Electronic Handheld Games

Electronic Handheld games come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. This is one of their defining features, in order to make up for the simple games they compensated by having them housed in extravagent cases. Some handheld games are more suited to sitting on a tabletop or the floor.

UK maker of loads of early electronic games such as Astrowars. Their mini arcade includes classics such as:
Invaders from space
Star Force
Firefox
Scramble

With some of the coolest case designs ever made Bambino games have to be a collectors favourite. They made a total of 11 games from around 1979-1980. Also notable for being one of the first manufacturers to use VFD displays where sprites were made from shaped coloured bulbs (Vacuum Fluorescent Display).

Nintendo Game and Watch are now quite collectable. Some of the first outings for characters such as Mario and Donkey Kong were on Game and Watch.

Blip is one of the first Electronic games ever made. That said, it is more mechanical than electronic. Plays like pong with a wierd red moving light. There are several games like this in the series - a stunt bike one is good.

Entex produced a range of official arcade gamesbased on arcade classics such as Pacman 2, Galaxian and Defender. Good designs and quite playable games.

Invader 1000. Space invaders handheld very popular at the time.

Another very early electronic game this time from Tandy. Ogre Eater is a pacman clone.

The best selling computer game system in the world. A huge library of games, all newer versions backwardly compatible and no regional protection. A huge selection of games with more being made every day. Set to continue its dominace of the handheld market with the release of the Advance model.

Basically a handheld version of the Master System, seems big by todays standards but still has one of the largest screens for a handheld to date. A bit heavy on batteries but loads of cheap games available. TV tuner and radio attachments are good but hard to find now.

Slightly smaller than a game gear this is a superb handheld version of the PC Engine. Came with Colour screen and plays HU Card games. Very scarce these days but still available in a few places. Dad a tv tuner available as an attachment as shown but I think this only works in Japan?

The first hand-held color video game system. Sold by Atari. Offers multi-player competition, built-in 3D and distortion graphic effects and a 16bit graphics engine. Ahead of its time really if only it wasnt about the size of a brick. Games came on slimline cards with a curled edge. Raven Games sell them for about £15 still.

Another good handheld that couldnt compete with the gameboy. Still some superb games, a nice TFT LCD screen and a good battery life make this a superb alternative to the GBA. Removed from US and European markets last year its now also ceased production in Japan. Lots of good Neo Geo conversions, beat-em-ups and RPG games.

Only released in Japan the wonderswan is one of the smallest handhelds to date but still has one of the largest screens. Monochome and Colour versions available. Only a Limited amount of games available. Doesnt really stand much of a chance against the Gameboy. Does have some superb accessories such as the wonder borg programable robot bug, wonder wave wireless link and the wonder witch development kit.

The latest 32bit handheld gameboy looks set to take over the world yet again. Nice size screen, loads of buttons, but best of all loads of SNES titles being converted including mario kart, street Fighter and F-zero which were available at launch.