Evercade Premium Pack review

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VideoGameCritic
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Evercade Premium Pack review

Postby VideoGameCritic » July 1st, 2020, 11:54 am

Check it out and let me know what you think!

https://videogamecritic.com/extras/reviews/evercade.htm

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scotland
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Re: Evercade Premium Pack review

Postby scotland » July 1st, 2020, 12:18 pm

While its understood, you should clarify that the $99 Evercade premium package includes the three collections and the handheld game system.

Could you comment on Centipede and Missile Command using a directional pad?

Even Adventure has difficulty levels - can you get to the difficulty levels or variations in games that have them?

Where is Space Invaders or even Breakout?

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Retro STrife
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Re: Evercade Premium Pack review

Postby Retro STrife » July 1st, 2020, 12:34 pm

Sounds like an interesting portable; better than I expected to be honest. I'm not planning to buy one yet based on the current games available, but that could change as new games come out.

As you buy new games for it, will you review them separately or add them into this review?

It sounds like, in its current state, the Evercade straddles that gray area between whether it qualifies as a video game "system" or not. It has individual games in physical media form, which is the biggest requirement IMO. But since most of them are compilations, the cartridges are more of a gimmick right now than an actual feature of a traditional video game system. It sounds more like an emulation device that just makes the package more marketable by sticking them on carts instead of digital. I bring up this distinction because it factors into my interest. I'd collect for any terrible gaming device if I can categorize it as a "system" in my brain, whereas if it isn't a "system" then I only buy it if I have genuine interest in owning/playing it. I'll be interested to see how it plays out as the Evercade library expands. Curious how others here who have played it would classify it..

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Re: Evercade Premium Pack review

Postby VideoGameCritic » July 1st, 2020, 12:49 pm

scotland wrote:Could you comment on Centipede and Missile Command using a directional pad?

Even Adventure has difficulty levels - can you get to the difficulty levels or variations in games that have them?

Where is Space Invaders or even Breakout?


Centipede and Missile Command play fine just as they do with Atari 2600 joysticks.

The select button lets you choose variations, but the difficulty switches are fixed, and seem to vary from game to game. For example, Asteroids is obviously set to B for no UFOs, but Missile Command is set to A, with elusive satellites.

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MSR1701
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Re: Evercade Premium Pack review

Postby MSR1701 » July 1st, 2020, 1:21 pm

Very well written review. I was very unimpressed with the Atari collection and did not realize the Select button toggled any switch options whatsovever.

Will you be reviewing other releases for the system?

snakeboy
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Re: Evercade Premium Pack review

Postby snakeboy » July 1st, 2020, 2:19 pm

MSR1701 wrote:.Will you be reviewing other releases for the system?


I was kind of hoping the Evercade would get its own section on the site among the portables and each release would get a standard graded review.

Anyways, thanks for the review. I've been strongly considering getting one, but this review has me thinking twice about it. I'm really tempted though by the Megacat Studios collection and the upcoming release of Xeno Crisis (which is now no longer available to pre order on Amazon, so it looks like I'll be holding off on this until it's released and restocked).

Also, I love the line about the system's color scheme. Hilarious. What's annoying is that they did make a black and red version but for whatever reason it was only a limited edition. WTH?

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: Evercade Premium Pack review

Postby BlasteroidAli » July 1st, 2020, 6:39 pm

It is funny or strange that reading your review kind of encapsulated all the things I had a problem with the Evercade with. My first problem with the system was that there was a limited edition one that was black. So I was like I will have that one. Sold out. So that dampened my enthusiasm. Similarly you were not impressed with the colour.

The games we get with the Uk edition are Namco. I have most of them. Interplay and Atari. When your review said that the atari functions did not work properly I was that is me out. Sure the 7800 titles are welcome but I know I would play asteroids on a hand held. (Though I still have my gameboy versions. So not so much of a loss.) Looks like cart 2 has Yar Revenge on it. Plus some other nice titles.. like your fave Planet Smashers on it.

So your review talks about the lack of the diff switches. For me that is a count me out of the Atari cart. I also like how you said the best of the bunch was the Data east collection. Which was one of the only ones I had wanted. The the interplay one which looked trash.

I think you needed to be able to specify which 3 carts you got. Then you could have said.. Data East Cart, Megacat and Piko Please. Avoid the dead wood like the Interplay games. Though they knew they were not the heavy hitters.

Also finding out how small it was. That was like WOW, why did no one say that. You answered a lot of questions. So far the jury is out thanks to your review. Perhaps when the Lynx carts are out it might be worth having but at the current time there does not seem to be enough bang for your buck.

Wehrwolf
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Re: Evercade Premium Pack review

Postby Wehrwolf » July 1st, 2020, 7:50 pm

Well written and fair review. The system has both a lot of things going for it and things that could’ve been better. All in all though, I’m very happy with it for the price.

Here was my early impressions:

Pros:
Very nice and crisp screen, decent audio
Games include color instruction books (though they aren’t that useful in practice, still neat)
Licensed releases (Not a black market system)
Good d-pad
Inexpensive ($99 for system with 3 cartridges, cartridges $19.99)
Does have save states (possibly a con if you use them to kill the challenge of the games)

Cons:
Buttons aren’t configurable, and at start run/jump on most games are backwards from what peole would want. But the firmware can be updated online to swap them.
No 2 player play at this time (though the code for 2 player play in games that originally had it is in the games still)
Mostly a rom dump with a menu screen to choose between the games... Things like the settings menu on a game may refer to the original system’s buttons (such as Genesis’s ‘C’ button). I guess they did put ‘Licensed by Blaze Entertainment’ into most of the games.
Doesn’t include an AC Adapter, just the USB micro cable that you can plug into one

Cons specific to the Atari carts:
No difficulty switch options
No indication what any of the game variations are

Not mentioned above: The carts were initially tough to remove, but that went away over time.
Looking forward to getting Xeno Crisis (on the two pack with Tanglefoot) and the Lynx game collections.
Last edited by Wehrwolf on July 2nd, 2020, 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: Evercade Premium Pack review

Postby BlasteroidAli » July 1st, 2020, 8:45 pm

My Question would be do the 7800 Atari games work well. After all I have all the Atari 2600 games on my pc bar Yars 2. I would be getting it for Moto Psycho, Ninja Golf and Alien Brigade.

Where as Atari cart 2 has 5 7800 games. I know which one I would rather have, definitely number 2.

Also I have noticed now both Namco carts are worth having.

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MSR1701
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Re: Evercade Premium Pack review

Postby MSR1701 » July 1st, 2020, 8:54 pm

BlasteroidAli wrote:My Question would be do the 7800 Atari games work well. After all I have all the Atari 2600 games on my pc bar Yars 2. I would be getting it for Moto Psycho, Ninja Golf and Alien Brigade.

Where as Atari cart 2 has 5 7800 games. I know which one I would rather have, definitely number 2.

Also I have noticed now both Namco carts are worth having.


Hard to say on the Namco carts, they are on backorder with another production batch due at the end of August.

Ninja Golf played well, which I was glad for as I have never had a good 7800 emulator. I recently picked up the Atari 2 cart and plan to try it soon.

By far the cart I have played the most is the Piko cart, mainly for Tinhead and Jim Power, and I plan tonlook into the RPGs.


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