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[iidesuyo]

I collect obscure handhelds. Here is an outdated picture of my collection, so feel free to ask me anything about them:

Congratulations!

On the top left, that's a "Game Plus". I own one. Gameplay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FLFA7jLWaI

It has the same hardware as the Hartung Game Master, on your collection sitting next to it:

It was half as expensive as the Game Boy but ten times as bad. Highlight: one could only chose two different sound volumes.

At least the battery life was great...

 

[LithiumSpade]

Sticky Balls was really that good, huh?

I actually never owned that game, but I had most of the others (including unreleased games). Considering it's tiny lineup, some of the games weren't even that bad.

The one and only launch title was Trailblazer (yes, a remake of the Atari/Commodore classic), which I hate to admit to sinking entire nights into at one point.

Gameplay

Colors (unreleased) was later leaked in some form and I remember having a lot of fun with it. The unrealised potential of it's GPS multiplayer mode is the saddest thing about the Gizmondo's failure.

I remember the ports of Richard Burns Rally, SSX 3 and Fifa 2005 being pretty good as well, even if they couldn't hold up to what the PSP was achieving (although we didn't get that in the UK for another 6 months).

It had an absolutely dreadful camera, but at the time it was the only thing I owned, so I have a vast number of pictures taken on it. In addition it was my sole MP3 player and the closest thing I had to a mobile phone (it could send and receive texts but not calls using a Vodafone sim). At the time, I was super impressed by it.

And then of course it all turned out to be a massive massive scam. Which is hilarious.

It's a story well worth reading up on if you ever have the spare time!

I managed to see/meet one person who owns one. It's his emulator machine.

I also have one of these (Xperia Play), and it's probably my favourite phone ever. So good for emulation, and the Android titles that fully supported its features were just way nicer to play than on other phones. I still keep mine around for the occasional use. Good battery life.

 

[soxinthebox]

I'm also partial to the 3D remake of Snake, which is unironically one of the best games on the system.

Agreed, that was up there as one of the best titles. Played a bunch of the N95 port too.

 

[krae_man]

As promised, here is my Lynx

First time pulling it out for years. Not sure it still works though, I whacked some batteries in and got no response, but it has no game in.

A game needs to be in the cartridge slot for it to power on.

 

[Krejlooc]

Agreed, that was up there as one of the best titles. Played a bunch of the N95 port too.

It was that great kind of update that retains the spirit of the original while expanding upon the playability and augmenting it all with some trippy, good visuals. Reminded me a lot of Tempest 2000 in terms of remake.

 

[wanders]

I love obscure handhelds

My favorite is the Dungeon Quest by Konami. Its like a portable rogue like and is very complex for its size. I've yet to reach the final floor since you only have one life (I've probably spent 10 hours so far and died many times). I'll leave a more detailed description later since I'm on phone but for now think of it as a Dark Souls Tamagotchi. If you ever have the opportunity to get one, seize it!

 

[Satan Claus]

Part 2:

18) I don't remember Some random cheap chinese handheld. Guts are GBA like

On to Part 3.

It's a One Station Elite. Pretty crappy chinese handheld, horrible build quality and mostly famicom games on it, but they are cheap and there are some original games on it.

And where did you get the Epoch game pocket computer?

 

[krae_man]

It's a One Station Elite. Pretty crappy chinese handheld, horrible build quality and mostly famicom games on it, but they are cheap and there are some original games on it.

And where did you get the Epoch game pocket computer?

That's right, that's what it is.

The Game Pocket computer I got on ebay. I found out about it while listening to the Retronauts podcast on non Nintendo handhelds immediately looked it up on ebay and found one on there with reversi for $65. It used to be impossible to find on ebay but it and it's games have started to show up more frequently(although often at insane prices like this and this).

The rest of the games I used a third party and bought off of Yahoo Japan. In the end it cost me about $250 to get everything.

For ebay Search terms use both "game pocket computer" and "pocketcom"

For yahoo japan I just copied and pasted from here. The part in brackets seemed to work the best.

 

[ponpo]

http://page9.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k174584472

PC Engine LT. Never knew this existed. Neat.

