🚨 U P D A T E S 🚨 A keen viewer (or five) pointed out that, for a few of the games where two-player ALTERNATING is possible, there is a 2-player option still left in this system. It's only for two-player SIMULTANEOUS where it's completely removed. Similar is true for some difficulty switch options, but not all.
Jakks Pacific has an interesting history, their CEO first founded LJN then THQ. From action figures, to WWF games, to plug and plays like this (their Pacman P&P has sold over 15 million units), to licensed toys, they are still going strong 29 years later
Hey Jon just wanted to say due to lacking siblings your videos always make me feel like i have an older brother explaining what games he played growing up.
Wow. That's both flattering & humbling. I'm happy that you're enjoying my content in this way! Now, get out of my room, Squirt! And don't go cryin' to Mom about it! 😉
In the early 00s I got the Atari version for Christmas. At that time I just getting to gaming history, so it was a perfect introduction to an era from long before I was born.
These plug and play systems were really good back in 2004, I had the Pac Man and Spider Man systems because they were cool for playing on CRT TVs! It was easy to plug directly into a Sony Trinitron’s front AV input and I do remember the Activision plug and play at a Toys R Us, but I bought Pac Man because of its replay value.
If you look on the "game manual screen" for River Raid, Spider Fighter, Boxing, and Freeway, then you can see that there are button combos to set the difficulty level.
I remember seeing this for sale when it was new but I already had an Activision collection on the XBox (or PlayStation) so didn’t pick it up. Never thought it would last for 20(😱) years
Wish Jakks Pacific was still around and in business. That company made good high-quality affordable products. Didn't have to mess with downloading ROM's and BIOS files, do any configuration, just insert batteries and connect the 2 cables and you're retro gaming.
Great find and video review Jon! This looks like it would have been great back in the day … much closer to the original than the Atari 2600 PacMan was for sure (low bar I know) but we were happy to get that, so I think many fans would have been happy to have this. And I never do multiplayer and am strictly a “player one” gamer so that absence of P2 duel play is fine with me. Thanks so much 👊🏻🕹️😎
I have all these games for the Atari, except Boxing. My cousin gave me a joystick with Atari games to hook up to the TV like this one, but my old-fashioned TV didn't have those connections, and I probably had most of the games anyway.
I remember when you could pick up these Jakks Pacific plug 'n plays for around £5 in the bargain bins. Should have got them when I had the opportunity :-) Keep up the awesome work Jon!
I got one of those and the namco one when it first came out. My Ms. Pac. Man one also takes two little cartridges so It can play almost ten games I think.
I have this one! And the Atari branded one too. Both from a thrift shop but they weren’t exactly bargains. I liked the games but have moved on since the new consoles have been released.
Was playing my newly acquired Taito SuperPocket a few days ago and was thinking to myself between that, the Evercade EXP and the My Arcade premium units just to name a few examples, it’s amazing how long we’ve come for authentic arcade at home and retro mini products. I still love these deep dives though from thrift stores and other places, it’s like retro archaeology!
Cool find and great review as always! That version of Pitfall was pretty crazy though. The collision detection on that cobra was so off and don't get me started on the swinging vine lol
I have one of these things - I have spent a bit of time messing around with it, having a surprising amount of fun in the process. Mine was curious in that when I got it, it was in the original box but what made it interesting was that the box and instructions are in German yet I'm in the UK. (The menu screen is very reminiscent of the one on the later Atari CX-40 style plug-and-play from Jakks Pacific, in my opinion.)
Happy to hear you enjoy them. I keep forgetting to take a few seconds of footage at the store where I find these things. I think that would really help to tell the story, do you think?
Some of those games actually do have the difficulty switches implemented, toggled by button combos before you press start. Those are explained on the screens that tell you the controls. I had the Atari version of this (which had Adventure, Pong, Yars' Revenge and so on), and it was the same way. Menus looked exactly the same, and equally poor sound.
Both river raid and chicken had 2 player alt options on their on-screen instructions. Granted, it is not simultaneous, but that would be hard when the console is the controller.
