Hello and welcome back to The 8-Bit Guy!
So, in this episode, I’m going to review three different products here which are, they’re
modern products, but they’re for retro gaming.
I don’t normally do game reviews on this channel, but I thought I would make an exception
in this particular case.
These two games have been sent to me and these are actually modern games for retro systems.
This one was made in 2016, so just last year, and this one was made in 2017 which is still
this year.
So, I actually think that’s really cool, and you know I’m actually working on a game
myself which I’ll be revealing at a later time, but I wanted to go ahead and take a
look at these games and see what people have come up with.
The first game I want to show is Assembloids for the Atari 2600.
The box art on this looks really nice.
I know the appeal of these retro systems is to experience games of generations past, but
this is really cool to see a brand new Atari 2600 game.
So here’s the actual cartridge.
I swear, it looks exactly like an old 2600 cartridge, except the label isn’t degrading
any.
I have to wonder where they got the molds to make these.
So it comes with a nice little manual too, but there’s not a lot in there.
OK, so I wanted to play this game in my Atari 2600, after all this is the system it was
designed for.
But I seem to have misplaced my power adapter.
I’ve ordered a new one, but in the meantime I’ll just use my 7800 instead since it is
backwards compatible with the 2600.
And that works out better anyway since I’ve modified this one for composite video so that
will make it easier to do a direct video capture for you.
But I can at least use an original 2600 joystick for at least a little more authenticity, right?
So let’s fire this up and see what we get!
I’m going to select the easiest difficulty level to start with.
To save you from reading the manual, I’m going to try to explain how this game works.
So, when you start you get this screen.
In the center here, a little piece of a creature sort of dude will appear there.
Then you can move the joystick and push that piece either up, down, left, or right into
one of these boxes.
And what you want to do is assemble complete creatures in each of the 4 sections by moving
the part you get where the part is actually needed.
You can mix and match any color you want as long as the piece fits.
But you do get vastly more points if you can match up creatures that are all the same colors
like this.
After a while, you’ll reach a new level and the creature will change to a different
kind.
But don’t worry, the best I can tell all of the creatures on the screen are the same,
so you don’t have to worry about mixing and matching parts of different creatures.
So I thought I’d try it on the default difficulty level and I can see that the timer moves a
lot faster so you have to start really thinking faster.
So I imagine this can get pretty challenging.
I did manage to catch up with Martin Wendt who created the game, and here’s what he
had to say.
When I started programming Assembloids 2600 for the Atari VCS, it was very important to
me to stay with the original restrictions from 1977, which includes the size limit of
4 kilobytes.
Even back then, already games had bank switching schemes, so we spent lots of time and effort
to make this a small, addictive and nice game and cram everything, including a little tune
and an animated logo into 4 Kilobytes of game data.
And we had literally hundreds of people playing it at games com last year in Germany, so we’re
pretty confident that this thing has become some addictive, small, fast-reaction puzzle
game.
So I hope you have had as much fun playing it as we have had developing it, and actually
it is one of the games that I keep playing, even though I spent already quite a lot of
time during development.
So, have fun and thanks for listening.
Looking at the manual, I think it is neat how they show some of the evolution of the
game, with some early screenshots.
I also find this part here interesting where it shows the entire 4 kilobyte game code as
a single 64x64 pixel image.
So each pixel represents one byte.
So you can see how little room you have to work with on an Atari 2600 game.
I also found it interesting to learn that he actually used a Commodore 64 to write the
assembly code and then interfaced to an Atari 2600 supercharger to send the file over as
sound waves to mimic loading from a cassette, in order to test the game on the real hardware.
The next game I’m going to review is the Bear Essentials.
This was also sent to me by one of the creators.
I’ll go ahead and remove it from the plastic here.
So this case is essentially just a large calendar stand.
However, it works pretty well as a game box, but I have to confess I prefer the cardboard
box of the last game I just showed.
Anyway, so inside we have the main disk itself, and it is also wrapped in plastic.
I’ll remove it.
There’s actually a lot of other stuff in here.
All right, so here’s the actual disk.
I noticed that it has no write-protect notches.
So these aren’t just generic disks, and they would have had to use special hardware
to write these disks because of that.
And, here’s the manual.
Not a whole lot in here, other than how to load the game and just a page or two on the
gameplay itself.
There’s a lot of little stickers and stuff in this package, including this pond software
logo.
