If you're a classic game lover, one of the best things in the world is a good garage sale. What's even better is a rich-neighborhood-wide garage sale WEEKEND, much like one my suburban neighborhood had last weekend. As I perused through stacks of old comics, knick-knacks from various world travels, and soiled stuffed animals (eww), I came across a house that, from the outside, didn't look like it could provide any gaming goodness.

But, oh, how wrong I was.

You see, within the confines of a shitty garage sale, I found an amazing gaming treasure I will hold dear to me for the rest of my life: A Super Joy III plug-and-play game set.


The console wars are over. The fake-N64 controller is the winner.

Or, a Power Player video game system. Or, a Super Joystick TV game. Or, a Fun Time game system. See, I'm not sure what the fuck this thing is called. There's a different name for it on each controller in the set, and on the main menu of the system. But, I assume you all know what it is: you know those vendors in the mall that don't have their own store, but instead sell the video game systems that hold 76,000 games and retail for about $20? Yeah, it's one of those. Normally, I would've never thought to pick one of those...THINGS up. But, at a low, low price of $4, who could pass it up?

So, with a very, very reserved interest, I brought the system home to play. And, to be honest, it's not as bad as you'd think.

First of all, the main console is housed within an N64 controller. Seriously: the area with the rumble pack houses the battery, the start button resets the console, and you play with the C-buttons. Start and Select are relegated to the A and B buttons, and the Start button is now Reset. But, you can't use the joystick; it's stuck in place for some reason. During gameplay, instincts take over, and I was constantly rushing to the control stick to move. Also, going to pause, I reset the whole system, which was a huge pain in the ass. The buttons tended to stick a few times, but cleared up after a few seconds.


Seriously, what is this Frankenstein-like-controller-mixing shit?

My system also came packaged with a light-gun (that looks very real, and kinda scary) and a 2nd controller, for any friend you want to torture with this system. Oddly enough, the 2nd player controller is a crappy Genesis-rip-off. The light-gun worked very well with Hogan's Alley and Duck Hunt, and the Genesis controller felt and played like it would on a normal Genesis.

But, enough about the controllers, let's get to the games. As you just read, the system comes with Hogan's Alley and Duck Hunt. Actually, most of the 76,000 games are NES games tweaked for the system. Oh, by the way, the 76,000 games is a lie; there's 125 games, repeated 608 times throughout the beautifully rendered menus.


Yeah, my eyes bled a little, too.

The games range anywhere from pretty cool, to dumb, to just plain odd. The original Contra is the first game on the list, and it starts off with a level select on the opening screen. You also get 1942, Arkanoid, Mario Bros., Super Mario, Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, Clu Clu Land, and a few other well known games. For the most part, these are fun to play, and play as well as their originals. The only major change is the opening screens, which have been wiped clean of their production companies and any copyright information (but, that's to be expected). On the dumb side of things, there's a bunch of games with newer game titles attached. For instance, there's a shitty kung-fu game called Tekken, a WWF fighter with a knight and a Hindu god as wrestlers, and Toy Story, where you play a doll riding on the back of a horse in a circus tent. I can't make this shit up. As for the odd games, there's Donkey Kong Jr. Math renamed Calculator, Bird Week, which plays like the dragon-feeding mini-game from Chrono Cross, and Milk and Nuts, which I can't really describe in words.

To be honest, when I picked this up, I thought It'd be a dumb little system I could review for some laughs. But, honestly, I'll still play this system for a while. The almost console-perfect ports of some games are fun to play, since I don't have the originals, and I'm still going through laughing at the pure shit games. If you ever see this in a mall near you, pick it up. Worst case scenario, you can pass this off as a birthday present for your retarded cousin.