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The Hand Held Section
This section looks at the hand helds of yesterday and today. Some of these you may not remember
and others you may have in your collection. The PSP is
the newest to be released and seems to be doing quite well even though it suffers from poor battery life. Many of these systems
failed because of this.
Atari, Nintendo, Neo Geo, NEC, so many companies trying to get gaming on the go. Here i list
the history of these little systems and the games. Many can be emulated and the games easily found.
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(2005 to ?)
PSP
Sony's first hand held comes with a sucker punch of a price (249.99) and the battery life of just 4 hours is not a good sign.
The system does have the best 3D graphics yet and promises to have some great titles coming out.
The new WIPEOUT looks awesome as does RIDGE
RACER. The system uses a propietery disc format that actually has movies as well as games. This
feature sounds really nice and will be useful for the long trips for summer vacations.
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(2004 to ?)
NINTENDO DS
The Nintendo DS is the latest from the big "N" and it is a thing of beauty. The dual screen is a
clever idea and the stylus feature is rather nifty too. The games have been trickling out but there is a few outstanding titles
for the system. A remake of MARIO 64 is a great
translation and WARIO WARE:MICRO GAMES is done
well. The problem is that it seems to be lagging in the processor department. RIDGE
RACER on the PSP is a better game technically
and this shows that the DS is that odd spot of bad timing in the gaming industry. The DREAMCAST suffered the same problem. Its hard to tell what futures
holds for the DS since Nintendo will be releasing a new GameBoy soon.
CPU 32bit
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(2001 to ?)
Gameboy Advance
The GameBoy Advance was the direct successor to the wildly popular GameBoy. The first real 3D portable machine to hit the mass market and enjoy the success as the original GameBoy. Many titles have made their way to this system and it is doing better then
the DS system from Nintendo. Released in 2001 with a 32 bit processor in a cartridge format.
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(2005 - 2006 R.I.P)
Gizmondo
The latest entry into the handheld wars the Gizmondo from Tiger Mantics is a nice machine indeed. It has a Windows CE
OS with a ARM-9 400Mhz processor with an Nvidia graphics chip. The system GPS and bluetooth and the games come on a 64MB
SD cards. Though the system itself looks promising, the company doesn't, Posting a loss for 2004 of 210 million going into
2005. The system did get a boost with EA signing on to do games
GAMEPARK 32
This 32 bit hand held from Korea actually can run video game emulators as well as GP32 games. Not
a real popular system but has a cult following here in the States. You can find this system at LIKSANG with 2 different prices (99.99 & 199.99) depending on if you want a backlit screen or not.
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The WonderSwan
The WonderSwan by Bandai is a 32 bit hand held that comes in a LCD screen and a backlit color
screen. Released only in Asia and available through LIKSANG,com.
This system has a version "GUILTY GEAR' and and "WIZARDRY"
CPU 32BIT
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(2002 to 2005)
NOKIA NGAGE
Nokia's Ngage is the phone with game capabilities. The "Taco Phone" as many gamers have called hasn't
been well received. Sighting problems like having to take apart the system just to change a cartridge (this
problem was corrected with the new QD version) and a poor phone design that is only useable via
head phones. Poor games and design have hampered this system even though some games have been improving.
SPLINTER CELL, RED FACTION, TOMB RAIDER and SONIC THE HEDGEHOG haven't really helped this platform
is taking a slow death march. A lot of new systems are coming out and there is no room for NGAGE anymore.
UPDATE: The system is now dead. EG Games started selling the system at $99.00 and games at 19.99.
Time is up for the Taco phone. This will be a happy day for Hardcore Dreamcast fans since Nokia used the SNAP middleware that
powered a lot of online games fot DC. This Buyout of SNAP ended a lot DC online games. A little satisfaction for the DC-faithful.
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(1989 to 1993)
ATARI LYNX
Atari was the first to put out a backlit color screen with a 16 bit processor. The Lynx was poised
to take the world but ran into a brick wall known as the GameBoy. Though
the Lynx was a superior system in just about every way it failed to win the handheld war. TETRIS was a big reason why the GameBoy beat the Lynx as well as poor battery life plagueing the Lynx.
Some arcade classics as well as new titles were released for the system. The Lynx also had link up capabilities for multiplayer
functions and a planned "Link-up" feature would have the lynx used as a controller for the
JAGUAR. Some of the old classics likw "Robotron" "Ms. Pacman"
were released and new games like "Shadow of the Beast" "Crystal Mines 2"
graced the system but Atari pulled the plug in 1993 due to slow sales.
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(1998 to 2000)
NEO GEO POCKET COLOR
The Neo Geo was a great little hand held that failed mostly due to SNK pulling the plug. SNK was out of money and the link up feature with the DREAMCAST was a failure. The system did boast some SNK classics like "Metal Slug" "Fatal
Fury" and "King of Fighters series". The battery life was comparable to the Gameboy. Its too
bad that this sytem didn't stick around becuase it played some awesome 2D games.
CPU 16bit
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TURBO EXPRESS
The Turbo Express from NEC
was basically a Turbo Graphix 16 in portable form. This is hard to find and worth some money if you can locate one.
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