And, for those that don’t get the joke, this resembles the ocean software label from
back in the 1980s.
Of course, for this game I’m going to need a Commodore 64.
I’ve decided to use my original C64.
I will also need a disk drive, and again I’m going to go with the original model for some
extra authenticity.
So, let’s take the Bear Essentials and stick that in here.
And, according to the users manual, this game uses Joystick Port 2.
That was actually a thing on the Commodore 64 is that some games required port 1 and
others required port 2.
OK, so I’ll go ahead and start loading the game.
It immediately starts with this nice little loading screen.
And it does take some time to load from disk, in fact I timed it at 1 minute and 38 seconds.
However, you’ll be pleased to know that I also tried it with my EPYX fast load cartridge
and it only took 24 seconds to load.
Another good thing is that once it is loaded it doesn’t appear to access the disk drive
again, so that’s good.
And here’s what it does when it starts.
This is a pretty neat little intro.
As a programmer I immediately notice a few things, such as the fact they are extending
the color bars all the way through the border.
Also the bear logo at the top is just a bunch of double-sized sprites, as well as the two
bear characters at the bottom.
And then it does this.
That’s pretty cool.
And then it shows some of the different levels you’ll be playing.
Overall, I’d say this is a really well polished intro sequence.
I’m impressed!
OK, so time to start the game.
So, you get to control the little bear on the right.
And that’s Papa bear there on the left, and he’s adamant that you have to go pickup
350 apples.
I guess these are some family.
Anyway, this is the first screen.
From what I’ve discovered, most anything that moves will kill you.
So you have to collect these apples and avoid touching anything that moves.
And I’ll be honest, I don’t even know what that little octopus looking thing is
on the bottom.
It’s not something I’d expect to see in the jungle.
If you press run stop or space it will take you to this screen which shows a map of all
of the different areas you’ve visited so far, and it grows the more you uncover.
And if you use up all of your lives, this is what happens.
It looks like your poor bear family will starve this winter.
Anyway, if you keep playing, you’ll eventually find your way to a mine.
And you should see quite a few references to Manic Miner from the Sinclair Spectrum
here.
Now you get to pick up this glowing fruit.
I wonder if it is radioactive or something.
hahah.
Anyway, these levels are surprisingly difficult.
On the bright side, once you make it to the mine, you will never truly die because it
will let you start over at the mine.
So, overall, this game is a fully featured and polished C64 game.
I’m impressed.
OK, so, enough of that.
Let’s see what else is on this disk.
Looking at the directory, I see quite a few things here.
I’m curious what Bonkey does.
Interesting.
Its called Super Bonkey Kong.
There is a really annoying high-pitched sound I keep hearing, so I’ll change the music.
Ugh.. now it’s even worse.
I am going to do you a favor and mute the music.
I think the music routine is incompatible with my C64, maybe it only works right on
PAL systems, or maybe it doesn’t like my version of the SID chip, I don’t know.
Anyway.
This is pretty funny.
So, apparently I am actually playing the monkey at the top, throwing the barrels down.
So it’s like opposite of Donkey Kong.
Kind of funny, actually, and somewhat harder than it looks too, because Mario and Luigi
appear to speed up and slow down randomly.
Well, that’s a cool extra!
Another thing on the disk is the original demo version of the game.
You can’t do a whole lot besides walk around and jump on stuff.
And then there’s a more developed version of the game where you can do a little more,
but there is no sound effects, and apparently the enemies don’t hurt you.
So, very cool.
Well, that about wraps it up for this game!
So the last item I want to review today is the Bittboy.
Now, this was a corporate donation sent to me by the company that makes it.
However, don’t think that it won’t get an objective review because of that.
And so here it is, this is a little handheld gaming system.
When you power it on, you’ll see there are 129 games on these.
At first you might think these are gameboy games, but they are actually NES games.
The screen is absolutely beautiful and bright.
In fact, it looks a good bit better in person than it does here on video because there is
some polarization from the LCD and the camera causing a little bit of a moire pattern on
the screen, along with the refresh rates of the two devices.
So, just take my word for it that this screen looks really good in person.
In fact, the screen is something I needed to look at in more detail.
Looking at some closeup images I took, I was surprised at what I saw, because I’ve never
seen an LCD that looks like this.
At first I thought maybe it was an OLED screen of some kind.