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

I hope in a few years this thread gets bumped and the Steam Boy is actually a thing.

 

[Azure Phoenix]

The GamePark32 was a Korean handheld that actually had some really awesome games and features.
It was very ahead of the curve.

That really brings back memories, I still have my GP32 in the cupboard. It was such a crazy handheld for the time, aside from the many revisions like BLU+/BLU/FLU when you ordered it you had to choose the processor speed you wanted. The processor had a stock speed, but some could be overclocked to 166mhz or 180mhz and the prices went up based on how far you could push a certain model. Then you had to transfer stuff onto Smartmedia cards which topped out at 128mb each (barely enough for 5 or 6 games).

It had some pretty good homebrew stuff for the time, even Advance Wars and Super Smash Bros clones. I never managed to get hold of any officially released games though, they were suuuuuper expensive.

I think I actually did that maybe 6 months or so ago when I decided to dig the thing out and see if it worked. Don't remember getting very far with it. I found this very old server with a bunch of zip files containing GP32 homebrew (and even some cracked games) and what was supposedly the transfer app and drivers but they wouldn't install on windows 7 x64. I actually have a spare windows XP 32-bit machine now so I suppose I could give that another go.

The transfer utility in the GP32 was janky anyways, though. Slow cable, and it would fail mid-transfer pretty regularly. Like I said, I wonder if I can just buy a card reader and write directly to the card, or if the transfer utility did stuff beyond just plopping things down on the MMC.

So the problem with the GP32 is that you can only transfer from Windows 98, SE, XP and XP SP1 - SP2 onwards changed something to do with the way memory cards were formatted or whatever and there never was any way to hook a GP32 up. A regular dedicated Smartmedia card writer does work fine (most multi ones don't), but again, only if you have one of those 4 OS.

Getting a GP32 up and running these days is really tough, almost all of the download locations are dead, Smartmedia cards thankfully have dropped from the ludicrous prices they were floating at a few years ago but are still fairly expensive and of course having an old PC around running the right OS to transfer files is the biggest issue. Official releases are like gold dust as well, even if you can manage to find one to buy they cost an absolute bomb.

 

[Jack Videogames]

The GamePark32 was a Korean handheld that actually had some really awesome games and features.
It was very ahead of the curve.

Too true. The screen was the bomb, the emulators were really nice and it had a couple fun propietary games. And it was cheap(ish) to boot. Only gripe it had is the low-ish build quality. Man, do I regret having sold mine.

 

[CTLance]

Heh. GP32 nostalgia GAF, assembling in this thread. *waves tiny GP32 flag*

The system was the bomb. I also loved the online store. Very forward thinking on their part.

 

[DESTROYA]

You want "obscure handhelds" look here:

http://obscurehandhelds.com

and here:

http://dingoo-scene.blogspot.com.au

aaaannnd here:

http://boards.dingoonity.org/index.php

 

[krae_man]

Bump with info on the Koei Pasogo:

The system came out in 1996 and all the software released for it appears to be different variations on the board game Go. The text on the bottom right of the box says it had a suggested retail price of 39,800 Yen which works out to about $375US at the time. That’s quite an expensive handheld. For comparisons sake, the Game Boy Pocket came out the same year for $89.99. That’s 4X the price. I’d have to guess that is one of the main reasons it seemingly flopped.

Now for the back of the box. I’ve translated some of the text and this is what I loosely come up with:

-AC adapter available seperately for 2400 yen
-Takes 6 AA batteries and they will last 20 hours
-Easy to use great for kids
-Large, easy to see 5.6″ LCD screen
-It’s awesome and portable, take it wherever you go
-We promise/guarantee comfortable play
-Lots of software for Go fans

Carts are about the size of Game Boy carts but twice as thick:

According to the insert inside the game box, It looks like there’s at least 8 different pieces of software available for it ranging from 5800 yen to 9800 Yen. The bottom 5 are in a bracket labeled “games”. I couldn’t translate the top two brackets well so I don’t know what they are but I think one of them might be instructional. A couple of the ‘games’ could be teaching various game rules or play strategies. The game I have is in the second bracket and It’s got tons of text and it seems to play itself so I think that’s what it does.

