I remember hearing about the Neo-Geo way back when it was new and thought it was overpriced. I guess I didn't understand the whole idea of people wanting authentic arcade experiences at home, but even so...
It wasn't until King Of Fighters '98: The Slugfest that I cared who SNK was; MUGEN (that fighting game engine where you can make your own fighters/stages/etc.) allowed me to try out rips of various SNK fighters against other fighters and I began to appreciate them more.
Then MAME made it all too easy to become a relatively new fan of SNK and Neo-Geo. It's true that they do have more than just King Of Fighters and Metal Slug (and just about every Neo-Geo arcade cabinet I've actually seen has one of the Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move games on it)...but I still wonder how the Neo-Geo lasted so long with few big franchises for a dozen years. Not to mention that it was never a major competitor with really expensive games. I remember hearing that some of the later games were like $300 a cartrdige. Nuts!
I guess there are enough hardcore Neo-Geo fans. I would think that in this day and age, the majority of SNK fans use MAME or are just familiar with the ports of games on other systems rather than the original Neo-Geo hardware.
Most of these games don't really need maps. Hence why the Neo-Geo atlas might not be all that popular, you wouldn't think to come here 'cause you wouldn't get lost in, I don't know, Mr. Big's Parking Garage. >_> However, some of them are good backgrounds, I suppose. The artwork in some Neo-Geo games is top-notch. They hung onto 2D for so long, that of course they were going to do it justice.
