Limited Gameplay with Electronic Handhelds
78.jpg” alt=”" width=”430″ height=”160″ />
Today it seems that handheld game systems can do just about anything. In some cases they can do more than their big brother consoles. But there was a time when some handhelds couldn’t do a whole lot, and we liked it. These were known as electronic handheld games. I’m not talking about your fancy pants Game Boy. I’m speaking specifically of LCD and LED games.
Most people who follow games are probably familiar with the LCD handheld games from the 80’s and 90’s. The two most well known examples of these are the Game & Watch series made by Nintendo and the billions of handheld games produced by Tiger Electronics. Back in the 70’s, Mattel and Tandy produced handhelds, which used LED technology and have gaming experiences similar to their successors. I could break down the difference between LED and LCD games for you, but science is hard and I don’t believe anything I read on the Internet. Sorry!
While the technology used to create these types of games are different, the gameplay is essentially the same. Move your character along a path of predetermined locations on the screen while fighting and dodging the attacks of your enemies who navigate the same way. This could mean only having three places to move on the bottom of the screen in a Space Invaders knock-off, or only being able to jump up and down while attacking enemies who appear on the either side of the screen. In some cases you were lucky enough to actually move around the whole screen. These games were known as “The ones where you can move around the whole screen.”
During the next few weeks I’ll be featuring some of these games from my personal collection and discuss how the games work, and in some cases, find out if they still do work.
Format
Today it seems that handheld game systems can do just about anything. In some cases they can do more than their big brother consoles. But there was a time when some handhelds couldn’t do a whole lot, and we liked it. These were known as electronic handheld games. I’m not talking about your fancy pants Game Boy. I’m speaking specifically of LCD and LED games.
Most people who follow games are probably familiar with the LCD handheld games from the 80’s and 90’s. The two most well known examples of these are the Game & Watch series made by Nintendo and the billions of handheld games produced by Tiger Electronics. Back in the 70’s, Mattel and Tandy produced handhelds, which used LED technology and have gaming experiences similar to their successors. I could break down the difference between LED and LCD games for you, but science is hard and I don’t believe anything I read on the Internet. Sorry!
While the technology used to create these types of games are different, the gameplay is essentially the same. Move your character along a path of predetermined locations on the screen while fighting and dodging the attacks of your enemies who navigate the same way. This could mean only having three places to move on the bottom of the screen in a Space Invaders knock-off, or only being able to jump up and down while attacking enemies who appear on the either side of the screen. In some cases you were lucky enough to actually move around the whole screen. These games were known as “The ones where you can move around the whole screen.”
During the next few weeks I’ll be featuring some of these games from my personal collection and discuss how the games work, and in some cases, find out if they still do work.
Path: