The best 80’s handheld game? On the last day of term at my primary school we would all bring in toys, which back in the early 80’s would include games like Operation and Buckaroo, which still exist relatively unchanged 20+ years later. There would also be the kid who had the really cool toy of…
The NES special edition of the Gameboy Advance SP The iconic design of the classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), aka the Famicom in the US, has been applied to everything from belt buckles to iPhone cases, such is it’s lasting appeal to the gaming public. It was therefore only a matter of time before Nintendo…
Between 1978 and 1980 Mattel released a popular series of handheld games that featured LED technology, using simple glowing red lights to represent the on-screen characters, pre-dating the more common LCD and VFD formats seen on later portable machines. By necessity the Mattel handhelds had to augment the game displays to put the simple glowing…
The early 80’s were the golden era for handheld electronic games, and Bambino produced some of the most beautifully designed units. UFO Master Blaster was an unremarkable (at least in terms of gameplay) space invader clone, using a similar Vacuum Florescent Display as the more common Galaxy Invader handhelds. What set the game apart was…
The holy grail of handheld games? My retro games includes many of the consoles and home computers that I played (or wanted to play) with as a kid, but my favourite games are the handheld and tabletop units from the early 80’s. There’s something about the look of them, the brightly coloured plastics and graphics,…
One of my earliest video gaming experiences was at the end of term in my primary school, where we all got to bring in a toy and lessons were given over to general playtime. Amongst all of the classic board games like Mouse Trap and Kerplunk, I spotted a small tabletop machine that had a…
