Bottom line: I can't play any games on my TV I intend to record until I get something that works. That means no Plug n Play games for a short while. Hopefully by "short", I mean until the next Plug n Play Game Corner segment, but we'll see what happens.
In the meantime, we're going to look at some stuff that I couldn't record with a capture device anyway. And this week, we have the dreaded unHoly Grail of the video game market: a POP Station!
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Game: "POP Station" Tiltable Display LCD Game
Manufacturer: Australian Discount Retail?
Release Date: N/A
Genre: Various
Followers of British YouTube personality and "tat" reviewer Ashens are probably familiar with his first review and most infamous recurring segment on his channel: the POP Station. The first was a very cheap LCD handheld game(a la Tiger Electronics) clearly trying to fool you into thinking you were buying a PSP, when you were actually being suckered into buying a barely working, very boring Soccer game where the goal and controls were unclear.
Afterwards, all subsequent cheap LCD games he came across, he referred to as "POP Stations", regardless of the shape, games, or manufacturer. But the concept behind each is the same: A cheap, poorly-made game from an underground third-party company that uses (often interchangeable)LCD screens and tries to sell itself through some stupid gimmick, usually by mimicking a more advanced and popular system or game. Oh, and they're worse than playing Superman 64 and Bubsy 3D at the same time while listening to the Chipmunks sing "Friday" on repeat...
And it just so happens that I own one of these "POP Stations." ...Halfway by accident. I saw this in a thrift store and, even though it's not my field, I picked it up thinking I could talk about it somewhere down the line when I need a break from Plug n Play games. ...Or, in this case, when I don't have access to my collection, so I guess I made a good call.
However, let me just give a small warning here: Do NOT send me, or even request I review, a POP Station. This is a special situation and I don't plan on making this a regular feature. In fact, the longer I go without seeing another real life version of these, the better. If I DO end up talking about another one, it'll be an extremely rare occurrence and only because I'm either desperate or I found one I think deserves to be talked about(like if I ever find that Angry Birds/Plants vs. Zombies version Ashens featured once.) So please do NOT send me any knock-off LCD electronic games. I will NOT do anything with them(besides throw them away.) ...But if you have any knock-off, or even official, Plug n Play games or systems you want to get rid of, I'll gladly take those!
Anyway, I'm only guessing what this game is actually called. At the top, it gives the ever-so-specific descriptor "GAME" followed by "Tiltable Display." But seeing how cheap game companies work, it's likely they never gave this thing a name to begin with.
Unless they meant to name it after a medical term to test for fainting...
However, the serial number on the console lists it as a "ZC-389." ...I guess I never mentioned that an earlier prototype of myself actually DID review LCD games, and a Chinese company was so honored, that they named one of its models after me. ...That was a dark and strange 3 hours of my life...
So this is one of those interchangeable cartridge games, where they give you several screens, each with a slightly different game to play. ...If they work correctly, since otherwise, it tries to play a previous game using the graphics contained on the inserted screen...
And in case such advanced technology flies over your head, they even mention that it has "Multi-Changeable Cartridges!"
And that it's "2 Players!"
Which they mention twice on the packaging!
Ya know? If the two controllers behind a transparent window weren't a clear indication...
And yes, I paid $5 for this. Which is one of the reasons why I bought it, since a swap meet near my house usually sells single-screen cheapo LCD games for $10 or more. ...Still, I was overcharged by $22.47.
And in the bottom-left corner, they've printed some generic low-quality clip art that loosely ties in with the included games. From left-to-right, we have Bruce Lee about to trip on a soccer ball, Chun-Li in a military outfit painfully twisting Balrog's arm, and a battleship with "lime" disease.
Also, on the bottom-right, we have a helicopter with a "refreshing mint flavor." MST3K fans UNITE!
The back gives us more examples of stolen/misleading artwork, including a background stock image of jets being unconvincingly fired at by battleships.
But what REALLY makes this packaging are the "screenshots" they included to represent each game.
For "Soccer", we have a picture of some real life soccer players... which is too good even for FIFA 17...
"Submarine Invasion" has what looks to be a screenshot from a recent movie about World War II. Though which movie, I have no idea.
"Street Fighter" actually DOES have a Street Fighter screenshot... though I highly doubt we're going to see that quality on this system...
And finally, "Fortress Guardian", which has a bunch of jets flying off to who knows where? The most honest in advertising present here, people. ...Still more accurate than the claims about LA Noire though...
And in the bottom-right hand corner, we get a clue as to who might have manufactured these, as it says it was imported by "Australian Discount Retail (Trading)."
I surprisingly found quite a bit of information about this company. It was a retailer operating in (obviously)Australia that owned the Sam's Warehouse and Crazy Clark's brands of discount stores, which were basically the Australian equivalents of America's K-Mart and Dollar General.
