DreamGear Stuff @ Walgreen's in Brooklyn, NY

[Jack]

I'm an old school Atari owner (400, then 800, then 800xl) who hasn't really been into console gaming recently. Yes, I've entered the world of emulation tons of times. But don't have a console or cartridge collection at my place. But have been oddly fascinated by the tons of Famicom/Nintendo knock-off systems that are on the gray market. Very tempted by them since they are cheap enough and play enough games to sate my retro desires. And with the cart port they are an attractive cheapo system in general.

 

But tonight while buying dishawashing liquid at Walgreen's (glamorous, I know) I noticed they had a whole slew of new plug-in systems. Along with the Intellivision and Coleco Head-to-Head stuff they also had two products from DreamGear I have only seen at flea markets previously. One is the Dreamgear handset that looks like a Dreamcast controller but has the usual array of 40 or so games in them.

 

But what was really interesting is that there was a semi-legitimized version of the Famicom system that looks like a PlayStation One; the Game Station. Comes with two controllers, a gun, boasts 60 games but the system itself did look like a mix between the PS One and a Dreamcast. Interesting. Usually when I've seen systems like this in NYC they are in boxes that truly try to mimic PlayStation and X-Box systems. This seemed like a legit version being passed off as a el cheapo home system.

 

Didn't break down to buy one, but thought I'd share the news that somehow Dreamgear is getting slightly better distribution nowadays.

Edited November 29, 2005 by Jack

[ATARIeric]

Target sells the dreamgear, I am not sure if any of the games on the dreamgear are famicom/nes games.

 

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...38&hl=dreamgear

 

 

if you do end up getting one please post if there is a cart slot under the lid & what games are on it

[Jack]

I did find the URL to Dreamgear's page on the My Arcade Game Station with 60 Games DGUN-875.

 

And here is the list of games from that page. They have Pulveration! Awesome!!! And Dejectile!!! WOW! My oddball game name dreams come true!!!

 

1 Bar Room Shootout

2 Richer

3 Super Hero

4 Danger Mission

5 Underground

6 Hunter

7 Pong Pong

8 Deformable

9 Egg Contest

10 Sea Wolf

11 Burrow Explorer

12 Lunation

13 Dejectile

14 Lightning

15 Man in Red

16 Panzer Attack

17 Gallagant

18 Labyrinth

19 Polar Bat

20 Goblet Tower

21 Toad in the Hole

22 Seamaid

23 RB Chess

24 Cannonade

25 Angel

26 Twin Fish

27 Octopus

28 Lunarian

29 Magic Bubble

30 Metro Mania

31 Memory Test

32 Pulveration

33 Mouse Snare

34 Hallihoo World

35 Aimless

36 Diamond

37 Wonder Rabbit

38 Pathway

39 Falling Blocks

40 Freecell

41 Solitaire

42 Slot

43 Pobble

44 Cub Adventure

45 Snowball

46 Teleport

47 Devildom Doom

48 Balloon Shoot

49 Black Jack

50 Snaffo

51 Frantic Mouse

52 Twin Cards

53 Arena

54 The Archer

55 Burbles

56 Mad Xmas

57 Depth Bomb

58 Jumping Fish

59 Recue Team

60 Fish Story

 

And here is the list of games in the 50-in-1 DGUN-853 controller:

 

1 Runner Car

2 Motor Rally

3 Last Cobra

4 Aero Engine

5 Insect Chase

6 Pinball Track

7 Bingo Zap

8 Spin Ball

9 Bolt Fighter

10 Excel Racing

11 Valiant Rescue

12 Zero Tiger

13 Smart Escape

14 Star Ally

15 Fire Fighter

16 Speedy Way-X

17 Jumping Ball

18 Bump Car

19 Challenge 100

20 Slot Machine

21 Ocean Quest

22 Elfland

23 Gear Race

24 GP Race

25 Loop Tennis

26 Road Bumper

27 Move Fun

28 Big Racing

29 Pet Shop

30 Push the Ball

31 Racing Boat

32 Dump Lorry Race

33 Space Castle

34 Truck Race

35 Ultra Doggy

36 Brush Roller

37 Built Up Road

38 Catch the Egg

39 Dart Champion

40 Dragon Fire

41 Dragon Poker

42 Fish Catcher

43 Golden Arrow

44 Grass Cutter

45 Super Surfing

46 Sea War

47 Jewel Master

48 Birdie Nest

49 Crazy Hit

50 Wison

Edited November 29, 2005 by Jack

[jbanes]

