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First Reviews: Flashback 9, Legends Flashback, and Bandai Namco Blast!


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The good thing about these is most retailers like Walmart, Target, etc. have pretty liberal return policies. If Walmart stocks these in their toy department (like the mini arcades) then they have a 90-day return window instead of 15 days for electronics.

 

But Walmart has been moving their stock of all these from the Toy department to Electronics.

Edited by TrekkiELO
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I'm reposting my response to John's video because this is the lowest for AtGames.

 

You know, it's bad enough ATgames sends a half finished product for reviews but doing a bait & switch tactic like that is pure bull! They can't compete against the NES Minis (especially since Sega pulled their licesnse now) so now they resort to making cheap plug & plays running on NOACs. And it makes reviewers like John look bad who recommended a product that will never be sold.

Shame on AtGames and I hope Namco pulls the license away and forces the product off the shelves. They deserve to be "down there" along with the Coleco Chamelion...?

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I'm reposting my response to John's video because this is the lowest for AtGames.

 

You know, it's bad enough ATgames sends a half finished product for reviews but doing a bait & switch tactic like that is pure bull! They can't compete against the NES Minis (especially since Sega pulled their licesnse now) so now they resort to making cheap plug & plays running on NOACs. And it makes reviewers like John look bad who recommended a product that will never be sold.

 

Shame on AtGames and I hope Namco pulls the license away and forces the product off the shelves. They deserve to be "down there" along with the Coleco Chamelion...?

 

 

Not half-finished, not a bait and switch (frankly, that makes no sense), not competing against the NES/SNES Minis, not running NOACs, etc.

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Great job John, I doubt they will put a sticker to identify these aren't arcade roms. They are already made and expect casuals and folks looking for stocking stuffers to purchase this. Such a shame. It's laughable that it can't even run the NES roms properly. Also, check out the fake positive reviews on Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Bandai-Namco-Flashback-Blast-Pac-Man-PAC-MANIA-Retro-Gaming-Yellow-818858029629/370082388

 

3 of the positive reviews all have this: "I am writing this review as part of a contest"

 

Seems shady to me.

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If I were to take a stab in the dark here, I'd presume that AtGames decided the original hardware was too costly and went with the Monkey King chip commonly used in cheap tablets and other disposable technology. (ETA Prime disassembled the Blast and examined its hardware... this was his conclusion as well.) They noticed it wasn't going to run arcade games worth a crap and dug up some NES emulator to take its place, not terribly concerned with its performance or the gap in quality between the real thing and the NES imitations. Pac-Man is Pac-Man, right? Who's gonna notice? Then they sent their PR rep to sites like this to make excuses and try to pacify gamers who do notice the difference between arcade games and their NES counterparts.

 

"Oh, we wouldn't do this on purpose! What kind of company would do that?" A company exactly like AtGames. Frankly, they haven't been picky about the quality of their products before. Their plug and plays have consistently been among the most disappointing in the industry, and they haven't shown much inclination in improving them. How long did they coast on their flawed Firecore technology? Years and years. Their first serious attempt to address Firecore's issues was disappointing too, running on an emulator that's inferior to others for Android devices. AtGames promised their next Flashback HD would be better, but how many years are we supposed to wait, and how many products are we supposed to buy, until they get it right? Sega must have asked themselves this and passed development of the Mega Drive Mini to another developer. They didn't fall for this stalling tactic. You shouldn't either.

 

AtGames doesn't care about quality. This has all been about the retro gaming gold rush... this should be clear after eight years of inferior products. There's nothing wrong with giving someone a second chance, but this has been a long-established pattern of behavior for AtGames, and I don't see it changing any time soon. We've been getting a lot of talk from PR reps, but I'd much rather see quality products than the empty promise of such.

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Great job John, I doubt they will put a sticker to identify these aren't arcade roms. They are already made and expect casuals and folks looking for stocking stuffers to purchase this. Such a shame. It's laughable that it can't even run the NES roms properly. Also, check out the fake positive reviews on Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Bandai-Namco-Flashback-Blast-Pac-Man-PAC-MANIA-Retro-Gaming-Yellow-818858029629/370082388

 

3 of the positive reviews all have this: "I am writing this review as part of a contest"

 

Seems shady to me.

What contest says to write Positive reviews regardless if they r true or not?

