The AtGames ColecoVision Flashback: Kind of Awesome, But Kind of Missing Something

this video supported in part by playing VR I tend to sweat it gives me an edge the king of nerds happens to give me an edge too let king of nerds give you the edge I have always been fascinated by the Calico Vision the second generation console released in 1982 by the formerly known as the Connecticut leather company changed their name to Calico and jumped on the electronics and video game bandwagon when everybody else was and my fascination with the coleco vision isn't because I had it and loved it as a kid but because I missed it as a kid and wanted one so badly I had the Atari and the clicovision when it came out was substantially more expensive and I had several kids I knew in the neighborhood who had a coleco vision and I could go play at their house and man the Donkey Kong on clickovision was bananas good and in fact it was a packing game it was so good it was the thing that sold the system honestly and then I would go home and play my Atari Donkey Kong and wish I had a coleco vision but just never got one hey there welcome back to Gen X grown up I am John I am a Gen X grown-up and in this video video I want to share with you my first step down the path of becoming a ColecoVision collector and it started not with an actual coleco Vision but with this ColecoVision flashback that was put out by at games back in 2016. so I picked up one of these I won a real coleco Vision I actually grabbed one not too long ago I've got in a drawer it needs some restoration but this is my first step like I I want to get into the realm of ColecoVision I want to learn and get to know the ports of arcade games that came out on this and the original games that came out on this so I'm about to open this up and explore what it has in it for the first time it's got like 60 games or something on it's bananas it's got so much so let's head over to the table open it up and try it out all right let's get into this thing now I picked this up at a second hand video game store some years ago it was labeled as new which there's some evidence that it's new and some evidence that it might have been lightly used either way this appears to be fully complete and that much you know I'm pleased about it's the colleague of vision flashback 60 built-in games in fact if you flip it over look at this look at this lineup of games and some of them I definitely mean like what zaxon oils well Miner 2049er shop lifter I mean I see space Panic space Fury over here I just so many things that I know really well from other platforms and then some that um like Rolo Venture and uh I don't know squish them Sam there's some here I'm captivated to find out what kind of stuff is on here in addition to the titles that I know and games I've never played because I never never had a coleco vision at all so yeah let's get into this guy uh see uh okay uh so here's here's the little uh here's the receipt from when I I picked it up uh and it has instructions interestingly the instructions are really uh like individual instructions for the different games that you don't have a manual for the games uh yeah I mean I'll uh I'll I'll kind of throw it away a little in case I need it later the thing I was unsure of whether or not would be in here was happy to see you know one of the things they say they included are some of these controller overlays and they are in fact here which is good news uh we have a couple controllers which are designed like the coleco vision controllers let's move this out of the way One controller here's our second controller look at those in a second and then we have the console so all the contents here for the charger aside the controllers very much reminiscent that I remember of the clecovision controllers again didn't have one but I have held them and played with them a bit if you look at the console here's what makes me question whether or not it is entirely new and unused there's a little bit of scuff marking on the top of these reset and power buttons as if they have been not fiercely but lovingly used so I question whether it's purely new but a new condition it's really great shape I think looking at the controller I mean so you have the two little side buttons here you have the keypad and these these actually feel better than I remember on the real controller it's kind of a rubbery a bit of a rubbery button I kind of like that and this is not turned like a paddle or spinner it's just like you can use your thumb to turn it or use it and you know it's universally left or right-handed which I think was uh probably a good selling point for lefties you know back in the day these little overlays though the thing that I was most concerned would not be in the package and that totally were several sets of different overlays that you can put inside of your controller and let's just take one uh what do we got it was the interesting looking one here looks like it's uh we're saying about an airplane control and in fact now I see it's for a game called the dam blasters hey watch your language so you can take this little guy and just tuck it right in here and it slides right along and then and it clicks in pretty well and then the number pad actually has you know labeled buttons so you know what to do and then you pull it out reminds me a television had this for a lot of games I think uh they're notoriously missing but in this case we got a whole bunch of them for quite a few different games where it seems to matter and in our current climate I think I would be remiss if I didn't point out that this little box with a power and reset button and two plugs in the front is suspiciously reminiscent of the forthcoming game station plus from my arcade little box power and reset buttons two little ports on the front oh and plus the little Rainbow in coleco Vision I don't think it was intentional necessarily but when you're looking at little small consumer electronics like this it's hard to miss that this is almost exactly the same design that my arcade is using for that forthcoming Atari console all right well what do you say we break out the old multi-input TV that can handle this kind of uh RCA input and give this thing a spin foreign [Music] all right flashback there it is all right so we got the one uh game pad plugged in here and I guess I'm navigate yeah navigate with the pad so 60 games that would be 10 pages of yeah six pages of ten yeah uh let's look something I know bump and jump is a good one