GDC 08: SNK Playmore is the king of fighters

Put away your roll of quarters. SNK Arcade Classics packs 16 of the best Neo Geo games into collections for PS2 PSP, and Wii later this year. Classics like Samurai Showdown and Metal Slug join King of Monsters and Magician Lord for what is probably the coolest compilation disc I've seen.

Metal Slug 7 was tucked away in the corner on a Nintendo DS. I suck at Metal Slug, but that doesn't stop me from admiring its miniature madness. Check out the gallery below. There is no locked-in release date yet.

What had me hypnotized was footage of Samurai Showdown: Edge of Destiny. The beloved brawler has recieved the full 3D treatment. The footage (top of post) showed off all the great looking character models, but not much in the way of gameplay. Haohmaru does get his full body slice on. SNK wouldn't give specifics, but they tell me that this game is inteneded for next-gen (current-gen?) consoles.

Of course, the higlight was the beautiful 2D goodness that was King of Fighters XII. A relatively short trailer (above) showed a new kind of art style for the series, and if you ask me, this is a very positive step. Unfortunately, SNK wasn't very forthcoming with other details, but I'd expect to see more soon.