Evercade – Review – Game Sack

(Game Sack Theme) – Hello, and welcome to Game Sack.

Gonna check out the Evercade today.

And this thing just showedup in the mail a few days ago with a whole mess of games and it surprised the hell out of me.

Turns out that I have abunch of emails about this that I didn't read.

I'm sorry about that, but I really wasn't gonnacover it but then I thought, let's just see what theEvercade is all about.

So let's take a closerlook at the system itself.

(bright upbeat music) Evercade is a handheld systemmade by Blaze Entertainment who are based in the UK.

You can play games on the built in 4.

3inch widescreen display or on your TV in 720Pby using an HDMI cable.

As for the controls, it hasa Super Nintendo style layout with the diamond configurationand two shoulder buttons though the names of the buttonsare in different places.

The system usesinterchangeable game cartridges with multiple games on each.

I do like the plastic clamshell cases as well as the fact thatmanuals are included with them.

There are two versions of the Evercade.

The lowest cost one is 80 US dollars and includes just one game.

The premium version costs $100 and it comes with threegames right in the box.

Each game cartridge is advertisedthe selling for $20 each.

The system also comeswith a USB charging cable.

On a full charge, they claimabout four to five hours of battery life which isn't a ton.

However, based on my test, that is pretty accurate.

This system does not however, come with a mini HDMIcable that you'll need if you wanna play games on your TV.

Internally the Evercade is using a 1.

2 Ghz Cortex A7 ARM processorfor its emulation duties.

The screen resolution is 480×272 pixels, which is the same as a Sony PSP.

Provided is a menu button which allows you to set the brightnessfor the built in screen as well as select if you wanna play games in the original size or stretch to 16:9.

During the gameplay, the menu button can giveyou a few more options.

First and foremost are the save slots.

You can also adjust the picture size as well as exit back to themain menu of the cartridge.

As for the quality of thegame screen itself, it's fine.

I mean, the colorsgenerally look pretty good.

But since it has non integer scaling, there's a bit of shimmeringduring the scrolling on pretty much every game.

Fortunately, it seems tobe a fairly quick screen as I don't notice much blur at all.

Playing via HDMI is muchpreferred in my opinion.

Unfortunately, thereare no scaling options.

So that means you'llget varying pixel sizes due to the non integer scaling, and again shimmering in the scrolling.

The emulation is mostly fine.

The Genesis emulator is called BlastEm which is a cycle-accurateemulator on the PC, which I've personally never tried.

What's cool though, is thatit was ported to the Evercade by the emulator author himself.

Sadly, this particularemulator is extremely blurry, especially when you'reconnecting it via HDMI.

I can't seem to find any information on what other emulators are used here.

The sound emulation is mostly okay, but there are some issueswhich I'll get into when I talk about the games.

From what I understand, the emulators reside oneach cartridge itself, so it's possible for a setof games to use a newer and better emulator in the future.

Going back to the controls.

You can't change the defaults at all.

For example, NES gamesuse these two buttons and I'd rather use these two.

The Genesis uses A, B and Y.

Playing Genesis games on any controller with a diamond configuration like this is usually not the best experience.

As for the buttons themselves, they feel pretty good.

Even the D-pad is nice.

I do not enjoy how the menu button is right below the D-pad however.

It's extremely easy toaccidentally hit during gameplay especially when you'replaying a fighting game.

I've also accidentallyhit the Start button which is below the A button.

It's really easy to do.

These buttons should all be lower.

I do like how the power switchis an actual physical switch instead of the push and hold nonsense that we usually get these days.

(bright upbeat music) Okay, let's keep in mind that this is a relatively low cost device so we can't go in expecting something like the PlayStation Vita, which still doesn't have idealbutton and stick placements.

Anyway, let's check outall of the games I received for this system.

(bright techno music) Atari Collection 1comes with every version of the Evercade so let's start here.

This has 20 games on it, including Centipede, Adventure, Alien Brigade, Asteroids, MissileCommand, Crystal Castles, Food Fight, Desert Falcon, Motor Psycho, Canyon Bomber, Gravitar, Double Dunk, Ninja Golf, Steeplechase, Night Driver, Tempest, Video Pinball, Aquaventure, Yars' Return and Swordquest Earthworld.

