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The Power of Portable Gaming
1up has up a piece on Handheld Heroes, portable games that have (despite their small size) make herculean changes in the face of gaming as a whole. From the article: "Tetris is, quite possibly, the most important portable game of all. While the drama surrounding its NES incarnation gets the most attention, the Game Boy version quietly sold millions and millions of handheld systems to people who were instantly addicted to its simple, intuitive, challenging gameplay. It's no exaggeration to say that Tetris single-handedly created the portable market, helped the Game Boy conquer its competition, and gave Nintendo an enduring source of income that's still going strong."
It's no exaggeration to say that Tetris single-handedly created the portable market...
I think handheld football deserves that honor.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
What amazes me is that, first of all, my old Game Still works, and secondly I still enjoy playing most of the games on my SP.
As far as new games go, my favorites for the SP include: Harvest Moon, Advance Wars 1 &2, and the new Metroid games.
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
That's why it succeeded.
Also most people will improve with practice at this game.
It doesn't rely on over complex controls. Nor pin-point accuracy. Not super-human controller skills. It's addictive because you know you messed up and can do better. And you can get it on $5 LCD games, never mind Gameboys now.
However there aren't many concepts for games this simple.
Wikipedia knows something about this drama. Its short account is here:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris#History_and_l
My neighbor's
Alternatively, you may try, you know, working.
I'll tell you the best power of portable gaming, no more pausing for bathroom breaks.
If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
Actualy I dont think Tengen had anything to do with the interesting history behind Tetris. It was the fact that Nintendo initialy didnt have any rights to publish it from the then Russian developer of the game. Essentialy it broke down into two corporations who thought they had the rights to publish the game. Nintendo eventualy came out 'victorious' even suposedly with the KGB involved. This was all covered in a short hour long documentary the Discovery channel had on videogames.
I found a link that makes mention of the history here: http://www.videogames.co.nz/showfeature.php?id=78
I love to slaughter the english language.
I've always loved handhelds. Due to the whole idea that a handheld system is designed both for quick sessions (on a bus, for instance) and long playing periods (such as on a plane or in a hotel room), I think handhelds force developers to adhere to what I consider the ideals of video gaming: both instant playability and depth that inspires replay.
:)
Obviously, puzzle games are the perfect match for this. I don't quite agree with some of 1up's puzzle game highlights. Tetris and Klax are true classics, but I'm not convinced that Meteos and Lumines are of the same calibre. Meteos times every game mode except for one, tilting it far in favour of quick sessions. It just isn't that enjoyable for a long period. Lumines falls victim to the exact opposite - the time attack modes aren't much fun but the normal mode is very addictive. The only problem with normal mode is that a typical single session often lasts more than half an hour!
Puzzle games aside, some of their choices and omissions are quite odd.
Donkey Kong on Game Boy is an expanded version of the arcade original, with 100 puzzle-heavy levels. It turns a classic arcade game into an even better home game. I think it's one of the finest games ever made. Mario vs Donkey Kong is a pseudo-sequel to the Game Boy one, but it doesn't quite live up to its predecessor. It's decent but far from being a true classic.
Final Fantasy Adventure, also on Game Boy, is Seiken Densetsu 1 renamed to cash in on the Final Fantasy name. Seiken Densetsu was also renamed for the western market, to Secret of Mana. Yes, Secret of Mana is a sequel to this Game Boy game. And this Game Boy game is the best action/rpg the system has to offer - edging out even The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (which is also a fantastic game and a must-own). Too bad the GBA remake, Sword of Mana, was awful.
Besides Klax, the Atari Lynx had quite a few other arcade ports. Roadblasters is a lot of fun. Robotron 2084 isn't perfect (due to the Lynx lacking a way to duplicate the original dual-joystick control system) but is still decent. S.T.U.N. Runner looks fantastic on the handheld and is the best home port of the game we ever received, even if it does use sprite scaling instead of polygons. Speaking of sprite scaling, Blue Lightning is an Afterburner clone with better graphics than any of the pre-32X home ports of Afterburner. The gameplay measures up, too. Chip's Challenge, another original design for the system (though it was ported to plenty of other systems eventually) is a very fun action/puzzle game like The Adventures of Lolo. It also has a geeky love story plot that I'm sure most Slashdotters will appreciate
The Game Gear was perhaps the most lacking of all mainstream handhelds (ignoring utter shit like the Gamate and Watara Supervision), but even it had some very good games. Crystal Warriors and Shining Force II: The Sword of Hajya are an excellent pair of strategy-RPGs with amazing depth for 8-bit handheld games. Bubble Bobble had a great port on GG (not