RS-1 part 3: 162-in-1 game set

Previously I explored the hardware, packaging and menus of the E-mods RS-1 162-in-1 handheld console. And what else is there to cover about this game console, made for playing games, with a bunch of games built in?

Oh yeah, the games!

I'm gonna list them off here using their names from the console's menu, in rough groupings, and only go into detail on those that are somehow more interesting or unique than the usual multicart fare. What the other truncated menu names represent should be mostly obvious for those familiar with bootleg naming conventions, but I've also put together a list over here with the full game list and what each one actually is, for the curious.

Games 1-12

1. CONTRA 1
2. SUPER MARIO
3. TROOPER
4. CHIP DALE 2
5. BLOOD FIGHT
6. HEAVY BARREL
7. EYES STORY
8. NINJA GAI 2
9. NINJA GAI 3
10. SILKWORM
11. DOUBLE DR 2
12. DOUBLE DR 3

The first 12 games here are what you might call the headliners - larger, more complex titles (aside from Super Mario Bros., which presumably earned its lofty position thanks to its fame). "Trooper" is actually Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, a mistake which was not made on the 152-in-1 version; but one of the added games here is called "Trooper", so presumably someone made a copy-paste error and overwrote its name. "Blood Fight" is actually Nekketsu Kakutou Densetsu, a cool 4-player fighting game from Technos's Nekketsu/Kunio-kun series, while "Ninja Gai 3" is a Chinese translation of Ninja Ryukenden 3 credited to PEACOCKWANG.

Games 13-67

13. TETRIS II
14. ADVENTURE
15. GOONIES
16. GRADIUS 1
17. LEGEND KAGE
18. CHINESECHESS
19. WORLD CUP
20. 1942
21. 90 TANK
22. F1 RACE
23. MACROSS
24. KUNG FU
25. ROAD FIGHT
26. CIRCUS
27. GALAGA
28. DESERT TANK
29. MARIO BROS
30. LODERUNNER 1
31. LODERUNNER 2
32. DIG DUG
33. FIVE CHESS
34. BOMBER MAN
35. POOYAN
36. LUNARBALL
37. ICE CLIMBER
38. NINJA 2
39. CITY CONNECT
40. FRONT LINE
41. PINBALL
42. OLIMPIC
43. MAHJONG 2P
44. MAHJONG 4P
45. NUTS AND MILK
46. PIZZA BOY
47. DONGKEY 1
48. DONGKEY 2
49. DONGKEY 3
50. MAPPY
51. EXCITE BIKE
52. NINJA 1
53. DEVILWORLD
54. POPEYE
55. PACMAN
56. EXERION
57. WRESTLE
58. SKYDESTROYER
59. BALLON
60. FORMATION Z
61. OTHELLO
62. KARATEKA
63. ARABIAN
64. JOUST
65. GALAXIAN
66. JEWELLERY
67. BIRD WEEK

Games 13-67 are mostly multicart mainstays, small ROMs which get thrown in bulk onto anything needing a large number of games (shout out to the DONGKEY trilogy). A few unusual things did make their way into this set, however.

"World Cup" is a hack of Nintendo's Soccer, changing the music and replacing the players with fox-like creatures. more like fur-ld cup am I right?? "F1 Race" does something odd with the stage ordering to allow for later repeats, meaning the first instance here starts you out on "course 0".

"Road Fight" is not the regular Konami Road Fighter game, but a hack called "On the Road" credited to "©2000 NEW GAME STAR". This makes the odd change of rearranging the cars on the starting grid into two rows of four (which also has the effect of hiding the "fuel" marker on the right, since it's rendered as a sprite and the new arrangement pushes that line over the NES' horizontal sprite limit).

"Desert Tank" is actually Absolute's Battletank, "Pizza Boy" is a Nice Code game, and "Jewellery" is a graphical hack of Hwang Shinwei's Magic Jewelry which seems like it might be a de-creepified version of the more common "Coin Tetris".

