Review: Spongebob Jakks Joystick

[Flack]

While rearranging my Room of Doom this weekend, my almost-3-year-old son spied my Spongebob Jakks joystick sitting on my shelf, unopened. He wanted to play it, and I've always believed games were meant to be played, so while he played, I wrote a review: win/win!

Physically, the Spongebob Squarepants Jakks 5-in-1 joystick resembles the Atari 2600 stick. The joystick handle is Spongebob's nose. Unfortunately, the button is just a yellow button. I was hoping it would be his eye. I'm kind of sick like that.

The menu system is bright and colorful, just like the Spongebob cartoon. My son had no problem navigating the menu system and picking whichever game he wanted to play. There are five games built in to the Spongebob stick. All of them are original games featuring the citizens of Bikini Bottom, Spongebob's home town.

[ Spongebob's Bubble Pop ]

In a nutshell ... Breakout. Players maneuver Spongebob left and right, bouncing a pearl off the top of his head. Instead of bricks, brightly colored spheres (which look a lot like Bust-A-Move's) line the top of the screen. Like Arkanoid, there are many "extras" that may drop out of burst bubbles, including things like catch, fast ball, slow ball, widen Spongebob, 3-way, 5-way, etc.

[ Sandy's Surf Adventure ]

This is a side-scrolling shmup! Instead of a spaceship, players control Sandy Cheeks, Spongebob's female squirrel friend. Surfing underwater, players surf to the right, shooting acorns at sea horses, stars, clams, and other undersea creatures. The longer you play, the faster the game goes. Sure, it's no Gradius, but it's fun for a while.

[ Invasion of the Hooks ]

This is probably the strangest of all the games. You control Spongebob. In front of you are Sandy, Spongebob's neighbor Squidward, and Spongebob's best friend Patrick Star (a starfish). Fishhooks drop down from the top of the screen and hook your friends, dragging them toward the surface. You must run under each one and shoot the hooks to free your friends. Hooks travel at different speeds and must be shot between 1 and 4 times, depending on their color. This is probably the most boring game on the controller as well.

[ The Super Chum Bucket ]

In the Spongebob cartoon, Spongebob works for Mr. Krabs at the Krusty Krab, a local burger joint. Their competitor and enemy is Plankton, owner of the Chum Bucket. I'm sure there was a little back story presented in this game, but all you need to know is, it's Donkey Kong. Plankton's at the top, you're at the bottom. It's a really pretty fun platformer. There's a lot of jumping involved. There are moving platforms, conveyer belts, moving robots, and instead of barrels, Plankton drops life preservers on you from above.

One frustrating part about this game is the "old Popeye trick". My dad made that up after playing the game Popeye and having Bluto attack him from above or below. Then one time in another game, my dad jumped and something on the level above him killed him and said, "ahhh, the ol' Popeye trick!" So anyway, when jumping over life preservers and robots you have to pay attention at what's directly above you, or you two may experience the ol' Popeye trick first hand.

BTW, I played this fifth game the most. I ran through at least 20 different levels and haven't seen one repeat yet!

---

That, in a nutshell, is the Spongebob Jakks stick. No, I wouldn't really recommend it to the average hardcore gamers, but if you've got kids and want something they can play (and you can help with, or play for a few minutes after they go to bed), then it's not that bad.

[tholly]

well....im probably 5-10 years away from worrying about kids...but hopefully when i get to that point in my life something like this with the current cartoon of the time is available for me to play with them....

sounds like you had a fun time with your kid.....thats all that matters with games...having fun.....

enjoy Spongebob

[Ed Oscuro]

Ooh! A great quote for LexiConsole! May I?

LexiConsole .01 (Alpha)

Overview for "ol' Popeye Trick"

The phrase "Popeye Trick" has one sense in LexiConsole.

Misrepresentation or obfustication of deadly level design elements (context sensitive: used in reference to 2D viewpoint platformers only)

Origins: Flack's Dad
Usually prefaced with words "the ol'" and used as a declaratory statement.

See also: eye button, licensed, Aliens vs. Predator: Last of His Clan (Game Boy).

[Flack]

well....im probably 5-10 years away from worrying about kids...but hopefully when i get to that point in my life something like this with the current cartoon of the time is available for me to play with them....

sounds like you had a fun time with your kid.....thats all that matters with games...having fun.....

enjoy Spongebob

Yeah, it's pretty cool. You just have to be careful as to what games you play around him. When we were stuck in traffic one day my son asked me if I wanted him to throw a grenade at them. Learned that one from Star Wars Battlefront. He also refers to people as "stinkin' rebels' now a lot. Oops.

[Ed Oscuro]

He also refers to people as "stinkin' rebels' now a lot. Oops.
Better than "Damn Yankees" LOL

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Uh... whats the fifth game? I see four... I heard that it was a bust-a-move clone, but you didn't include all five of them, so I dont know for sure.

[Flack]

Uh... whats the fifth game? I see four... I heard that it was a bust-a-move clone, but you didn't include all five of them, so I dont know for sure.

Well, sure enough -- I left off Patrick's Maze! In it, you control Patrick (the starfish). You walk around a big, underwater maze, collect gold, capture and shoot jellyfish (a'la Mario's turtles), and search for your friends. When you find them, you must complete little mini-games to unlock more of the maze. It took me about 25-30 minutes to play through the whole thing.

There's no Bust-a-Move clone. They're referring to Spongebob's Bubble Pop, the Breakout/Arkanoid clone, although the bubbles lok a lot like BAM.

[Captain Wrong]

I got my sister one of these but never found out if she liked it or not. Good review.

And..."the ol' Popeye trick"!!!! I LOVE IT!!!!

[atomicthumbs]

I'm really looking forward to the Spider-Man one from Jakks.

Anyone seen screenshots for it anywhere?

[rbudrick]

Does anyone know what kind of technology this unit is built on? NES? A7800? SMS? Genesis?

I've noticed that these joysticks tend to use something already on the market, like the INTV and 2600 joysticks.

-Rob

[Quickclaw]

Bubble Pop is the best game of the five. Try getting through all 50 screens without continuing. Tough.

[Flack]

Does anyone know what kind of technology this unit is built on? NES? A7800? SMS? Genesis?

I don't know, although the graphic quality and color depth points more toward SNES/Genesis over NES/SMS quality.

[Raccoon Lad]

The ones made by Jakks all use a board designed by SunPlus. They have graphical capabilities somewhere between Genesis and SNES quality (but without fancy mode 7 or scaling hardware), but a CPU that's far slower, and not much ram. The PCB's cost about $1 to manufacture.

[JSFox]

well....im probably 5-10 years away from worrying about kids...but hopefully when i get to that point in my life something like this with the current cartoon of the time is available for me to play with them....

sounds like you had a fun time with your kid.....thats all that matters with games...having fun.....

enjoy Spongebob

Yeah, it's pretty cool. You just have to be careful as to what games you play around him. When we were stuck in traffic one day my son asked me if I wanted him to throw a grenade at them. Learned that one from Star Wars Battlefront. He also refers to people as "stinkin' rebels' now a lot. Oops.

LoL your son is the coolest!

[rbudrick]

The ones made by Jakks all use a board designed by SunPlus. They have graphical capabilities somewhere between Genesis and SNES quality (but without fancy mode 7 or scaling hardware), but a CPU that's far slower, and not much ram. The PCB's cost about $1 to manufacture.

Thanks, Racoon Lad!

I've been wondering this for quite a while. Does anything else out there use this type of system?

-ROb

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

[ Invasion of the Hooks ]

This is probably the strangest of all the games. You control Spongebob. In front of you are Sandy, Spongebob's neighbor Squidward, and Spongebob's best friend Patrick Star (a starfish). Fishhooks drop down from the top of the screen and hook your friends, dragging them toward the surface. You must run under each one and shoot the hooks to free your friends. Hooks travel at different speeds and must be shot between 1 and 4 times, depending on their color. This is probably the most boring game on the controller as well.
Just to bring home that everything goes back to the classics, it's worth pointing out that this stage sounds a lot like King & Balloon (http://www.thelogbook.com/phosphor/winter01/k.htm), one of my favorite - and definitely among the oddest - Namco obscurities.

See also Sun (under), nothing new. ;)

[Keir]

Last minute gift shopping....