It's only another FamiClone. It could be interesting for a collector, not for play on it, just like Intellivision Plug&Play junks. Activision deserves much more than this Great video Jon
I have this as well as the original Toymax version that came in a cardboard box (not in a clam shell). The original gamepad version has a bug where one of the colors is transparent that makes the bullets in Atlantis, and part of the fuel tanks in River Raid invisible. They fixed this in later models.
Thanks, Michael. I probably have a dozen or so. I've covered most of them right here on the channel if you'd like to browse back through the catalog. 😉
I still have mine from when I was a kid. Spider Fighter uses select to swap between the bullet types. if you read the instructions it tells you what do do to change the player switches. boxing has 2 for example select changes one persons difficulty and holding fire wile hitting select changes the other. Freeway is 2 player and it says one button goes forward while the other goes back but I remember both buttons going forward as a kid giving P1 a huge advantage.
7:29 crackpots says how to enter 2player alternating mode, 12:09 River raid instructions say how to play two player and set difficulty, 15:37 freeway has a 2 player mode??? But also shows how to set difficulty. Most of the games do in the controls section of instruction page…
@@GenXGrownUp I love all this retro stuff, really appreciate it. I didn't know this product was reprogrammed 2600 for NES chip games, some really good info there.
I actually workd on this device back in the 2k's. The emulation / hardware used wasnt very impressive, but... what'ya' want for $20. I also worked on the original Flashback and FB2 as well. Hooray for me
Actually, people always say that Freeway was a rip off of frogger but technically (on difficult A) the game is actually closer to the 1973 arcade game Space Race🚀.
The concept has been there, like, forever. The game might be the most popular (Seinfeld helped a lot on that), but if there’s a thief, that’s Frogger. If you ever wonder why Frogger’s recent ports and sequels don’t have most of the music, is because they ripped them off from quite a few animated shows from the 70s. That was quite common in the 80s, but Frogger ripped off a lot.
@@OM19_MO79 fun fact: the frogger theme song is actually a song by Yoshimi Sato in 1960 called Inu No Omawarisan which roughly means Mister Dog Police Officer
@@toastrave7820 I know. And there's also bits of Hana no ko Lun-Lun, Oshiete, Mahō Shōjo Lalabel and I believe two others. The fun fact is that it still has about 2 or 3 tunes that can be used.
I remember this thing. I didn't buy it because I had the Activision Classics collection on Playstation 1. Also, it didn't have Fishing Derby. What kind of fool at Activision decided to leave that one out?
I absolutely love the A2600. I found an Atari plug n play in a good will store, but it was the padel version, and the games on that console was quite boring, esp for their asking price... But regarding the controller you got, kind of reminds me of those classic Amiga 1000 controllers, Tec 2? * ED: _TAC 2_ 😄
Heh. Believe me, the ratio of old, high-backed chairs to cool vintage gaming finds is skewed waaaaaay in the favor of chairs, but every once in a while you'll strike gold.
Yeah unless people play the real games these emulators or really bad ripoffs like this don't seem that odd to them, people still claim the like 3r iteration of Flashback "has a 2600 inside it" an early chip cloning method but there is zero Atari hardware in it.
This was the "Nintendo on a Chip" era. Literally that, the basic system behind NES sold very cheaply on scale like Raspberri Pi minis are today. They couldn't do proper emulation software which was being developed anyways so they had cheap programming teams re-create them with "Uh, if it looks like it on the surface" quality assurance so-so. Wasn't shovelware they had legit effort but nothing compared to the talent/effort that made the same arcade game for 6 home systems of varying levels of nowhere near enough graphics, memory, speed... This was "We can't drag and drop so..." cheap quick. I didn't like the Intellivison one of this era since I'd played the D&D game renamed to Crown of Kings. Nintendo DS was far better as a 1:1 emulator the far more advanced mini console could casually handle. And not bashing - but again "Nintendo on a Chip" era so it was like those ads for top hits you saw late at night but they weren't the single you liked but some kinda ok quality re-do of it.
i like these things. But there really better plugnplay systems by Jakks and other companies. I really love my Mrs Pacman (the blue one); the little box sized thing by namco, The mortal Kombat and of course the spongbob and scooby doo plug n plays.
