Old Handhelds

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pacman000
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Joined: December 30th, 2015, 9:04 am

Old Handhelds

Postby pacman000 » April 25th, 2017, 6:20 pm

I found this site again the other day: http://www.handheldmuseum.com/

There have been so many cool handheld games over the years. What's your favorite?

Discounting the Game Boy, mine's probably a Star Wars game shaped like the Millennium Falcon. Players try to complete a row of four colored lights by matching recordings from the movies. My explanation's poor; here's a video: https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-mozilla-002&hsimp=yhs-002&hspart=mozilla&p=star+wars+milinum+falcon+game+match+lights+recording#id=1&vid=0593e531dc33352cd59e3d4ad9adf160&action=click

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scotland
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Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Re: Old Handhelds

Postby scotland » April 25th, 2017, 8:59 pm

That is a neat site, but limited.

I've got that Millenium Falcon game too.

I've got a sizeable collection of these, going from later electromechanicals of the early 70s up to the Radica and Excalibur games of modern times. I tend to favor the simpler LED and VFD games. The grapnics are really primitive, but the gameplay can be quite tight. I enjoy the sports games a lot, especially baseball and golf games. Its kinda fun to chart all the baseball variants over time, including Bo Jackson LCD and an ESPN low res pixel screen where the graphics are like scoreboard graphics.

I did a review of one of the early LED baseball games here
http://videogamecritic.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=38790&t=13660

lynchie137
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Joined: November 15th, 2016, 6:46 pm

Re: Old Handhelds

Postby lynchie137 » June 5th, 2017, 7:00 pm

I didn't have a lot of handheld games growing up. But one that I have fond memories of was a Star Wars type game in which you held the game up to your eyes like a pair of binoculars and played it by pushing the buttons that were located on top of the game. It was pretty simple and straightforward stuff in terms of gameplay, but I definitely put in a lot of hours trying to beat my high score. Sadly, though, I can't remember the name of it or what company put it out.

Does anybody out there remember owning a handheld like this?

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scotland
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Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Re: Old Handhelds

Postby scotland » June 5th, 2017, 7:33 pm

I have this Radica "Sub Assault" that is built like that:

sub_assault_1.jpg
sub_assault_1.jpg (27.88 KiB) Viewed 1975 times


sub_assault_2.jpg
sub_assault_2.jpg (23.24 KiB) Viewed 1975 times


Are you sure it was Star War and not a sub or tank game?
They look like Star Wars props, and are probably used by cosplayers as one.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Old Handhelds

Postby Retro STrife » June 5th, 2017, 9:54 pm

lynchie137 wrote:I didn't have a lot of handheld games growing up. But one that I have fond memories of was a Star Wars type game in which you held the game up to your eyes like a pair of binoculars and played it by pushing the buttons that were located on top of the game. It was pretty simple and straightforward stuff in terms of gameplay, but I definitely put in a lot of hours trying to beat my high score. Sadly, though, I can't remember the name of it or what company put it out.

Does anybody out there remember owning a handheld like this?


Hey there lynchie, sounds to me like you're referring to the Tomytronic 3D lineup of games, and probably the specific game called Planet Zeon. These handhelds were released in the early 80s and there were 7 total. I actually just learned of these myself about 6 months ago... I stumbled across pics of them online (don't even remember where), but I instantly had to have one. It seemed too cool to pass up...like an '80s Virtual Boy, you put the game over your eyes like binoculars and it simulates a little 3D game on an LCD screen. The graphics are on par with crappy Tiger handhelds, but it's still a cool concept and I'm glad I picked one up. Each version is its own game. The version I bought is the blue one and it's called Planet Zeon... it's a space shooter and seemed the most interesting to me, so that's the one I went for on ebay. Cost me around $20 or so. It sounds real similar to what you've described. I've attached pics here so you can see if it matches up to what you played.

images.jpg
images.jpg (4.71 KiB) Viewed 1958 times

9c7cb9315f5e3b123d8d68c3058a8a73.jpg
9c7cb9315f5e3b123d8d68c3058a8a73.jpg (92.04 KiB) Viewed 1958 times

Tomy-3DPlanetZeonDisplay.jpg
Tomy-3DPlanetZeonDisplay.jpg (20.68 KiB) Viewed 1958 times

lynchie137
Posts: 539
Joined: November 15th, 2016, 6:46 pm

Re: Old Handhelds

Postby lynchie137 » June 6th, 2017, 4:19 pm

Retro STrife wrote:
lynchie137 wrote:I didn't have a lot of handheld games growing up. But one that I have fond memories of was a Star Wars type game in which you held the game up to your eyes like a pair of binoculars and played it by pushing the buttons that were located on top of the game. It was pretty simple and straightforward stuff in terms of gameplay, but I definitely put in a lot of hours trying to beat my high score. Sadly, though, I can't remember the name of it or what company put it out.

Does anybody out there remember owning a handheld like this?


Hey there lynchie, sounds to me like you're referring to the Tomytronic 3D lineup of games, and probably the specific game called Planet Zeon. These handhelds were released in the early 80s and there were 7 total. I actually just learned of these myself about 6 months ago... I stumbled across pics of them online (don't even remember where), but I instantly had to have one. It seemed too cool to pass up...like an '80s Virtual Boy, you put the game over your eyes like binoculars and it simulates a little 3D game on an LCD screen. The graphics are on par with crappy Tiger handhelds, but it's still a cool concept and I'm glad I picked one up. Each version is its own game. The version I bought is the blue one and it's called Planet Zeon... it's a space shooter and seemed the most interesting to me, so that's the one I went for on ebay. Cost me around $20 or so. It sounds real similar to what you've described. I've attached pics here so you can see if it matches up to what you played.

images.jpg
9c7cb9315f5e3b123d8d68c3058a8a73.jpg
Tomy-3DPlanetZeonDisplay.jpg


That is the exact one, my buddy. I had the blue one as well, though I never knew that the title of it was Planet Zeon. I always assumed it was a Star Wars knock off game. One of my older cousins owned it before I did and he ended up giving it to me when he grew out of a lot of his old toys when I was a kid. It was a pretty cool little game, and I remember having a lot of fun with it.

I probably still have it around the house somewhere..

Thanks for the pic, btw.

lynchie137
Posts: 539
Joined: November 15th, 2016, 6:46 pm

Re: Old Handhelds

Postby lynchie137 » June 6th, 2017, 4:47 pm

scotland wrote:I have this Radica "Sub Assault" that is built like that:

sub_assault_1.jpg

sub_assault_2.jpg

Are you sure it was Star War and not a sub or tank game?
They look like Star Wars props, and are probably used by cosplayers as one.


Nope. It was definitely a Star Wars type of game.


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