I was wondering if this would be a good present for my 12-year old nephew. He does like Spongebob, but then again he also plays GTA (or did before his PS2 broke - hence why I'm not getting him a PS2 game). I'm just afraid he'll think he's too "old" for it. He's at that age where some days he acts 16 and some days 6 so I'm sort of at a loss for ideas. Any thoughts?

[digitalpress]

Last minute gift shopping....

I was wondering if this would be a good present for my 12-year old nephew. He does like Spongebob, but then again he also plays GTA (or did before his PS2 broke - hence why I'm not getting him a PS2 game). I'm just afraid he'll think he's too "old" for it. He's at that age where some days he acts 16 and some days 6 so I'm sort of at a loss for ideas. Any thoughts?

No way is he too old for it. The games themselves really aren't the cutesy-kids stuff at all (nor is the show if you watch it). The games are Genesis-quality and vary in difficulty but they're really FUN.

Great gift, Keir!

[Flack]

I'll second that. My 3 year old plays the stick until he falls asleep, then I pick it up and play for another hour or so.

I have played the platform game way too much. I know most of the patterns now and can beat the game pretty easily. Learning the patterns of the life preservers is the key. I figured out a few things, like the extra life krabby patties don't appear when you're maxxed out. I also discovered that after you reach Plankton, you have about 2 or 3 seconds before the next level begins. If you jump off the bottom of the screen, you won't lose a life and it will just start the next level, but if you jump into electricity or a life preserver, you will die and will have to repeat the level. See, I told you I've played this too much.

I have also seen some cool stuff with weak batteries. One time my son dropped the joystick and the game dropped into a charset screen that showed all the sprites used in the joystick. I've also had some funky things happen when the batteries get weak.

Anyway. Yeah, I'd recommend it. And if he doesn't like it, sneak it back.

[Keir]

Thanks guys! I just got back from buying one for him. For the record, I never thought that he was too old for it, just that he would think he was. I could just picture him opening it and saying "that's gay" (his favorite expression these days :/ ) and not even trying it out. I'll stop worrying now. :)

[Blitzwing256]

I think this topic is fairly old, but anyways...

I found one of the sponge bob plug and play games at the thrift shop this week...and really havn't any time to test it out..but after stumbling on this thread I was like "wow that sounds kinda fun!"

So I noticed the batteries inside it were corroded, I cleaned it up and put in some fresh ones...

no power...

with a little tweaking I managed to get it to work

I was ready to play some fun games..
aparently....theres two differnt ones out
and i got the crappy one.

it had about 7 "games"
one you um colour some wierd looking guys from the cartoon (I assume, I've never watched it)
one where you draw on a screen with a snail?
one where you um..put metal shavings on a picture of some charecters...
one that makes the strawberry shortcake game on the atari 2600 game seem like a good game.

the only thing even resembling a game is one where you have to make a sandwich for the sponge guy, he flashes 3 parts of the sandwich to you and you have to click on them
very fun....really

this is the one i found so nobody accidnetly wastes money on it:

http://www.green-ranger.com/nes/finds/sponge.jpg

i'd take some screenshots, but i don't want my camera to explode ;-)

[scooterb23]

That for sure isn't the Jakks Plug n Play...that one is Spongebob as the controller base, and his nose as the stick.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess pirate stick here...is there any info on the bottom as to who made it?

[Blitzwing256]

it appears to be legit.

2004 jakks pacific on the bottom
plus it has a viacom legal screen when you boot it up.

[Cryomancer]

Sounds like one of those paint programs in a stick they sell.

[Flack]

it appears to be legit.

2004 jakks pacific on the bottom
plus it has a viacom legal screen when you boot it up.

Yup, it's legit, but not the one I reviewed. It's a second generation one, made for younger audiences.

Mine is the SpongeBob Squarepants TV Games (http://www.jakkstvgames.com/spongebob.html)

Yours is the SpongeBob Dilly Dabbler (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6718858&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat50700050006&id=1087340762632)

[Captain Wrong]

I think this topic is fairly old, but anyways...

+500 Meseta for using the search...something I myself failed to do last night. :embarrassed:

[Blitzwing256]

hee hee thanks!

now I need to keep an eye out for the other game (just for completist sake)