DJMAX Technika 2 (hopefully in an arcade near you?)

[Kaorin]

Seattle's Gameworks arcade just got this game, I love it. Pentavision has a track record of making stylish, polished rhythm games, and each new title brings bounding innovations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjrvDtc4DlI

Totally worth looking for or requesting in your local arcade~

[RoadBuster]

...Local Arcade...

*sobs*

[Chaos Greyblood]

Yeeeeeah, that's gonna be a little complicated.

Only if I travel to my country's capital....

[Jase]

Lol, Kaorin. Don't make the Arcade-less cry.

Everyone knows in NA, the only places with arcades are Vancouver, Seattle, California, Texas, New York, and Ontario

unless you count those old garbage junk machines at movie theaters "arcades".

[Chaos Greyblood]

You know a few arcade enthusiasts will take offense to that last one, Jase.

And for the record, my hometown's got around at least 2-4 arcade hangouts. It's just that not many new games pop up here.

[Kaorin]

Oh, I'd heard that arcades were dying out in the US but I wasn't aware that only six states still have them :x

[Chaos Greyblood]

If I may, I think that at least here in Mexico they're not as dead. I've seen a few places with them, in fact. No newer games, thohgh. :x

[Jase]

Well, in my experience the cabinets for those places are junk.

Using the ultra cheap new Happ (as opposed to old Happ) buttons and sticks, half of the time they are in disrepair or sticky, etc.

And yeah, not a single new game. Still sitting on that same House of the Dead 2 with a funky working light gun from a decade ago, and the same goes for the DDR machine with pop music that is a decade old, etc.

Movie theaters just see no real reason to update their selection. I can't really blame them.

What I don't get is why they don't literally order, for a handful of dollars, a bunch of Sanwa or Seimitsu buttons that can actually like... stand to get banged up for a while.

And UUUUUGH joy sticks using the drumstick grip.

[Chaos Greyblood]

What about arcade that carry multiple old games? I've seen and played those, including the modifyed and pirate versions of KOF 2002

[Jase]

I'd be lying if I said I knew an arcade that carried good oldies, without being one of the opulent ones in areas with dense Chinese populations that can afford new PCB's and cabinets on a regular basis in the first place.

One of the smaller arcades near me basically have every arcade release of KoF available.

[Kaorin]

Perhaps this thread's title should be changed to something like General arcade discussion?

Off the top of my head, I know of three arcades near me that are still standing, down three from five years ago. The bowling alley (with an arcade) literally a block away from my house was closed and demolished in 2008, it'd been open for like 30 years ;_; I lost track of how many quarters I spent there when I was growing up, just playing all the games.. It makes me smile to remember it, even if there is just a pile of rubble there now. (The owners sold out to some condominium project, condos have been going up everywhere lately these past few years). We even had a highschool anime/DDR club that revolved around usual club activities and weekly screenings, and then staying fit by playing DDR together for hours afterward.

I made a lot of lasting, true friendships from meeting people in our arcade community. So I think it's important that arcades should be around, always. It's an unrivalled social gaming experience in my opinion~

[Chaos Greyblood]

I used to play a lot of DDR and PiU in my college years on weekends, but since I'm not exactly skilled I usually play on Light or Easy mode respectively. I also played Drummania once or twice, but never the DJ games. I'm a total noob with that.

[Kaorin]

I actually played PiU before DDR, with PiU being my first rhythm game ever when they location tested it at the former arcade by my place. After the test was over they replaced it with DDR. What got me switching over to the DJ games was that I'd noticed on DDR, many of the songs that I liked were from beatmania IIDX/other Bemani games. Also, around when DDR Supernova came out, I'd already been able to pass every song on every difficulty, even on doubles, and I wanted to take up a new challenge. From there, I found out about the hidden world of custom user-made BMS files and then from there, found the DJMAX series (which also contains a lot of songs by artists that I wish to support).

[Chaos Greyblood]

Then there's Guitarmania, which actually predates Guitar Hero. Not many know this, however.

[Jase]

It's mind boggling to me how people couldn't, but I already stopped being surprised at that sort of ignorance lol

[RoadBuster]

Well, I know around here there were no GuitarMania machines. I only knew about it through AnimeCons.