21 April 2017

Reviews: Aibo Seniton X Video Game [Famicom Clone]

UPD (26.04.2017) Added a few video tests, that I forgot to add earlier!

Hello everyone!
Today I decided to bring you a new review on my Blogspot site. It's a review on one of the pretty interesting Famiclones that I have in my collection. It's called Aibo Seniton X Video Game.

Here it is:

Right from the beginning, we can see that it actually looks like a Famicom clone, produced by HiTex


Let's take a look at this console more deeply. :)
Center text and top left symbols above cartridge slot - Aibo
The text at the bottom of cartridge slot - Seniton X Video Game


This is how the console looks like from the front side. The side parts of console have the slots of Famiclone controllers, just like what was on original Famicom.
Then we have the cartridge slot, with automatically opening doors. You just insert the cartridge and it goes in. On Famicom, you had to open the cartridge slot door manually. It's a minor thing, but I think that it's worth mentioning.
It's designed for Famicom cartridges, 60 pin ones. In order to play NES cartridges, 72-pin, you need to use a converter.

Next... we have the power button, eject button labeled as Push, Reset button. Pretty standard stuff.
But also above Power button, there's an LED light, which lets you know when the console is powered on.

Everything is clear with the top part. Let's look at the bottom part.
It has 4 places for screws, instead of 6, like on original console. Nothing too interesting here, except for this little sticker, which I still haven't figured out the translation of (the text that's in Chinese, at least). I'll show it to you more closely:
Who knows the Chinese and is willing to translate this sticker to me, write me in the comments below!
Next, let's look at the sides of the console:
We have 15-pin controller ports on each side, just like what was on one of the more popular Famiclones, Micro Genius IQ series, or Lifa SM-888/Haili LM-888, etc..
You can connect Famicom accessories, but it's likely that they won't work, due to the controller settings here. But, you can connect pretty much any 15-pin Famiclone controller to it, and it will work. I tested the light gun I have for it (came with Subor Famiclone), connected to second port, and it worked just fine.

Let's look at the back side:
I think that it'll be no surprise to you, if I told you that this Famiclone has AV outs, and not just RF. Both work, but not too perfectly... probably due to soldering problems. I dunno...
The power adapter is standard 9V DC. Sega Genesis Model 1 adapter works kinda well with it. I usually use the universal power adapter adapter with 9V DC settings, and everything works perfectly fine here.
But anyway... let's look at what's inside the console :D
This looks like a hardware clone, and not NOaC clone. Just look at all those chips on the main board, full of chips and capacitors. We'll look at the main board more closely now. :)
Cloned CPU and PPU chips, capacitors. This looks sick
Looking at it from other angle

Zoomed in view
And here's the view on the board with AV out, power jack, etc.. stuff
Looking at this from the other side:
Zoom in

The close view to 7805

And here's the clone with original Famicom (note: my Famicom is with AV mod, but this is the only mod that was done with the console).
The Famiclone is slightly bigger than the original console.
Sticking two consoles together, Famicom on top.
The Famiclone is a bit bigger by the height too. And yeah, as I said earlier, my Famicom has AV mod, but that's the ONLY modification done to it (and the sticker is missing, that tells you what is what).
Different angle

The controller slots are perfectly designed to fit the controllers, that are designed similar to Famicom ones. Unfortunately, as you can see from my photos, the main unit is the only thing I purchased. There haven't been any controllers with it originally, when I bought it.

But I guess that the original Famiclone controllers were shaped like official deal, but with turbo buttons added.
And this is the view on controllers, inserted into these slots. They sit quite nicely.
Another thing I am guessing is that the wires on original Famiclone controllers could come out from the sides, just like original Famicom ones.
This question remains unanswered, but I hope that sooner or later, we'll find out the answer to that. :)

Now, we get to the interesting part: how about testing this Famiclone, and checking the games to see how good the compatibility is?
We'll look at some screenshots here, as well as video tests that I made earlier.

Here there are the photos of cartridges I made here. Through RF and AV. :)
AV outs. Supervision 64-in-1

Supervision 64-in-1 cartridge, zoomed in

RF out

AV out once again
Even via photos we can see that there are some vertical lines on the screen. The picture quality isn't perfect, but not too terrible. AV out is a bit weak, but works.
We'll check a few other games here:
Super Mario Bros.