Waiting for an Activision collection on the Xbox, now that Microsoft owns the rights. How long has it been since we got a decent Activision collection? Twenty years ago, on PS2? As for these early plug 'n plays, they're often Famiclones, and the difference between the ports and the originals is obvious. VERY obvious, in the case of the Intellivision ones.
I've got the other shaped version of this and it is terrible. You see Activision, which always meant quality on a 2600 cartridge yet this device has terrible lag. I'll stick with the original system.
🚨 U P D A T E S 🚨
A keen viewer (or five) pointed out that, for a few of the games where two-player ALTERNATING is possible, there is a 2-player option still left in this system. It's only for two-player SIMULTANEOUS where it's completely removed.
Similar is true for some difficulty switch options, but not all.
I saw a Atari 7200 at my Walmart they wanted 65 bucks for it I live in Massachusetts 😊
Jakks Pacific has an interesting history, their CEO first founded LJN then THQ. From action figures, to WWF games, to plug and plays like this (their Pacman P&P has sold over 15 million units), to licensed toys, they are still going strong 29 years later
I just pulled mine out of the storage cabinet it was in. I forgot all about it until I saw your video.
That's how it works sometimes!
Yes, I have this one, too. There were a lot of Plug&Plugs from Jakks. There was also an Atari stick.
I have that. It's cool.
Hey Jon just wanted to say due to lacking siblings your videos always make me feel like i have an older brother explaining what games he played growing up.
Wow. That's both flattering & humbling. I'm happy that you're enjoying my content in this way!
Now, get out of my room, Squirt! And don't go cryin' to Mom about it! 😉
@@GenXGrownUp thanks bro for the info & i won't be telling Mom
In the early 00s I got the Atari version for Christmas. At that time I just getting to gaming history, so it was a perfect introduction to an era from long before I was born.
These plug and play systems were really good back in 2004, I had the Pac Man and Spider Man systems because they were cool for playing on CRT TVs! It was easy to plug directly into a Sony Trinitron’s front AV input and I do remember the Activision plug and play at a Toys R Us, but I bought Pac Man because of its replay value.
Fun find even though it's not the best way to play these games! Great video as always!!!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
If you look on the "game manual screen" for River Raid, Spider Fighter, Boxing, and Freeway, then you can see that there are button combos to set the difficulty level.
Most definitely. I've added a pinned comment to that effect.
I remember seeing this for sale when it was new but I already had an Activision collection on the XBox (or PlayStation) so didn’t pick it up. Never thought it would last for 20(😱) years
This reminds me of cheap vs. good beer...🙂 Thanks, Jon!!!
Wish Jakks Pacific was still around and in business. That company made good high-quality affordable products. Didn't have to mess with downloading ROM's and BIOS files, do any configuration, just insert batteries and connect the 2 cables and you're retro gaming.
Great find and video review Jon!
This looks like it would have been great back in the day … much closer to the original than the Atari 2600 PacMan was for sure (low bar I know) but we were happy to get that, so I think many fans would have been happy to have this.
And I never do multiplayer and am strictly a “player one” gamer so that absence of P2 duel play is fine with me.
Thanks so much
👊🏻🕹️😎
it's strange to think this is the same company that would go on to be a billion dollar jerk
Agreed. Activision became what its founders hated.
Since when was Jakks Pacific "a billion dollar jerk"?
@bland9876 the post is about Activision which is a rotten company today
Pressure cooker was 1 of my favourites from Activision
I bought one of those brand-new when it first came out. Still have it too.
I have all these games for the Atari, except Boxing. My cousin gave me a joystick with Atari games to hook up to the TV like this one, but my old-fashioned TV didn't have those connections, and I probably had most of the games anyway.
