Review: Sega Genesis Arcade Motion Dual (TV Game)

Published on 12-13-2010 01:04 PM

65 Comments

It's amazing the stuff you can find at your local drug store. Stuff that just can't be legal, and yet somehow - they are selling it right there on the shelves like a Malaysia piracy kiosk. I've found some remarkable gems before, but this is the brass ring ... the golden chalice of portable emulation devices - The One the Suit Was Made For (sorry, sometimes I just throw in references for myself).
What's the big deal? We've been waiting a long time for this ... Read on ...

What is it?

The Sega Genesis Motion Arcade is a blatent attempt to cash in on the Wii's motion sensing gaming. Claiming two wireless motion controllers, seven motion sports games, fifteen licensed Sega Genesis titles, eighteen "arcade games" and the availability to download more games onto SD card (!), this little guy popped right off the shelf at me. The unit is manufactured by a company called AtGames whom apparently make a couple other devices as well (see below).

What's in the box?
Inside is a base station, a standard composite patch cable and looks-alot-like-wii-remotes controllers. Included also is a paper manual that includes a minor write up on the hardware, how it works and what games are included.

Looking at The Hardware

Unlike some of the more "bootleg" hardware I've picked up at Walgreens, the pieces and parts feel remarkably solid. I don't feel like I'd break the thing with a 3 foot drop to the floor.

The base unit itself is sturdy. On the front is what looks like an IR receiver. The top face contains the logo and two buttons; on/off and a menu button. Along the top are the jacks for the yellow/white composite cables (this is monoaural audio), the SD card slot and a 5V AC adapter jack (pretty standard jack, AC adapter NOT included). The SD card slot is of AMAZINGLY decent quality for an over the counter cheapie TV game unit - I was surprised at how firm and well-built it felt putting the card in. On the bottom you'll find the battery compartment - secured with a door featuring a screw and clip mechanism (again, more than I'd expect from a cheapie). The base takes 4AA batteries (did I mention "not included"?) and the compartment also feels of decent construction. Note: The screw WILL fall out when you unscrew it to put the batteries in - it's not one of those ones that stays attached when you back it all the way out.

The two included wireless controllers are definite Wii remote knockoffs, featuring a D-pad and four play buttons - as well as two extras in the middle for START and MENU. While I wouldn't want to play 86 hours of Donkey Kong with them, they are fairly comfortable to use - the controls feeling more solid than most "made for TV" fare and I think they could take some dropping and abuse. An On/Off switch graces one side (the top if you're holding the controller sideways) and a very gnarly looking hole on top for the IR signal (see the pic). The hole looks like a Wave Motion gun turret (Star Blazers fans will get the reference). The unit feel pretty tightly packed and lacks the "cheap plastic" feeling that belies the looks of the thing. Once again, I was fairly impressed.

The controllers suffered no lag during gameplay (although I was close to the unit). It was actually ENJOYABLE to play.

The Software
Most of the time, these sort of TV games are really more about the value of the software included vice the hardware itself. There are three parts to the software - Genesis games included, the motion control games and the "SD Card Downloads".

Interactive Sports Games
Hardly "motion control" ... you "shake" the controller to simulate a single event like serving a ball.

Tennis Challenge
Joy of Ping Pong
Baseball 101
Boxing
Bowling Alley
It's T-Time
Casual Fishing

In the end, don't even care about these games. That's NOT what you want this unit for ...

Sega Licensed Games
Fifteen licensed Sega Genesis games are included but it's the same things we've seen over and over again and there are eighteen "arcade" games (think homebrew) to round out the collection. Here is the list of games:

Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
Arrow Flash
Bonanza Bros.
Columns III
Columns
Crack Down
Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Ecco
Flicky
Fatal Labyrinth
Ristar
Sonic Spinball
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
The Ooze

Nothing here should be a big shocker to you. Of course there are some very solid titles in the mix (sue me, I like Ecco) - but of course, we've seen most of them before.

Arcade Games
These are the filler titles:

Jack's Pea
Jewel Magic
Curling 2010
Plumbing Contest
Wall Breaking
Snow Boarding
Fish Story
Chess
Air Hockey
Spider
Naval Power
Mr. Balls
Cannon
Fight or Lose
Bottle Taps Race
Bomber
Checker
Hexagon

A lot of stinkers with a couple of decent titles thrown in.