Games 68-83

68. SEA ADVEN
69. HAPPY ADVEN
70. FOREST AVEN
71. HAPPY ISLAND
72. SUPER ADVEN
73. HELLFIRE
74. FINALL ADVEN
75. TANK B
76. TANK C
77. BUGGED RACER
78. WORLD CHAMP
79. ON THE ROAD
80. ROPE GAMES
81. FIREBALL
82. CIRCUS ADVEN
83. CLOWN

And now we get into the repeats- these are all just versions of Adventure Island (68-74), Tank 1990 (75-76), "On the Road" (77-79) and Circus Charlie (80-83) with their starting levels changed. The "On the Road" repeats interestingly have no title logo here, which was probably a provision made by "New Game Star" to make the repeats look less obviously like the same game again. Some of these repeats leave your car out of bounds at the start, since they didn't reconfigure the courses to account for the changed starting positions...

These particular repeat titles appear on quite a number of multicarts and consoles, going back to around 2000 or so, and seem to have been copied and reused quite extensively since then. "Bugged Racer" was originally "Rugged Racer" on those earlier compilations, but, well, it's kind of appropriate here.

Games 84-95

84. SU DIGDUG
85. SU ARKANOID
86. PK ARKANOID
87. FINALL ARKA
88. GALAXING 1
89. SU PACMAN
90. SUPER TANKI
91. SUPER TANKII
92. DONGKEY KONG3
93. BOMBER MAN
94. SU POOYAN
95. FAST BROSS

More repeats? You'd THINK, but... "Su Digdug" is actually "Cryptcar", the Inventor hack of Dig Dug. "Su Pacman" is "Maze Tussle", "Dongkey Kong3" is "Bandits", "Bomberman" is "Golgotha", and "Su Pooyan" is "Bitha", again all Inventor hacks of their respective games. "Bitha" is even the later revision of the hack with completely-changed music.

The three Arkanoids here are all Arkanoid with different starting levels, even though normal Arkanoid hasn't shown up yet. Galaxing 1 is just Galaxian again, Super Tank I and II are Tank 90 D and E, and "Fast Bross" is Super Mario Bros starting on world 3 but with no apparent increase in fastness.

Games 96-115

96. BATMAN I
97. REVOLUTION
98. CUBAN
99. STREET FIGHT
100. SPIDER MAN
101. DISNEY 2
102. F1 HERO
103. SPARTAN
104. ARKANOID
105. ALADDIN 3
106. CROSS FIRE
107. ANGRY BIRD3
108. PLANTS V ZOMB
109. TURTLE NINJA
110. HOT BLOOD
111. HEAVY BARREL
112. THREE EYES
113. GAIDEN
114. DRAGON 2
115. DRAGON 3

Hey, NOW we're talking. More actual games! Even a few big ones! Revolution and Cuban are both SNK's Guevara (seemingly identical). Street Fight is the common "Fighter Street VI 12 Peoples" hack of Cony's Street Fighter 2 port. "Disney 2" is actually decent platformer Doki! Doki! Yuuenchi, despite its menu preview being from Tiny Toon Adventures 2. Aladdin 3 is sadly the title hack of Magic Carpet 1001, not any kind of Hummer Team port.

"Angry Bird3" and "Plants vs Zomb" are the Nice Code ports of Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies respectively, and presumably the only thing lending truth to the box's claims of "phone" and "Android" games.

Then, games 109 to 115 are all repeats from the first 12. Boo.

Games 116-152

116. SILEWORM 2
117. DISNEY 2
118. ALADDIN3 1
119. CHIPDALE 2
120. ON THE MOON
121. SILKWORM 3
122. RACE 2
123. CHIDALE 3
124. GIANT
125. SILKWORM 4
126. RACE 3
127. DISNEY 3
128. MARIO 2
129. CHIPDALE 4
130. RACE 4
131. SILKWORM 5
132. MARIO 3
133. DISNEY 4
134. CHIPDALE 5
135. MARIO 4
136. SILKWORM 6
137. DISNEY 5
138. ALADDING3 2
139. CHIPDALE 6
140. SILKWORM 7
141. MARIO 5
142. RACE 5
143. CHIDALE 7
144. MARIO 6
145. ALADDING3 3
146. RACE 6
147. CHILDALE 8
148. MARIO 7
149. DISNEY 6
150. MARIO 8
151. CHIPDALE 9
152. SILKWORM 8

And now we're fully back in repeats-with-different-starting-level territory. The few exceptions here are "On the Moon", Super Mario Bros with weird and inconsistent moon-jumping physics (which I assume is easy to activate with a few changed memory values, since I've seen it on other multicarts before), and then "Giant" which just seems to be unmodified Super Mario Bros again.

