Neo Geo vs A1200

[spirantho]

The NeoGeo is THE best 2D platform, no exceptions.
Massive graphics, big levels all with no loading time, an awesome joystick as standard, great sound and some fantastic games (I'm looking at you, Metal Slug....).
You have two options: the AES (which I have) is the home console. Looks good and comes with  by far the best joystick I've seen on a home console. The problem is that the games vary from cheap to massively expensive, with the great games like MS selling for hundreds of dollaris/pounds/euros.
The MVS needs a supergun and so has no joystick or nice case. The games are identical but are not interoperable with the AES. Of course the games are just grey carts with a bit of paper... no snazzy artworked plastic cases here.

The big problem with the NeoGeo is the lack of games. If you don't like shooters, sports and most of all beat-'em-ups then the NeoGeo is not for you.

The NeoGeo has it's drawbacks but it's simply an awesome machine.... if you can afford it. Each game is expensive but this does mean you play them more.

I'm not selling mine, that's for sure!

(ans of course, an emulator will give you a taste, but it's nowhere near the same as the real thing in my opinion.)

[spirantho]

I think to many people, an emulator is "good enough". I don't know why, but it just never has been good enough for me. Maybe it's the slight latencies between the controller and the display, or the display and the sound, or the occasional jerk of animation... I don't know. But there's no way I would ever use an emulator in place of my Neo Geo AES.  Similarly, I don't use UAE unless there's a good reason to - I always use my real Miggies where I can... and emulator just isn't the same.

The best option is to find a Neo Geo arcade machine somewhere (there are still some around if you look hard enough!) and imagine having it in your home.

Over the years I've spent much more money on my Neo Geo than I'd like my wife to know about ( before I met her ) as I used to have more of the folding stuff that I could spend. But even now, I don't regret buying those games that I did, and they weren't all cheap. I still like a good Metal Slug session with my MS 3, 4 or 5 carts, and there's nothing quite like the true original NeoGeo versions. Last Resort is an excellent shooter - another of my favourites - and games like Sengoku III are still very entertaining.

Is it just a psychological thing? Quite possibly. But the important thing is that the enjoyment I get from it is real.

Incidentally, anyone with a NeoGeo AES should get a Universe BIOS. This lets you play the games in Japanese (with red blood but Japanese text) or American (fake blood but English text), and also lets you pretend to the cartridge that your AES is an MVS (the arcade machine) - all NeoGeo carts are the same, they read your console to find out what kind of machine it is, and the Universe BIOS lets you change these, and put in pokes for infinite lives and stuff. Very cool.

[spirantho]

If you want to play downloaded games, buy a Neo Geo CD! Not the same, but close as long as you don't mind loading times, and the original games are much cheaper too.

[spirantho]

Exactly - it's not "superior", it's different. The A1200 isn't a console, the NeoGeo is.... but when it comes to arcade games, the NeoGeo will thrash the A1200 every time because the hardware is SO powerful. There's no way the A1200 could throw 2D sprites around like the NeoGeo.

Difficult to run a text adventure on a NeoGeo, though. And anything that doesn't benefit from lots of large sprites is not really designed for the NG.

I say buy it, and if you don't like it, sell it for the same price you bought it for.

[spirantho]

The NeoGeo in fact ONLY has sprites. From memory, I believe the backgrounds you see are actually sprites of 32 pixels by 200 or whatever the height is. This is why NeoGeo games have parallax and things so easily - it's just lots of really tall sprites (the NG has no height limit on its sprites).

[spirantho]

If that's the case, I'm curious what the "simultaneous scroll planes" thing is about...?

Good question. I'm not sure what it refers to, but Wikipedia just kind of throws that in there as a spec so I guess it means something.
I don't think it's what it sounds like, though - at least, not how we Amiga users think of it.

Looks like my memory was correct, though:

Unlike most other video game consoles of its time, the Neo Geo does not use tilemap background layers. Instead, it relies exclusively on drawing sprites to create the background. Sprites are vertical strips which are 16 pixels wide, and can be 16 to 512 pixels tall. By laying multiple sprites side by side, the system can simulate a background layer.

[spirantho]

sorry i have to be honest,  having owned a Neo Geo the sound is awful at least the Amiga has nicer 'composed' music.   I would rather play on a CD32 than a Neo Geo, BUT buy both and decide for yourself is my personal advice.

I think it depends on the game... but you need to remember that the NeoGeo games are made for a different market -they're made for the Arcade, so it has to be loud and "in-your-face".

Certainly the NG sound hardware is better than Paula - Paula has 16-bit sound at 22KHz (usually), whereas the NG has 15 channel sound, sampling at up to 55.5KHz (though I don't think all channels can do this). You'd expect it to be better, though - Paula was created in 1984/5 and never changed, whereas the NG sound chip I think came later.

I've certainly never had a problem with NG sound, but I don't think musical compositions are NeoGeo games' strong points, no. If you're going to compare with the CD32, though, you should compare the NeoGeo CD, which of course has CD Audio too (and some great soundtracks).

[spirantho]

The CD machines suffer from loooong loading times, but they are a good entry point and are cheaper and easier to find than the NeoGeo AES (nobody wants them as much!).

The 2d fighters are not all rubbish, though... some of them are excellent. Personally I'd rather play a good 2D beat-em-up than Virtua Fighter any day, and some of them aren't in the hundreds of dollars.
All a matter of taste though.