All of these are originalAtari 2600 and 7800 games.

The ones that originated in the arcade are represented by the 2600 versions here.

Most of these games were before my time and although I played Atari as a kid, I always enjoyed the gamesthat were in the arcade about 100 times more.

So most of the games thatare on this cartridge don't personally appeal to me very much.

The A button acts as thebutton in the Atari 2600 games.

But be careful.

Pressing the X buttonresets the 7800 games and it happened to me morethan once 'cause I'm an idiot.

Yars' Return is on herewhich was released in 2005.

My favorite game on thiscollection is probably Ninja Golf for the 7800.

You hit the ball and you haveto deal with ninjas and frogs and other evil things on yourway to wherever the ball lies.

As a golf game, it's actually not bad.

As a ninja game, it kindof gets boring quickly.

(low quality 7800 sound effects) Interplay Collection 1 comeswith the premium version of the Evercade.

It has six games includingthe first Clayfighter, Earthworm Jim, Battle Chess, Boogerman, Incantation and Titan.

Clayfighter is the Super Nintendo version and it's not the TournamentEdition unfortunately, and it plays fine on the Evercade.

Earthworm Jim is the Genesis version.

I feel this is much betterthan the Super NES version except for the controlsprovided here on the Evercade.

Even when changing themin the option screen, I can't find anything thatworks well for this game as I can't set anything to the X button which severely hurts playability.

The Super Nintendo version probably would have beenpreferred because of the control.

But actually, no.

I'll get to that later.

Boogerman is the Super Nintendo version and the controls are messed up too; button A jumps and button Y attacks.

So imagine using your thumblike this for the entire game and no, you cannot change the controls.

Incantation is a Super NES game where you control a little wizard.

Once again, A jumps and Y attacks which makes playing this one a huge chore.

I think I might be able toget into this one a lot more if the button mapping wasn't horrible.

Battle Chess seems to be the NES version but I've never played anyversion before honestly.

Regardless, it plays fine if a bit slow.

Finally Titan is an NES game which kind of is a moreadvanced take on Breakout and also less interesting than Breakout.

This cartridge could havebeen a lot better I feel.

(playful upbeat music) Data East Collection 1 is the third game included with the PremiumPack and I love Data East.

It includes 10 games: Bad Dudes, Burger Time, MidnightResistance, Side Pocket, Karate Champ, Joe andMac 2, Fighter's History, Two Crude Dudes, MagicalDrop 2 and Burnin' Rubber.

Sadly, every game onhere is the home version instead of the arcade.

This is especially disappointingwith Two Crude Dudes which went through significant downgrades during the port home.

By the way, Two Crude Dudestarted out sounding fine but soon sound changed to this.

(game screeching) Restarting the game fixed it.

And while I like the Genesisversion of Midnight Resistance more than the arcade version, especially when it comes tothe control and the sound, the Evercade button mappingpractically ruins the game.

I was able to sort of get used to it, but it's still not very optimal at all to be jumping with the Y button.

They just didn't put muchthought into porting these games like at all.

Side Pocket is a Super Nintendoversion and it plays fine.

I really enjoy this game.

Joe and Mac 2 started out sounding fine, but soon the sound disappeared completely.

Overall, there's just so muchpotential in this package, but they came up short byincluding the inferior versions of most of the games.

And not to mention thehorrible button mapping.

– [Announcer] Round two, fight! (upbeat music) Dynamite! – Technos Collection 1comes with eight games: Double Dragon, Double Dragon 2, Renegade, Super Spike V'ball, Super Dodgeball, Crash 'N the Boys StreetChallenge, Super Double Dragon and River City Ransom.

Double Dragon is the NES version and the first thing I noticed is that the A and B buttons are backwards.

The button labeled A on the Evercade is the same as the buttonlabeled A on the NES pad.

That is a huge flaw.

But for this particulargame, you can get used to it.

Double Dragon 2 however, which is also the NES version is almost completelybroken because of this.

On the NES, button B attacks to your left and button A which isto the right of button B attacks to your right.

It feels very natural.

Here it's backward, so the left button attacks to your right and the right button to your left.

