fan rambling from Brazil

Hello;

I've been lurking around this board for many months, and don't quite know why I haven't posted anything yet but anyway, here goes a bit about the gaming life down here.

I'm a VF enthusiast from Brazil, and there is absolutely no street competition here. Even back in '97, when VF3 was young, the general audience simply wasn't drawn to it, or didn't care to learn the system yadda yadda yadda; I suppose it's the same story everywhere. Now, so many years down the road, not a single TB board has made its way here, and the very, very few VF3 cabinets are rotting away at overpriced snot-nosed-kid infested malls.

The (ever-dwindling) competitive arcade scene here appears to revolve around 2D games (especially SNK's continuously decaying King of Fighters series) and, how could it be different, Tekken. In the arcade I frequent, there are no less than 3 Tekken machines hooked up one Tekken 3 and two TTT, always littered with non-proficient scrubs, their mouth agape in awe at the random happenings on the screen.

I really like the concept of fighting games, and exploiting the different systems it appears to me that it's one of the last solaces for skill-based gaming, at least to some extent. So I play some of everything that comes up but always longing for some VF gaming, always my favourite, and that can only be had at home.

I have just one sparring mate, who's been around since the VF2 days, and we have great fun when we do play, but that's becoming rarer and rarer, and it's too bad that there's no one else even remotely interested in the thing.

I've introduced a number of people to the game, done my share of preaching, but it's always the same evasive reaction that I get. I've gone to great lengths to procur some VF3 PCB (even OB), but the shipping costs for any Model 3 board (due to the incredible bulk) down to Brazil are simply outrageous. Even so, I was willing to pay whatever was necessary, but every single channel that I tried backed out for whatever reason. I even tried contacting some PCB firms in Japan, but to no luck. I had hopes that introducing a VF machine in a decent arcade location would inspire some competition, but maybe that's just an illusion. The owners of the place are incredibly bone-headed, as well always preaching the mantra that Tekken is what sells, it doesn't pay off to buy a VF PCB, even for a much reduced price as it is nowadays. Well, that's market economy, but I still hope I can get a board out of my own pocket to inspire some VF gaming around. Dead hopes, probably, especially now.

And I'm saying all this with VF-X just a few months away... I'm pretty sure that it will be even a harder-to-find machine here, but at least a Gameworks arcade was recently opened in Rio de Janeiro, and that is a relatively safe bet, since it's partially Sega-owned, at least for awhile while the game is still new (i.e. There were no VF3, TB or OB, machines to be found there pity). Regular arcade operators are just too cheap to even buy current Naomi boards the only Naomi-based game I ever saw installed properly in this wretched country was the latest version of Virtua Striker (it figures). There's an ongoing, illegal crappy trend of adapting Dreamcasts for cabinets and using switch-operators for credit... cheap&dirty, and utterly ridiculous. So I mourn early for not being able to play VF-X to the extent I'd like... or maybe I'll just sell my car and import the whole damn thing

Anyway, I'm getting really long-winded, so I'm going to cut this short. My favourite VF characters currently are Aoi, Wolf and Akira... that's my current TB team. I don't know really what I could contribute to this board, but it does feel good to know I'm addressing some VF-familiar people.

On a side-note, inspired by a recent thread, I'd like to hear more opinions on Fighting Vipers 2. I'm thinking about importing the DC conversion, but I'm not familiar with the game at all; I just played a couple of sessions of FV1 back in the day, and it didn't strike me as a particularly mature game insofar as gameplay is concerned, but that's a very hasty assumption, and perhaps the sequel has improved on areas of the original. My question is, is the game system worthwhile? I'm a big fan of the entire VF system, of course, but I don't know how much of it applies in this case. I love AM2's games as a rule of thumb, though... and, more importantly, I trust the team... I don't think they'd ever willingly slip out a clunker

Thanks for listening,
Manoel

 

Always good to see a new face. Welcome to the board!

http://www.vektorlogic.com/
They might be able to help you with your PCB needs!
Let us know how it all works out.

GE

 

Thanks for the welcome, and for the link - they're willing to ship to Brazil, and the price for the TB board is very reasonable - so, if everything works out, it'll be here soon. Their catalogue is actually very interesting, there are a few other PCBs I'm interested in - like the JAMMA VF2 board, but it's a little surprising to see a Model 2 game costing more than a Model 3 one...

anyway, cheers - and thanks again;
M.

 

hope it all works out well...

Welcome to the board...

<font color=red>SummErs' 'PSO '

 

Look for fightingvipers.net if you are interested on gameplay info about FV2.......