Worst Plug & Play Console Ever - Rerez

We've taken a look at a lot of really bad video game

console

s here at Rerez. And most of these systems are cloned

console

s that are simply copied from some other manufacturer without them knowing, and reproduced and mutilated in horrible ways. But the console I'm going to show you today came from a manufacturer that didn't even know MADE video game systems. But apparently at some point, during the Nintendo 64 era, they did this. This is Shopping Channel's

plug

'n'

play

gaming system and it is by far one of the

worst

consoles I have

ever

seen. Most likely this system was not created by the people at The Shopping Channel, but they imported it and branded it with their own sticker and such.

Now... I don't really know why they did this, but I have to assume that when they saw the Nintendo 64 launch, the Shopping Channel wanted in and they wanted to attract a ton of parents. that had kids who wanted the Nintendo 64. But instead of giving them something like a real Nintendo 64 or, God forbid, a real PlayStation system that had 3D graphics, they went with the cheapest option possible; Some kind of N64 looking controller with 15 terrible NES games built in. Now, before we look at those 15 games—and trust me, you'll want to stop there—let's take a closer look at this controller.

Now, right at the top, you'll notice that it has an analog joystick. And of course, since this system is an NES on a chip, it would n

ever

use analog inputs. Which it definitely isn't. What it is is one of those d-pad faceplates underneath a piece of plastic with a little stick sticking out of it. It is awful. It's really not responsive at all and if you're going to have to use this thing, you're going to want to use this D-pad shield here. Which, by the way, doesn't work that well either, because it's just not tuned correctly.

So let's say you forgive these people for making one of the

worst

analog sticks I've ever used and one of the squishiest D-pads ever featured on any console I've ever

play

ed. But what I cannot forgive them is this; This entire console is an NES on a chip, so why it has 6 face buttons on the right is the most confusing thing I've ever seen. All the games built into the system only use A and B. But what they've done is duplicate each button twice for turbo functionality with C, X, Y and Z. I don't know why anyone would need that many. buttons that do exactly the same thing, but here it is for some strange reason.

So let's talk about the games. As soon as you turn on the system, you are presented with the 15-in-1 title screen which also has 2 hastily drawn dogs standing on top of the water. And from this menu is where you select one of the 15 games to play. But let's start with the first one: the 2000 World Cup. Now, from the title screen, you're probably assuming that this is from a company called "New Game Star" and that they made this game in the year 2000. But look, that's not it. entirely accurate, because this game is actually Nintendo Soccer, a game released in 1985 for the NES.

Now, of course, because of how bad the controller is on this console, controlling this game is an absolute nightmare, but the gameplay is essentially the same as what you'd find on the NES. But it's the images that are different. At the top of the NES original you see the score and the remaining time of the match. Which is normal, right? But on this one there are skulls at the top. Another thing that's strange is that all the characters in this game have horns, for some reason, which is not in the original. And it makes everyone look like little demons.

In the original NES version of this game, you see these flags on the side of the football field, but in this version, you see dead bodies. I don't know exactly what this all means or why these changes were implemented. But I'm pretty sure what they're trying to imply here is that this is a soccer game played in hell. And unlike the original version of Soccer, sometimes this one does weird things like this. (Creepy sound effects) City A 2000, another game from New Game Star. Unfortunately, however, this is another rip-off. It's actually Namco's Battle City. In the original release of this game, you drive a tank while shooting at a group of enemies and protecting this iron emblem that you have hidden behind a wall.

However, in this bastardized version of the game, you are a naked man shaking his penis at approaching enemies. I have no idea why his penis is out, but there you go. He's there and everyone can see him, and I don't think there's any way to really hide what he's doing. You can shoot things with your penis, and that's something you can do. You know, I thought the demons football game was going to be as weird as it sounds, but no. Here we are, playing this. For our next copied game, we'll take a look at the Winbolton Champ 2000.

