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How's anyone feel about plug-n-plays?

Posted: May 6th, 2007, 6:20 am
by Alienblue
The first and only time I EVER got a speeding ticket was scary! It was like 6 am in the morning in July many years ago, out in the country. I had to pass a slow motorcycle so I cranked it up to 70 and passed. I was at 70 for a couple minutes, then dropped down to 55. For the next 2 miles I heard no sirens or anything, but a cop was following me! He didn't even have his lights on! Finally I noticed the cop car, and thinking he wanted to pass, pulled over a bit-THEN he turns on the lights, so I pull over. I reach for my drivers liscense and he PULLS HIS GUN and orders me to put my hands on the car! He handcuffs me and throws me in the back and searches my car. (without a warrrant I might add)- thank god the state troopers he called finally arrived. When he told them he had followed me discreetly thinking I was a crook, they LAUGHED, told him to release me and give me a ticket which he did!- thank heavens! There are a lot of bad cops out there, to be honest I'm more scared of THEM then the crooks! (I know there are good ones too, but the experiance shook me- I'm a law abiding citizen, never been arrested for anything!)

How's anyone feel about plug-n-plays?

Posted: January 9th, 2015, 12:47 pm
by scotland171
[QUOTE=BigOldCar]When I asked about what systems folks have hooked up, a few people besides me mentioned they had one of those plug-n-plays.  I myself have a Konami model I bought thinking it would play some iteration of the arcade version of Rush-n-Attack (in fact, it just does NES roms); a bootleg NES job (50,000 Games In One!); and I just picked up a C=64 in a stick for $3.00 on clearance at Kay Bee.  (If it hadn't been the last one, I'd have bought one for my sister and another to experimentally hack.)

Meanwhile, the PacMan-Bosconian-Galaga-Pole Position one catches my eye every time I go into the store.

Anyone have any feelings one way or the other?
[/QUOTE]

Here is another old thread with Alienblue and Voor, about plug and plays.

I have a large collection of these.  The At Games Flashbacks are one type that seems to have gained a level of respect, and I'm playing the new Colecovision and Intellivision ones now.    Do you have any of these flashbacks?  Do you put them in a different mental box than those Atari Joystick plug and plays, because they really are the same things with different aesthetics.

I also have a lot of others, from kid centric ones with Sponge Bob or other children's IP, to superheros, to classic ones that focus on Pac Man , Pole Position, and others.  The 'Famiclones' that became legal (at least the hardware, the ROMs were another matter) on the NES-on-a-Chips are also interesting, often with famicom cart slots and a host of built in titles.  I have a couple of those, and they are built cheaply, but my, do they have a lot of games.

There are some brands that have a legion of virtually unplayable crap, but other companies like Jakks Pacific at least try to make something you could gift and not feel embarrassed about.  

My C64 got a good amount of play, especially while I was travel ling for a while. I had an Intellivision one, with just d-pad and buttons if I recall, that was unplayable garbage.  There are numerous Star Wars ones that look nice, looking like General Grievous or some other character, and most play the same set of games.  Some like the Pirates of the Caribbean one are a set of mini games, of increasing difficulty, that form a sort of campaign (securing all the treasure from every island on a map).

In general they are inexpensive (especially second hand), and use basic A/V out.    The controls on the ones I like are basic joysticks, and the games are 8 to primitive 16 bit games for the most part.   I do have motion controlled Star Wars fighter game that is a lot of fun at parties.  In fact, these are all good introductions to gaming for many, and not being original, you don't worry about people being gentle. 


I won't say any of them get a ton of play.  I've gotten many second hand, and found new homes for many after enjoying them.  Yet, some, like the Atari Flashback II (the one with Pitfall and River Raid) gets a lot of play when I have non-gaming company.  Others get enjoyed when its a character my kids like, like Wall-E or something, and still serve as a fun family activity.

So these might be for casuals, but they have a fun place in the modern gamers toolkit.  And as a lover of arcade Bosconian, a plug and play has turned out to be the most frequent way I can destroy those modular space stations of evil....because modular designs must be evil, I guess.  Maybe I'm the bad guy in Bosconian...never thought of that...maybe you're the bad guy in Space Invaders...its all in how you look at things.

How's anyone feel about plug-n-plays?

Posted: January 10th, 2015, 12:46 am
by Wallyworld1
I think plug and plays area mixed bag. Some pretty darn good some are terrible. I keep the ones I like and get rid of the ones that are terrible.

I bought a 7" crt television for my game room to make a plug and play area. Sits next to my Vectrex. I have 3 different Pacman collection variants, a frogger, a Namco collection and Power Rangers (surprisingly good). I also have flashback intellivision, colecovision, 2600, and 7800. I also hook up my sega nomad and nes top loader in this area like a plug and play.