Of note here for their crapness are the Chip & Dale 2 repeats, which give over entries to sub-areas, cutscenes, and boss fights immediately following those cutscenes... meaning the latest stage selectable is the 3rd sewer area, only about a quarter of the way into the game.

Games 153-162

153. SPACE WAR
154. COMMANDO
155. KONG KING
156. THUNDER MAN
157. CURLY MONKEY
158. VANGUARD
159. EXTREME RACIN
160. CHECHER
161. TROOPER
162. BLOBMAN

Hey now, what's this? Could these be the 10 games added EXCLUSIVELY for the later E-mods revision of this console? Why yes, yes they are!

Firstly, "Space War" here is actually "Space War III", something like a 3rd-generation Inventor hack of Gun-Nac for the NES. Its first iteration, as far as I know, was called "Star Wars" - but obviously, for a hack intended to quell the copyright-anxiety of western importers, that wouldn't exactly cut the mustard. A later revision adopted the generic title "Space War", but still left in a lot of the original cutscenes and text from Gun-Nac, which often identified its source game by name. Finally, this version, "Space War III", excised the cutscenes and remaining Gun-Nac references along with the lightly-modified shop girl, and changed a bunch more graphics along with it.

Now we get into the REAL shit; games 154 through 160 are all VT03 games developed by Nice Code. If you aren't familiar with VT03, it's an enhanced NES clone format offering 16-bit-like 8bpp graphics, so you get a nice little graphical boost for a few games at the end of the list. And that, presumably, is where the "12 bit" designation on the box comes from. Curly Monkey 2 is probably the best VT03 game here, and in my opinion one of Nice Code's best overall.

Unfortunately, I can't take any nice video-capture screenshots of these games, and have had to instead photograph the LCD screen, thanks to a strange flaw of this hardware. Here's what similar screenshots of the above set of games would look like through the TV out:

Yep, the VT03 games' palettes are COMPLETELY wrong A few other handhelds have this problem, so I can only assume it's a problem with the particular VT chip in use here.

And then, finally, two more non-VT03 Nice Code games round out the set. Trooper is one of their shoot-falling-shit games, originating in their port of Astrosmash for the Intellivision, and judging from the music here this may be a rehacked version by BBG/Waixing or someone else. Blobman, meanwhile, is just Blobman. Blobby.

These additional ten games weren't just plucked out of nowhere: they actually have a common origin, as they all previously appeared on the related RS-16 console. Specifically, the 7 VT03 games here are the only 7 VT03 games found on that machine, while the other three were seemingly just random picks from the rest of its game set. I'm going to cover the RS-16 in detail another time - in fact I wasn't even planning to mention it here, since it technically came after the RS-1, but... well, it actually came in between the 152-in-1 RS-1 and this 162-in-1 expansion. So it has managed to worm its way into the RS-1 lineage by lending a few fancy 12-bit games to its older sibling when its makers were looking to add some distinctive content to a new revision.

I should probably point out here that, of the "unusual" games on here (e.g. the hacks and the Nice Code originals), all of them have been dumped on various consoles and carts, and most their ROMs are catalogued in Project Plug 'n Play, hence why I haven't gone into much detail documenting individual games here. The strange 4-cars-in-a-row version of On the Road is a little harder to come by, but can be found on the dumped RS-5 138-in-1 ROM, which actually reproduces the old 89-in-1 RS-1's lineup with extra repeats.

And that's it for the E-mods 162-in-1 version of the RS-1! Is it the best RS-1? If you like VT03 games, probably! If you don't, well, maybe you'll find something you like in the next post! That's right, I'm not done yet!

NEXT TIME on 12BIT CLUB: The Aftermath