The pac man and ms pac man ones were great. All good games, played good, solid builds.
This looks like an interesting pickup. Nice review.
Just like from Jungle King to Jungle Hunt, the vine magically changes into a rope.
I used to own several of those plug n plays, but not this one. At that time i would have loved this.
That Crackpots is an NES port of Crackpots.
Apparently, you are amongst those many who don’t know Spider Fighter.
❓
I remember when you could pick up these Jakks Pacific plug 'n plays for around £5 in the bargain bins. Should have got them when I had the opportunity :-) Keep up the awesome work Jon!
Sound is definitely off with these ports. Great review!
I thought I had all of the Jakks Pacific series. Never heard of that one... Jealous!
3:30 polishing the knob eh?....so sorry had to! Havnt seen one these in years! Was curious on how these were.
I got one of those and the namco one when it first came out. My Ms. Pac. Man one also takes two little cartridges so It can play almost ten games I think.
I have this one! And the Atari branded one too. Both from a thrift shop but they weren’t exactly bargains. I liked the games but have moved on since the new consoles have been released.
fun fact: the frogger theme song is actually a song by Yoshimi Sato in 1960 called Inu No Omawarisan which roughly means Mister Dog Police Officer
Don't some Frogger games use a different song for some reason? I wanna say the 360 version is one of them.
🐸
@@bland9876 yeah i'm pretty sure it does but as i only played the 360 at an old friends house i'm not entirely sure
I love these plug and plays. Got the commando one
Thanks for mentioning the TAC II early on. I was already wracking my memory to try and remember what that stick was called.
For sure. When I first saw it in the shop I thought, "Oooh, a TAC-2 controller," and was then surprised to see it was instead a Plug-n-Play.
Was playing my newly acquired Taito SuperPocket a few days ago and was thinking to myself between that, the Evercade EXP and the My Arcade premium units just to name a few examples, it’s amazing how long we’ve come for authentic arcade at home and retro mini products. I still love these deep dives though from thrift stores and other places, it’s like retro archaeology!
I was JUST looking at one of these!
Did you pick it up or pass?
Passed on it, but I may circle back to it next paycheck : )
Very Cool, I liked all 79 comments including my own. Help that algorithm folks.
I have a few of those original controllers, that thing is based on
Cool find and great review as always! That version of Pitfall was pretty crazy though. The collision detection on that cobra was so off and don't get me started on the swinging vine lol
I hear you on that! Pitfall on the Plug-n-Play is rough around the edges, to say the least.
I have one of these things - I have spent a bit of time messing around with it, having a surprising amount of fun in the process. Mine was curious in that when I got it, it was in the original box but what made it interesting was that the box and instructions are in German yet I'm in the UK. (The menu screen is very reminiscent of the one on the later Atari CX-40 style plug-and-play from Jakks Pacific, in my opinion.)
I have a Namco plug & play that has Pac Man, Galaga and a few others.
love these treasure reviews. it's inspiration to go digging around - thanks Jon
Happy to hear you enjoy them. I keep forgetting to take a few seconds of footage at the store where I find these things. I think that would really help to tell the story, do you think?
@@GenXGrownUp I could see it working as part of your B-Roll.. it would be cool to see the layout stores put these devices in.
Another great video!
Interesting. I wonder why they made it look sort of like a Suncom joystick?
It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers: it LOOKS similar to the original but doesn't have the 'soul' of the original.
That's a really good analogy.
Great Content Jon!🤘🏻👍🏻🇺🇲
Some of those games actually do have the difficulty switches implemented, toggled by button combos before you press start. Those are explained on the screens that tell you the controls.
I had the Atari version of this (which had Adventure, Pong, Yars' Revenge and so on), and it was the same way. Menus looked exactly the same, and equally poor sound.
Yes, indeed. I missed that during production but please see my pinned comment.
I could have enjoyed this 29 years ago I would have chosen different games. Such as adding Enduro and either kaboom or keystone kapers
Both river raid and chicken had 2 player alt options on their on-screen instructions. Granted, it is not simultaneous, but that would be hard when the console is the controller.
