Comments on: Childhood dreams

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 20:43:58 +0000

Well, I was back in Target again today and had a chance to play Robotron for a couple of minutes. The machine was on a more swtable spot this time and the volume on the “great wall of TVs” was turned down so I could actually hear the sound.

Robotron seemed to be a servicable port of the game, and the two-joystickl play worked well. The sound was okay, though you certainly wouldn’t mistake it for a machine that sat in an arcade in the eighties (there was little bass). Small unit, small sound, I guess.

The controls on the machine might be more durable than I thought. Before I got there, a kid was hanging off of the joysticks much like little kids tended to do back in the eighties. The machine appeared undamaged by this. THat’s a good sign.

I was wrong on the price. In-store, at least, the price is $449.99. A little better, but still quite pricey.

My comments on the small screen still stand - it’s small, low quality, and turned in the wrong direction for an arcade machine. Classic arcade games shouldn’t be blurry and show visible dot crawl. (I wonder if, internally, the system is a “console” hooked up to the television via a composite cable?

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 01:03:37 +0000

I only had a chance to play with the little arcade machine for about five minutes, and part of that five minutes was moving it back on the shelf so it didn’t fall down.

I played Sinistar for a few minutes (enough for Sinistar to kill me), and got through the title screens in Rampage before I had to leave.

I don’t remember hearing Sinsitar actually say anything, but the part of the store I was in was blaring Target commercials so loudly I couldn’t hear much of the game sound anyway.

The main thing that gets me about the machine is that it feels so cheaply made - and for games that any classics enthusiast already owns about ten times over, I cvertainly don’t think it’s worth $500. (In addition to MAME, how many systems have these games come out for?)

I guess I should have tried Robotron, but I’ve always preferred Jeff Minter’s remake to the original anyhow.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:30:38 +0000

These are NOT the original arcade versions of these games, although “Big Electronic Games” is representing that they are indeed the ‘arcade versions’. This fact is glaringly obvious when playing Rampage & Tapper (these barely look better than the NES versions).

Again, these games are not emulated (like MAME), they are poorly reproduced.

Some reviewers are blaming the poor graphics on the sub-par monitor, but this is not the case. The game sounds are pretty cheesy, too.

The only game that passes for the original arcade version is Robotron.

These games don’t look OR feel like the original games. Very disappointing, as I was looking forward to getting one of these. The games feel even less authentic than the remakes that you’ll find in those 20-in-1 joysticks.

Unless you’re buying this thing just for the diminutive arcade cabinet-shaped case and tiny monitor, beware.