Yup, I did tonight. It was all right. I sightread and S'd Xuxa CZ with 1 good (96.xx%)

Pump Pro is seriously fun. I was worried that it was going to end up so much like In The Groove as to lose what makes Pump... Pump, but instead it's basically just Pump with what I believe to be a much better interface, with a lot of popular previous Pump songs and some Kyle Ward music.

Essentially, I'm really happy with how it turned out and may now actually play dance games.

Edit> It should be noted that I don't play charts at levels nearly as high as most of you guys, so my opinion gets invalidated at a certain point.

Also, "haha, i havent seen you at acme since 2005 or 04 i believe."... Acme didn't exist until late 2005.

I really want to come back and take some scores. Maybe even go for 99s on some songs. How is the timing compared to ITG? Larger? Smaller?

It's a lot easier than ITG, but harder than Pump It Up, and there's a judgement above Perfect. The dumb thing is there's no "Bad" rating so some stuff that should be Goods gets pushed into Misses.

No anothers, no missions, no new (good) songs, no full versions, barely any remixes...yeah I'll play NX and NX2.

There's "superb" above perfects...

The menu system took 1 step forward and 2 steps back. Back to exceed in fact. You have to choose your song, then you choose your difficulty. I finally found out the ratings were under the song banner, and the default sort makes absolutely no sense at all.

@BILL: The machine's time limits need to be increased so everyone can figure out how the new system works and allows time to find out and hear samples of the new songs. It's like 30 seconds now? It's just not enough, because it's not like ITG where you can do your options after you choose your song; you have to do it all before.

As for song choices, you have the old ITG songs, all complete with their ridiculous charts converted to ridiculous pump charts. This kinda actually works because Pump already had a bunch of crazy, BS charts... they just added the BS ITG charts and they fit in more than they did with 4 arrows. This doesn't mean that they're fun though, they just fit in. There was one new song I played that was good, but I played 3 new ones that weren't very inspiring.

Pros: Old Pump Songs, Easy to get back to the old Pump arrow skin (after figuring out the new mod system), Timing is still loose (not AS loose, but still enough for having fun on doubles. It's 5 arrow. Machine's screen is bright, and very nice.

Cons: Everything new is ITG. Mines, ridiculous charts, blah songs. No notification in the main menu that both credits have been registered until you get into the song select.

Will I be playing it?  Yes, but only because it's 5 arrow, not because it's ITG.
Disclaimers: Part of my menu frustration could be from the short time limit that didn't give me time to figure it out.

I WANNA PLAY I WANNA PLAY I WANNA PLAY!!!! Someone should ship a PP out here to Okinawa. I haven't seen ANY Pump machines. My pump skillz are gonna go down the drain. But DDR is through the roof lately. At least I have Supernova 2 out here.

The Pro interface isn't that bad, you can pick difficulty and mods before picking a song (Option + Right to increase, left to decrease, just press and release for mod menu), though the default sort is kind of useless.  The couple ITG charts I played were okay, I haven't checked the harder stuff to see how it came out.  Mines are still stupid, and they're even worse on Pro, the arrow skins are bright and flashy JUST LIKE THE MINES, so you have to look closely at the shape, since it looks like just another arrow in your peripheral vision.

The "coin-jams-on-trigger-and-gives-you-twenty-credits" feature is cool.  Yes, I called Bill immediately about it, and I really hope for Bill's sake that it didn't log all those coins into bookkeeping, because it probably registered $800 before it unjammed even though it can only give the player 20 credits at a time, so Acme's gonna want a lot of nonexistent money each time this happens.

@Bill: I don't know how precise the bookkeeping system is on a Pro machine, but if it can give you some kind of hourly breakdown, you'll know exactly when it jammed and hopefully you'll be able to work this out with Acme.

I was never too big on missions and anothers, so Pro works just fine for me, but it's nothing amazing.  Pro seems more responsive than Zero ever was, which is nice (I can hit triples with my feet now).

Also, 97.64 (I think...) on Monkey Fingers CZ: only one miss, and it was on the last step rather than a stomping run.  That was sadly enough, my highest score of the day, even though I played a bunch of much easier charts on CZ.

There are no pump it up machines in japan. Konami doesn't allow them.

In the same way DDR Extreme is "FOR SALE AND USE IN JAPAN ONLY!!!111one" 

I played Pro today and it's better than certain versions of PIU. The options thing felt weird trying to figure it out at first but I got used to it. You can hold down the option button and push left or right to change difficulty. Same for the options menu. You can hold the green button over whatever mod and push left or right to select instead of opening them, choosing your mod, and then choosing exit which is kind of a bitch. It's a shortcut thing basically. I checked out Bemera Crazy and Nightmare just for the hell of it and both charts are lol. Especially Nightmare O_O

FINALLY a PIU with buttons on it. It's a dream come true

That just prevents against direct sales, since licensing rights are hard to protect on resold machines.  It's what made almost every Max2 kit in the US a bootleg since they were much easier to get than kits resold through distributors.

