Anybody try out the Sega Nomad clone that sells for about 40 bucks ?

[WCP]

Anybody try this thing by AT games ?




http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Porta...=AT+games+sega


Is there a specific thread on this thing ?

[ProjectCamaro]

The reviews on Amazon seems to be positive and many comment that they bought theirs from Dollar General fro $25.00 so before you order it if you have a Dollar General near by I would stop there first.

[Bojay1997]

There is a thread over at Atari Age with various owners chiming in. I believe the consensus is that the audio and battery life are terrible but that the screen and emulation otherwise is ok for the price.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/202...-review/page-4

[Flojomojo]

It's reasonably compatible, it has an sd card for ROMs, and the controls are good. The sound isn't great but it's somewhat nicer with headphones. I have the orange on with 6 buttons and just ordered one of the blue ones to see if it's any different (I suspect it's not). It's also called the Firecore or the Gopher and has been around for a while, with slightly different configurations and onboard games.

I think it's worth $30 or so if you like old Genesis games, personally. There's an update to the TV version (cartridge port but no sd card slot) coming this fall, but I haven't heard of any changes to the portable.

[Flojomojo]

Also, it's long gone from walgreens and dollar general. eBay and amazon (and Asian importers) are your best bets for finding one of these. I was recently looking around at retail but was only able to find the TV version at Walmart.

[todesengel]

My sister was a manager at a Dollar General about 2 years ago and got me one of these, was the blue 6 button version. The sound emulation is garbage but it has a decent screen and an SD card slot. Compatibility for ROM's was pretty good and the built in rechargeable battery lasts a nice while. I also think you can get a little mono composite cable for it and hook it up to a tv.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

No. I prefer a real Nomad because it can actually take cartridges. If it had the 20 built in games AND took cartridges (or even if it had no built in games) it would be a better buy than the Nomad. But the Nomad's cartridge slot means that I would prefer to get one despite the steep price. Most of the good Genny games are still under 10 bucks each cart only. Many can be had CIB under 10 bucks.

I have a Nomad by the way. It's a fun little system. Mine was 75 bucks in 2006. They're probably in the triple digits now.

[bb_hood]

No. I prefer a real Nomad because it can actually take cartridges. If it had the 20 built in games AND took cartridges (or even if it had no built in games) it would be a better buy than the Nomad. But the Nomad's cartridge slot means that I would prefer to get one despite the steep price. Most of the good Genny games are still under 10 bucks each cart only. Many can be had CIB under 10 bucks.

SD card means all roms (or at least many Im assuming) can be played for the price of the of the SD card, which is what 8-10$?
Way better than carts in terms of price.

[Tanooki]

Do NOT buy.

The Blaze is aka: AtGames(in the US) and uses a 'firecore' emulation platform. They developed the emulator years ago and took it to a point and just gave up on it. The only time they've ever done anything extra was the latest handheld release which has a blue trim(US?) and has Super SF2 and Mega Man Wily Wars on there so they run technically right.

Why do I say technically? Because MMWW uses a BATTERY to save progress, no passwords like the Nintendo titles had. Guess what? Firecore is firepants, NO saving! It refuses to save any game data at all, and this also is included with their home TV version that takes legitimate cartridges. That's right, it's so fucking broken it can't even allow a game with a battery and save chip to save data to the cartridge itself. The audio on it isn't correct but it's good if you really don't know what you're supposed to be hearing exactly, and the visuals mostly work, but some things glitch. A few games are unplayable like Contra where the background spazzes out so you can't see where to go at all. Overall if you take the broken games due to saving or glitching out, it runs about 80-85% things correctly (enough) to be enjoyable if you throw an entire Genesis/MD collection on an SD card for it to fire up.

If your big reason to have this is to play games like A-RPGs, RPGs, and other simulations or journey type games that use a battery over a password, avoid at all costs. I don't have a huge love affair with Sega in general but I used to have a library of around 30 games I really loved on it, and many of them used batteries so this thing just pisses me off it even exists with at least 3-4 revisions to it where they won't fix the problems at all. If they added a battery I'd recommend it entirely, but since I love Star COntrol, Dune, Phantasy Star titles, and some other battery titles, it's useless.

[WCP]

I wonder if the thing can be hacked to run any other emulators ?

I just like the fact that the screen is 4:3, and supposedly is the same resolution as the Genesis. It's too bad they have a nice screen with relatively decent buttons, but the sound emulation is total garbage. Still, if I saw one of these for $25, I'm sure I'd have to snag it, just for the F it. At $40, maybe not so much...