Neo-Geo

"Arcade in a Box"

SNK, a Japanese video game company first released the MVS, or Multi-Video System into the arcades in 1989. This MVS cabinet was revolutionary in that it had cartridge slots for multiple games in one cab. For instance some MVS cabs could hold two games, others could hold four, and some had six cart slots. The MVS cabinet was very powerful for its time, and fourteen years later is still having games released on it. Recognizing a good thing right away SNK developed a home version of its arcade hardware, which was an exact replica of the MVS cabinet. The Neo-Geo Advanced Home Entertainment System replicated the MVS hardware perfectly and for the first time in history, brought arcade-quality ports into the living rooms of video gamers everywhere. No longer would you have to settle for watered-down ports of your favorite arcade games, but instead could purchase a picture-perfect home cart of all your favorite SNK arcade hits. This came at a price however, with the Neo-Geo weighing in at an initial price of 650 dollars, with either NAM-1975 or Baseball Stars packed in and two arcade-quality joysticks.

The Neo-Geo featured full-size, sturdy, heavy joysticks with four large buttons instead of small gamepads. This really brought the arcade experience home to the Neo owner. Also bringing home the arcade feel were the carts themselves, they are large like the size of VCR tapes and contain an unbelievable amount of RAM. Due to the fact that the Neo-Geo console itself has hardly any system RAM, it was the cartridges that contained all the information and therefore had to store massive amounts of memory, which called for a larger proprietary design in the cart size. Considering the age of the SNK Neo-Geo Advanced Entertainment System, the specifications on it are still amazing. Let's take a look under the hood at just what the Neo is packing hardware-wise.

The Neo-Geo features two processors, one is a Motorola 68000, which is 16-bit in its architecture. This processor can be found in the Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, and Sega Genesis consoles as well. The Motorola 68000 is aided by an 8-bit processor called the Z80, however, despite SNK's insistance that the addition of an 8-bit chip with a 16-bit chip must make the Neo 24-bits, this statement is not entirely true. Nevertheless the Neo has some very impressive credentials, such as a color palette of 65,536 colors, and a maximum of 4096 on-screen at any given time. This color palette is superior to all consoles in the 8- and 16-bit eras. Of course when you reach the 32-bitters you find consoles much more powerful than the Neo, however, for its time, the Neo-Geo is a quite spectacular machine. 380 sprites could be displayed on-screen, and the Neo-Geo had 8-FM synthesis and 7-Digital sound channels, which placed it on par with the SNES sound-wise, and far above the Genesis, Turbo-Grafx 16, and other relevant consoles of the time.

The Neo-Geo hardware wise was a solid piece of engineering, and duplicated the arcade MVS cabinet perfectly. With high-quality, sturdy joysticks employed as the input devices the Neo really felt like an arcade machine without the huge cabinet. The Neo home cart system featured two versions of the joystick, the original ones were bigger and more stable, allowing for the player to input directional commands with great ease. The second generation joysticks are lighter, and actually seem a bit stiffer and more difficult to pull off complex manuevers with. A very cool feature the Neo came with was a memory card which could be used to save your game progress at home, as well as in the arcade. You could play The King of Fighters (for example) at home, and then pick up the game where you left off on the same game in an arcade hall. This could be done with any game for the Neo-Geo. Basically this was the first system to ever use a memory card, and even though it did not catch on very well, it is still admirable that SNK had the vision to create the memory card for use in both arcade and home console use, as today's consoles all require memory cards for saving game data.

The Neo-Geo is very expensive for one reason, it duplicates arcade-quality graphics, perfectly, with no frameskips, no animation cuts, pure-uncut arcade action in your living room. The carts cost at least 250 dollars brand new because of the huge amount of RAM found within them. Some used games can be found for around 40 to 50 dollars if they are old, but this is the price of most brand new games on other systems. The Neo-Geo was not a cheap toy. It promised arcade-quality graphics, and delivered, but at a very high cost. The Neo is still being developed for to this day, which is a testament to the power of this console. Unfortunately, most of the games are centered around fighting, like the franchise flagships King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and World Heroes are all two-dimensional fighting games much in the same vein as the Capcom hit, Street Fighter 2. There are other games filling other genres, most notably being Twinkle Star Sprites, the Magical Drop series, and of course the Metal Slug series.

The Neo-Geo has a cult-like following even to this day, and you can see why when you place a Neo-Geo game side to side with a console port to any other 16-bit console. For instance, Fatal Fury Special, which happens to be one of my favorite Neo games and the very first one I played/owned, is severely butchered on the Sega Genesis, and while a bit better on the SNES, it still has many animation cuts, and some of the audio has been deleted as well. Even the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn consoles failed to perfectly duplicate Neo ports such as The King of Fighters 95, Metal Slug, and Samurai Shodown. This is truly a delight to the Neo owner, as he/she knows they own the real deal while others have to settle for watered-down ports of the classic Neo games. The fee for entrance into the Neo-Geo club is high, but if you love arcade-quality games and are a 2D fighting fan freak (like I used to be) then the Neo-Geo is definately worth taking a look at. Oh yes, having a fat wallet also helps the Neo collector. If possible pick up a Neo system unused, these are available, mainly overseas models, which also play American games, in English too. This makes importing games very easy, and essentially guarantees the Neo player that he/she will not miss out on an exciting game title simply because it doesn't make it to the States. Simply import it from Japan, plug it in your Neo and press play.

Perhaps the high cost of the Neo is justified, considering it brings the complete arcade experience into your home, and is so user-friendly that even a novice gamer can play imports with the greatest of ease. Truly a legendary system in its own right the Neo-Geo is a collectors item and true arcade fans will not be disappointed with this entry into the home console market. The Neo-Geo is that good, and even now, in 2004, the games being released for it are simply stunning visually and continue to raise the ante for what the Neo can do graphically. At first glance the Neo had a peak of 330 megabytes per game, but now it has been discovered that the Neo can contain up to one gigahertz of RAM per cart. This is mighty impressive for a machine that was released with the Turbo-Grafx 16, Sega Genesis, and was released a full two years before the Super Nintendo. If you can afford it, I recommend the Neo to just about anyone, owning one of these bad boys is enough to make any of your gaming friends envious. If you have never played a Neo-Geo game, check out your local arcade hall, I'm sure you'll find an MVS Cabinet there with several Neo games waiting for you. Once you see for yourself just what the Neo hardware is capable of, you may just find yourself counting pennies and searching for a second job to pay for your newest addiction, Neo-Geo gaming.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/04