shoplifter oh it's a great old computer game see how it looks I remember these ColecoVision launch screens they sit forever it feels and it's a cartridge I mean it's not it's not loading there it is oh and I remember these blue screens yeah so you use the numpad to pick what you want to do so uh one skill one player sure foreign oh wow where's the tanks let's save a couple of guys real quick don't squish them don't squish them let's get squished one rescue ah let's see oh Cosmic Avenger that's uh Universal maybe I think that's like a scrambly kind of thing let's see it is universal yeah it's this Cosmic Avenger [Music] yeah so I have my bullets and missiles another great port amen I thinkovision just it was so far ahead of the Atari what else do I know on here a Dragonfire is that the a magic game yes a magic wow holy Moses this looks so much better I'm used to it on the Atari the joypad is a takes a little we get used to I'm just dying Non-Stop this is just a beautiful version of dragon fire that I keep falling in the moat with but doesn't take away from the fact that it's gorgeous I'm gonna kinda blame this joystick it doesn't lend itself very well I remember there was a Calico Vision stick that you it had a stick and there was a ball top too I wish I had that uh oh that frenzy oh my goodness that's like the berserk sequel yes stern oh wow that's that's a really good Frenzy digging these ports here oh that was just throwable walls I forgot about that uh oh my goodness gateway to app shy that's I mean that's straight up computer game stuff right there that's and there's my oh my equipment dagger leather armor stuff like wow that's that's really great let's give a little run around let's go fight mode there we go so I can fight oh there's there's a rat kill the rat got him can I get a sword short sword nice foreign Ghostbuster oh Jumpman that's another epics title push pound there it is oh this looks great [Music] such a great platforming puzzle game I didn't play Jumpman Jr yada the jungle Hunt is right below at the arcade Port all right surprise me ColecoVision I've never seen the jungle Hunt Port here oh wow now granted the Atari was pretty good but this is nearly arcade let's get to the water at least just to see the water into the water yep oh got a crocodile there's so many minor 2049er take a quick look at that play the crap out of this big five software oh man it's top speed [Music] I could stand for the joystick to be a little taller it's kind of weird to hold it like this honestly that's minor albeit at top speed I mean I I several am I familiar with I just can't play all 60 here obviously I'll bore you but playing ColecoVision it just feels like something is missing like you you know what it is I mean you know what's missing you know what I mean there like there's so many cool things on here but it's a coleco vision and right here between Destructor and dragon fire it's the omission of Donkey Kong I say Omission I'm sure it's just Nintendo would not let them put Donkey Kong on this flashback because Nintendo doesn't put let anybody put any of their games on anything as we all know we all would love to have you know a tabletop and handheld Donkey Kong all that not gonna happen but the problem is the coleco vision especially for me and I think for a lot of people it's synonymous with Donkey Kong I mentioned the beginning of the video that was the pac-in game in a way I think that Donkey Kong Port is what defined Calico vision and gave it its foothold in the market so as many cool titles as there are on this little flashback not having Donkey Kong is just like oh it's so close but not the thing I was looking for as good as it is you're just missing that that it's like having Atari 2600 and no combat it's like Unthinkable oh my god oh zaxon is down there oh see with the zaxon port on here looks like what a good zaxon man it's this thing should have made so much more money had it been in the market for longer there's no reason this should not have been the dominant platform yeah I'm back around let's look at something that uses a little overlay let's try this blackjack game so I plugged in the little overlay let's give it a shot it's a bit got 18 uh no I'm gonna stand does that work it did 17 18. I won see uh what about uh princess Quest some kind of Adventure again look at that press fire oh but it's a little platformer okay that's kind of cute it's almost like a ghost and goblins when you say it has that same kind of he's got a little night there let's look at just a couple more than maybe like oils well I'll make a race we gotta look at that right quick there's oils well this is a great one I play it on my Atari computer again oh this is so cool it's like a little tethered Pac-Man game you know and I'm getting used to the controls in reality whoa get him finish finished got it that's cool I've got to look at Omega race because I mean it's a mega race right the space physics a color Omega race wow I'm not sure what to think about that foreign [Applause] yeah this is a pretty cool system it despite what's missing maybe because of what's missing it makes me want more ColecoVision stuff really yeah that's pretty much sealed the deal for me this has wet my appetite for collecting genuine Calico Vision cartridges and titles and and whatever there is out there I mentioned at the beginning of this video that I actually did acquire a genuine coleco Vision but I've yet to clean it up I've never done a video on it so you know it's The Hunt of new things having the tangible cartridges in your hand is so cool and plus with that one I can play Donkey Kong because I'm not limited by what could be licensed on this modern unit I'll look for the response to this video in the comments below to tell me whether or not you'd like to see more ColecoVision coverage and if so I'll schedule that for a future video in the meantime I'll put a link here and here to some more console coverage from the 80s that we have done here on Gen X grown up I certainly hope you found something to enjoy though in this video and I will talk to you next time bye bye foreign [Music]

Channel: GenXGrownUp

Views: 35,816

Keywords: genx, gen x, genxgrownup, nostalgia, generation x, retro, 70s, 80s, 90s, grown up, coleco, colecovision, donkey kong, nintendo, venture, choplifter, berzerk, frenzy, miner, 2049er, atari, combat, overlay, insert, controller, cv, flashback

Id: P0fnrlpQHdI

Length: 14min 25sec (865 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 11 2023