Great X Scape, College Mall, Bloomington

Discussion of arcades and other gaming locations with music/rhythm games

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Riot
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Post by Riot » Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:14 pm

Well then it's better, no? I'm talking about the PIUs I've played.
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Fluffyumpkins
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Post by Fluffyumpkins » Wed Feb 28, 2007 8:54 pm

My take on PIU. The game itself is pretty fun, and the degree of difficulty is much MUCH harder than DDR. That doesn't make it better or worse, just harder. I have a few beefs with the game.

* The difficulty ratings tend to be way off. You pretty much have to play the song to know how hard it is.

* The interface is confusing at first, and I imagine the same for beginners. Sure it isn't DDR, but DDR does have a pretty good interface. The fact that it keeps getting changed around is also a pain.

* I have no idea how to say Xenesis without sounding awkward.

Otherwis Pump has some great features. Less techno (which I personally don't like, but to each his own), better videos, better screen, better price, and SONGS THAT ARE ON SYNC. Nothing sucks more than picking a song in Supernova only to find that it isn't even close to on beat.

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Post by WhiteDragon » Wed Feb 28, 2007 10:39 pm

lgolem wrote:...DDR has been the same fucking thing since like 1st mix just more colors and more songs oh and speed mods were added after another fucking mix. You play one DDR you played them all.
You very obviously haven't played many versions of DDR. Try playing 3rd or 4th mix sometime. 3rd Mix's song selection is laid out pretty much the same way NX/Prex3(?) has it, and the song select for 4th is set up similar to that of Perfect Collection (both of which sucked massive ass).

DDR does have a better song selection interface, but the one on NX really isn't bad. Sure, it may take a few seconds to get used to, but that's what the little "how to use the interface" thing that comes up before you start is for.
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Post by Pheonixguy » Wed Feb 28, 2007 10:58 pm

I have no idea why, but i love pumps menu :?

And ddr changes a lot, idk where you would get that they all look the same

and lgolem is a little biased agenst ddr :)
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Post by lgolem » Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:05 pm

Pheonixguy wrote:And ddr changes a lot, idk where you would get that they all look the same
Well I played Extreme and Super Nova and the PS2 versions...those looked the same to me. :roll:

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Post by FLAKK » Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:19 pm

The rating system has never been completely correct. A song like For You is NOT a five skull. It's a two skull at best.

This is the most simplistic interface ever. Red changes difficulty, blue changes song, center chooses song. All of the truly useful codes are on the screen. I don't know how they can make it any easier. They changed the interface four times that I know of. From it being completely in Korean and the REALLY shitty interface that is Perfect Collection to the Premiere/Prex (and made it in English too) which is very simplistic and similar to the NX layout. Then comes Exceed and Exceed2. AM tried separating the music with channels. The codes would throw you off to another song at times. Zero tried to fix this by making one upper arrow change channel and the other change difficulty. This would still throw some people off (how, I don't know because I have not had a problem with it). With NX, AM went back to their roots and bring back the Prex layout. I find this to be the best layout so far.
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Post by MonMotha » Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:34 pm

The basic interface on DDR hasn't changed since 5th Mix, which first introduced the wheel scrolling vertically along the right side, with banners and information on the left side. In fact, just about all the mainstream Bemani titles use this interface now, including IIDX and pop'n music. GF/DM use a slightly different interface where the song list is on the bottom half of the screen with the other info on the top half, though older releases looked more like IIDX.

Prior to 5th Mix, DDR used some interfaces that rivaled Pump's in terms of badness. 4th Mix used an interface where the title cards "flew" in from the upper right every time you scrolled off the screen. To make selection take less time, you picked a genre up front, similar to a channel in Pump, though songs overlapped genres. You were then limited to picking songs from that list for the duration of your game. 4th Plus introduced an "All Music" mode, since people didn't like being until to freely pick a song, but then selection could take a very long time due to the weird menu system. The 4th Mix song selection interface was probably the worst of "modern" (which I would consider 3rd mix and newer) DDR selection interfaces. It simply wasn't suited for the sheer number of songs that were on that mix (which was the biggest prior to Extreme).

3rd Mix used an interface much like the NX interface, with a continuously wrapping song wheel, and no sorts. To make selection take less time, you had to pick new 3rd Mix songs or 2nd/1st Mix songs (the entirety of 2nd Mix) up front, and you were once again limited to those songs for the duration of your game. If you wanted to play Maniac, you had to go into SSR mode up front (for 3rd Mix - 2nd Mix had Maniac as a normal, selectable difficulty in game), and both players in a 2 player game were stuck playing SSR. Allowing a less experienced player to play with someone else on SSR was one of the original uses of the Little code. With only 15 seconds to pick a song, running out of time is pretty easy under this interface.

