Bootleg Games Central Forum

Pirate Discussion => Other Pirates => Topic started by: iniche on May 26, 2011, 10:05:06 PM

Title: Gun-Force
Post by: iniche on May 26, 2011, 10:05:06 PM
Here's a strange Contra clone available on a 16 bit pirated game system. it the system Super Game 7-in-1. It's a controller, looks like Xbox. The company is Timetop, which I suspect is the same Timetop that made the line of unlicensed clone-harvested Gameking handheld systems.

Here's video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fsj_rebF4g (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fsj_rebF4g)

EDIT: I just read that he might dump his cart's ROM.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: Barver on May 26, 2011, 10:08:58 PM
Hmm, is this supposed to be using extra hardware? Going by comments it does, but if that affects something in graphics or sound or anything, I'm not seeing it in this game :P

It's interesting how many pirate originals are turning up on these clones now though. Some that possibly aren't on carts anywhere.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: taizou on May 26, 2011, 11:16:11 PM
Looks like another variation on this thing (http://www.amazon.co.uk/36-16-Bit-Plug-Play/dp/B002LZDDAQ/ref=sr_1_113?s=kids&ie=UTF8&qid=1304211948&sr=1-113), as seen in the what's this thread (http://s4.zetaboards.com/PGC_Forums?topic=8143608/1/#new). Nice to see videos of the games though. & interesting that it has a difficulty switch on the actual console. thats something that pretty much hasnt been done since the Atari 2600 isnt it?

also the title screen music in Stoneage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgVdlkw17lw&feature=related) is from Zelda: Triforce of the Gods by Waixing. hmm. maybe theres a connection, or maybe they just stole it..
hmm, a couple of the other games have music from Zelda too. and the other stuff seems to be running on the same sound engine. either way its all NES music - it sounds like its sampled rather than playing on actual NES/clone sound hardware but that might just be the way the video was recorded. if it is actual NES music i'd guess its running on a VT03, if its sampled its probably a VT168 or something by Sunplus.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: iniche on May 26, 2011, 11:39:33 PM
Looking at the Contra clone's Game over/intermission screen, I somehow feel it's the same company (at least this game) as Commando/Super X Man. Then again, this is Timetop...
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: Awesome Panda on May 27, 2011, 04:58:32 AM
The music is certainly different to most of these games I've seen, and judging by the graphics I think this runs on the VT03. The graphics in Stoneage are from the Flintstones game on the Mega Drive, I think. In the Risker games, the palm trees on the title screen look like they were copied from Sonic the Hedgehog and the level looks a lot like World 1-3 from Adventure Island. Also, what's Buster Bunny doing on Adventure's title screen?
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: Brn89 on May 27, 2011, 08:48:03 AM
The game looks alright, but I cannot figure out what system it's for. It has 16-bit graphics but 8-bit sound :huh:
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: Awesome Panda on May 27, 2011, 12:27:54 PM
Like I said, I think it's OneBus VT03, which is essentially modified Famicom hardware. Basically, it's capable of better graphics than a real Famicom.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: iniche on May 27, 2011, 04:02:27 PM
It is its own system. It's some 16-bit clone kind of thing.

My biggest concern is the video guy saying he'll dump the ROM himself... what emulator will run it?
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: taizou on May 27, 2011, 04:30:04 PM
Well if its VT03 or VT168, EmuVT will run it.. if its Sunplus or something else, i dunno. the rom might provide some clues though.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: iniche on May 27, 2011, 07:38:02 PM
What is that? Some kind of unlicensed system?

And who designed the EmuVT?
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: Awesome Panda on May 27, 2011, 07:42:50 PM
EmuVT was designed by JungleTac if I remember correctly.

VT03, VT168, etc are proprietary system formats based off the Famicom (The former is, at least. Not entirely sure on the VT168) made for clone systems.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: codeman38 on May 27, 2011, 10:50:09 PM
Hm, there were some discussions recently in the "What's This" thread (http://s4.zetaboards.com/PGC_Forums?topic=8143608/1/#new) about some consoles with these same Timetop games. Except that these have even more of them (36 and 87, respectively). (Edit: ...And now I see that taizou mentioned this above. My brain is in need of sleep.)

Now that I've seen those 7 games in action, I'm curious about the other ones!
Dude, the in-game music in Stone Age is from Waixing's Digital Dragon. (Y'know, the one that's a port of VFame's Digimon 3?)

