Share your VO experience or history

Discuss the Virtual-On series.
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DarK-SuN
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by DarK-SuN »

Knoxximus wrote:Wow, DarK-SuN...playing in mirror mode like that?!? That's pretty damn hardcore, my man! :shock:
I was very much crazy and totally hardcore for VOOT back in those days, it payed off when playing with having an actual view of what I was doing, since I ended up having a lot more "pilot-VR connection" with Apharmd-B like that, to put it in some way. :)

From the few pics I could see of VOOT 5.66's 360 training mode, it won't be possible to do that (or didn't seem to anyway), which is a pity, but I won't mind since I'll have the game anyway. :D
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by Knoxximus »

DarK-SuN wrote:
Knoxximus wrote:Wow, DarK-SuN...playing in mirror mode like that?!? That's pretty damn hardcore, my man! :shock:
I was very much crazy and totally hardcore for VOOT back in those days, it payed off when playing with having an actual view of what I was doing, since I ended up having a lot more "pilot-VR connection" with Apharmd-B like that, to put it in some way. :)

From the few pics I could see of VOOT 5.66's 360 training mode, it won't be possible to do that (or didn't seem to anyway), which is a pity, but I won't mind since I'll have the game anyway. :D
You might be able with the system link option maybe. Set up a 2-player match, and both you and opponent play on his TV. :lol:
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somepunk
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by somepunk »

Quite the waste of resources, Knoxximus! This man needs only one screen! Oh, and welcome once more DarK-SuN!
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by DarK-SuN »

Knoxximus wrote:
DarK-SuN wrote:
Knoxximus wrote:Wow, DarK-SuN...playing in mirror mode like that?!? That's pretty damn hardcore, my man! :shock:
I was very much crazy and totally hardcore for VOOT back in those days, it payed off when playing with having an actual view of what I was doing, since I ended up having a lot more "pilot-VR connection" with Apharmd-B like that, to put it in some way. :)

From the few pics I could see of VOOT 5.66's 360 training mode, it won't be possible to do that (or didn't seem to anyway), which is a pity, but I won't mind since I'll have the game anyway. :D
You might be able with the system link option maybe. Set up a 2-player match, and both you and opponent play on his TV. :lol:
Oh yeah, didn't even think of that, it'd work! :lol:

And thanks, somepunk. :)
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by Testament/Seven7 »

Only problem with that would be how expensive 2 360's would be for it...unless you can con a friend into letting you borrow one, add a crossover cable, or whatever's needed for system link, and your good ^^
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by RVR - 42 »

somepunk wrote:Quite the waste of resources, Knoxximus! This man needs only one screen! Oh, and welcome once more DarK-SuN!
Haha when it comes to training in VO...there's no such thing as wasted resources!! *echoes* But yea mirror mode is very helpful when going back to actual playing view...I used to mess around with that some too Dark-Sun. *high fives*
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Dudley
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by Dudley »

So one day back in '95 or '96, my family takes me out to a local amusement park. They try their hardest to keep me out of the arcade, but I eventually manage to sneak away long enough to start looking for Cybersled, a B.O.T.S machine, or one of the many interesting 2-D fighters that were popular back then. I never found any of them, because about halfway in I spotted a VOOM cabinet and my brain got blasted by an ali-02r "Telefunken" Laser Irradiator* for 60% damage and knockdown. I think I stood there for about three minutes just beholding the awesomeness before I sat down and managed to stop my hand from shaking long enough to get the quarters in.

So... VR select screen comes up. I think, "Hey, this blue guy looks cool, like the sword, but isn't the first one usually some handicapped 'newbie-friendly' character? Naaah... I want that big guy I saw with the cookie bomb thing."
*dink*
"Buh? Pink? Ew..."
*dink*
"Ooh, a hammer! INDUSTRIAL PUMPKIN-MECH SMASH!! Maybe next game..."
*dink*
"Hey, is this the cookie-bomb guy? It says he has Napalm; that must be it. Wonder what else they've got..."
*dink*
"Wha? No legs? Mines...something...Ring Bolt? Uh..."
*dink*
"Generic army guy. Boring. What the hell is a tongfer?"
*dink*
"..."
*dink*
"Wait, maybe this guy has the cookie bomb... But he's last. I don't wanna play as the boss."
*dink*dink*dink*dink*dink*
"Yay napalm!" *LW* "whoah..."

I only got to play a couple games, and I didn't really remember anything afterwards except a bit of music, the awesome flame wall attack, and a vague sense of awe such as might be felt when one has accidentally discovered a powerful artifact of some mysterious future race. A couple years passed, and I spotted the game again at a newly-opened indoor entertainment center. Two teenagers were playing a versus match on Green Hills, doing lots of air attacks and making fun of Fei Yen's "love beam". The guy on the right side eventually left, so I sat down, chose versus, and picked the guy I remembered from last time: Belgdor. I don't remember if I won or not, but I remember deciding that a tan Belgdor with blue napalm was the spiffiest-looking mech in the entire universe. Also, falling down sucks. :x

Fast forward a few more years. I'm a freshman at college, and they've just replaced the rec room's Daytona USA machine with VOOM. The same people who taught me how to play fighting games turn out to be VO fans, and much fun is had by all. This one kid named Kev was a good match for my skill level, and I had a great time fighting his Viper2 and Temjin with my Belgdor and Apharmd. We also had a couple people who were just insanely good with Viper2 and Apharmd, and I would be lucky to win one round against them. It was AWESOME. I spent lots of time reading Tirah's guide online, practicing new moves between classes, and asking stupid questions on the SydVOC forum.

We also heard rumors of a new VO around this time, and while most were skeptical, we all wanted to try it. Unfortunately, there were 50 miles of water between us and the nearest VOOT machine, so I didn't get to play it until I bought a Dreamcast a couple years ago. It's a good game, but without the arcade machine and some good competition, it just wasn't the same. I'm hoping the 360 release will solve the latter problem. :D

*model name and part number for VOOM Raiden's Laser cannons (Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Graphics Perspective, page 100)
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by MentholMoose »

Welcome to the forum, Dudley!!
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by Aya Kyunik »

lol, reading some of these storys brings back memories!

Guess I'll throw in my 5 cents ( we don't have 2 cent coins anymore ;_; )

Earliest memory of VO was back in 1996, the now gone Timezone amusement park on Bourke street in Melbourne had VOOM (OMG...or whatever, I dunno how people refer to them thesedays) right at the front of the arcade. I watched some guy play before he had to go without finishing. So, being the poor kid I was, I sat down in the awesome cabinet, and tried my hand at the Viper II which was getting a beat down by the AI Viper II. Since I was pretty young, I got my ass handed to be by none other than Dorkas...

Anyway, it was years later in 2000 when I found some people who also played it, and it was then that I started my VO career. Got involved with SydVOC forums, founded MelVOC, had some cool times here and there, I even remember the VOPBeM RPG. There were Oratan machines around but most were too far for us to get together regularly. Eventually the social games at the arcade died off and most of my closer VO friends started to rely on link-cable battles on the DC, which was awesome. Hell, one of the buddies managed to get in contact with a Japanese guy who happily helped us get twin sticks. We had quite a bit of fun especially with the japanese guy showing us a few tricks. A funny moment was when we first played with him, he was surprised during a match that we set the machines to deathmatch XD

So yea... it's nice seeing old faces from the SydVOC days!

Oh, it's also nice to see a few aussies, it'll be good to play online without the mega-lag that an onverseas player would have.
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by Long Shadow »

Welcome to the forums Aya.

I agree, it is nice to so many (relatively) Aussies here.

Also, that VOOM (OMG) machine you mentioned is also the same one I first saw.
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DarK-SuN
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by DarK-SuN »

Welcome to the forum, Aya. :)
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by Henshin1 »

Welcome dudley and aya!

Woohoo more melbourne folk! :D

The first Virtual-On machine i saw was the VOOT 5.66 machine in Highpoint. I started a bit late :P
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by DarK-SuN »

Henshin1 wrote:Welcome dudley and aya!

Woohoo more melbourne folk! :D

The first Virtual-On machine i saw was the VOOT 5.66 machine in Highpoint. I started a bit late :P
Better late than never. :D
Good VO game to start with too. :)
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by VMS »

In 1996, my friend showed me VO on Saturn. I thought "what the hell kind of game is this? you push a button and... nothing happens... or... it happens later... everything is timed. No thanks, you have fun with this game, I'll go play whatever I want".

The same friend pestered me into getting the Netlink adaptor the following year, so I had VO. Tried it a little... just something to experiment on with friends, I thought. Another friend urged me not to give it up, and he sort of created a monster over time.

When I started to realize how good the game was, I searched for advanced techniques online, getting the most help from FAQs and messages on the SiVOC site (I think? Singapore VO Club? Man it's been a long time). Things like sword canceling, rising 4 technique, proper vectoring, strafing crouching shots & melee techniques. Teaching these things to my friends created better competition, and then someone started a nationwide Netlink VO ranking web site. We were ready.

The VO Netlink scene was short-lived but intense. It took place in '97-'98 - that's about it. A guy named Rayblade was always #1 and he was pretty much untouchable. He customized his Temjin with bright pink & green colors that kind of messed with your head, preparing you for the kill. A few of us hovered around the #2 spot, trading places every time a new match or tournament was won. It's funny how there can be some top-tier players, and then one guy who is just alien with his skills.

For those unfamiliar with Netlink, it was a 28.8kbps dial-up modem available for Sega Saturn in the USA, compatible with only a few games, VO:OMG one of them. VO performed quite well on the device. All games were direct-dial, meaning you dialed your competitor's phone line, often times long distance, but it was always worth it :mrgreen:
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by DarK-SuN »

That sounds like it was really cool, VMS. :)
Since I'm from Europe we never got the Netlink service over here, so I was limited to some friends who were also VO players at the time.
Curse SEGA for not bringing it here at the time, I'd have been all over it. :P
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by RVR - 42 »

Hhahah! Dudley...*dink* Nice stories people. So great to see new faces[avatars] and backgrounds with such an amazing series. Welcome all! :)
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by LordOfMeep »

I guess I should introduce myself here.

While I had heard of Virtual On and was interested in it for quite a while, I never got much of a chance to play it, mostly due to never getting to spend much time in arcades and not owning any Sega consoles since the Genesis (What can I say, my parents rarely bought more than one console for me and I leaned Nintendo).

During my brief time in college (The full details of which I don't wanna talk about), however, one thing that caught my eye was that the Student Union had an arcade, more importantly, it had a Virtual On machine. It was quite an odd cabinet, too, because while it was a Japanese VOOM/OMG cabinet, the actual game in the machine was Japanese VOOT 5.4, and the DNA and RNA sides were mixed up (DNA on the right, RNA on the left).
I was one of the few people that played frequently, among a handful of other regulars; people in that arcade usually played either Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs. SNK 2 or DDR. We had a Specineff main (Who made a hobby out of wrecking Ajim), a Bal main, a Dordray main who also played Battler, a few Temjin mains, a Cypher main, a Raiden main who didn't play often, a close friend of mine who was a Fei-Yen main, and I was the Angelan main, though I also played Temjin, Grys-Vok, or Battler on occasion, but never quite got proficient with them.

When I wasn't playing against the other regulars (Or random folk who tried to get into the game but just couldn't), I was doing 1-credit runs of the single-player game. Another funny thing about that machine - matches against the CPU were best of 3 (Except for Bradtos and Tangram, of course), and player matches were best of 5. As cool as that was (It meant more game for your quarter!) it basically made getting a high score next to impossible, since there were already scores made with the 1-match-only standard option of VOOT's single-player.

I had a lot of fun playing VOOT back then, and I remember telling the other VOOT players about 5.66, thinking we'd never get to play it, I'm glad I'm finally going to be wrong about that.
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by MentholMoose »

Wow, very cool, it sounds like your school had a relatively popular scene! My school had a standard OMG machine, but I only ever cared about VOOT, so I don't know if anyone ever played. Did you keep in touch with any of those players, or know if they will be playing VER.5.66 online?
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by LordOfMeep »

MentholMoose wrote:Wow, very cool, it sounds like your school had a relatively popular scene! My school had a standard OMG machine, but I only ever cared about VOOT, so I don't know if anyone ever played. Did you keep in touch with any of those players, or know if they will be playing VER.5.66 online?
Sadly no. Never really got any contact information, and didn't know I'd be leaving college as soon as I did...

EDIT: To clarify, this was at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Though the one friend I do talk to rarely said that later the VOOT machine eventually left. There's only one other guy from Vegas on these forums and his experience with VO seems rather limited to be among our old group.
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Re: Share your VO experience or history

Post by Knoxximus »

LordOfMeep wrote:
MentholMoose wrote:Wow, very cool, it sounds like your school had a relatively popular scene! My school had a standard OMG machine, but I only ever cared about VOOT, so I don't know if anyone ever played. Did you keep in touch with any of those players, or know if they will be playing VER.5.66 online?
Sadly no. Never really got any contact information, and didn't know I'd be leaving college as soon as I did...

EDIT: To clarify, this was at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Though the one friend I do talk to rarely said that later the VOOT machine eventually left. There's only one other guy from Vegas on these forums and his experience with VO seems rather limited to be among our old group.
Hey, I went to UNLV too (1998 - 2000). What year was this? When I was there, the union had a big screen Tekken 3 machine, MvC2, and some other odds and ends.

Who else in here is from Vegas? Are you still out here? I just took 3rd place at a SF4 tourney at the Game Crazy on Nellis/Stewart last night. 8-)
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