Resistance is futile...
Monday, Feb 13, 2006
A battle to the death is raging these days between Sony and Nintendo to see who is going to take control of the handheld market. Of course long before the PSP and DS were conceived, there was another portable console war. Between 1989 and 1991, four handheld videogame systems were released--each had its advantages and disadvantages. Here's my basic impression of the 1st generation of portables:
Game Boy (B&W): The only portable of the time to have any killer apps. Tetris was unsophistocated but more addictive than morphine. Super Mario Land blew me away with stellar platform gameplay.
Lynx: Excellent graphics (with some unparalleled special effects) and several good renditions of arcade classics, but no real lasting value. Lacked the essential support of 3rd party developers.
Game Gear: It might've impressed folks in 1989 with it's backlit color screen, but for a system with such a large catalogue of games, it SUCKED! I own a bunch, and can say quite seriously that very few Game Gear games were anything more than very poor translations of Master System or Genesis titles. They're simply unplayable by today's standards.
Turbo Express: Probably the best all around package of the time, this little baby could've easily competed with the Game Boy Advance SP if it hadn't been for the exhorbitant pricetag! How cool was it that you could play full-fledged TG-16 games on the go AND watch TV?! Way ahead of its time. TE had some great games, but never enough to warrant spending $400 for the unit itself!! Too bad, so sad.
Game Boy (B&W): The only portable of the time to have any killer apps. Tetris was unsophistocated but more addictive than morphine. Super Mario Land blew me away with stellar platform gameplay.
Lynx: Excellent graphics (with some unparalleled special effects) and several good renditions of arcade classics, but no real lasting value. Lacked the essential support of 3rd party developers.
Game Gear: It might've impressed folks in 1989 with it's backlit color screen, but for a system with such a large catalogue of games, it SUCKED! I own a bunch, and can say quite seriously that very few Game Gear games were anything more than very poor translations of Master System or Genesis titles. They're simply unplayable by today's standards.
Turbo Express: Probably the best all around package of the time, this little baby could've easily competed with the Game Boy Advance SP if it hadn't been for the exhorbitant pricetag! How cool was it that you could play full-fledged TG-16 games on the go AND watch TV?! Way ahead of its time. TE had some great games, but never enough to warrant spending $400 for the unit itself!! Too bad, so sad.
Here's something that annoys me to no end. The sellers on eBay all think that the buyers are so stupid as to type in the word "Rare" when they search and then automatically trust that everything that comes up really IS rare. Lame!
But I will say that I've come across a lot more honest people on eBay than I ever expected to! I bought a Master System II from a guy in Australia not long ago, and he had improperly listed the shipping as only $5 USD worldwide! When I received my invoice, the shipping amount was significantly more than that. So I sent him an email stating that he'd charged me more than the amount listed on eBay. He quickly replied and explained that the mistake was his AND that I should only pay the $5 which I'd agreed to! I was so thrilled at finally running into somebody who took responsibility for his own mistake that I told him I'd pay the full amount anyway! So there ya go! eBay is not all bad, but it's FAR from being all good!
But I will say that I've come across a lot more honest people on eBay than I ever expected to! I bought a Master System II from a guy in Australia not long ago, and he had improperly listed the shipping as only $5 USD worldwide! When I received my invoice, the shipping amount was significantly more than that. So I sent him an email stating that he'd charged me more than the amount listed on eBay. He quickly replied and explained that the mistake was his AND that I should only pay the $5 which I'd agreed to! I was so thrilled at finally running into somebody who took responsibility for his own mistake that I told him I'd pay the full amount anyway! So there ya go! eBay is not all bad, but it's FAR from being all good!
I was so jealous of all my friends who'd come to school with their Coleco Tabletop Arcade Games! The most my parents could ever afford was to buy us a cheap knock-off of Galaga/Galaxian called Galaxy 2. It was fun and I was extatic to get my hands on one through eBay again recently, but it just wasn't the same as one of those slick Coleco games which looked like tiny versions of the actual arcade games! The one I wanted the most myself was the Donkey Kong mini-cabinet. How about you?
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