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I am the previously mentioned friend of Atariboy with the problem with the fire button registering in Missile Command. In my case, it seems to be the controller*, since if I plug in the player 2 joystick into port one and use it it seems to go away.

 

* At least I never noticed it in Space Invaders or Asteroids, but in missile command each button press is very important, so you notice something like that more. Usually I hover the crosshairs over a city and time a shot. If the button doesn't register, boom goes the city.

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If I were to take a stab in the dark here, I'd presume that AtGames decided the original hardware was too costly and went with the Monkey King chip commonly used in cheap tablets and other disposable technology. (ETA Prime disassembled the Blast and examined its hardware... this was his conclusion as well.) They noticed it wasn't going to run arcade games worth a crap and dug up some NES emulator to take its place, not terribly concerned with its performance or the gap in quality between the real thing and the NES imitations.

We couldn't know for sure unless the original review model (with arcade ROMs) was examined.

 

What contest says to write Positive reviews regardless if they r true or not?

I know sites like Amazon Turk do things like that. Jobs will pay you money to write good reviews for things, and/or to post them at different forums.

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That same fellow reviewed the pong unit but I noticed something about the sound - the circus atari bounce sounds seem different than the one posted above. If you go to the 16 minute mark of this video you can hear it (sounds like wet farts) and then compare it to the circus atari sounds of Glens Retro Show video (19:38). Could it just be the tv and it's distortion? I'm not convinced. One thing though is absolutely clear to me from watching both videos - both of those guys suck at Circus Atari.

 

My question is, are these using Stella? I thought I read Atgames was using Stella this year or is that only for the Flashback units and not the Blast line? The reason I ask, is if it is Stella, shouldn't the sound be pretty much accurate?

 

Edited by AtariLeaf
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That same fellow reviewed the pong unit but I noticed something about the sound - the circus atari bounce sounds seem different than the one posted above. If you go to the 16 minute mark of this video you can hear it (sounds like wet farts) and then compare it to the circus atari sounds of Glens Retro Show video (19:38). Could it just be the tv and it's distortion? I'm not convinced. One thing though is absolutely clear to me from watching both videos - both of those guys suck at Circus Atari.

 

My question is, are these using Stella? I thought I read Atgames was using Stella this year or is that only for the Flashback units and not the Blast line? The reason I ask, is if it is Stella, shouldn't the sound be pretty much ]

Stella is only in the consoles, which have the necessary horsepower to run it.

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Very cool :thumbsup: I really enjoy simple, no thrills review videos without fancy intros and calls to hit 'subscribe' and/or a 'like button'. To me these kind of (review) videos are what YouTube is all about. Definitely I found both reviews to be really informative, direct, to the point, and transparent. Kudos to this guy. I need to look at more of his stuff, especially when he reviews things with hand written lists and a baton of some kind :)

That same fellow reviewed the pong unit but I noticed something about the sound - the circus atari bounce sounds seem different than the one posted above. If you go to the 16 minute mark of this video you can hear it (sounds like wet farts) and then compare it to the circus atari sounds of Glens Retro Show video (19:38). Could it just be the tv and it's distortion? I'm not convinced. One thing though is absolutely clear to me from watching both videos - both of those guys suck at Circus Atari.

 

My question is, are these using Stella? I thought I read Atgames was using Stella this year or is that only for the Flashback units and not the Blast line? The reason I ask, is if it is Stella, shouldn't the sound be pretty much accurate?

 

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It's very difficult on the Blast! I am much better on a real Atari 2600. The paddles just don't perform properly with that slight lag.

 

Which is why I'm not a fan of wireless controllers in general. That slight lag is enough to go from fun to frustration. Games like this and Kaboom need precise, pinpoint timing which is very difficult with lag. It seems the paddles for the actual flashback 9's are wired so hopefully no lag there.

Edited by AtariLeaf
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It's very difficult on the Blast! I am much better on a real Atari 2600. The paddles just don't perform properly with that slight lag.

 

To me the paddles feel like they're slow to turn. There's some resistance that I don't remember on original paddles. The paddles from the Flashback 8 Gold Deluxe felt the same way. Almost as if turning something with a thick grease on it that slows the turning a bit.

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To me the paddles feel like they're slow to turn. There's some resistance that I don't remember on original paddles. The paddles from the Flashback 8 Gold Deluxe felt the same way. Almost as if turning something with a thick grease on it that slows the turning a bit.

 

Did it loosen at all over time or stay like that?

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