I can't believe thatthey didn't catch this and I can't play it well like this at all.

Of course Renegade isthe NES sport as well and it also suffers fromthese broken controls.

This is a hard enough game as it is.

River City Ransom works well enough despite the backwards controls.

That's a good thing toobecause this is a great game.

Super Dodgeball is here inall of its flickering glory, and you can't increase thesprite limit on the Evercade.

I like this game on the NeoGeo, but not really on the NES.

And here's Super Double Dragon, which is a Super Nintendo game.

This game has absolutely no audio.

I rebooted it, and thensuddenly, it had sound.

The Super NES emulation seems fine here other than the odd button placement, but that doesn't really hurt this game.

And this is a pretty good game, even if it's slow and clunky.

I think it might be myfavorite one on the cartridge.

Still, overall, I don't highly recommend Technos Collection 1.

(mediocre music) So as you can tell, I have quite a few serious issues so far.

But this next collectionmight be interesting as it has a lot of forgotten games from the 8 and 16-bit eras.

Let's check it out.

(upbeat music) Piko Interactive Collection1 has 20 games on it.

If you didn't know, Piko is a publisher that has been buying uprights to tons of old games including overseas Homebrew games and a few others that were never released.

Included here are Switchblade, Dragon View, Top Racer Power Punch II, Brave Battle Saga, 8 Eyes, Nightshade, Radical Rex, The Humans, Dork and Ymp, I think it's pronounced, Magic Girl, Water Margin, Iron Commando, Drakkhen, Tinhead, The Immortal, Power Piggs of the Dark Age, Canon – Legend of the New Gods, Way of the Exploding Fist and Jim Power – The Lost Dimensions.

You remember 8 Eyesfrom the NES, of course.

I mean, who possibly couldn't? The problem is yep, you guessed it, the controls are now backwards.

This seems to be an ongoing thing that plagues all games on the Evercade.

Brave Battle Saga is anRPG for the Mega Drive which was translated.

The title screen saysLegend of the Magic Warrior and the splash screensays Brave Battle Saga.

Oh well, whatever.

Unfortunately, the gameaudio soon changed to this.

Canon – Legend of the New Godsis another translated RPG.

This time the sound went completely away just after starting the game.

Jeez! Drakkhen is a very earlyRPG for the Super Nintendo.

I remember renting it andnot liking it very much.

Interesting that it uses apolygon landscape though.

It's pseudo sequel calledDragon View is also here.

This one is better and yes, it still uses polygons.

It also has side view action sequences which have you jumping with A and attacking with Y.

Iron Commando is a fairly mediocre and kind of choppy SuperNintendo beat em up.

Even the Genesis versionof The Immortal is here.

I'm just amazed that the NESversion isn't here instead.

The Super NES version of Jim Power is here and it still has the painful scrolling.

Now I've heard that they plan to fix this for a future release, but they certainlydidn't for this version.

Magic Girl is an average vertical shooter for the Mega Drive.

It kind of hurts my eyessometimes with how choppy it can be, but it plays okay.

The Genesis version ofRadical Rex is on here.

I doubt they wanted to usethe space it would need for the Sega CD soundtrack, and that's fine.

It's just Radical Rex.

I started up some Genesishomebrew game called Switchblade.

As I was trying to figure out what to do, the sound decided it wanted to fail.

(ominous music) Tinhead is on here andit's the Genesis version.

There's not really muchmore to say about Tinhead that I haven't before.

Top Racer used to be TopGear on the Super Nintendo.

I guess they had to renameit for one reason or another.

I really liked this game.

Okay, check out thecontrol setup I chose here.

I used the bottom three buttons and have nothing selectedfor the top button of the diamond configuration.

Will the game respect mydesired control scheme? NOPE! Gas is where I assigned it.

Nitro is where I assigned it.

But the brakes are button Y which is at the top ofthe diamond configuration.

It's like they go out of theirway to break the controls for every single game.

Water Margin is a Homebrewgame on the Mega Drive that plays like Knightsof the Round from Capcom.

We've talked about it before on the show.

(upbeat music) Next up is Namco Museum Collection 1.