Between that and the Zelda thing, there has got to be some sort of connection between Waixing and Timetop. Hm.
The title screen of Adventure is totally a ripoff of Kirby's Adventure, between the stars and, well, the word "Adventure".
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: taizou on May 27, 2011, 11:52:18 PM
ooh. yeah, I could accept one Waixing tune as a fluke of random music-stealage, but two from different games... there must be some sort of connection there. Waixing seem to outsource a lot, maybe some of their games were either developed by Timetop, or both Waixing and Timetop used the same external developer?
codeman38
May 27 2011, 10:50:09 PM
The title screen of Adventure is totally a ripoff of Kirby's Adventure, between the stars and, well, the word "Adventure".[/quote]Yeah, and Adventure itself is a ripoff of Don't Pull from the 3 Wonders arcade game by Capcom, which was already a pretty blatant clone of Pengo. and Don't Pull was also cloned by Chuanpu as Smart Mouse, and by Jungletac as... something. Dunno why it's such a popular target.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: codeman38 on May 28, 2011, 12:33:20 AM
Another really weird thing: in "Risker", the music seems to be constantly increasing in pitch/speed. I'm seriously curious as to why. Is it just a 2A03 that's slowly being overclocked? (The VT168 is basically an overclocked dual-core 2A03, so it's possible. Edit: No, I was misremembering-- according to VRTech, it's an overclocked dual-core 6502, and doesn't appear to have the NES sound generator included. But then there's Highway Racing on VT168, which has the very-obviously-NES fanfare in it. So who knows.) Or is the NES music actually a sample that's being played at variable speed?

Seriously, this thing is just bizarre.


Edit: Ah, that's what happened-- I'm getting my VRTech chips mixed up. The VT168 doesn't include the NES sound generator, but the way-too-similarly-named VT16 (http://vrt.com.tw/admin/upload/datasheet/VT16%20Data%20Sheet%20RevisionA7_ENG_.pdf) does contain that sound hardware... and can be overclocked to 5 MHz. Which would explain NES-style music playing much faster than on an NES.
Incidentally, this is most definitely the same Timetop that made the Game King. One of the handhelds discussed in the "What's This" thread is listed on their web site (http://www.timetopcn.com/ProductShow.aspx?Sendid=70&Classid=88)... with a screenshot that obviously does not belong to that console at all.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: Awesome Panda on May 28, 2011, 05:10:33 AM
codeman38
May 28 2011, 12:33:20 AM
Another really weird thing: in "Risker", the music seems to be constantly increasing in pitch/speed. I'm seriously curious as to why. Is it just a 2A03 that's slowly being overclocked? (The VT168 is basically an overclocked dual-core 2A03, so it's possible. Edit: No, I was misremembering-- according to VRTech, it's an overclocked dual-core 6502, and doesn't appear to have the NES sound generator included. But then there's Highway Racing on VT168, which has the very-obviously-NES fanfare in it. So who knows.) Or is the NES music actually a sample that's being played at variable speed?

Seriously, this thing is just bizarre.[/quote]I figured that first thing would be an error with the video recording device and not the console itself, because it'd be really weird if it was caused by the latter. It doesn't happen with the other games (as far as I can tell) and seeing as Risker is the first game on there, I doubt the whole VTxx(x) thing has anything to do with it.

Also, I'm pretty sure the Highway Racing game used a PCM sample or something like that, which might explain why the tune plays slower than usual. (They probably recorded it off a PAL Famiclone or something)

BTW, what are the other games anyway?
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: codeman38 on May 28, 2011, 11:28:42 AM
Ooh, I just found more detail on the 36-in-1, courtesy of this soon-to-expire eBay listing (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Time-Top-Super-Game-36-1-Plug-and-Play-TV-Game-/350448303004).

Unfortunately, it's bad news. There aren't actually 36 unique games on it-- it's 12 unique games with 3 levels apiece.

The games on this one that aren't on the 7-in-1 are:

Ice & Fire Fighter
First Blood
Frantic Raindrop
Army Strike
Sharp Knight
YoYo Rabbit
Bombs Away

And the 7-in-1 has two games that aren't on the "36"-in-1:

Crazy Speed
Bomb Boy (probably the same as Bombs Away?)
Two other things that are noticeable about the 7-in-1 from Takashi's photo gallery (https://picasaweb.google.com/114262786521102688839/TimetopGM802#):

* It's from six years ago. The board is dated June 15, 2005.