It didn’t come with a manual, but the side of the box lists it as an IPS screen.
I had to look that up.
But apparently, it’s a relatively new type of LCD.
The pixels are essentially square but they are surrounded by a black border.
Inside each pixels you get a red, green, blue dot pattern shaped sort of like this.
And, I actually think the pixels ratio for the screen is 1 to 1 with the pixel output
of these games, which makes it look even better.
This thing is actually pretty small compared to a gameboy color, for example.
But the screen itself isn’t much larger, but it is a lot clearer not only because of
the bright backlight but because the NES had a lot more resolution than the gameboy.
In fact, this unit is about the same width as my iPhone 6, although it is not as tall
and it is a bit thicker.
The closest comparison I can make is with a compact cassette tape, it’s about the
exact same size.
On the back you’ll find the battery compartment.
It uses a rechargeable lithium battery pack.
In fact, I’m pretty sure this is the same battery pack used in the Gameboy Advance SP,
which is good because that means finding a replacement will not be a problem.
It actually has a standard USB Micro-B cable for charging.
And so you can just plug it in to charge, just like your cell phone.
The only indication you get that it is charging is this little LED here lights up.
It also comes with a composite video cable so you can connect this to a television.
It plugs in here, and when the cable is plugged in the screen and speaker shut off and everything
is routed externally.
The problem with it is that the connector they used is terrible and just most any movement
will cause a disruption in the picture.
I’ve seen other comments on amazon reviews about this, so I know it isn’t just my unit
that has a problem.
So beware of that.
As for the list of games, they have some good titles in here.
And I know a lot of this is subjective, but I think they left out two really important
games.
They have Super Mario 1 and 3, but they don’t have 2.
I thought maybe since this is marketed internationally, they would have included Doki Doki Panic instead,
since that’s how the game was sold in Japan, but I don’t see it on the list either.
Also, Tetris is missing.
They have Tetris 2, but not the original.
And so, for a product that sells for 39 bucks, I think this thing is actually pretty cool.
I’ve put a list of the games that are built in down in the description field as well as
link to the company that sells it.
And one of the things that I do like about this versus, you know, some people say “why
not just play the games on your cell phone?”
Well, this has tactile controls on it and that’s pretty important to me because these
games were designed to be played with tactile controls.
You know, just swiping and some of the stuff you have to do on a cell phone is just not
the same.
Of course, I realize that the use of the unlicensed vintage ROMs in these systems is controversial
at best and that’s a topic for another episode.
But, I did want to tell you about something that really annoyed me about the company that
sent this to me.
The first time they offered, several months ago, they offered to send this product to
me for free.
I said, “Sure, that looks interesting.”
And so, then they said “well, we want you to pay for shipping.”
And then I said, “OK, how much is that?”
It ended up being like $35 and you can buy the whole thing with free shipping on Amazon
for like $39 bucks.
So I told them “no thanks.”
And then a few months later they asked me again if I wanted to review it and I said
“I’m not paying $35 shipping.”
So they said “Well, we’ll send it to you for free.”
So, I said, “OK, fine, send it to me.”
And they wanted to know when I would do a review on it.
And I said, “Well, you’ll see it in an unboxing video on August 1st, and that will
be followed up a week later with a more detailed review.”
And they said “OK.”
So, I received it a few days later and about every 3 days since I received it they’ve
been asking me “Well, when you are going to do a video on it?”
And I replied the same thing, “You’ll see it on August 1st, followed by a more detailed
review a week later.”
And then like every 3 or 4 days like clockwork they’re asking me when’s there going to
be a video on it.
And I just want to beat my head against the wall because they’re just not hearing me.
And so, when the unboxing video came out a few days ago, I sent them the video and I
said “OK, here’s the first one and this is going to be followed up with a more detailed
review, you know, in about a week.”
And they looked at the video and they wrote me back and and they were like “well, we
wanted a more detailed review than that.”
And again, I just wanted to beat my head.
These people just won’t..
they’re just not listening to me.
So, I hope their customer service is better than that.
But that’s actually one of the reasons I don’t like doing reviews of commercial products.
It can be really irritating at times.
I was also really impressed with both of these games.
And, I look forward to doing some more reviews on modern games for retro systems.
So if there’s any out there, feel free to send them to me and I’ll check ‘em out.
And, I guess that about wraps it up for this episode.
So, stick around for the next one and thanks for watching!