Plug 'n' play TV games (Jakks Pacific, Radica, etc)

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eldad9

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Which have you played? What do you think of them?

I got the 2-player Atari paddle controller - 3 or 4 games on it are great, especially with two players. The games are exactly as I remember them, and the unit just feels right. It's worth it to me just for Circus, although it's one of the most morbid games of all time. Clowns jump on a see-saw trying to reach and pop as many balloons as they can before they miss the see-saw, and (I think) break their necks. This game really needs a paddle to play right. It's a shame they couldn't get Activision's Kaboom there, but of course the rights are owned by another company.

The Atari Flashback, on the other hand, is supposed to be a combo 2600/7800 but is actually a NES, and the 20 games were, it seems, reprogrammed for it; they're definitely not faithful to the original.

Namco's Ms. Pac Man seems to be very shoddy - many reviews on amazon say the joystick either never worked or stopped working after a short time. I haven't tried this one myself.

Sega's 6 in 1 (two models, one with sonic 1 and a new one with sonic 2) seem to be spot-on, exact replicas of the Genesis.

Which ones can you comment on? I'd really love to know about the Disney 5 in 1, and the Spongebob thingy - both may be great presents (but only if the games are actually fun!) and spongebob looks so silly I'm almost tempted to buy it just for that (but I don't want to turn gay).
 
I tried the Ms. Pacman one at KB. The joystick wouldn't work in 2 games, 1 of which was Ms. Pacman. I forget exactly what was wrong but I think I had problems moving up.

I bought the Space Invaders one when it was posted Gamestop.com had it for $9.99. I like the hardware itself, since it's larger than most of the Plug and Play games but the main reason for me buying it was Space Invaders and it's not a good port. It's not an arcade port and the difficulty is really bad. In the 1st level, the aliens already are shooting back at you and I think in the arcade version, that didn't happen until level 4 or 5. I still can't clear the 1st level on this unit.

There are 4 other games on the unit, the one I like the most is Qix, a puzzle type game.
 
It could be that this is the NES port of space invaders (or some other port - game boy?) rather than the arcade game.
 
I have both Namco joysticks and I really like those. Pole Position, Ms. Pac-Man, and Pac-Man are my favorites on those. I also have the Atari joystick and it's fine for the types of games on it. Pong is hard as hell though, I've won once because I found a glitch or pattern that let me stay in the same spot to win.
 
I was very disappointed with the first Namco unit. Bosconian was a big favorite of mine way back when. The version in this isn't complete, lacking voice effects and the display scale is off. Since they've eliminated Bosconian from the more recent version of Namco Museum my PS1 version remains a prized item in my library.
 
[quote name='YoshiFan1']I tried the Ms. Pacman one at KB. The joystick wouldn't work in 2 games, 1 of which was Ms. Pacman. I forget exactly what was wrong but I think I had problems moving up.

I bought the Space Invaders one when it was posted Gamestop.com had it for $9.99. I like the hardware itself, since it's larger than most of the Plug and Play games but the main reason for me buying it was Space Invaders and it's not a good port. It's not an arcade port and the difficulty is really bad. In the 1st level, the aliens already are shooting back at you and I think in the arcade version, that didn't happen until level 4 or 5. I still can't clear the 1st level on this unit.

There are 4 other games on the unit, the one I like the most is Qix, a puzzle type game.[/quote]

That is disappointing. I saw that price the other day and was tempted. Phoenix was another big favorite of mine from that era. I might still get it for that since I never saw a satisfactory home version of the game.
 
One way to tell if the Atari Flashback hardware is up to spec is whether the Atari rainbow effect is present. The NES hardware cannot replicate that since it has only a fifth of the color range.
 
Wal-Mart B&M had a -hugei pallot of the Jakks Atari paddle games in a middle isle for $9.99. Maybe other WM stores also have it at this price?

The Spongebob games reminds me of NES games. Not much to look at and just 'sort of entertaining' to play. The controller works just fine.
 
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