The menu system is basic but does the trick. After the basic, skippable title screen, you get three choices to narrow down your selection of games: Sega Mega Drive Games , Arcade Games and SD Card and Interactive Sports Games. The SD card menu is hidden away at the END of the "Arcade Games" menu - almost like they don't want you to find or use it. Fortunately, the wrap around nature of the menus makes it pretty quick and easy to get to. Still, it seems suspicious that they made this so well hidden ...

SD Card Downloads
If you're banking on getting a few hundred games off the company's website - just forget it. The website (at the time of writing) has exactly THREE games - and they all appear to be homebrew titles. To use them, you get yourself an SD card (one is NOT included), create a folder called GAME, and download the titles from the website down to the card. Insert the card, go to the menu, and at the END of the preinstalled games is an entry called SD CARD - you choose that - and it will briefly read the card and present you with a list of available games.

What's the brass ring???

Well, some of you might have already figured it out. You're probably wondering what format those games are in that you download? I'll give you a hint ... they are .BIN files. Now the smart person is thinking - hmmm... doesn't Sega Genesis emulators on the computer use .BIN files? You are correct. Finally, what would happen if you put Sega Genesis ROM files (in .BIN format) on the SD card ... would they work??

OMG ... they TOTALLY WORK!

That's right, boys .. What we have here is a Sega Genesis - complete with two wireless controllers AND you can play roms RIGHT OFF AN SD CARD!! And you can do it for $25 - on a piece of hardware you don't have to mail order from Hong Kong (and wait 6-12 weeks to get) - available at your corner drug store (Fry's Electronics carries them too .. but for $10 more). That's 250+ average sized Sega Genesis games on one card...

How is the emulation? DAMN GOOD. I took it for a spin with a wide varity of ROMs - different sizes, different publishers. I tested it out with: Altered Beast (Sega), Ms. Pac-Man (Tengen), Aladdin (Disney) and even took a mad fat ROM, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and tried THAT out. All worked ... I pretty much stood there with my mouth hanging open. Here was what we always wanted - an SD card based Genesis - and here it is for $25. No hacking, no soldering, no patching roms ... NOTHING ... works RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. I personally can't believe Sega let them do this. Piracy at Walgreens ...

There are a couple of caveats I noticed to using the SD card. First, it doesn't seem to like high capacity SD cards. When I used the 4GB card I had handy, it locked up the game after just a few moments of play. Changing to my Wii's 2GB standard SD card did the trick. Also, the list of SD card games are cached so the SD card is not parsed every time. The cache file is named _TEMP on the root of the card. If you add/remove/change any of the rom files in the GAME folder, delete that _TEMP file so it recaches it next time you boot the game system up.

If this wasn't enough, these guys make a PORTABLE version with a roughly 3" screen that uses the same SD card system (it says so right from their website). Imagine - essentially a Sega Nomad that uses an SD card ... for under $45 ... I gotta have one .. we'll save that for next time ...

I will continue my tests with various ROMs and put the controllers to a better test later on and post my results. But based on my initial findings, I urge EVERYONE to go and get one of these suckers before Sega comes to their senses and pulls every single one off the shelves. If you're not into Genesis emulation, go get one anyway ... these things will go for over $100 on eBay when they get jerked off the shelves. I'd get TWO of them and keep one sealed up.

If you have any questions about the unit, I'd be happy to answer them here!

Amazon.com
Walgreens.com
AtGames Support Site

Attached Files

CIMG0801.JPG (110.6 KB, 680 views)

Categories:
Reviews,
Homebrew,
Classic

65 Comments

Shane R. Monroe - 12-13-2010, 05:52 PM
- Reply
Retro fans .. you don't want to miss this review ....

So Cal Mike - 12-13-2010, 07:24 PM
- Reply
Sweetness! Thanks for the heads up!

Chris - 12-13-2010, 07:41 PM
- Reply
By chance, to Master System roms work on this thing??

Darksol - 12-13-2010, 08:04 PM
- Reply
That is totally insane Shane! And I thought nothing could come close to beating the C64 controller a few years ago.

Womp - 12-13-2010, 08:15 PM
- Reply
I love how it says Sega Mega Drive, kinda clues you in on where it is from.