AV out
The picture looks a bit dark, so, via capture device, I decided to make the contrast and brightless higher, so it would look a bit better.
RF out
RF signal isn't too great, as you can see here. In case you are wondering, there is nothing wrong with my cables of mine.
Duck Tales 2. AV out.

Duck Tales 2. RF out.

Duck Tales 2. Zoomed out picture, with the cartridge of mine.

6-in-1 NS14 cart.

Pac-Mania. AV out.

Pac-Mania. RF out.

23-in-1 cartridge. RF out. Zoomed out.

23-in-1 cartridge. AV out. Zoomed out.

Adventure Island from 23-in-1. AV out. Zoomed in.

Adventure Island from 23-in-1. RF out. Zoomed in

Mario 3. RF out. Zoomed out.

Mario 3. AV out. Zoomed out. (You can even see that it's AV channel, lol)

Mario 3. RF out. Zoomed in.

Mario 3. AV out. Zoomed in.
Also, we'll check how well the official cartridges work on this Famiclone.
Super Mario USA (Super Mario Bros. 2). AV out. Zoomed in.

Super Mario USA (Super Mario Bros. 2). RF out. Zoomed in.

Super Mario USA (Super Mario Bros. 2). RF out. Zoomed out. Official cartridge.

Super Mario USA (Super Mario Bros. 2). AV out. Zoomed out. Official cartridge.
So, we've seen the pictures of this console running. But, how about the videos of certain games, running on this machine? Let's find out! :)

Now... what I am not sure about is that... why sometimes the colors look a bit messed up on some games. Probably there's something wrong with soldering stuff.
And as I mentioned above, I had to raise the brightness of the video, when connected via AV cables. Sadly, the picture still isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing.

So, let's take a look at the "Famiclone Tests" episode on this console that I made :


The timecodes for your viewing pleasure:
[0:20] Super Mario Bros. (LB35) [6:40] Super Mario Bros. 3 [18:19] Aladdin (SuperGame) [22:16] The Lion King (SuperGame) [26:43] Rockman (LF57) [30:46] Rockman 2 [40:50] Felix the Cat [50:10] Jungle Book [54:27] Prince of Persia [57:19] Chip to Dale no Daisakusen / Grand Combat [1:06:05] Chip to Dale no Daisakusen 2 [1:14:54] Duck Tales (III) / 1994 11-in-1 (A-042) [1:20:06] Duck Tales 2 (D-T2) [1:23:05] Battle City (LA40) [1:26:34] Mario Bros. / Supervision 110-in-1 [1:33:01] Lode Runner / Supervision 110-in-1 [1:40:15] Road Fighter (LA42) [1:43:25] Ninja Hattori-Kun (LB19) [1:47:07] Kyatto Ninden Teyandee [1:53:56] Super Turtles 3 / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 [2:09:03] 1994 Super 9999-in-1 [2:14:50] '97 9999999-in-1 [2:21:50] Super Mario 14 (Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3 hack) [2:29:04] Bubble Bobble (FDS Conversion) [2:34:37] Akumajou Densetsu [2:44:44] Gimmick! [2:54:04] Arumana no Kiseki (FDS) [3:00:23] Aladdin (EUR/PAL) [3:01:36] Duck Tales 2 (EUR/PAL) [3:13:02] 150-in-1 Real Game [3:14:15] Doraemon (Somari hack) [3:15:01] 128-in-1 [3:17:06] 400-in-1 Real Game (CoolBoy) [3:35:16] PocketGames 150-in-1 [3:53:03] 64-in-1

If needed, the time codes for additional games, that were ran from multicarts, will be also added here!

So, here you go!
What can I say at the end about this console?

+ Full hardware clone
+ Detachable controllers (15-pin)
+ AV outs
+ No reversed duty cycles sound
+ Working expansion sound
+ Pretty good looking design of a main unit
- Distorted sound (possibly due to some soldering problems)
- A lot of noise in video quality, when the picture is displayed via RF
- For some odd reason, the video might glitch a bit via AV (I guess it's fixable)

Thank you for reading this post!
I'll also make a post on TriStar Famiclone as soon as possible, since I already made video tests on that console like 2 years ago. And it needs to have a review on this blog too!
(C) AlexSRMD Productions (2017)

17 April 2017

Pickups 50: Famicom Cartridges 50 (January 2017 Pickups)

Yo people!
There haven't been new posts here for... quite a really long time. So, as usual... without spending too much time, I will show off what I got in January 2017.
There haven't been too many pickups... But there are a few, that worth taking a look at :)

