Tag Archives: handheld games

Evercade

A Warm Welcome to the Evercade

2 Comments

Over the course of the last few years, retro gaming devices of various descriptions have become very popular.

Until now, these have tended to fall into one of two categories: emulation boxes that you can load up with your own collection of ROMs and enjoy to your heart’s content, or pre-curated systems with fixed libraries of games.

Evercade is different. Evercade provides a curated library of officially licensed cartridges that are distributed as packaged, physical products separately from the system itself. And somehow manufacturer Blaze managed to successfully launch this exciting new product in the midst of a world gone absolutely mad. So let’s take a first look at the system!

Continue reading A Warm Welcome to the Evercade →

Essentials, Game Boy

Game Boy Essentials: Mario Tennis

2 Comments

With the latest installment in the Mario Tennis series coming soon to Nintendo Switch at the time of writing, I thought it would be a good opportunity to revisit one of my favourite versions.

It’s not often that a handheld version of a game can honestly claim to be superior to its counterpart on TV-based consoles — and this was something that occurred even less frequently back in the days where the 8-bit Game Boy Color and the 64-bit Nintendo 64 coexisted happily alongside one another. But 2000’s Mario Tennis pulled it off with a spectacularly ambitious, interesting and ballsy handheld version that, for solo play at least, ran rings around its big brother.

It achieved this primarily by not even attempting to be a “port” of the rather multiplayer-centric N64 version — not that this would have been possible given the disparity in technological capabilities between the two platforms — but instead providing a unique, solo-focused experience. One that is still worth playing today — and which Mario Tennis Aces’ single-player Adventure Mode has undoubtedly taken some inspiration from.

Continue reading Game Boy Essentials: Mario Tennis →

Essentials, Game Boy

Game Boy Essentials: Game Boy Gallery

Leave a comment

Nintendo has always been good at handheld games — even long before its Game Boy and subsequent platforms were a thing.

Those of you as old as me will doubtless remember the Game & Watch series, a range of 60 handheld electronic LCD games created by Nintendo and released between 1980 and 1991. These dinky little devices perfectly encapsulated what makes a “good handheld game” — something that is easy to learn but tough to master, and which you can either while away a few minutes with or engross yourself in for several hours thanks to their inherently addictive, rewarding quality.

The Game & Watch series was designed by Gunpei Yokoi, who later went on to design 1989’s astronomically popular Game Boy. It’s only appropriate, then, that a number of the games that really kickstarted Nintendo’s efforts in the handheld space went on to get their own adaptations on that platform, beginning with the Europe-only release of Game Boy Gallery in 1995.

Continue reading Game Boy Essentials: Game Boy Gallery →

Features, MoeGamer Awards 2017

The MoeGamer Awards: Best Ridge Racer

4 Comments

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

The Ridge Racer series was a prime candidate for the Uncancel This Series award, but I’m still holding out hope that we’ll get a new one someday, and that it will be the most amazing arcade racer in existence.

Until that time comes, there are plenty of games in the series that I can continue to enjoy. But that, of course, begs an important question: which one of them is best?

And the winner is…

Continue reading The MoeGamer Awards: Best Ridge Racer →