Handhelds?

[Kungfu]

Still unsure about Metal Slug Advance but will reserve my judgement until I have been able to play it.

[phillai]

You seen CT Special Forces 3 yet on the GBA?

That's a very nice Metal Slug-like game that's just come out on US...

[Kungfu]

You seen CT Special Forces 3 yet on the GBA?

That's a very nice Metal Slug-like game that's just come out on US...

Seem some screenshots, quite cool but not as visually impressive as Metal Slug.

[MD]

Brief review of every handheld every made (except the ones that are deemed rare. )

MB Microvision. Blocky block zooms towards blocky block. Failing that there is Connect 4, that'll keep you amused for all of 2 minutes... Oh and the control is a knob and a couple of buttons. You'll have more fun if you use it to bounce paper balls in the air.

Nintendo Gameboy. Nicely built machine, nice to hold and has Tetris, which is as good a reason to own a handheld if there was one. It also has some nice puzzle (and some RPGs allegedly...) games, sadly the screen is a bit ropey when it comes to anything that has to scroll...

Cheetah Gamate. There is one word for this console and the word is rubbish. Rubbish games, rubbish controls, rubbish plastic, even a rubbish box with rubbish artwork. No wonder Cheetah went bust...

Supervision (Various...). See Cheetah Gamate.

Atari Lynx. Nice little console with some nice games, sadly the nice games are in their ones. One of the few (only?) console to support left handed players... Sadly the battery life sucks and it's as portable as a breeze block.

Sega Game Gear. Nice portable master system with enhanced graphics, has a TV Tuner so you can watch TV if the thought of playing games is dull. The big minus point is the screen which makes everything look white and if the screen scrolls then it can become fairly unplayable.

PC Engine GT / Turboexpress. Plus points include being able to play all your PC Engine games on the move. Negative points are the tri format pixel screen which missed out a lot of the screen so anything scrolling shimmers and some text is going to be very hard to read. The battery life is not great either.

Sega Nomad. Probably one of the better portable consoles ever made, plays Megadrive games, has a nice pad and 6 buttons (the most on any handheld console) and the screen is reasonably good, you can even whack in a second joypad to play two player games and connect it up to the TV (Virtua Racing still looks amazing). However unless you own shares in a battery company or have a few miles of extention chord, your not going to be able to play it for very long...

Gameboy Pocket. As Gameboy but the screen is better and not the 80s Green and grey LCD screen. They messed it up by making the pad is a bit smaller and less comfortable to hold.

Gameboy Color. Stopgap machine before the Gameboy Advance...

SNK Neo Geo Pocket (B&W). Nice machine, it's black and white and you wonder why. There aren't a great deal of games for it... so on to the

SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color. Look SNK do you like being Atari in the 80s and losing money faster then Essos oil reserves? They decide that a Colour screen is the way to go (not like you should have done it the first time). They also thought to release it worldwide too. Sadly on the whole there are an average selection of games from utter rubbish to fairly playable. Nice second console and if you want to play Reversi then buy a Gameboy.

Tiger Game.Com. Lets have a touch screen. Lets see how long it takes before it breaks in the hands of little johnny. Lets get some good game licences and lets see how we can make them as rubbish as possible...

Bandai Wonderswan. Nice console, has decent ammount of buttons but a strangely limited number of games (unless you understand lots of Japanese).

Gameboy Advance. Nearly the best games machine ever, built just right, backwards compatable with the Gameboy, just the screen sucked and if you have some halogen lamps then you might just be able to play castlevania in the right angle...

Bandai Wonderswan Color / Crystal. The screen is worse then the Gameboy Advance making it unplayable in low light conditions (i.e. normal room not in the sun). Some nice games, but finding games is a good challenge.

Gamepark GP32. If you want a machine to play emulators and Doom, then this is your machine. If you want to play real games then your better off with something else...

Nokia N-Gage. Hey, Hello? HELLO? No sorry your breaking up? What's that? Games console and a phone? Sorry your breaking up again. Tomb Raider you say? Money for old rope you say? Sorry have to go lines bad.

Nintendo Gameboy Advance. Nintendo listen to the critism and do something about it, sadly they still manage to cock it up again. It could have been the best handheld ever, but the joypad is too small and thin, the headphone socket has gone so you have to fork out money for a lead. Still has some of the best games ever.

PC Engine LT. Yeah like it's something your going to whip out on the train, Battery pack? Yeah that's like ultra portable. Might as well whip out a PC Engine Duo, Duo Monitor and Battery pack and play Dracula X on the train... Then again if you own an LT it's probably safely wrapped up in tissue paper incase you decrease the value of the machine.

Nintendo Virtual Boy. It uses batteries but it's not portable. It's not something you can play whilst on a flight without suffering whiplash injuries in the turbulance...

Yeah on the whole handhelds are fairly rubbish, excellent for playing thinking games but action games still require a decent screen, so lets hope the DS and PSP deliver...

[Strider]

My only beef with the Nomad was that it suffered from horrendous screen blur (much worse than the GT). Put a shooter on like Thunderforce 4 and bullets become pratically impossible to spot.

Otherwise I'd agree with everythign MD had (me and the missus would link it up to the TV and play Streets of rage on it).

[Firsty]

My SP goes wherever I go. It's great when I go abroad and can't bring consoles. And it's wonderful for flights too. It's great for passing some time.

[hankwangford]

Sega Game Gear. Nice portable master system with enhanced graphics, has a TV Tuner so you can watch TV if the thought of playing games is dull.

You forgot to mention that the aerial is longer than every single man in the world's wang added together and doubled.

[Abhisara]

I've just been playing my GBA on the train today. Made the 4-hour journey jusy fly by .

I tend to play it for a bit at night just before going to bed. I'm working on FFTA at the moment (I was a bit late to the party with this). The ability to play games in short bursts is what I really like about it - something that games on the bigger consoles don't always provide.