* The console's model number is "GM-802", which falls right in line with some of the other Timetop model numbers I've seen. (Their LCD system that runs on the same chipset is the GM-228.)
The pinout of that chip definitely matches one of the VRT chips, but I have no clue which. They all have sound (XOP1 and XOP2), reset (XREST) and video (XVIDEO) mapped like that. Edit: Nope, can't be the VT16 or VT18; those have the pins for reset and video on a different side from audio. Has to be a VT03.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: takashi on May 30, 2011, 12:43:00 PM
Hello everyone, I'm the guy that uploaded the videos. This thread has been really informative about hardware, glad to know a place such as this exists. I agree that the VT-03 seems like a match as is the ROM pinout on the application note... well, almost. I'll need to check under the daughterboard for the traces, but the chances of data retrieval sound pretty good right now.

codeman38
 
Another really weird thing: in "Risker", the music seems to be constantly increasing in pitch/speed.[/quote]While the audio in the videos is seriously off-sync, the pitch drifting happens in the hardware as well. Seems to be completely random and affecting only Risker.

While the Easy-Normal-Hard switch is wired to the CPU, it seems to not alter the games in any manner.

If anyone is interested in Timetop's older Game King series of portable consoles (the ones with the very low-res LCD), they might find my small set of Game King manuals and boxes (http://www.low-end.net/GameKingFiles/index.html) scans interesting.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: Ninja-Kun on May 30, 2011, 01:16:11 PM
Awesome scans, thanks! :D
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: iniche on May 30, 2011, 04:00:29 PM
Cool! Good to see you have joined this forum :)

About the Gameking, have you ever played Soldier on it?
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: takashi on May 30, 2011, 07:17:05 PM
iniche
May 30 2011, 04:00:29 PM
Cool! Good to see you have joined this forum :)

About the Gameking, have you ever played Soldier on it?[/quote]Curiously, I lack that one. I do have Might, that is another Contra-inspired game (but that doesn't share much of the gameplay other than the rolling jump).
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: iniche on May 30, 2011, 10:01:45 PM
Oh shit!!!!

Everywhere I looked, I could not find any information on that... I looked up many places. Also, people who edited the gameking entry of wikipedia kept insisting that the game Might does not exist... This is actually groundbreaking to me since even I began to question its existence.

Wow! Would you be able to screen some in-game shots? I don't even mind if it's through camera, I badly want to put it on my blog :D
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: takashi on May 31, 2011, 06:56:01 PM
iniche
May 30 2011, 10:01:45 PM
Oh shit!!!!

Everywhere I looked, I could not find any information on that... I looked up many places. Also, people who edited the gameking entry of wikipedia kept insisting that the game Might does not exist... This is actually groundbreaking to me since even I began to question its existence.

Wow! Would you be able to screen some in-game shots? I don't even mind if it's through camera, I badly want to put it on my blog :D[/quote]I actually added half the titles in the Wikipedia entry, but I can't submit my own site as a reference because that's self research.  :rolleyes:

Its really hard to take shots of a working Gameking for several reasons, so I've uploaded a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH0XpG814bI) of Might running off the Gameking II. Hope that will do the trick.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: iniche on May 31, 2011, 09:00:19 PM
Whoa! Yeah, that's perfect. More content to add to my blog there.

Holy crap, the intro is blatant ripoff of NES Contra's sprites. Also, the tank that takes you down appears to be from Soldier. Is it me, or does the game over theme sound like a warped version of the beginning of Super Mario Bros NES?

Interestingly, some guy planned an emulator for gameking, but as soon as he had the chance to be a sellout, he removed all traces of it.

Quote:
 
I actually added half the titles in the Wikipedia entry, but I can't submit my own site as a reference because that's self research. :rolleyes:  [/quote]

On the other hand, you could just pretend to be someone else and cite your own website... they can't really tell, now can they?

Also, would you happen to know any info, even a bit, on the colorful version of Soldier, CS-1?
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: Awesome Panda on May 31, 2011, 09:16:52 PM
iniche
May 31 2011, 09:00:19 PM
Also, would you happen to know any info, even a bit, on the colorful version of Soldier, CS-1?[/quote]Sounds a lot like CS off the LTPS Handy Game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R1DoxviIKY) to me, which happens to be another Contra ripoff.

BTW, not sure if you noticed but one of the sound effects in the intro of Might is taken from the 3D Pinball game on Windows XP.
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: iniche on May 31, 2011, 09:34:40 PM
I caught that, too. I assumed it was a stock sound effect.
Cheetahmen
May 31 2011, 09:16:52 PM
Sounds a lot like CS off the LTPS Handy Game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R1DoxviIKY) to me, which happens to be another Contra ripoff.

[/quote]Oh, god damnit! :P

I really hope that's the same game I have in mind...

Or else more content to add...
Title: Gun-Force
Post by: NintariousFamicreep on October 15, 2014, 03:14:00 PM
Another 16-bit Console!? :pandamad: