ABL Air Blaster famiclone

[taizou]

came across this topic on the Assembler forums recently: http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33804
someone there had an unknown famiclone which this mysterious () "mrdomino" identified as the Air Blaster by ABL, you can see two variations of it on this page:
http://www.advancebright.com.hk/V2_html/console_html/console.html

the one he has is the 14 in 1 running on famiclone hardware (not sure if its VT03 or not). theres also a 5 in 1 with 16-bit games, one of which is on ebay UK for a fairly low price (and i'm slightly tempted to buy it). but i've never seen any of those games before in my life. Balloon War looks a bit like an advanced hack of Balloon Fight but some of the others look original, and I have no idea who made them. Same goes for the 16-bit games for that matter.oh yeah AND i posted something about this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CHALLENGE-TV-CONSOLE-GAME-3-1-DRIVING-SHOOTING-/320718672942?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameConsoles_VideoGameConsoles&hash=item4aac52942e but the board decided to log me out.

seems to be the same developer, and its also cheap, but i kind of resent filling my house with all this plastic crap when all i want to get at is the games stored in a gloptop about the size of this -> O

[codeman38]

Hm, interesting.

Several of the games on the Challenge 3-in-1 seem like they might be very elaborate hacks of legit games-- the interface design is just too similar to be coincidence.

Pinball is obvious. Table Ball = Lunar Pool. Clown = Circus Charlie. Tennis is the exact same perspective as Nintendo's version.

And then there's Fruit Master. The score display is the same as in Magic Jewelry (score-7 digits, jewelry-5 digits, level-3 digits), but it's in a completely different position.Apparently the 16-bit version only includes 5 games. Though I'm not sure whether the screenshots on ABL's site are 2 apiece for 2 different games, or 1 for each of 4 games...Also, this one apparently got sold at major UK retailers as well, at least in its 16-bit variant. Or so says this RetroGamer thread from back in 2005, anyway.

[Awesome Panda]

Looking at the ones on ABL's website, the one on the left seems to have hacks of Recca, Sky Destroyer, Balloon Fight and a game which bears a vague resemblance to Alien Syndrome in my opinion. The one on the right seems to have original games, although the screenshot in the bottom right looks like Exed Exes with better graphics if you ask me.

Edit: Looking at the Console TV Challenge I can list what some of these games are: (I know a couple were pointed out already, but I prefer to make this concise)
1. F-1 Race
2. Sort of looks like an original based off Road Fighter
3. Zunou Senkan Galg -_-
4. F-1 Race again
5. Duck Hunt?
6. I'm guessing either Hogan's Alley or the Clay Shooting event from Track & Field
7. Wild Gunman
8. Tennis
9. Lunar Ball
10. Circus Charlie
11. Arkanoid
12. Pinball
13. Magic Jewelry with an edited image of Pac-Man which sort of makes him look like the Kool-Aid Man
14. Lode Runner
15. Championship Lode Runner?
16. No idea, but it reminds me of Die Hard for the NES
17. Balloon Fight

[taizou]

well i bought the 16-bit version. it was either that, some random ABL Pinball console or the Console TV Challenge. Well, or something good, but that'd make too much sense.

of the five games on here, three use the same vertical shooter engine, and the other two use the same After Burner-esque one. they're all pretty mediocre, reasonable graphics, no music. No idea who made them. The only connection to anything else I can see is the sound effect that plays over the ABL logo, which is also used in the Wow & Sport 6 in 1 Wii clones's mini-game menu, as well as one of the VT168 demos on VR Technology's site. I'm guessing its just down to lazy developers reusing stuff from the dev kit though.

[codeman38]

taizou

Jul 1 2011, 01:07:04 PM

No idea who made them. The only connection to anything else I can see is the sound effect that plays over the ABL logo, which is also used in the Wow & Sport 6 in 1 Wii clones's mini-game menu, as well as one of the VT168 demos on VR Technology's site. I'm guessing its just down to lazy developers reusing stuff from the dev kit though.[/quote]I still swear I have heard that sound effect in some game or application that I've used in the past, but I cannot recall where it was for the life of me.