March 25, 2020|All Reviews, Retro Reviews
By Rob Leggo
Picture it…. it’s the year 2000, and a younger Rob, coming down to the big city for a weekend is walking through West Edmonton Mall. Walking by the Pretzel King and the Orange Julius, he is stopped by a vendor promising value beyond worldly comprehension. Why would you buy a Dreamcast, or a PlayStation 2, when you could buy THIS console, with 76 amazing games already packed in? (And its Y2K compliant…which was a weird thing to brag about, after the fact…) So, recognizing the AMAZING deal this was, and totally not being a sucker….he picks it up. And promptly puts it away somewhere safe after Mrs. Leggo finds out, and kindly confronts him about its “value”, and “needing” that money for “rent”.
Twenty years pass (and extensive marriage counselling is attended) , and the Power Player Super TV Game has been unearthed again for a proper try out. Was this the catalyst for finally achieving world peace? Would the angels sing and the unicorns prance on a rainbow made of the finally fulfilled hopes and dream of the world’s masses?
The Unboxing
Before we open this up, lets drink in the beauty which is the back of the box. We’ve got a picture of the heroes from Daikatana, a (badly) photoshopped EA logo on some gents playing soccer, a rally car, and a gnarly fish. As well as a freaking tank! If this box was a dude, it’d be the guy your Dad warns you about hanging out with! Also a dry battery option!!! A stick in cartridge function….and a reminder of it’s Y2K compliance???
The Hardware
The console itself, is in the shape of everyone favourite input device, an Nintendo 64 controller. They were looking to rip off something that was popular at the time, but you would have thought someone from marketing might have tried using an actual N64 controller, and that once his hands were wreaked beyond repair, they’d learn it was a bad idea. But I digress…
On the controller face is a d-pad, select, start and reset buttons, and 4 yellow buttons in the style of an N64 controller. Not a fan of those new fangled “analog” controls? Well, no worries here, as that analog controller looking thing in the middle is just a solid hunk of plastic! Retro!!
On the top of the system, you are presented with the connection options. You’ve got video and audio out (mono!), a RF connection if you’re into that, a spot for the DC plug if you’re not into using the DRY BATTERY OPTION, and a db9 port for the included light gun or “2#” controller.
On the bottom of the console is a compartment for 4 AA batteries, and the included mystery cartridge slot…which serves a unique purpose. More on that later…
You also get a second controller for the second player in your life. This time, instead of giving you a mediocre N64 ripoff controller, you get a horrible Sega Genesis rip off controller, for equal opportunity copyright infringements! It also includes 6 buttons, and a start button (no select on this bad boy), for it is fully equipped for all of the button inputs you will surely need for all of these amazing games!!
You also get a light gun attachment, which looks JUST a little too realistic to carry into your neighbourhood liquor store. Especially if you live in the country to the South, where you may find yourself shot first, and asked questions of later!
The Gameplay!
So, now for the exciting part! With all of the exciting promises on the box, and with a 64 bit controller clone for the controller, these must be some impressive games! What kind of immersi
Yes folks, this right here is a Nintendo Famicom clone. Seems a little strange to have so many controller buttons for games that only use two of them, but I’m not one of those fancy-pants game systems engineers…
So you get 76 8-bit games on this, many not released here in North America. In fact, some of these games look amazing! Aladin III? King of Fighters? Tekken? WWF?? Maybe I underestimated this system…
Oh dear…
So, along with a really loose grasp of copyright law, these Chinese clone systems typically also suffer from a bad case of the “outright lying on the game titles”. While some of the titles on here are legit, like Contra, 1942 and Arkanoid…many of them are just outright lies, like the above mentions, or my personal favourite, Toy Story.
But hey…Famicom games can be fun too, in fact lots of my favourite moments from my younger years were spent playing these games. If these play well, we could overlook the fact that Power Player lied to us about having Daikatana, which is in all honesty not a bad thing, because THAT game was it’s own kind of awful…but that’s a story for another time. So, as long as they didn’t completely screw THAT up, we’re ok…and they couldn’t screw up a Famicom game….right??
So, aside from the wide variety of visual quirks, this system is plagued with a variety of other problems, many of the games run at about 80% of the speed they would normally run. The controllers are also some of the worst I’ve ever personally used, as the d-pads lack a central pivot and are “squishy”. So, if you push down on the d-pad, there’s a good chance that you’re gonna get down-right or down left. 8-bit games were notorious for being challenging at their best, or downright diabolical at their worst, and not being able to put in your inputs correctly makes these games downright unplayable.
Not to mention what I consider to be the worst problem…see, here’s what a regular NES or Famicom controller looks like…
A classic design, but pay attention to the button layout. The B button is on the left, and the A button is on the right. This would become a Nintendo standard for years and years to come. So, if what you are ripping off is a Famicom system, you would be right in thinking that the buttons would be the same, since…you know….there’s only TWO OF THEM! But no, Power Player screwed that up and have two rows of buttons, with A on the left and B on the right. That makes games like Contra a pain to play, and other games darn near impossible. Let me explain further.
This game is Lode Runner, a fun action platformer where you’re only method of defence is to dig a hole on either the left or right of you, with either the B or A button respectively. But when the buttons are BACKWARDS, so are the holes…so you will constantly hit what you think is the B button, and will then dig a hole on your right. And die. Did no one try these games out after they farted them out on the system?
Conclusion
This would normally be the part of the review where I’d list the positives and the negatives and give you my opinion of whether or not this is worth your money. I’d like to think you’ve garnered enough information from my sarcasm to gather your own opinion. But for the sake of continuity:
Negatives
– Illegal ROMS that also don’t have the right names, so it is hard to find what you want.
– Awful feeling controllers, with incorrect button layouts.
– Bad video, audio and gameplay.
– Cheap lightgun, that just may get you SHOT if you’re carrying it around as well.
– N64 shaped controller destroys your hands.
Positives
– Umm, you can put a real Famicom game in the cartridge slot, if you’ve ever wanted to play your Famicom with horrible sound, video and controls?
– Available in 3 colours?
– Y2K compliant!
Rob is one of the two founding Grumpy Old Gamers, and is the proud father of three amazing kids and an extremely lucky husband. Even though he has the personality of a hermit sometimes, he’s actually a pretty swell kind of guy…or so he says.
The Grumpy Old Gamers 
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