I've actually played the DreamGear at a local coffee shop. (They have a kids area of sorts.) It's not anything special, but it is kind of fun in its own way. The games consist of a bunch of shoot'em ups (including an interesting Space Invaders clone), a weird cross between Frogger and Back to the Future I (I hated that game), and a metric ton-load of mini-games. None of them really stand out in my mind, but most are good for a few minutes of amusement.

 

The one thing I've been trying to figure out is where the games came from. My suspicions originally leaned toward crappy games from the Sega Master System, but I'm starting to wonder if they're not just NES games that were never released in the US.

 

I did consider for a short while that the DreamGear might be a pirate console, but quite a bit of Internet research led me to the conclusion that it's probably legit. I just wish I knew where the games came from. That, and when can we get the Action52 plug and play game?

[yuppicide]

The Dreamgear is horrible. I bought one while out in Hawaii and I started cataloging every game, my rating on it, and a short paragraph about it. I also was going to include screenshots. I got bored since 99% of the games suck. I am pretty sure they're all custom programmed games.

 

A lot of the title screens look really good then you get in the game and they suck.

 

Here's the one I had: http://www.dreamgear.net/universal_plugnplaytriblaster.htm

 

A lot of the games only have like 2 or 3 levels and that's it. A lot of the games are the same game with different graphics (ie: move cursor and press button to fire and you never die just keep going on).

 

One of the games was really fun.. it was a puzzle game that reminded me of a game on my NES multicart. It ended after 3 or 4 levels tho. I was really disappointed because I thought I found a good game finally.

 

The best game on there tho is Bar Room Shootout. I think that was it anyway. It's the best gun game I've ever seen for the NES! As with all gun games it's kind of boring, but the graphics are really good. I'd say they're better than Hogan's Alley, but it had that nice "shoot a few guys then the screen scrolls to a new area" type feel to it.

 

My vote for second favorite gun game goes to Chiller.

Edited December 4, 2005 by yuppicide

[jefffulton]

I was intersted enough to purchase the vsMaxx 50 in 1 unit from Target.com

 

The games are nothing special and mostly 1 or to levels only. If the team who put it together had spent a little more time refining the speed (too fast most of the time) of each game and combined the obvious clones into levels for single games, they could probably have 10-15 pretty decent games. The unit I have directly names Speed Racer (?) and Snood / Snood Towers as brand name games. The speed racer games are a collection of different generic 8-bit sub NES/Master System racing games with nothing to do with Speed Racer that I could find. Snood and Snood Towers are genuine decent puzzle gamess. Snood.com has much better PC versions available.

 

The obvious "inspiration" for some of the games were 1941, Truxton, R-Type, Space Invaders, Pole Position, Popeye, and Mario Brothers. None are as good as the originals.

 

These vsMaxx systems might be good for younger kids, but only purchase one at $9.99 or below.

[mister_pal]

Saw one at Winners for $20. I my opinion its nothing special but at least the games are slightly more unique than some of the other junk I have seen.

[A2600]

I was gonna buy one when they placed it at 9.99 plus my employee discout ha, but I didnt!!

[JohnnyBlaze]

They have this thing in Walgreens near me called "Family Boy" and in addition to the built in games, it has a cart slot and is supposed to play Famicom carts(not NES carts; it's a 60-Pin compared to a 72-Pin for the NES). They sell it for $30.00. But, hell. I have my NesterDC disc with all NES/Famicom/FDS roms, so I'm not getting it.