Neo Geo and More
Tuesday November 19, 2024
I’m a little late making this post. A few months ago, I got another MiSTercade because I missed playing horizontal games. Since I knew I’d be switching between the MiSTercade and the Naomi pretty often, I wanted to make the process as easy as possible. I had a coworker cut me this board, then I mounted the Naomi to it.
I don’t intend on sliding the whole Naomi out very often, but this at least keeps everything organized and in place. Before this, everything was in one big ugly pile. I’ve become pretty efficient at swapping the JAMMA harness, kick harness, and RCA cables. The one thing that isn’t perfect is the power supply. Long story short, I’ve been using a power supply with the Naomi that I don’t really need.
Power Supply Context
The power supply inside the Blast is perfectly suited to run a Naomi. Back when I was having issues with the Naomi freezing, I bought a Sun PSU hoping it would fix my problem. It didn't. Once my problem was solved, I kept using the Sun PSU, because it seemed crazy to start fucking with it again. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Since the whole point of this new wooden board was to make things easier when I'm messing around inside the cab, I figured it was time to sort out the power situation. I got a multimeter, tweaked the voltages on the Blast PSU, and got nothing when I turned it all on. I had adjusted the voltages while everything was off, not while it was under load and running a game, so that's probably why I was getting a black screen. One day I will go back and fix it, but it isn't really bothering me at the moment.
Since getting this second MiSTercade, I have been playing a lot of CPS2 games and more Neo Geo games than ever. The button layout isn’t perfect for Neo Geo, but there isn’t much I can do about that since I still need a 2L12B control panel for my precious 6 button fighting games. My half-assed “fix” was to get Neo Geo colored buttons.
This should help when non-gamers come over. I understand that the “how to play” screen showing a red button labeled “A” when the machine only has unlabeled green buttons is confusing.
Here some of the games I’ve been playing a lot, ranked by playtime:
- Progear. I already gushed over this game in my post about shmups. Since that post, I have convinced a couple of people to try Progear, and I have played a lot of multiplayer with my cousin. I’m kind of surprised that he likes the game. After a particularly bad Mr. Do run, my girlfriend asked in a concerned tone, “Jimmy, are you a gamer?” and he promptly replied “No”.
- Neo Turf Masters. I wasn’t sure if I’d like a golf game, but playing this with 2 players is really fun. I have only ever seen this game abandoned with credits still in it, which I now understand because of how long 18 holes takes. Yelling “BUNKED” every time my girlfriend hits a bunker and “ON THE GWEEN” every time I’m on the green will never get old.
- Alien vs. Predator. I’m not very familiar with beat ’em ups, but this is my favorite one so far. The Predator Hunter’s jump combos are so fun to do. Maybe one day I’ll be able to do the crazy shit with Linn where she throws the aliens all over the place.
- Magical Drop 3. My girlfriend and I both thought we were good until we got slaughtered by everten at EC3 in Connecticut.
This has nothing to do with the Blast, but I wanted to mention it because it is the story of my life. I brought this freshly configured MiSTercade to my friends Halloween party, since he has an Astro City and wanted to run Vampire Savior. Two guys sit down to play, but they can’t stop opening the MiSTer menu every time they try to pushblock. Both of them walk away from the cab in frustration. Fuck my life. Whatever. At least now I know I need to change the menu shortcut to something other than LP + HK.
I also just realized how it may be lame that these “repair logs” have been reduced to me posting about some buttons and a piece of wood, but anything is better than dealing with a dead monitor. I’ll fix the terrible speakers one day.