So I picked up a Jakk's Pacific 2002 "TV Games" today

[Andromeda Stardust]

Paid $4.95 for it.

 

8 built in games, hardly even Flashback worthy. Of the ones I tried, Missle Command, Centipede, Yars, Circus, all had issues. The joystick is stiff and cannot do an up-right diagonal at all. Other diagonal directions are hit and miss. Thing had 4 AA batteries in it, still fresh which tells me the previous owner didn't play it much.

 

So each game has an intro screen, and the intro text looks suspiciously like an NES font. I fired up Yars Revenge and it looked nothing like Atari graphics at all. Circus Atari used the joystick instead of paddles and control horribly.

 

What the hell is up with this thing???

[The Usotsuki]

Prolly a NOAC.

[Matthew]

You paid $4.95 too much.

[akator]

The paddle version is much better, not perfect but feels closer to the originals than the joystick.

[sloth-machine]

What the hell is up with it? It came out at the beginning of plug n play consoles, I remember it sold for 20 or 25 bucks. It was sold as a novelty right when retro gaming was becoming mainstream, a few years after the excellent Namco Museum games in the late 90s. All the games are reprogrammed replicas. It was a cute and shoddy licensed product back then for casual nostalgia. That is until the nostalgia wore off and people caught on that it wasn't authentic and you could buy a real Atari for just a little bit more.

Edited September 24, 2015 by sloth-machine

[BigO]

The two player paddle games version has served me well as a way to get a quick Circus fix that's easy to put away when I'm finished.

Other than the off sound effects and a slightly clunky configuration interface, I like it.

 

I had the joystick version briefly. Won't have it again.

[BigO]

If these really are NOAC, it would be fun, in a nerdy sorta way, to run some of these games on a real NES deck.

I haven't been able to find confirmation that the JAKKS units are NOAC and haven't read of anyone being able to extract the ROM's from an NOAC plug-n-play.

[jhd]

I have one still sealed in the original box. I do not recall what I paid for it, but I did get it on clearance -- and I had to really search to find a store with one left in stock.

[Andromeda Stardust]

To be honest it wouldn't be so bad if the joystick would just work. I'm not a fan of the CX40 by any stretch although the FB2 was a noticeable improvement. I roll my own Atari joysticks out of arcade parts FYI but the movement on this thing is horrid. Maybe I can use silicone or something to loosen it but it's probably the rubber boot.

 

Also the graphics appear to be NES like, especially the intro screens borrow from official Nintendo fonts. It's possible the NOAC could be altered in some way to resemble the Atari pallets and SFX. In that case, dumps of the hybrid Atari/NES games would behave poorly or have messed up audio/graphics.

Edited September 25, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Rikkarr]

These were actually the first experience I had with anything Atari-related, although as you say, they don't have quite the same feel. I wonder if they're similar to the Flashback 1, which did use an NOAC, I think?

 

My Jakk's units stopped working a few years back, unfortunately. I'll have to see if I can fix them sometime, perhaps.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Good news guys. I found out why the joystick was so stiff. Apparently there's a bit mounted to the bottom of the joystick housing preventing pushing down the stick to actuate all four directions. But this puck piece was too tall overly restricting the movement making the control very stiff and unresponsive. I used pliers to pull it out and reached the conclusion it is not needed. Reassemble and movement is like butter now. It is technically possible to actuate all four cardinal directions by pressing down on it but this is unlikely to occur by accident using only lateral pressure on the stick.

 

I'll explain the mod later. Makes me wonder if it is possible to improve other joysticks in this manner...

Edited September 26, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Jess Ragan]

We have a thread for this, you know! /picky nerd

 

But yeah, I had some ghastly yellow thing I bought at a thrift store a long time ago. It was horrible. A LOT of these dedicated systems are lousy... I had one of the first Namco TV Games units and along with all its OTHER issues, it had a square gated joystick that wouldn't let you move diagonally. Fine for Pac-Man, but not so great for Bosconian.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I never bought the Namco TV Games when they were in stores. Now they're collectors items apparently. Especially the Pacman shaped one, which looks like an ergonomic disaster.

Edited September 27, 2015 by stardust4ever