You're absolutely right. I've added a pinned update comment.
It's only another FamiClone. It could be interesting for a collector, not for play on it, just like Intellivision Plug&Play junks.
Activision deserves much more than this
Great video Jon
I have this as well as the original Toymax version that came in a cardboard box (not in a clam shell). The original gamepad version has a bug where one of the colors is transparent that makes the bullets in Atlantis, and part of the fuel tanks in River Raid invisible. They fixed this in later models.
Interesting. I hadn't seen any reference to a software revision between the two variants. Thanks for sharing this info!
Wow
Never knew this existing
So cool
Do you have lots of plus and plays ?
Greet video
Thanks, Michael. I probably have a dozen or so. I've covered most of them right here on the channel if you'd like to browse back through the catalog. 😉
You were explaining that there were no difficulty switches while showing the screen which explained how to change difficulty switches.
You got me! I missed that one.
Odd decision to pack in all those sports games (and Freeway) and then make them single-player only.
I still have mine from when I was a kid. Spider Fighter uses select to swap between the bullet types. if you read the instructions it tells you what do do to change the player switches. boxing has 2 for example select changes one persons difficulty and holding fire wile hitting select changes the other.
Freeway is 2 player and it says one button goes forward while the other goes back but I remember both buttons going forward as a kid giving P1 a huge advantage.
Right you are. I added a pinned comment with this info shortly after publishing.
7:29 crackpots says how to enter 2player alternating mode, 12:09 River raid instructions say how to play two player and set difficulty, 15:37 freeway has a 2 player mode??? But also shows how to set difficulty. Most of the games do in the controls section of instruction page…
A-ha! Right you are! For games with two-player ALTERNATING there are some provisions. Thanks for the keen eye!
Nice find💯
Looks good to me.
This is a nice little device for Activision games.
The AtGames 2600 Activision 2018 version is pretty good. Activision behind Nintendo are possible the best long term video game producers.
I’ve got one of these. Found it at a thrift shop for $3 many years ago. Highly recommend if you can find one.
This was great, thanks mate :)
You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it.
@@GenXGrownUp I love all this retro stuff, really appreciate it. I didn't know this product was reprogrammed 2600 for NES chip games, some really good info there.
@@teddym2808 I love all this retro stuff, too. 😊
We at B.Y.O.A.C. (build your own arcade controls ) made arcade machines out of Jack's plug and play
Jon, you don't know Jakk!
I actually workd on this device back in the 2k's. The emulation / hardware used wasnt very impressive, but... what'ya' want for $20. I also worked on the original Flashback and FB2 as well. Hooray for me
That's cool, Kenneth! Were you employed by Toymax or a contracted engineer?
Actually, people always say that Freeway was a rip off of frogger but technically (on difficult A) the game is actually closer to the 1973 arcade game Space Race🚀.
👌
The concept has been there, like, forever. The game might be the most popular (Seinfeld helped a lot on that), but if there’s a thief, that’s Frogger. If you ever wonder why Frogger’s recent ports and sequels don’t have most of the music, is because they ripped them off from quite a few animated shows from the 70s. That was quite common in the 80s, but Frogger ripped off a lot.
@@OM19_MO79 fun fact: the frogger theme song is actually a song by Yoshimi Sato in 1960 called Inu No Omawarisan which roughly means Mister Dog Police Officer
@@toastrave7820 I know. And there's also bits of Hana no ko Lun-Lun, Oshiete, Mahō Shōjo Lalabel and I believe two others.
The fun fact is that it still has about 2 or 3 tunes that can be used.
Thanks Jon.
I remember this thing. I didn't buy it because I had the Activision Classics collection on Playstation 1. Also, it didn't have Fishing Derby. What kind of fool at Activision decided to leave that one out?
That's another one that's at least twice as good with a human opponent. 🎣🦈
there's also a GBA version that if i remember correctly has fishing derby
I absolutely love the A2600. I found an Atari plug n play in a good will store, but it was the padel version, and the games on that console was quite boring, esp for their asking price...