This is gotta be good, right? Overall, it has a decentcollection of games, I suppose.

It has 11 titles:Galaxian, Pac Man, Xevious, Mappy, Dig Dug, Star Luster, Battle Cars, Metal Marines, LibbleRabble, Quad Challenge and Mappy Kids.

Battle Cars is a Super Nintendo game that was only everreleased in North America.

Unfortunately, the sound failed soon after I started the game.

And then the entire game completely froze.

Lovely.

Dig Dug is on here.

I love Dig Dug.

You can't go wrong here.

Galaxian is also on here.

Of course these are the NESversions and not the arcade.

I've never played Libble Rabble before, but here it didn't have any sound at all.

Mappy Kids is here and untilnow this game was only released in Japan on the Famicom.

Unfortunately, the jump andaction buttons are backwards here on the Evercade.

Metal Marines is a Super NES strategy game and yet another title butstarted up with no sound at all.

Pac Man is here and ofcourse, it's the NES version.

The Evercade couldeasily emulate the arcade but I think it's because theyalready have an NES emulator and don't wanna make an arcadeemulator for each game here.

I mean, it's a lot cheaperand easier that way.

Quad Challenge is a slightlyinteresting Genesis game that I've always been slightlyfascinated with, slightly.

Is Namco Mmuseum Collection 2 any better? Well at least the soundworked for the first time for every game on this one.

This one also has 11games: Pac-Attack, Galaga, Warp Man, Dig Dug II, The Tower of Druaga, Burning Force, Phelios, Weapon Lord, Dragon Spirit, Splatterhouse2 and Splatterhouse 3.

Of course once again, it's the home versions where applicable.

I've always kind of enjoyed Burning Force and it plays well enough on the Evercade.

I still don't like themusic in stage two very much but the other stages make up for it.

(super crappy music) Pac-attack is an interesting puzzle game that can be pretty funfor a minute or two.

Dragon Spirit is hereand it's a great game.

The NES version is good, but I kind of wish theyhad a PC Engine emulator for this one.

A lot of people really love Weapon Lord but I can never really get into it no matter how many times I try.

The Super Nintendo versionis represented here.

Warp Man has you controllingwhat looks like a space Dig Dug shooting down a prerequisitenumber of enemies.

And Phelios is as tough as ever.

(super scary music) Okay, okay.

I've accepted that all the gamesneed to be the home version if they're based on an arcade game.

Also, the best cartridge for the system is coming up in this next segment.

It'll be the last collectionof games I talk about.

(bright upbeat music) Next is Atari Collection 2which has another 20 games.

Basketbrawl, Yars' Revenge, Solaris, Centipede again, butthis time for the 7800, Asteroids, same deal, Demons to Diamonds, Desert Falcon, Haunted House, Sprintmaster, Radar Lock, Millipede, Submarine Commander, Planet Smashers, Realsports Tennis, Wizard, Air Sea Battle, Bowling, Street Racer, Dark Chambers and Human Cannonball.

Many of the same things that I said about the first collectioncan be applied here, but this one is definitely alot more interesting to me.

I was intrigued to seemore 7800 games on here like Desert Falcon, whichis Atari's answer to Zaxxon.

It was also fun playingthe upgraded versions of Asteroids and Centipede.

Basketbrawl kind of sucks though as no matter how much Ipunched the other guys, I can't get the ball.

I think somehow I wasable to score though.

It was probably my teammate that did it.

Solaris is an interesting game released late in the life of the 2600.

I remember seeing commercialson TV for this one.

I'm gonna have to read theinstructions on how to play it so I can figure out what to do.

Radar Lock is prettyambitious for the 2600 but that's not surprising considering it was released in 1989.

And of course the classic, Yars' Revenge is on here.

(game buzzing and stuff) Now it's time for Interplay Collection 2 coming at you with six more games.

Claymates, EarthwormJim 2, Clay Fighter 2, Prehistorik Man, TheAdventures of Rad Gravity and The Brainies.

I'll talk about Claymatesand Clay Fighter 2 next week on a real Super Nintendo.

Earthworm Jim is theSuper Nintendo version.

Will the controls be as I set them here? Of course not.

The gun and weapon selectbuttons are reversed.

