May 13th-15th 1999
After flying to LA and fighting through the insane highways (my NGPC with me, of course), I finally arrived at the LA convention center. After hogging some Dreamcast playtime, I made my way to the SNK booth tucked into the far corner of the South Hall.

Behold, the Booth!

SNK's booth was very slick and professional, with a more relaxed vibe than all the other booths...rather refreshing. There was a large NGPC mockup hanging from the roof, showing off various games on its giant screen (and surprisingly, the graphics looked pretty good even at that size). The booth had a small desk with promotional goodies on it, and about 10 kiosks placed around the area. The kiosks were divided into Genres, like Fighting, Sports, Puzzle, etc. Each one contained 4 NGPC units, and featured 2 different titles available for play (at that particular kiosk). After taking a look around, I talked with SNK's PR director, got some info, and got to try out some very cool titles.

Giant NGPC

System Info:
The NGPC will be available for sale Online at SNKUSA.Com on JUNE 1st, 1999 for only 69.99. The system is also planned for a Retail Launch sometime in August/September, 1999. It will be available in 6 color casings (Platnum Silver, Blue, Anthracite, Aqua Blue, Stone Blue, Clear). Also, 10 games will be available at Launch, with a total of 20 planned until the end of the year. Titles will range from $24.99 to $34.99. Confirmed software includes:

  • King of Fighters R-1
  • Baseball Stars Color
  • Pocket Tennis Color
  • Neo Dragon's Wild
  • Neo Chery Master Color
  • Neo Mystery Bonus
  • Puzzle Bobble Mini
  • Crush Roller
  • Neo Geo Cup 98 Plus Color
  • Fatal Fury: 1st Contact
  • Metal Slug: 1st Mission
  • Samurai Shodown! 2
  • Dive Alert - Burn
  • Dive Alert - Rebecca
  • Neo 21
  • Neo Baccart
  • Neo Turf Master
  • Puyo Puyo
  • The Last Blade
  • Pocket Bass Fishing

    Also confirmed for release in the US is the Radio Link. The only confirmed titles supporting it are the 2 versions of Dive Alert (each staring a different character). Other accessories include Neck and Wrist straps, the Link Cable, and an AC Power adapter.

    Video screens

    Hands-on Previews
    Almost every currently available title was on display, along with many that are soon to be released, such as Magical Drop, Samurai Shodown! 2, and Fatal Fury: 1st Contact. Titles shown included:

  • King of Fighters R-2
  • Neo Geo Cup 98 Plus Color
  • Pocket Tennis Color
  • Neo Cherry Master Color
  • Neo Dragon's Wild
  • Fatal Fury: 1st Contact
  • Samurai Shodown! 2
  • Magical Drop
  • Baseball Stars Color
  • Crush Roller
  • Metal Slug

    Fatal Fury: 1st Contact
    I was expecting, basically, a version of KOF R-2 with different characters. What I found, however, was Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 perfectly ported to the small screen. The controls and physics are dead-on, and the graphics are even better than KOF R-2. The characters seemed a bit larger (?), and a bit more colorful. The backgrounds are insane. They look like they were pulled right out of an arcade machine! Very impressive in every aspect - this is yet another must-have.

    Samurai Shodown! 2
    I was instantly impressed by the whole layout of the game. It really has its own style, and it's nice to see something not so Cookie Cutter-ish. Once again, I was very impressed with the super high quality background graphics. The character sprites also seem a bit bigger and smoother than in Samurai Shodown 1. The gameplay feels very much like Samurai Shodown 2 (yes!!), and the character roster is very cool! Although only a handful were playable, there's just a ton more little bonuses this time. Wanna fight as the cloaked ref? He's in there! The game also features a sort of Making Mode, like in KOF R-2. This time, cards are collected, and you can choose which 2 cards you wish to use in battle. With each one giving you a different skill. Start saving your money for this one.

    Magical Drop
    To be honest, I didn't spend much time with this one at all. You can imagine why...ahem! I'm not a big puzzle fan, but this one seemed just as fine as any other puzzle game...although rather lacking, graphically. It could have been the lighting, but it looked more like a black&white title running in Simulated Color Mode.

    Crush Roller
    Yes, this one's already out in Japan, but I've seen virtually nobody talking about it. I just had to give it a try...and I'm glad I did. It's very much like Pac-Man, but insted of eating dots, you paint streets. Very unusual concept, but pretty fun. Select your character and paint as fast as you can! Watch out for those monsters though, if they should happen to bump into you, you're dead. Each stage is multi-layered, so there are little over/underpasses to watch out for. Also, going off the side of the screen will cause you to warp into the other side...just like in Pac-Man.

    Koudelka promo

    Overall, I was very impressed with SNK's showing, not only for the great products on display, but also because of how motivated SNK is about this system, and how much faith they have in it. SNKUSA hasn't always been very relyable, and I honestly wasn't expecting much out of them this year. But their fantastic efforts at E3 give me a lot of faith that the NGPC will find success in North America. And it's also worth mentioning that the NGPC booth was easily as, if not more, popular than Nintendo's Game Boy Color display. With its cool software lineup, low price, and Word-of-Mouth success, the NGPC has what seems to be a bright future. Keep up the good work, SNK.

    SNK 'Booth-Babe'