Anyone ever play the Emerson Arcadia 2001?

[toptenmaterial]

Did anyone own this odd duck of a console back in the day? What are your recollections? Thanks!

[Blazing Lazers]

Did anyone own this odd duck of a console back in the day? What are your recollections? Thanks!

 

It was just before my time, but while going after the rarer titles for the system I had the cahnce to speak with several original owners. All of them indicated that they'd gotten the systems at very low prices and that they were not on shelves for long. Most also said the games were not played for very long, and that they had completely forgotten about ever having owned the games and system until it came up thanks to my searches.

 

There's also this interesting account from someone who helped develop a game back in the day:

 

 

http://www.ittybittycomputers.com/Essays/Tennis.html

Edited October 18, 2014 by Blazing Lazers

[82-T/A]

 

It was just before my time, but while going after the rarer titles for the system I had the cahnce to speak with several original owners. All of them indicated that they'd gotten the systems at very low prices and that they were not on shelves for long. Most also said the games were not played for very long, and that they had completely forgotten about ever having owned the games and system until it came up thanks to my searches.

 

There's also this interesting account from someone who helped develop a game back in the day:

 

 

http://www.ittybittycomputers.com/Essays/Tennis.html

 

 

That's a pretty cool article. THanks!

[Manoau2002]

This is a system I have been searching for. Looks like it has an interesting assortment of games.

[BassGuitari]

I never owned one, but I've played the systems a few times. And it's definitely a weird one. Lots of generic arcade clones, but also some titles I'm sure never came out on any other platform.

Graphically it's somewhere between the Astrocade and Intellivision. The sound is generally pretty atrocious, though. The controls aren't altogether bad but you get a sense of cheapness from the controllers, which I will say have better fire buttons than the Intellivision controller they were clearly modeled after.

It's got a few pretty good games, but overall it's a forgettable system, IMO. I'd pass unless you're someone who's into stuff like the Channel F or MP1000 (which I happen to be!).

[mbd30]

There's a "Mobile Suit Gundam" game available for it. This might be of interest to classic gamers who are also Japanophile anime fans. http://videogamecritic.com/arcadiamz.htm#Mobile_Suit_Gundam_%28Japan%29

[+doctorclu]

On 10/19/2014 at 6:33 PM, mbd30 said:

There's a "Mobile Suit Gundam" game available for it. This might be of interest to classic gamers who are also Japanophile anime fans. http://videogamecritic.com/arcadiamz.htm#Mobile_Suit_Gundam_%28Japan%29

Looks like a great game considering the Arcadia.  Thanks for the suggestion.

[+doctorclu]

So my experience with the Arcadia 2001, came with like seven games, Cat Trax and Tanks a Lot are fun.   Cat Trax was actually ported to the Atari 2600.   Not sure if that version is better.

 

The rest are pretty meh.   Tried to get a multicart but that didn't work out in the end.   But no Tetris for good reasons.  And Tetris looks meh.

 

There is another multicart out there for 120 euros with Max Idem <[email protected]>.   About $134 USD?   Nice looking unit but maybe for the Gundum game, Jump Bug, not sure if there are other notable games that are fun and replayable.

 

So... meh!

[+doctorclu]

Got the multicart eventually, and it was quite fun.

[Blazing Lazers]

1 hour ago, doctorclu said:

Got the multicart eventually, and it was quite fun.

Does it have the recently dumped 3D Attack game?

[Leeroy ST]

Had one mail-order broke some years ago haven't had a chance to get another one.

 

It had a very "Fairchild VES 2.0" vibe to it's graphics in some parts otherwise seemed like to moreso look like games were made using MSpaint (even more than the 2600) and as far as I'm aware it was mostly unliencesed clone attempts because of a lack of connections to get the real third-party devs on board, and of course that is mostly all I have for it, the 7 games I own.

 

It hasn't been that long though, I remember vividly that many games just had a generic white background, some had black screens, and the graphics for "sprites" were overly basic.

 

Missile Command which I owned was one of those white background games. There are games that look closer to a graphical experience like Space Vulutres are muddled by bad controls and strange game design desicions that screw up the game. In fact, that's common across the games, you'd think the game which looks like a straight-up cline would do it's best to be a straight-up cline but it seems developers thought screwing with the gameplay would help differentiate the games? odd.