Unfortunately, also similarly to K-Mart, they were in deep financial trouble for quite a few years, rebranding themselves as "Discount Superstores Group" in 2013 and shutting down or renaming their stores "Chickenfeed" ...before changing their minds and RE-renaming them Sam's Warehouse and Crazy Clark's, until they collapsed altogether in 2014.
And, seeing as how they were mainly about selling cheap, generic stuff, including toys, I can believe that they were the ones who ordered or even manufactured these LCD games.
When we open up the package, which is comprised of two plastic "shells" that easily snap apart or together, we see that the games are stuck in the front casing, while the back is basically a flat surface save for a bubble the console is resting in.
And here's the console, with the cartridge taken out. ...And it looks like it was made from a mold originally made for something else. My best guess is that this was originally an alarm clock or a digital radio.
You can see where they obviously filled in the areas where buttons originally were.
And before you think that this game has stereo sound with its two speakers, the left speaker is clearly fake...
In fact, I don't even know if the other speaker is real, since there's another speaker on the back which may be the source of the sound!
And when we open the battery compartment, we see that it takes FOUR AA batteries! And that one of the springs is missing! I briefly panicked when I tried to put batteries in this thing since I thought I had bought a broken game. ...Until I realized that it only takes TWO batteries and where the second set of batteries goes is actually left over from whatever this used to be. They didn't even bother to take out the diagram...
And, true to its name, the screen DOES tilt! ...Hooray... I'm assuming this is done so one could place the game close to them and not have to have the screen at eye-level in order to see anything. ...Or, it was left over from the previous gadget and they just decided to market it as a pointless selling feature...
The two controllers, which are some of the smallest and flimsiest controllers I've ever handled, go into ports on the back.
...And strangely, instead of the standard 1/2 Player labels most of these have, they are instead called "Master" and "Slaver." ...Ok, I know where they were TRYING to go with this, but they didn't exactly choose the most "politically correct" way of expressing it. And it doesn't work the way they intended anyway, since a "Slaver" is one who deals in the slave trade, basically making it a "Master" as well. ...Though one who's either going to be picketed by the NAACP or shot in the face by Jamie Foxx.
The "games", as I mentioned before, are these interchangeable screens that either have the game installed on them or, more likely, tell the console which game to play.
They clip on, you turn the console on, and you play the game. ...At least, that's the idea, since these cartridges are heavily prone to failure...
Especially since, after LITERALLY the first time inserting, the clips fall off the cartridge and have to be superglued back on! Only the highest quality to be found here...
And the cartridges are finding other ways of self-destructing as well. You'll notice each cartridge comes with a detailed background that's supposed to make the images stand out better(even though they can now be even more easily lost against the bright colors.)
But they're warping on the other side! ...I'm almost tempted to take them off and see how they play without them, except I probably wouldn't be able to get them back on again...
And the plastic screen protectors are already bubbling on most of these! And if I didn't mention it already, these were BRAND NEW! Just barely out of the package and the game has taken one look at itself and deemed itself an abomination unfit to exist...
And finally, we have the instruction sheet. which just tells us how to put in the batteries and the barest instructions for each game.
I was going to have some fun with these and point out all the Engrish and nonsense phrases, but they had the nerve to translate it fairly decently, so there's nothing particularly humorous about them. Stupid knock-off companies actually doing something right for a change and ruining my fun...
Alright, I'm going to attempt to get the console in a position where I can see what's on the screen and attempt to play each of these games, giving a short opinion of each one. ...I see nothing but sunshine and roses emanating from this choice...
And before I actually turn this on, a warning to the one other person who bought this but hasn't used it already: Don't use Duracell! They are actually too big to fit in the slot and will damage the connections! Use a lesser-known dollar store brand since those are about a tenth of an inch shorter and will actually fit. ...That is, if you ARE concerned about ruining this thing...
Ok, after a lot of re-positioning and tinkering with the lights, I eventually found a position to tilt it in where the graphics are visible and the glare is... tolerable. So here's a short opinion of each of the games:
Soccer: The title is self-explanatory. It's an LED interpretation of American Soccer. ...And it's unplayable. I studied the instructions on how to play this until I think I felt a vein in my head pop, and yet, I STILL have no idea how it works! The instructions say things like "the flashing soccer player is the one for the Player 1 or 2 to control" and "control your team players to offense and defense in the match", but since all the graphics look the same and everything moves too quickly to tell which player is "flashing", I couldn't tell who I was controlling or what I was doing!
And after the round was over(where I THINK either I or the computer scored a goal[most likely the computer]), I tried to get it to start again, but I entered some weird "debug" mode, which the instructions called the "PK Shoot." Again, I couldn't get anything to happen. So if I'm basing the price I paid for this console on how many games it came with, I just paid $1.25 for a game that's impossible to play. ...And without the utter ridiculousness I could have gotten for the same price and playability from Xbox Indie Games...
