Piepacker + SNK: Your new weekend plans?

Content originally posted to Instagram on March 18, 2022. Article screenshot from NME.

Last weekend, I read about some old SNK games coming to Piepacker, a free cloud gaming platform where you can play a wide selection of retro games + retro-styled indie games on your browser. There’s also the option to play w/friends, or “add” a game to the platform and use Piepacker’s features with it! At first I thought it sounded sketch, but after looking into it, I was like “oh sh*t…this is actually legit.”

Yes, the SNK games include a few Metal Slug titles. What caught my eye was the fighting games: arcade ports of The King of Fighters ’98, Samurai Showdown IV, The Last Blade 2, and Real Bout Fatal Fury Special (the latter being added on March 24). I decided to give The Last Blade 2 a quick try since I had never played it before, and….

…it turns out cloud gaming + my 10 year old MacBook don’t go together 😂 there was some lag here and there, and it didn’t help that I had absolutely no clue how to play the game properly. I don’t think I’ll be trying Piepacker again anytime soon, but it was amusing diversion 🙃

For people who know how to emulate games, they might scoff at this sort of thing. But for anyone else who doesn’t have plans for the weekend (& doesn’t have an ancient computer like me), maybe check out Piepacker’s website to see what games they have. You might end up having some fun!