But regarding the controller you got, kind of reminds me of those classic Amiga 1000 controllers, Tec 2?
* ED:
_TAC 2_ 😄
I agreed! 2:29
Yheeeh, I just noticed that, and was supposed to edit my post: "Just like you said" 😄👍
Freeway - read the instructions on screen, there are difficulty switches and ... 2 player mode?!
Yes, indeed. I missed it at production but please see my pinned comment.
@2:29 When I saw this it immediately reminded me of the TAC 2
When I first spotted it on the shelf, I was like, "Oh, cool, a loose TAC-2 controller," but got closer and found it was more. 😁
Bonus! We get a brief ASMR of cleaning an old joystick
Right? Put that on a loop and enjoy a nice nap! 😴
I got this back in the day. Still have it. I thought it worked well.
Maybe I should go to more antique shops. I thought all they had were chairs.
Heh. Believe me, the ratio of old, high-backed chairs to cool vintage gaming finds is skewed waaaaaay in the favor of chairs, but every once in a while you'll strike gold.
Yeah unless people play the real games these emulators or really bad ripoffs like this don't seem that odd to them, people still claim the like 3r iteration of Flashback "has a 2600 inside it" an early chip cloning method but there is zero Atari hardware in it.
Great 😌 😊
“Thats not right syndrome “😂 i think i have that
Haha! I hear you can get a shot to clear that up. 😉
Videogames in the antique store...we be old😹😹😹😹
Where did you get that groovy T-Shirt?
From our store! www.teepublic.com/stores/genxgrownup?query=fruit
I think he made it himself
Never seen this before.
I’m wondering if anyone has ripped the rom to slap onto an NES cart? I’ve tried one that did that with the Intellivision games!
I looked but couldn't find it anywhere.
This was the "Nintendo on a Chip" era.
Literally that, the basic system behind NES sold very cheaply on scale like Raspberri Pi minis are today. They couldn't do proper emulation software which was being developed anyways so they had cheap programming teams re-create them with "Uh, if it looks like it on the surface" quality assurance so-so. Wasn't shovelware they had legit effort but nothing compared to the talent/effort that made the same arcade game for 6 home systems of varying levels of nowhere near enough graphics, memory, speed... This was "We can't drag and drop so..." cheap quick. I didn't like the Intellivison one of this era since I'd played the D&D game renamed to Crown of Kings. Nintendo DS was far better as a 1:1 emulator the far more advanced mini console could casually handle.
And not bashing - but again "Nintendo on a Chip" era so it was like those ads for top hits you saw late at night but they weren't the single you liked but some kinda ok quality re-do of it.
i like these things. But there really better plugnplay systems by Jakks and other companies. I really love my Mrs Pacman (the blue one); the little box sized thing by namco, The mortal Kombat and of course the spongbob and scooby doo plug n plays.
Great 😊
Wow love your show but you are hard on this it's a impulse buy
Thanks! I'm sure I would've judged it quite differently 20 years ago. 😉
Waiting for an Activision collection on the Xbox, now that Microsoft owns the rights. How long has it been since we got a decent Activision collection? Twenty years ago, on PS2?
As for these early plug 'n plays, they're often Famiclones, and the difference between the ports and the originals is obvious. VERY obvious, in the case of the Intellivision ones.
I've got the other shaped version of this and it is terrible.
You see Activision, which always meant quality on a 2600 cartridge yet this device has terrible lag.
I'll stick with the original system.
No combat 😞
Iconic game, but would be pretty pointless with a single joystick since all variations of Combat require two human opponents.
🕹️💜
Nes on a chip? Nes games faking to be 2600?
Exactly. 😜
ya ok but an insult to activation
A sign of the times.
Not when they were collecting licensing fees...
@@MistaMaddog247 What's the ellepsis? What aren't you saying?
@@MistaMaddog247what is the longer story or opinion here … very curious now to hear more for sure!