SUPER JOYSTICK POWER PLAYER VIDEO GAME SET (Part 2)

This post is Part 2 of my Super Joystick Power Player game set. Part 1 (which you can see by clicking here) showed a Super Joy III video game set in its box, which featured images of Star Wars characters. Here in part 2 I'll be showing you what it's like actually playing these Power Player video game sets. Keep in mind that my set is still sealed and I don't plan on opening it. But luckily, I have a loose Super Joy III! I'm hoping the two are identical products with the same games, disregarding their different colors, but even if they're not, this'll still give you an idea of what these sets are like.

See that joystick? That joystick on the Super Joystick Power Player? Well, it's there purely for show because it doesn't even move! It serves no purpose except to make the controller look good. I own a different Power Player controller model that does have a functioning joystick, unlike this one.

Anyways, all you have to do is plug the controller directly into your TV and you're ready for some fun. No console or game cartridges/ discs are required, although I own a cartridge that you can plug into the back of the controller to play additional games. Well, first is the title screen...

This is a very promising sign. FUN TIME. That's exactly what I want when I play video games, a fun time! So anyways, you're then taken to the game select screen.

Did you notice the top of that screen shot...? "76000 IN 1"! There's suppose to be 76,000 games on this! I say "suppose to" because every game is just duplicated repeatedly to create the illusion that there's 76,000 games. Of the first 2,840 games shown, I counted Mario Bros. listed at least 42 times! In the above photo Slalom is repeated twice... right in a row! There's still a lot of games on this thing, though, just not that many. Most of them (if not all of them) are taken from the game library of the classic Japanese console the Famicom, or its American version, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Sometimes things get ugly, though... Look what happened in Monkey, AKA Donkey Kong Jr.!

What the--!?! Donkey Kong is a pink blob, and Junior looks a bit under the weather. Here's a comparison shot of what it looks like and what it should be.

I experienced some typos, too. The game Circus Charlie has been misspelt as Circus Chablie. And check out 1942's game over screen. I don't think that happens in 1942's official release.

They meant, "SHOOTING DOWN", "PERCENTAGE", and the E's bailed from "PLAYER" and "GAME OVER".

In the game Sky Destroyer, there's this song on the title screen that reminds me of the Indiana Jones theme music. Meanwhile, in Star Gate there's a tune that sounds like a knockoff of the Star Wars theme. That second game is horrible; if you touch an enemy or the portal (and that's all there really is to do), it sends you back to the game's title screen. In Super Dynamix, sometimes all you get when you select the game is a black screen. Some of these things may have been like this on their original, official release for all I know, so I can't really put all the blame on the Power Player.

Well, that's all I've got to say about the Super Joy III... but let's take a gander at a different Power Player set. It's the one with the knockoff Sega Dreamcast controller that I introduced in Part 1, and it's weird.

Here's the title screen...

It shows a few Digimon, Pikachu, and Buzz Lightyear below the title "DIGIMON ADVENTURE". When you reach the game selection screens, you hear an 8-bit (the kind of music you hear in those old, classic video games) version of Do Wah Diddy Diddy, that song Manfred Mann did.

Most of the game titles are wrong. There's typos, such as Circus Chablie again. Many games are on this thing more than once, probably just to build up the game count, and then they gave the game multiple names. For example, there's Burger Time and Mc Donalds, which are both essentially the same game. Many times they've replaced the main character with a new one. The game Digi Veemon is just Mario Bros. with Mario replaced by a Digimon. Teletubbies is also Mario Bros. but with a Teletubby. This kind of thing is done a lot.

This Power Player offers more than just laughs, believe it or not. Check out this title screen.

It's the Japanese version of Super C, the sequel to the game Contra (which I highly recommend). But it gets better, just take a look...

It's the game "Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: Mystery of Convoy", although it's called Key Kong on the Power Player. Mystery of Convoy wasn't released on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), it was only available in Japan on the Famicom (the Japanese NES), so it's a special treat for Americans.

Here's another exiting feature: Harry Tour!

There was a game on the NES called Magic Carpet 1001 (which I believe can be found on a Power Player). It was later hacked and renamed Harry Tour sometime in 2001 or later, well past the last licensed NES game was released in 1994 (which was Wario's Woods, another game I highly recommend... Man, what a fantastic puzzle game!).

The Power Player sets are excellent examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly. For anyone wondering, Key Kong is "the ugly". That game's impossible!