So Cal Mike - 12-13-2010, 10:12 PM
- Reply
So dumb question here but oh well. I can only get GEN and BIN files to load but most seem to be SMD and those aren't working. What am I missing ?

meu2 - 12-14-2010, 12:55 AM
- Reply
To be fair the Mega Drive/Genesis included the SMS processor as a sub processor and was compatible with SMS games. I'm sure this board has that chip removed to keep cost down.

merman1974 - 12-14-2010, 03:52 AM
- Reply
The form is quite pleasing, the blue colour and swept back look obviously meaning to make us think subconciously of Sonic.

Will be interesting to see if it is multi-region, coping with Japanese, US and European ROMs which can often be substantially different.

Shane R. Monroe - 12-14-2010, 05:04 AM
- Reply
Originally Posted by So Cal Mike

So dumb question here but oh well. I can only get GEN and BIN files to load but most seem to be SMD and those aren't working. What am I missing ?

Did you try renaming them to .BIN? I haven't tried this, but it's worked for other emus ....

Shane R. Monroe - 12-14-2010, 05:11 AM
- Reply
Renaming does NOT work. I tried Lion King and Flashback.

Trying this: http://www.zophar.net/utilities/sega...converter.html

Originally Posted by Shane R. Monroe

Did you try renaming them to .BIN? I haven't tried this, but it's worked for other emus ....

Shane R. Monroe - 12-14-2010, 05:25 AM
- Reply
The conversion didn't work - however I was able to obtain .BIN roms for Lion King and SF2 Turbo - they appear to work.

Lion King was a UJE rom, so I assume that's "region free" style - US, Jap, Eur.

I tried Gauntlet - and it appeared to have dramatic slowdown during play. Could be the ROM tho. I'll have to check again.

Some roms simply will NOT appear on the list - even being BIN files, so there must be some processing/checking. I'm going to get a different version of some of them and see if they behave.

Shane R. Monroe - 12-14-2010, 05:32 AM
- Reply
A lot of the BIN files that aren't showing up on my lists are probably corrupted. I replaced a couple of them, and they work now. Found a problem - the motion replicates a button press that causes SOME games to behave badly. I just looked at Williams Classics and played Robotron. It kept trying to change from THREE BUTTON MODE to SIX BUTTON MODE.

I'm thinking we need some "surgery" on these controllers to demotion them ....

Shane R. Monroe - 12-14-2010, 07:01 AM
- Reply
I pulled apart the controller ...

Looks like you could definitely clip that motion detector out ...

Attachment 1500 Attachment 1501

So Cal Mike - 12-14-2010, 07:16 AM
- Reply
Originally Posted by merman1974

The form is quite pleasing, the blue colour and swept back look obviously meaning to make us think subconciously of Sonic.

Will be interesting to see if it is multi-region, coping with Japanese, US and European ROMs which can often be substantially different.

So far the games I have working from SD are:

Daze Before Christmas
After Burner II
Rampart
Chuck Rock
Joe & Mac
Sonic 3
Thunderforce IV (Japanese)
Viewpoint
Earthworm Jim 2

Looking for more this morning.

meu2 - 12-14-2010, 07:39 AM
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Apparently the system prefers bin files using all uppercase 8.3 naming (assuming it’s the same as the Gopher handheld that is).

Shane R. Monroe - 12-14-2010, 07:54 AM
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This one actually doesn't seem to care .. the menu looks a bit borked with long filenames, but it still takes them

Bill_Loguidice - 12-14-2010, 01:54 PM
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Nice review, Shane, thanks. I've seen this device rebranded before either as a stand alone device or a handheld and I've heard mixed things about being able to run ROMs from the SD card. It's fascinating that it works so well.

My only concern about the portable version would be the screen's refresh hate. I'd hate to get another portable device that plays Genesis games with motion blur...

Dragon57 - 12-14-2010, 02:54 PM
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I see I need to visit my local Walgreens . I wonder how easy it would be to take the wireless guts out of the 'wands' and hack it into a standard Genesis controller?

Shane R. Monroe - 12-14-2010, 04:03 PM
- Reply
No idea ... It would be great do have them ...

joejet - 12-14-2010, 04:29 PM
- Reply
I am surprised on one posted yet... "Were can i get the Roms"? LOL... please dont ban me... crap i am running out after the post to pick this up! Thanks Shane!

Review: Sega Genesis Arcade Motion Dual (TV Game)

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