Here's something interesting for fans of Timetop's curious little device.
I recently discovered that, in Greece, the system was given a revamp with entirely different packaging and, much as happened with the Watara Supervision, was marketed under a slightly different brand name in that territory.
In this case, a company called MG Games appears to have slapped their logo all over the Gameking 2 as well as putting out the cartridges under a much more uniform style of box "art", removing all of the gloriously stolen imagery so beloved of Timetop. They've even gone as far as to remove the Chinese text from the cartridges and airbrush away any reference to the original parent company.
I picked up a whole bundle of multicarts from ebay recently and you can see them in the pictures below. Note that they are also marketed as 'Gameking II' cartridges despite them being exactly the same cartridges that work on all other variants of the Gameking. It's certainly interesting to see a company try to rebrand something as obscure as the Gameking and try to give it a more blandly western design. Thankfully, the wonderful instructions remain the exact same hodge-podge of gobbledegook as their Taiwanese counterparts and it's allowed me to fill in a few blanks in the review section!
I recently discovered that, in Greece, the system was given a revamp with entirely different packaging and, much as happened with the Watara Supervision, was marketed under a slightly different brand name in that territory.
In this case, a company called MG Games appears to have slapped their logo all over the Gameking 2 as well as putting out the cartridges under a much more uniform style of box "art", removing all of the gloriously stolen imagery so beloved of Timetop. They've even gone as far as to remove the Chinese text from the cartridges and airbrush away any reference to the original parent company.
I picked up a whole bundle of multicarts from ebay recently and you can see them in the pictures below. Note that they are also marketed as 'Gameking II' cartridges despite them being exactly the same cartridges that work on all other variants of the Gameking. It's certainly interesting to see a company try to rebrand something as obscure as the Gameking and try to give it a more blandly western design. Thankfully, the wonderful instructions remain the exact same hodge-podge of gobbledegook as their Taiwanese counterparts and it's allowed me to fill in a few blanks in the review section!
I also expanded my collection of Gameking 1 variants, picking up a semi boxed, dark green clear model and this beautiful boxed crystal model.
I paid rather more than I normally would for this latter item, because it happened to come with a game I've been trying to track down for some time, one of the more elusive 4-in-1 carts, that takes us closer to a complete Gameking collection!
Confusingly, the game listed as 'Nagual' on the box here, is not the same 'Nagual' found on another multicart! That game is actually, Blaster from this cart (although with a differently named title screen), a Blaster Master type clone, whereas this Nagual turned out to be a Kung Fu Master clone! I'll try to get some reviews up early in the new year.
Why both games were given the same title is another part of the ineffable mysteries of this system.
Anyway, with only 2 multicarts left to find now, here's hoping we can complete the Gameking collection in 2019. Happy New Year to you all!
Why both games were given the same title is another part of the ineffable mysteries of this system.
Anyway, with only 2 multicarts left to find now, here's hoping we can complete the Gameking collection in 2019. Happy New Year to you all!