Florence, SC is Southtown, baby!

[the7k]

Hey, what's up? My name is the7k.

While my first KOF was KOF'99, SNK has actually been strong in this particular pocket of the south. Rewind to about 20 years ago, and Neo Geo cabinets literally flooded this area. You'd be hard-pressed to walk into any theater or sit-down restaurant without seeing at least one 4-slot cabinet. And they actually got pretty popular - Samurai Shodown II, for example, actually had more hype in my neck of the woods than either Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter. It was somethin' else. That, combined with our high crime rate, had me often referring to this city as "South Town".

But yeah, while SNK was popular, KOF hardly saw any action outside of dedicated arcades. Games like Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, Magical Drop and Metal Slug were more the face of SNK than anything else here. I didn't actually get into KOF until I picked up KOF'99 on the PSX. After that, I became an instant fan.

Of course, with the death of arcades, SNK is nothing more than a distant memories. While I'm surprised to see non-gamers still remember Metal Slug and other SNK staples, about the only arcades we see anymore - which is, of course, very rare - are just Ms.Pac/Galagas and Golden Tee/Brunswick Bowling. Sad state of affairs.

Fortunately, we did have a Chuck E Cheese here, and they actually had KOFXI. It was weird being the only adult there, but considering KOFXI was not yet confirmed for US release, I played the hell out of it. Beat the game with every combination of characters, just to see their ending.

Good times.

Well, as for now, I'm working a soul-crushing job where I get very little respect, but enough money to buy arcade cabs about every month or so. When I'm not doing that, I'm playing KOFXIII. And when I'm not doing that... I'm trying to figure out how to open an arcade in my city that won't just be a kiddie-gambling joint. And of course, that arcade will have my two Neo Geo cabs (working on getting a third), as well as an Atomiswave running KOFXI, along with the about 12 or so other cabs I've collected over the years. I'm not trying to open up an arcade to make a ton of money (I just want it to sustain itself) - I'm trying to open up an arcade so that we can have a serious fighting game scene here.

So yeah, that's my story. Hoping to build up my own skills, so that I might be able to transfer them to my peers. I'll make a fighting game community in my area even if it is the end of me.

[solidshark]

Seriously, the one place I didn't look for XI in America - a f__king Chuck E Cheese.

But anyway, welcome to the DC community. This is a great place to talk KOF and level-up. Glad to know there was a great pocket of the US that may have well been Southtown. Play well the7k

[Rex Dart]

Welcome to DC!

I hope you can make your arcade a reality someday, but, until then, have fun learning XIII. 

[the7k]

Thanks guys, I appreciate it!

Looking forward to doing forum stuffs.