks of this page, it seems anyone with an Internet connection overseas can also use and register the AW-Net cards. Can you confirm if this is possible? Or help to translate this page? Thanks.

can any one in japan take a pic of how the cabs look

Fat Cat Lim 2 said:

For beelzebubble, eight one:

How did you register your AW-Net cards? In Singapore they're selling them too, but so far I've yet to hear of any Singaporeans users actually utilising the AW-Net features.

http://www.awnet.jp/pc/awnet.html

By the looks of this page, it seems anyone with an Internet connection overseas can also use and register the AW-Net cards. Can you confirm if this is possible? Or help to translate this page? Thanks.

Click to expand...

I think you need I-mode (via mobile phone) to initially register. I'm not sure.

eight one said:

I think you need I-mode (via mobile phone) to initially register. I'm not sure.

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At the loketest you could also register from a PC.

My cell-phone's software was too old to register.

: (

I also thought at first that you need to have a Japanese mobile to register, but from the AW-Net flowchart from here it seems the registration service has also expanded to anyone with a PC and Internet connection.

If this is the case, then it gives hope to overseas players like me who want to play KOF:NW without missing out on the extra characters and features available through AW-Net.

tsukaesugi said:

At the loketest you could also register from a PC.

My cell-phone's software was too old to register.

: (

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Then, that's great news! That means you don't *have* to have a Japanese mobile then to register for AW-Net. That means I can get to use Vanessa then!

How did you register for the AW-Net using the PC then? Can you describe the process?

Fat Cat Lim 2 said:

I also thought at first that you need to have a Japanese mobile to register, but from the AW-Net flowchart from here it seems the registration service has also expanded to anyone with a PC and Internet connection.

If this is the case, then it gives hope to overseas players like me who want to play KOF:NW without missing out on the extra characters and features available through AW-Net.

Click to expand...

Whoops, I'm wrong (again).

Just checked your link.

You have to register through your cell-phone first, then afterwards you can access your data either through your phone or your PC.

The reason for this is that it costs 315 Yen a month and this is collected directly from your phone bill.

You CAN register directly from your PC on VFNET (the Virtua Fighter System), but you have to pay with Webmoney which is the Japanese version of Paypal. Otherwise, like AWNET, you pay your monthly fee through your phone bill.

It seems neither AWNET nor VFNET currently support credit card payments, which is too bad, cause then I'd sign up for them.