You just can't seem to win here.

Prehistorik Man is a Super NES game that might be interestingif the button mapping weren't messed up as a resultof being on the Evercade.

The same thing can be saidabout Rad Gravity here.

The Brainies is a puzzlegame where you need to match the colored fuzzballto the same color disc.

It's a pretty simple concept.

Unfortunately, it doesn't suffer from any button layout issues.

Overall, this cartreally isn't much better than the first Interplay collection.

(bright upbeat music) Finally, we have MegaCat Studios Collection 1.

This one offers up 10 indie games: Coffee Crisis, Old Towers, Tanzer, Little Medusa, Super Painter, Multidude, Almost Hero, Creepy Brawlers, JusticeDuel and Log Jammers.

Almost Hero is on the NES and it's inspired by River City Ransom.

The fighting action is kind of stiff but I found the dialogue asyour fighting pretty funny.

It seems like a good oneto spend some time with.

Creepy Brawlers is basically a boxing game like Mike Tyson's Punchoutexcept creepy instead.

Coffee Crisis is a Genesis beat em up.

You control baristas out tosave the world from aliens and people who are possessed.

I really liked the animation in this one but sometimes the controlfeels a touch unresponsive.

Just as Duel has youplaying historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, who of course is a robot, you basically just shoot down enemies.

I got bored pretty fast with this one as there's not a lot of variety.

Log Jammers is an NES gamethat seems to be inspired by Windjammers on the Neo Geo except that this one is reallytwitchy and hard to play.

Little Medusa is a Genesis game where you need to turn creatures to stone and then push them sothat they make bridges then you collect the starsto complete the level.

One hit, and you need tostart all over again though and it's really easy to get hit.

As a result, I didn'tcare much for this one but it shows potential.

Multidude is for the NES and has you pressing buttonsto switch between two dudes to get to the exit.

A much better game is OldTower which is similar but has an automatic dashing concept.

This one is for the Genesis and you need to collect all of the coins before the exits light up.

Sometimes you have to switchback and forth between dudes.

I played this one for a whileand I definitely recommend it.

The music is really good too.

So that helps.

(upbeat music) Super Painter is a NES gamewhere you need to color the gray blocks by touching them and then proceed to the exit.

Simple concept and I like it.

You can jump over enemies as well.

I played this one for longerthan I thought I would.

And last we have Tanzer wherethe audio messed up right away in the title screen.

I really wanted to playthis so I restarted it, and the audio messed up again! Okay, I'm gonna try once more.

(upbeat music) All right, third time's a charm, I guess.

Anyway, this game is awesome! And look, I can actually assignthe buttons the way I want on the Evercade, meaningthat it plays perfectly here.

Well, except for theaforementioned sound issues.

You run along slashingenemies and collecting gold.

The control is quite good.

The graphics are on the minimalside but still pleasant.

The music is fantastic.

I want this game on my real Genesis.

You only get one life and as I was taken backto the title screen, the audio did this.

Yikes.

Overall, I'd say that this was probably my favorite cartridge for the Evercade.

(upbeat music) And there you go.

That's the Evercade for you.

You know I can forgive that they only have thehome versions on here, it helps keep the costs low.

And I can even forgivethat shimmering scrolling and the blurry Genesis graphics.

What I cannot forgive isthat they don't allow you to remap the buttonson a system-wide level.

I mean, what the hell? That is a serious overlook.

Hopefully this can be fixedwith a firmware update, but I don't even know if that's possible.

Anyway, what do you guysthink of the Evercade? Are you gonna get one? Let me know.

In the meantime, thank youfor watching Game Sack.

(Game Sack Credits Theme) You know these Evercadecartridges kind of look like the cartridges that go intothe Neo Geo Pocket Color.

You don't think?(bright upbeat music) (kick ass rock music) Woooooah!!!! Neo Turf Masters on theNeo Geo Pocket has never been so intense! (kick ass rock music) Next game! It's Metal Slug on the Neo Geo Pocket being played on the Evercade! Intense! (kick ass rock music) That's right.

I'm probably losing my mind.

Oh well, no big loss.

Whoooooooaaahh!!!!(kickass rock music).