I know there’s a Beijing thread, but this is a decent jaunt from Beijing.
I may be moving to Qingdao, in Shandong Province, very very soon. In fact, my wife and I will be traveling there on the 24th for our honeymoon, and decided from then whether we are going to move there or not.
At any rate, I was wondering if there were any arcades in the city with SF4 (Doubly so for AE) or at the worst, Tekken 6. I cannot play KOF to save my life.
Ok, so I’m here. Living in Chengyang district, and only found one arcade so far, behind RT mart on Chunyang Rd., It is on the first floor of my apartment building, and very discreetly marked.
However, no SF. One Fate U/C cabinet, and then row upon row of KOF98 cabs.
As soon as I get the peeling vinyl off the center of the sectional, and can cover it all up with a decent looking blanket or cover.
We have a second bedroom, but no bed yet. Came with a Desktop, which I haven’t tested yet, but assume is working, so it could suffice as a GGPO machine for me.
Found another arcade here in Chengyang district. Actually, two in one shopping center. One in the basement, which I did look at. I found a Vanilla SF4 linked cab, and around 12 KOF cabs. I found in the back 12 cabs with Tekken 6 banners over them, but not a single one of them running Tekken 6. One was running DOA2, another MB:AC, and a few other random games mixed in there.
Le sigh. Didn’t have time to check out the rest, and my wife was getting pissed at me wanting to look in arcades “You puray et home.”
I’ll check that one out later.
Strike 3.
Hit up the arcade I didn’t get time to look at last weekend tonight. It’s a combination billiard club/arcade. Once again, rows of cabinets marked as Tekken (5…meh) either non function, or…you guessed it, dedicated to KOF.
And on top of that, all three arcades I’ve been to show no signs of anyone even caring to put in a coin for even KOF. FGC here seems lifeless or nonexistant. At least in Chengyang. Walked around a little while, just scoping out the terrain after that. Don’t know how many blocks I walked, but it was a ton. No other arcades within like a 7 block radius of RT-Mart from what I can tell.
Sad panda.
Ok, after finally maneuvering through Baidu:
http://bbs.a9vg.com/thread-1506531-1-1.html
From what I can gather, this arcade had SF4 at one point, and was the spot for it in Qingdao, one of my Chinese friends found pictures of the arcade and I’ll post them later.
The location is Taidong Wanda Square on Taidong Rd.
I’m going to go there when I can to investigate. If they upgraded to AE, then I’m stoked.
EDIT: Confirmed!
http://www.17utt.com/2011/0420/6166.html
AE exists in Qingdao at Taidong Wanda Square.
I’ll be checking this out soon!
I heard a rumor of another arcade I haven’t visited not too far from where I live. May try to nose around and find it this weekend. I know the area where it’s supposedly located, I just didn’t expect one to be around there. Hoping to see some form of life there!
Went to the last two arcades I could find in my district, nothing but KOFKOFKOFKOFKOFKOFKOFKOF.
Finally did go to WanDa Square, which is a pretty sweet mall, and got to play some AE there. There was a group of 9 or so players there, was pretty laid back and awesome, players were average to good, pretty diverse character select too.
Easiest way to get there is to take the bus to Tu Shu Guan (Library - 图书馆 - lots of buses hit this stop), then walk west at the nearest cross street (don’t remember the name). Go a block or so and it’s on your left. Walk 180 degrees around the circle in the mall, keep walking towards the doors, and the arcade is on your left, AE cab is near the back left corner.