Also, I remember in the AIJ thread where Taren sent the ITG home version to Yasu, there was some mention of how unusual it is to see someone import a game in Japan, there's some sense of nationalism around gaming - it works out to something like they prefer Japanese games, and if they deign to play a foreign game it has to be the Japanese localization, they won't play a completely foreign game (well for a majority of Japanese gamers, I guess).  It was somebody's (Aaron, probably) way of explaining why ITG would probably never catch on in Japan, even if it offered something to the top tier players who still were still pumping ridiculous amounts of money into Extreme even after AAAing just about everything at that point.

So yeah, between Konami protecting against direct sales with a legion of ninja-lawyers armed with patents and Japanese gamers probably not caring in the first place, Pump will not be seen in Japan.

yeah. if you wanna play extreme go to narrows for a quality one

ATTN: BILL

Played more Pro last night, the coin slot jammed on the trigger again, yielding 20 credits, lots of annoying sounds (coins registering during songs make the same loud sounds) and probably a good 3000 registers before it stopped.  It seems to stop at the end of the first set when it happens from what I've seen/heard.  I'll keep calling in and posting after each incident, since I don't want Pump to go away.

I actually ended up making 3 service calls last night, it was a sad day for Acme.  Air Hockey wasn't registering score and somebody lost the puck under a machine, Pro had its issues, and somebody walked into Pop'n's power cord one two many times and broke the ground pin off (The setup in the corner needs to be changed somehow, the cord sticks really far out of the wall and a lot of people keep walking into it or maybe the replacement cord could be one of those that has the cable come out of the plug flat against the wall rather than sticking straight out).

Also, 98.49 on Monkey Fingers (still only missed the last step [it's a triple], I'll have it 99'd in another try or two).  The Pro pads are really nice.

Also: Red button on GF 1P is very flaky. I was getting ~50 misses a song because it wasn't registering. (Yet still passing...)

I cannot thank you guys enough for your phone calls, and also for rebooting games when you know that can correct a problem.  On the PIU, I wonder if the coin is physically sticking, or is it a software problem?  Any guesses?  Of course, it will not do it while we are there.  Before the upgrade, there was never a problem.  the coins pass by an opto that triggers the credit, not a mechanical coin switch like other games.  Does it seem to pertain to a particular sides coin door?  Any info will be very helpful.  Thanks again, people, you are awesome! 

Bill, once again you have proved yourself to be the best arcade operator in the Northwest. It's great to see someone who is responsive to players and actually cares whether or not we enjoy our arcade trips.

Kevin, haha, me, care?  Only cause it's Christmas.  No, seriously, thanks for the nice comment.  And all of you do have a great Christmas!   

Please report back on if GF has a good working red button now.  was replaced late last night.

I've jammed Pro on the 1p side and seen someone do it on 2p.  I think the people playing tried putting in an extra coin on the 2p side to fix it and nothing happened.  If it's an optical switch, it doesn't make much sense for this to be caused by a coin jamming, so I guess a software issue makes more sense.

Unfortunately, the error fixes itself after one set, so even if I call it in as soon happens, it'll be long since done when the techs arrive, unless I forgo my set and then stand guard for an hour or so, hoping nobody tries to touch any of the buttons and start a set.  Maybe we could get a huge group to go to Acme for the first time in forever, wait for it to happen, and cover Pro in shifts until Bill gets there or something.

Also, who here has seen the error?  I was alone the time that I did it and the other time I saw it, it was a group of Asians who I've seen a few times, but haven't really talked to.

Good information!  I suspect a software glitch, but hard to tell.  But the fact it's done it on both coin doors really does point to software.  I should ask Kyle Ward if he has heard of this.  Has any of you heard of this happening in other locales with this game?  thanks, Bill

The Pump Pro machine at Bigals hasn't had issues like this; it uses a card system though.  Have you emailed Kyle about it?

Damn it's still randomly giving free credits

lol I got a 100% on Beethoven Virus Easy

And Max Tune's wheel on the 2P side is fucked up. Not that I play it, just informing

re: coin slot jamming

I've seen amber do it twice.  In no way intentional though, I'll see if she can think of any common circumstances that might cause the jam.  Same story as everyone else; keeps registering until about the end of a set.

All the games I'm playing worked fine as of saturday...pnm, which i've been putting like $10 a day in, haha, supernova, and pump pro when i get to play for free ;p
No issues that I've noticed on them.

Oh Ocean Hunter -- I don't know if this is important or not but the 2P side has like... I don't know how to explain this, maybe bluess can do it better; but when you aim on the screen, there's a dead area that you can't aim in.

This is what James is talking about. 



PS those are some awesome sharks I must say.

Any WA folks become PIU Pro converts yet?

I've been playing more Pro than anything else at acme, but that's because it's PIU at a convenient location, not because it's Pro.  I don't find any of the new content beyond a polished interface to be that appealing.