Now I think they were referring to Wimbledon, which is a real tennis championship, but I guess they just didn't know how to spell that word. So, here we go! This is just NES Tennis. That's all this game is, but they decided to ruin the visuals a little. All the characters now wear skirts and pigtails for some reason, but they went even further and changed the chair umpire model. In Nintendo's original release of this game, he looked like Mario, but in this version they removed his hat and also changed the chair to look like some kind of milking machine or some kind of strange satellite.

I don't really know what he's sitting on, but it's certainly not a chair. Our next game is called WF Law, which is actually a copy of Tag Team Match Muscle, however, let's take a closer look at that logo. Now call me crazy, but it definitely looks like someone bent over spreading their buttocks, which is a very strange type of logo, but I think it was made for a single purpose. And that purpose was to warn people or scare them so that they wouldn't have to play this game. Now look, originally I wasn't a huge fan of this game because there are much better fighting games out there, but this version of the game has been made even worse by using one of the ugliest color palettes I've ever imagined.

It's all green and toxic! You just can't look at it for long because it really hurts your eyes! And because of the ridiculous color choices they made in this trick, it almost looks like these characters are farting at each other instead of fighting! It's really strange. There were a lot of better fighting games on the NES and Famicom, and they decided to pick one that was BAD to begin with. I guess it would have been harder to steal a better game, maybe? Next up on the chopping block is On The Road. Which is a copy of Konami's Road Fighter from 1985.

This is a very strange game. Because what they've done here is they modified almost all of the sprites to make them look a little different, but they also did one extra thing that just confuses me. They originally had "FUEL" here on the right, but in this version of the game they added "FOOD". Because OBVIOUSLY trading fuel for food would fool everyone into thinking they're NOT actually playing the original game. I can play the original Road Fighter pretty well now, but this version of the game seems a little out of place. Even considering how bad the controls are, the controller seems a little less responsive than expected.

And also, because they've modified virtually every on-screen sprite in this game, the hitboxes are disabled, making it almost a damn impossibility to play properly. Number 6 of the 15 games is a game called Boat Race. Which initially seemed like something I had never seen before. Now look, when I first played this game, I thought it was something original. Because I've never seen a boat racing game from this perspective on the NES. But here's my problem; As soon as I accelerated on this boat, I heard something. *TIRES SQUEAL* That. Just there. Did you find out that? That's tire squeal.

I immediately thought, "Well, you know what? This is actually a paddle swap from some game that actually had cars in it!" And of course it is. This (Boat Race) is exactly the same game as this (F-1 Race). That's all. They just made a pretty good paddle swap, but at the end of the day it's just a 1 to 1 paddle swap with this game. They didn't even bother to change the music or sound effects. Which is strange, because you have squealing tires IN THE WATER! Now this game is kind of fun. It's called Top Gun Mission, but it's not really Top Gun.

You see, Top Gun doesn't look like that. What this game is is Sky Destroyer. But the funny thing about this game is that they changed the colors. Now look, while you're playing here, it looks like you're flying over some grasslands or something, but look, all of that in the original game is actually water. Heck, even when you hit this ground, it still splashes like water. Just... how lazy. The next game in the set is called Autumn Hunt, which is clearly...yeah. Yeah, that's just... that's just Duck Hunt. They've REALLY messed with the graphics here and it looks really awkward!

I mean, those ducks don't even look like they have a head. And the dog is now a Dalmatian for some reason. This is just a very strange looking version of this very iconic game, but it gets even worse when you stop and think about this game included in this set. So you have a copycat version of Duck Hunt on this system. But why is that a problem? Well... look at the console. That's all! This is all I have. This game does not work when you play with this controller. Even the six additional buttons do nothing. But here's the real big problem;

Let's say you have an NES Zapper and you want to hook it up so you can play it on a good old CRT monitor, well, that's not going to happen. Because the entry below is the same as an Atari or Sega Genesis. I have no idea why they used that controller input method. I have to assume that at some point, when you originally purchased this on Shopping Network, they would actually give you a Zapper included. But as far as I know, it doesn't exist and I couldn't find any. And when I bought this this is all I have.