Submarine Invasion: This one was more straightforward than Soccer and I could actually figure out how it worked. It's basically a poor man's Air-Sea Battle for the Atari(and that's saying something.) You control the submarine at the bottom and fire missiles at the planes above, avoiding the bombs they send your way. It's playable, I guess, but it has the longevity of about a minute...
All of these games are also 2 Player, where the second player usually just takes the computer's role. However, for this game, they did bother to include another sub for the second player, which is the same picture as the first player...
The instructions even point out that they're the same and it's likely the players won't be able to tell the difference between the two! You gotta love it when games admit to your face that the designer was lazy...
Actually, why is the game called "Submarine Invasion?" Judging by how "invasion" is often used in game titles, you'd think you'd actually be FIGHTING the submarines who are coming to destroy your way of life, not playing as the submarine. ...So I guess this is one of those games where you play as the bad guy? ...Well, it's about as playable as Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon, so that makes sense...
At this point, what I thought would happen and what I mentioned earlier occurred, where the system tried to play Submarine Invasion with the graphics of the next two games, which confirms that the programs are actually stored in the system and it just uses the cards for display.
It took quite a while to fix as well. Changing the cards did nothing(and strangely, Soccer worked just fine), so eventually, I just took out the batteries and let it sit for a while. That seemed to work, since I didn't have a repeat afterwards. ...Though now I can't help but imagine if the Xbox did the same thing. Imagine playing Skyrim with the character and texture models from Spelunky...
Street Fighter: A VERY poor man's fighting game, which may or may not actually be based on Street Fighter. As Ashens famously put it, this is the game "where two fighters pull their arms and legs off and throw them at each other." And when you press Start, it plays the first few notes of Super Mario Bros.
It's also known on a few other consoles as "City Fighter", which they lazily kept in the upper left-hand corner...
And unlike Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat or Tekken or basically every other fighting game out there, there are no special moves, no character selection, and, best of all, no strategy or difficulty. I LITERALLY won just by rapidly tapping the A button, which continually shot my arms at the other guy and depleted his health in about 15 seconds. And it's the same thing round after round, so after I beat the guy the quadrilllionth time, I just turned it off. No Hadoukens to be found in this game... Or joy...
Fortress Guardian: Finally, we have what's basically Submarine Invasion, just horizontal. Just shoot the helicopters coming from the right and avoid the bullets. And it was the hardest to play since it contains the most static images that look the same as the lit images...
However, this game does manage to one-up the others by actually including a death animation. When the helicopter is shot, it falls from the sky and crashes into the ground. ...And you know that we're scraping the bottom of the barrel when I have to praise a game for giving us a standard feature of any other game in existence...
And that's the console.
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Design: It's a stand-alone game console that was created from some previous mold of something else unrelated to games and where the gimmick is that the screen can tilt. There's not exactly a lot of creativity to be found here. Even the box art is bland, just a bunch of generic stock backgrounds and clip art, save for a single shot of a Street Fighter game, with very little text other than it has multiple carts. Nothing about this console catches my eye and if I was to walk by it in a regular store, I probably wouldn't even notice.
Controls: They're two slightly Batarang-shaped controllers called Master and Slaver. They feel very flimsy and cheap and like I'm about to break them every time I press a button... but they work all right, I guess. ...I'm guessing, since I can't see anything on the screen to check and make sure...
Music & Sound: The only music you get is when you boot up the game or press Start, and then it's just some slight beeps and blips barely carrying a tune, besides Street Fighter's Super Mario excerpt. The sound is just more beeping that gets annoying REALLY quickly. Thankfully, they include a Sound option to turn it off. ...Which I really wish I could have used while recording footage...
Graphics: The graphics are your standard LED images. If you've ever played a Tiger Electronics game or one of those games McDonald's or Burger King gave out in Happy Meals a few times, you know what it's like looking at one of these. The images are bland and static and, especially with Soccer, you constantly lose track of where you are. Which is not helped by the fact you can only see the screen if it's angled JUST right. I hope you can see what I recorded, because I sure couldn't...
Gameplay: The games range from boring to unplayable. Soccer was one of the most confusing messes I've ever had to endure, Submarine Invasion was the most playable of the lot but stupefyingly monotonous, Street Fighter was just a button-pushing simulator, and Fortress Guardian I could barely even make out, let alone play. The only challenge these games offer is challenging you to figure out what's going on and the only fun you'll have is throwing these across the room after playing them for 30 seconds...
Replay Value: ppppfffffttttHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Like you'd even want to turn them on in the first place!
Overall:
They barely work, they're glitchy, they're made out of the cheapest possible materials, and they have about 10 seconds of gameplay before you want to go out and murder people. Presumably the people who gave you it in the first place. Even for people who review cheap, tasteless junk, they offer virtually no material to work with. If you're tempted to get this for your kids for a long car ride... just get them a Rubik's Cube. It'll keep their attention for a full 20 seconds more than these will... There's only one thing I can recommend doing with this if you ever find yourself in possession of one:
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