 

[Dicer]

http://page9.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k174584472

PC Engine LT. Never knew this existed. Neat.

It's my mission to own one of these someday....

 

[Krejlooc]

FFFFFFFFFFF Sooooo much rare in this single picture. This is over $1000 worth of gaming collectables right here.

 

[PAULINK]

You got me to go searching through some boxes OP.

A Higurashi LCD game. Couldn't find any pictures online so took a photo myself.

Came with a magazine I bought at least 8 years ago. Survived a house flood but I've never actually played it or even opened it until just now. Just tried turning it on but of course the batteries are long dead. I'll see about getting some new ones and see if it'll still fire up.

Wow, I wonder what kind of lcd game it is, maybe just a simplified version of the vn? Either way, I love Higurashi.

 

[Krejlooc]

So the problem with the GP32 is that you can only transfer from Windows 98, SE, XP and XP SP1 - SP2 onwards changed something to do with the way memory cards were formatted or whatever and there never was any way to hook a GP32 up. A regular dedicated Smartmedia card writer does work fine (most multi ones don't), but again, only if you have one of those 4 OS.

Getting a GP32 up and running these days is really tough, almost all of the download locations are dead, Smartmedia cards thankfully have dropped from the ludicrous prices they were floating at a few years ago but are still fairly expensive and of course having an old PC around running the right OS to transfer files is the biggest issue. Official releases are like gold dust as well, even if you can manage to find one to buy they cost an absolute bomb.

I actually have a working Windows 98 build around to work with. I've got a GP32 BLU in the mail so I'm gonna try getting a new one up and running here in a few days.

 

[YesManKablam]

You got me to go searching through some boxes OP.

A Higurashi LCD game. Couldn't find any pictures online so took a photo myself.

Came with a magazine I bought at least 8 years ago. Survived a house flood but I've never actually played it or even opened it until just now. Just tried turning it on but of course the batteries are long dead. I'll see about getting some new ones and see if it'll still fire up.

Holy fuck, NOW that is obscure.

 

[Krejlooc]

So just a heads up: This site still hosts lots and lots of GP32 stuff.

I spent an evening going through and redownloading most of the mainly-complete homebrew games, demos, and applications I remember from back in the day. I ordered 15 32-mb SMCs that I'm gonna pop these demos into when they arrive. I haven't dinked around with GP32 stuff in a long while to this degree, but I was way into back in the day. I remember liking a lot of the homebrew stuff like Blood Cross, GP32War, SmashGP, Giana's Return, Nethack, Pinball Dreams, and Beats of Rage.

 

[halfbeast]

does the commodore sx-64 count?

look at that sexiness!

 

[Krejlooc]

^People are posting the PC Engine LT, so why not?

 

[Krejlooc]

Ha, awesome! I had a choice between a GP32 BLU or a GP32 FLU. It's basically impossible to tell if your GP32 BLU is a BLU or a BLU+ without going into diagnostics mode, and while several programs have BLU+ compatibility, the switch from samsung screens to toshiba screens means a bunch of really old software is incompatible with it.

The FLU had washed out colors due to the nature of the front light itself, while the original BLU is the best overall model of the GP32, offering universal compatibility with the best screen and fastest clock speed. I had previously only had an NLU launch GP32.

So, I bit the bullet and bought the BLU over the FLU hoping it'd be an original BLU... and it is! Pure luck, I wound up with the best GP32 instead of the worst.

I've been going through and playing some of my old games I still had on the SMC I have, including the pay version of Pinball Dreams. I don't even know where I can grab the full version anymore - all I could find online is the demo, so I feel fortunate to still have this downloaded. I remember buying it and Movie Player from JoyGP way back in the day.

I played Tomak and Dungeon & Garder for the first time in years today. Ho-hum. I'm really waiting on Blue Angelo to arrive, I remember playing the demo years and years ago and wanted the full version but never saw it for sale. I ran across a copy a few days ago and paid a pretty penny for it, but everything I hear says it's the best GP32 commercially released game by far.

what a blast from the past.