That's all. Useless game. So after that game loss, we now have UFO Shooting, which is just Clay Shooting. Which was included with the original release of Duck Hunt. Ah ha, see? That's stupid! All they did was take a game that was ALREADY included in Duck Hunt and split it into two separate games. They basically just pretended for 15 games. But why the hell would you do that? And what makes it worse is that this is ANOTHER game that you can't play because you don't have a Zapper entry for it. Now, as we've seen, all the games on the system so far have been copies of NES or Famicom games that already existed in the past, and were simply hacked and modified slightly to be on this system.

Now, something interesting I noticed about this is that on the back it has a small faceplate over an area where it looks like you can put cartridges. If not NES cartridges, maybe Famicom carts. So I decided to open it up and take a look at the back. And you can see that here there was some evidence of some kind of input connector method for the bottom. So I think there could be variations of this system, somewhere, where you can actually put cartridges in here. And when you open it up and take a look, all they're doing is just dumping all that stuff onto one chip, so you can play that ROM with these 15 games that are included in the system.

That's all this. A knockoff cloning system that can't even play cartridges. That only makes it even worse. So, the next game on the list is City B 2000. Which is just City A 2000... just with a different title screen. That? There are only 15 games and you duplicated them? Why would you do that?! You just had to have 15 knockoff games and you copied one of them! What is the purpose of that?! But it gets worse, because the next game is called Mission Impossible but it's not Mission Impossible at all, it's just Top Gun Mission again. Nothing has changed! It's the exact same game they gave you before, but AGAIN, for some reason.

And the next game, World Rally Champ, is back on the road! But look, what they did to change this game is that you start directly at Course 2 instead of Course 1. You can still get to this level by playing the first version of this game on the game system, but I guess for people who They just want to get to level 2 much faster, all they have to do is click on this game. And the next game after this is called Rugged Racer, which, let me guess, yes, YES, ABSOLUTELY! It's just Course 3 of On The Road. But what makes this even worse is that this is one of Konami's original Road Fighter levels, but they just MATRIXED it!

Look, for some reason your car starts in the dirt on the side of the road. And as soon as the game starts, you're back out on the street. Every time they introduce a new version of this game, the game seems to get more and more pirated to the point that it's almost unplayable! I mean they just can't keep copying this game, right? But wait, wait, wait, we have another game on this list that could be another one, Highway Star, and YES! It is Course 4 of the EXACTO. SAME. GAME! What what...Why would you do this?! Th...

That doesn't make any sense! You already copied the game THREE times! Why would you need to copy it again? As if having more versions of the same racing game wasn't bad enough, the final title of this 15-game epic is called Grand Prix Champ. And I'm pretty sure everyone is assuming it's going to be that racing game again, well, they'd be wrong. It is the racing game that repeats itself. Oh, this is crazy! FIFTEEN GAMES and you copied them over and over again? Why would you do this?! There had to be 15 games that you could have copied from any source, but you guys were so LAZY that you didn't even copy other games, you just copied your OWN stupid games.

And look, some of these games have weird variations and differences between them, but they're just bad tricks. Bad mods that are just terrible for what they are. This is horrible! Trying to find something positive about this console is practically impossible. I mean, I expected it to be bad, but not that bad! There you have it. *Mostly* 15 games (actually only 7 games) that are horrible when played on the Shopping Channel's

plug

-and-play system. But this is what confuses me. Those 15 games, even the duplicates, are from other manufacturers who still have the code for these games. And with Duck Hunt being a really big Nintendo property, why the hell weren't they sued or given a cease and desist for selling these systems?

Maybe they did. And maybe that's why these things no longer exist. But I'd like to hope that maybe the Shopping Channel would take notice and think, "You know what? Maybe we shouldn't bankrupt people by selling them this stuff." Because if I woke up one morning and my parents gave me this as a gift, I probably would have thrown it in their face.