No problem man, I still consider myself a newbie, well at least to electronics and other arcade boards, but I've made myself knowledgable of a lot of SNK hardware over the past couple of months. I just got into collecting Neo stuff not too long ago, and then decided I wasn't really collecting strictly Neo-Geo stuff, but started to get into collecting arcade stuff in general. (different boards and games that appealed to me)
Let's see...
As far as the Metal Slug series, I think 3 seems to be the most favored of all the slugs. 2/X and 1 are also awesome. These can all be pretty pricy if you're looking for the kit, but you can get pretty lucky getting them under $50 on ebay as loose carts. If you really don't care about the outer condition of the cart and just care about gameplay, you can get carts like MS2 for like $20 if you're lucky.
KOF, all opinion. The opinion for favored KOF games seems to vary a little more. I personally like 2001 the most so far (the game that came in my single slot cabinet). Never played it before that and started liking it a lot. When I used to play the older KOF games back in the day, they used to be really hard for me for some reason, mostly because I was probably ignorant to move lists and played mostly on SNES (or maybe it was fatal fury). The more recent games seem to have smoother gameplay.
OK, I was a GameTap member for a month or so and I played Shock Troopers and thought it was pretty rad. When they added in Shock Troopers 2nd Squad, I knew I had just come across another Neo favorite. Picture Metal Slug meets old fashion GTA. Very fun stuff!
Other games I like that you might want to look into:
(Note: I've gotten to test msot of these games thanks to MAME, I'll admit it haha. It's the only way to really test things out before I blow money on some cart I won't use.)
(*) = Neo Favorite
Sports Games
- 2020 Super Baseball (I liked this a little more than Baseball Stars series.)
* Neo Turfmasters (Another Neo favorite!)
- Super Sidekicks (I really dig the first one, others have slightly different gameplay.)
- Ultimate 11
- Windjammers
Puzzle Games -
* Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move (I dig all of these! Love the entire series.)
* Twinkle Star Sprites (Don't know if this would be considered puzzle, but very fun!)
- Ghostlop (A game I haven't played but have been wanting too, heard good things.)
- Magical Drop (These games are pretty fun, can be very competitive, all about speed!)
Fighting Games -
- KOF 2000
* KOF 2001
- Last Blade 2 (I like 2 a little more than one, both very cool games though!)
- Matrimelee (Fun game with unique characters - Awesome graphics!)
- Rage of the Dragons (Awesome tag team fighter.)
* Samurai Showdown V (My favorite one of the series - Large choice of characters.)
- Waku Waku 7
- Real Bout Fatal Fury (All Fatal Fury/Real Bout games are pretty rad.)
* Garou/Mark of the Wolves (Neo favorite - My favorite Neo fighter.)
- Kabuki Klash
- SvC Chaos - SNK Vs. Capcom
Aero/Shooter Games -
(Don't know the real genre classification.)
- Aero Fighters/Sonic Wings (I used to LOVE these games, very fun! - Any of the series.)
- Blazing Star (Neat graphics!)
- Captain Tomaday (More child based, still fun!)
- Ghost Pilots
- Last Resort
- Prehistoric Isle 2
- Pulstar (My girlfriend and I played this one for quite a while.)
* Strikers 1945 Plus (Neo favorite - Probably my favorite of this genre.)
* Viewpoint (I take it back, this could be my favorite as well, hard to choose!)
Shoot'em Up Games -
* Metal Slug (Legendary, my favorite series.)
* Shock Troopers 2nd Squad (Awesome game!)
- Shock Troopers
- Cyber Lip (A Slow paced Metal Slug.)
- Top Hunter (I consider this to be Metal Slug meets Fatal Fury - BG/FG hopping.)
- NAM-1975 (I thought this was a pretty classic style shooter.)
Other Games -
* Nightmare in the Dark (Cutsy fartsy, kind of like Bubble Bobble, but a very fun game!)
* Crossed Swords (Old school RPG like game for arcade, I personally liked it.)
Expensive Games -
* Bang Bead (Even though it's highly over priced, it's probably one of my favorite games that I might never own.)
Oh yeah, these are all games my girlfriend and I would play together and enjoyed thoroughly, so I would consider any of these games fun 2 player games. Any other questions just ask.