2nd Mix used a similar interface, but the titlecards were rendered out onto 3d-eqsue "Discs" that rotated (slowly).

1st Mix was a similar interface to 2nd. However, players could not split difficulties at all. If one person entered the Trick or Maniac code (yes, they were hidden codes), both players were stuck playing it.

All the PS2 versions through Party Collection JP or MAX2 US, being based on MAX or newer, will have roughly the same interface. Konamix was based on the 4th Mix engine, but used the 3rd Mix selection interface. I believe even 4th JP CS went into the 3rd Mix interface when put in All Music mode. After MAX2 US, Konami invented some incredibly weird interface that actually looks remarkably like the Exceed interface, but scrapped it since it was not liked by most DDR players.

Andamiro has yet to come up with a "good" interface. Each of their modern interfaces (Exceed or newer) have had their upsides and downsides. The Zero interface would have been great if it weren't for the fact that EVERY SINGLE FREAKING BUTTON DID SOMETHING and speed mods changed song (by way of changing channel) and difficulty. The NX interface works decently well, though I would like less information in the "scroll" and more in static locations. It's also a huge list to scroll through, so perhaps some sort of collapsable folder/sorting method (ala DDR, pop'n, and IIDX) would be appropriate. I also agree that cabinet buttons would be nice, but there's too many cabinets out there to ask operators to retrofit at this point.

As far as the rating system, figure everything is accurate +/- 2 Exceed 2 levels. On a scale of 20 or so, this isn't too bad.

Since all this is totally unrelated to Supernova, things have been split into a new topic.
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Post by Fluffyumpkins » Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:52 pm

lgolem wrote:
Pheonixguy wrote:And ddr changes a lot, idk where you would get that they all look the same
Well I played Extreme and Super Nova and the PS2 versions...those looked the same to me. :roll:
Extreme on ps2 had a different selection screen, but it sucked. I'm just saying that DDR has a good thing going, so why change it?

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Post by lgolem » Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:31 am

MonMotha wrote:Since all this is totally unrelated to Supernova, things have been split into a new topic.
The supernova link was actually started as a Great X Scape location thread but Christina kind of stoped posting ^_^ but hey this works.
Fluffy wrote:I'm just saying that DDR has a good thing going, so why change it?
Yes they got a good layout and the way I see it, pump is trying not to immitate them and is doing an excelent job in that field, but still it is hard to make a good layout when everyone compares it to DDRs, if you compare the NX layout form prior Pump it Up layouts, this is the best one thus far.

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Post by Fluffyumpkins » Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:46 am

Well, you can't argue with progress I suppose.

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Post by TaQa » Thu Mar 01, 2007 7:48 pm

The lack of buttons being on cabinet is the reason I don't like playing PIU.
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Post by lgolem » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:00 pm

TaQa wrote:The lack of buttons being on cabinet is the reason I don't like playing PIU.

Are you sure it is not cause you got your ass kicked by Jason Dread at X-stomp and stormed out?

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Post by Jason Dread » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:12 pm

TaQa wrote:The lack of buttons being on cabinet is the reason I don't like playing PIU.
WAH! I'm only playing a song with 500+ steps and I can't hit ten more buttons to choose whatever song and speed mod I want.

Jesus christ - get over it.
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Post by Merk » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:15 pm

lol wat?

But yeah, really if Pump had a mod options screen and a way to sort songs it wouldn't really matter what the fuck it looked like. You don't even need buttons on the cab (although they'd help a shload, but hey, I guess when you're the odd-ball of dancing games you absolutely have to be different). Perhaps just holding the center button when choosing a song would bring up a mod menu and you can pick your speed, change your difficulty, add whatever mods, etc. Stomping on the top two arrows would change the sort, the back two would navigate the song menu, and tapping the center would select a song without going into a mod menu.

None of this outdated code nonsense. Are codes trivially easy? Yep. Can a retard do em? I've seen it happen! Are they annoying? Absolutely.
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Post by Jason Dread » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:44 pm

You mean Pump is the "odd ball" over say:

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this

or
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this

or even

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that?

Then again, if you mean "oddball" as in not 4 panel or made by Konami, then I suppose you are correct one and only to yourself (and I suppose anyone else from Bloomington who feels like jumping on the bandwagon).

I swear someone could give each and every one of you a basket full of rainbows and kittens and you'd STILL find something to bitch about.
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