Brush Roller
The game, in almost perfect condition, with Remarks sign on the back. The unlicensed game by Hwang Shinwei, a clone of Make Trax.
The label of the cartridge is just the screenshot of actual gameplay and title screen, so nothing much to say here.
Not a bad game, you go around the level, avoid two enemies that chase you. You have 9 lives at the beginning, so it's not too easy to get a Game Over right on the first level. What can be annoying, is the enemy that leaves footprints, it goes on your road, where you could go, so, you'd have to destroy it, before you can actually complete the level.
My particular cartridge seems to be sold in Russia, Moscow by Kenga company, that, just like Steepler, distributed cartridges/consoles in our country back in 1990s. GoCat sticker on the top of cartridge says it all. I have a few other carts with that exact sticker.

Hryu no Ken III (Fly Dragon Boxing 3)
I picked up this cart, just because it looked kinda similar design sense to Double Dragon II on bootleg carts.
Turns out that this is actually a game in Hryu no Ken series, the third part.
I haven't figured out much what to do here, but it definitely looks interesting. Gonna figure out later what this game is all about. :)

The picture on the front label is taken from original cart. The title seems to be written in Chinese, and at the bottom, there is English title, which I am assuming is actually wrong. But I will check that soon.

Ultraman Club: Kaijuu Dai Kessen!
One of the games from Ultraman Club series. The label is taken from original cart, but has the copyright info taken down at the bottom left.
The copyrights in-game aren't removed. Not a bad bootleg copy of Ultimate Club game.

EDIT: I completely forgot about a few cartridges, which I actually purchased earlier in January. I named the folder wrong, that contained them and forgot about these cartridges until recently.
So, I'll fix that mistake now, and go on to show you what I purchased =)

Super 3-in-1 New N067
 This multicart contains a few games, such as Contra, Battletoads (yes, the first one and not the second one, which is a crossover with Double Dragon) and Journey to the West (TXC corporation).
I got this multicart mostly because of Journey to the West, as I didn't have it anywhere else. Not a bad platformer for a pirate game, you can check it out. :)

Addams Family [A-F1]
 A bit unusual label for a game that I don't see quite often on bootlegs. But it's actually Addams Family by Ocean, the old bootleg copy from 1990s. =)
It even has all the copyright information saved at the beginning, so that's nice.

Arkanoid [TFC-AN5400]
 The official Famicom cart of Arkanoid. I think that this game doesn't need too much of a description, since this, alongside with many other cartridges that I show here, was covered many times, so I will just go over and show off the cartridges. ;)

Elevator Action [Taito 04]
 The official cart of Elevator Action.

Great Tank [SFX-TV]
 Made by SNK, the same people, who also made Guerilla War game. This is the Japanese version of Iron Tank. Both versions, to my knowledge, were released on bootlegs, but I haven't got my hands on either one of those yet, so I decided to get myself this official copy. :)

Gremlins 2 [G-S2]
 Got myself an older bootleg copy version of Gremlins 2. The main difference here from NT release is that it has the copyrights changed up a bit. Instead of Sunsoft logo, it says 1996. The version is US one, the text is in English. :)
There exists an even older copy, without ID. When I purchase it, we'll check it out.

Kung Fu New 1997
 Actually, that's Yie Ar Kung Fu, but with really unusual label. And it looks like it was released in 1997, judging by the golden paint here.
I've seen a few more cartridges with early Famicom cartridges and unusual labels, like this one.
I think that there will be a special post about these ones, where we'll check a few of these bootlegs. So stay tuned for that.

Panic Restaurant [P-T3]
 The US version of the game. There also exists JPN version with A-B1 type of ID, but titled as Cook House on the cartridge cover. Here, the copyright year is changed to 1995, and Taito is removed. Pretty funny looking label, with two men, beer, and chicken stuff.
But it kinda fits the actual game. I've beaten this game at the beginning of this year, but it was on a multicart. Really cool platformer. =)

Thexder [SQF-TX]
 The official copy of Thexder for Famicom.

Warpman [Namco 08]
The official copy of Warpman. Really interesting mixture of Battle City+Bomberman gameplay.

So that I fixed the problem with this post, which is that I didn't add all the cartridges I purchased in January, I can say "Case Closed", and move on to the pickups from later months. :)
See ya there!
(C) AlexSRMD Productions (2017)