Electronic Games

As we have been spoilt with cartridge based consoles with high resolution screens, i thought it would be nice to hark back to the days when portable gaming meant a unit that played one game and would last for months on two LR44 batteries or when you played under the bed covers with a vacuum fluorescent display based game. People under the age of 25 probably have no idea what I am talking about but that's fine.

So what were / are your favourite games?

mine in no order are....

Mario Bros - Nintendo - LCD Double Screen Game and Watch game - Move Mario and Luigi up and down ladders moving the sake boxes between conveyor belts, was probably the ultimate in twitch based gaming. One of the few G&W games that did have a challenge and it was hard to get over 500 in game b. Do own this one and still give it a blast.

BMX Flyer - Tomy/Grandstand - Backlit colour LCD game - Fun BMX game where you had to race around a scrolling course avoiding the mad rider, the mad bomber, crows and kissing the girl in the hot air balloon. Completely mad plot but a fun game that had quite a bit of reply value.

Akuryo No Yakata (Terror House) - Bandai - Solar powered dual LCD screen - Enter the haunted house and kill the spirit in the coffin, avoiding bats and grave stones on the first screen then avoid mummies, dracula and frankenstein. Nice twin LCD screen on the same screen game.

Urusei Yatsuira - Bandai - LCD game - Ataru must move around the screen touching the bottoms of Shinobu, Ran and Benten whilst avoiding Lum, Sakura, Ten and Kurama. Any game that would never be on the Nintendo DS deserves a play.

Hamburger Shop - Bandai - LCD game - Simple customer orders, you fulfil their order game which is strangely addictive.

 

Green House. Period!

Christmas '82 was such great

Still have it here, Cibbler minty.

 

I have a faint memory of my dad comin home from work and givin me a table top space invaders that someone left on his coach....I remember the bright colours and insanely short batt life lol, other than that I had zelda and donkey kong game and watche's and the original turtles grandstand handheld.

Sorry for the lack of details but it was 20+ years ago xD

 

I remember the Zelda Game & Watch being sweet. Of course, when I was a kid, practically all of these electronic games were licensed ones made by Tiger to rip off kids with the name of a popular game/movie/cartoon.

 

I had a couple of the Sonic-licenced Tiger LCD games, I actually completed the first. I can still hear the piercing, horrible music. They were terrible.

I also had a Donkey Kong 2 G&W and loved it, though I think it got lost somewhere along the line as I've never been able to find it as an adult. I've since picked up Donkey Kong and Zelda, both of which are surprisingly good fun, especially given the capabilities of the hardware. I'd own more but they're too expensive on ebay for my liking.

I've never seen any other LCD games that were actually worth playing, though.

 

Oh yeah, forgot that I had a Nintendo Boxing game as a kid too (IIRC known as Punch-Out in the US) which was awesome. It even had two controllers for 2-player.

 

So you still have a lot to discover then.

 

I had two LED mini aracde style games being Pac-Man shaped as a circle and Scramble released by Grandstand. I remember playing both under the bed clothers at night witht he sound off so my parents wouldn't nitoce. I also had the tank version of those Tomy "3D" LED games.

 

Yakumo I had that same pac man game!! Used to love it. Was that tank game the one you had to hold up to your face like binoculars?

 

I've got little interest in acquiring more LCD games, if that's what you're suggesting.

 

Yes, that's the one. My brother had the racing version of those binocular type games as well.

 

This is a nice illustration book about LCD & co handhelds: ElectronicPlastic.

http://www.handhelden.com/

I have still the 1st ed. but I see that there were a lot of adds during the past 10 years.

 

This are probably the ones yakumo is telling about:

http://www.handhelden.com/index.php?brand=tomy&game=tomy/SkyAttack
http://www.handhelden.com/index.php?brand=tomy&game=tomy/ThunderingTurbo
http://www.handhelden.com/index.php?brand=tomy&game=tomy/PacMan

 

Now that I would be interested in. Shame the site is sold out and they start at £60 on amazon...

 

My brother and I had all three of those. They were actually pretty sweet. Except that you had to be in the light to play them, so night time or under the cover gaming without a precariously positioned flashlight and some odd hand positioning was off limits.

 

I just had cheapo LCD games and some game and watch things.

 

I had a tabletop Donkey Kong game a long time ago. If I recall correctly though it just stopped working even with new batteries. I would love to get another one someday, but I think some of those are pretty pricey now.

 

yeah, they're the ones

 

Before my parents buying me my first video game console (a SNES with DKC which I wanted like crazy) they would buy me LCD games since they were very cheap. Two of these games that I remember their names are Lone Rangers from Konami ( http://handheldempire.com/game.jsp?game=1034&position=33 ) and Octupus from the Game&Watch series ( http://www.mariowiki.com/Octopus_%28game%29 ).

Few months ago when I was searching at my grandmother's stockhouse (which my parents and relatives use for their old stuff) for an Amstrad CPC (which I got from my sister's husband when I was a little kid) in order to sell it on a retro games shop (unfortunately I didn't find it) I accidentally found a Galaga '91 LCD game (and I didn't remember owning that). I can't find the photo now so I will take a photo again tomorrow.

*Sign* LDC games. One of my favourite videogame anamnesis when I was a little kid among arcades (which they first came in Greece in the late '70s and the early 80s) and Game Boy.