Rumble Station 15-in 1

Distributed in the UK by Systema, the company that brought us the 2600-based Mega Joy machines, this is (as far as I am aware) a famiclone in a Mega Joy style. There are a few major differences between this machine and the MJ/SJ clones, most notably the far superior built quality of the Rumble Station. It looks and feels like a durable piece of hardware - something famiclones are not well know for!

The front of the box. I'm not sure if the company producing these is 'Video' or if that's just one of those nice random words or phrases such as 'Plug & Play' that always seems to crop-up on these things. You can see a nice shot of the analogue-stlye thumb stick here - it works very well.

The rumble feature is poorly implemented - the motor is just attached to one of the fire buttons & results in wobbles at every touch or hold of the key, rather than at appropriate points in a game. Pity it can't be switched off - but I suppose it is a Rumble Station after all...

The unit has a small removable panel on the underside - now you might expect it to be a hatch to insert batteries... but although there are battery diagrams on the unit's case this version of the unit has an RF modulator in here! So you can unclip the hatch and really check out the modulator... if you are that way inclined, of course. But this does suggest that there are other versions of this machine out there that are AV only.

The back of the box - Press Start!! Screen shots of all the games are shown with their titles and also the fairly impressive menu screen. Follow the above link to see some detailed close-ups & info on the titles.

Fancy buying a Rumble Station? You must not have read the info on the games! Well if you do check out Argos - it'll set you back less than 20 quid.

http://atari-uk.com