Your Favorite Classic Handheld Gaming System

[MrMatthews]

In terms of the amount of use I got out of it, the quality of the games, and the overall quality of the hardware (battery life is a major consideration), my favorite classic system would be the original Gameboy.

[Jared]

I went with the GBA. Has a ton of great games and is backward compatible Gameboy and Gameboy color.

[Rusty Venture]

Gameboy.

because I actually owned one when it was still supported.

Plus the Zelda game on it is the best 2D Zelda there is.

[Iron Lizard]

GBA. Mine looks like a NES controller, great battery life, folds up nice, and fits my pocket with no prob.

[gamegenie]

where's Game.com?

[MrMatthews]

My poll was too good for the Game.com. Was that your favorite handheld?

[sketch]

Lynx. It was way ahead of its time, and even though its game library is small, the games are fairly high quality.

[gamevet]

While I do enjoy my Lynx quite a bit, it doesn't compare to the GBA SP. It doesn't hurt that the battery life is about 10-18 hours on one charge either.

I had a GBC about 5 years ago, but it just drove me nuts. I had the hardest time finding anywhere to play, with the light having to be at just the right angle to see the screen. Short of outdoors or sitting in a room lit with flourescent lighting, it was useless.

[Rusty Venture]

Those who grew up with the original Gameboy became experts on finding the right light/angle to get optimum visibility. Using those skills on the GBA was a piece of cake and I have zero problems using mine.

BUT THE GBA STILL SHOULD'VE HAD A GODDAMN LIGHT/BACKLIT SCREEN IN IT!

[j_factor]

I voted for GBA, because I think it has the best library of all the choices. However, I don't really think it should've been an option, as I don't quite consider it classic yet. My vote would've gone to NGPC otherwise.

[nathanallan]

I said GBA, as in the original unlit one. Great game titles and doesn't cramp my hands. Of course, I haven't owned all the polled consoles... I bet the Lynx would have won my heart.

[Metal_Sonic]

GBA

[Devil N]

If my choice were to be limited to the handhelds that I own/have owned, I would have to choose between:

Supervision
GP2X
A cheap 100-games-in-1 thingy

...

... the GP2X is probably the best of the bunch then.

None of these machines is an option in the poll though, so I chose the Neo Geo Pocket. Just cause.

[Flygon]

Tie between Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance.

Both of them, and thier Pokemon games (Now you all know why I have this username) captivated my childhood in terms of portable gaming.

I chose Color because I have more nostalga surrounding it.

[Zebbe]

This is a Mega Drive/Genesis site forum and there is no Nomad option...

I would have picked the Nomad.

[gamegenie]

My poll was too good for the Game.com. Was that your favorite handheld?

It was one of my favorites, Game Gear was the other so I chose it instead.

Tiger had some pretty impressive 3rd parties behind them with the Game.com but the company itself seem to not care at all for it's handheld and delay releases to the point of killer off their fans.

[WarmSignal]

Wow, the GBA is already classic?

What about that Nokia thing that was out for about two days?

Oh yeah, and I guess Gameboy Color, I never had a Game Gear.

[johnnyb]

I have to go with the game gear as I havn`t really had anything to do with any other handhelds. I had a mate with a gameboy color with some pokemon game that was pretty addictive but that`s about it.

[TmEE]

From the few handhelds I have (Nomads, GP32, GameBoy, NDSlite, GameGears, Lynx2) I like Nomad the most.... GP32 is a close 2nd because it can do more than just games and emulation, GameGear is 3rd.... GameBoy is amongst the last because of the terrible screen.

Since only GG is present in the poll options, I will have to go with that.

Too bad Nomad is not an option... its really nice especially after doing one mod to it which allows some 7...8 hours of battery life (the mod is still in testing state, but results are goooooooood :D )

[djtwok]

My favorite is/was the Gamegear becaus of the games:
GG Shinobi 1+2, Streets of Rage, Sonic Series, Wonderboy III,...

[MrMatthews]

I considered choosing the GBA, if for no other reason than it's compatibility with GB and GBC games, but I was far more fanatical about the original Gameboy than I was for any system. Oddly enough, I had no problems with the screen originally - it was only after I bought Donkey Kong Land that I noticed how bad the motion blur was.

One thing I loved was the third party support, particularly from Capcom and Konami/Ultra. Many of the games I loved back then remain some of my favorites to this day. Although I really like the system, I can't say the same about the Gameboy Advance.

[Alianger]

I picked the GBA, or rather the SP version. The GBA library is great, it plays all classic GB games like a dream (you can actually see what you're doing) and the GG/SMS emulation isn't too bad either :)
The only downside to it is the shape of the system, my hands are too big for it.

[TheEdge]

The only thing I ever had was the Tiger Handhelds. I had Karnov and Simon's Quest. Do they count? :)

@ I voted for the Atari Lynx not because I have ever played it but because Atari gets too much of a bad rap these days :cool:

[sasuke]

For me, it's a tie between GBA, GBC and Gamegear. All of them had great memories, especially the nintendo ones. I chose GBC because it had the least votes.

[Baloo]

Where's the Nomad? Oh well, guess I'll have to choose Game Gear, my second favorite.

[Da_Shocker]

GBA I guess got mine for free but I owned a NGP and a Nomad bought it brand new back in 98.

[Mustadio]

NGPC for me. I've probably spent more time playing just Card Clash compared to all the combined hours of my other handhelds.

[Scooter]

I voted Game Gear since the list was so limited. The Nomad would have been me choice had it been on the list. However, of all the handhelds I'd say the Mattel Electronics games such as Football, Football II, Auto Race, Basketball, Baseball and Battlestar Galactica have given me a lot more hours of entertainment than any of the others and the 9-volt batteries lasted a good long time as well.

[MrMatthews]

I didn't list the Nomad because, while it is a handheld gaming system, it's not a stand-alone system with a dedicated library of games (at least, not in the same sense as the other systems on the list).

I also stuck to the more mainstream systems, which is handhelds like the Game.com and Turbo Express weren't listed

[zetastrike]

The GameBoy Pocket was my personal favorite. It took the original GB and fixed the screen. I still use mine today.

ps- What SNES game has load times? other than Street Fighter Alpha?

[Ace]

GameBoy Advance for me, as it's compatible with the entire GameBoy line.

[Black_Tiger]

Nomad closely followed by Turbo Express.

[gamegenie]

I wouldn't classify handhelds that came out this decade as classic.

[nissling]

Game.com sucks, I have one and I don't need it. I have to say that the Nomad is the best portable system ever made.

[jesus.arnold]

The original Gameboy just due to the fact that Mega Man kept me busy many a time whilst waiting for my mum to finish doing boring stuff such as waiting at the bank or everytime I was on school holidays and I'd have to sit in the car for 4 hours whilst she was at work.

[MrMatthews]

The real question is whether or not you've played so many Gameboy games that you could make a Top ## list. I'd rather see that than a SNES list ;)

[Hidden_Darkness]

this is a tough choice, I chose the neo geo pocket. I just really enjoyed the games on it despite the small library and their very cheap and easy to get. my other choices would have been gba, game gear.

[17daysolderthannes]

I didn't list the Nomad because, while it is a handheld gaming system, it's not a stand-alone system with a dedicated library of games (at least, not in the same sense as the other systems on the list).

I also stuck to the more mainstream systems, which is handhelds like the Game.com and Turbo Express weren't listed

If you listed the Turbo Express you would have to also list the Nomad as it was the like the Turbografx-16 equivalent to the Nomad.


The GameBoy Pocket was my personal favorite. It took the original GB and fixed the screen. I still use mine today.

ps- What SNES game has load times? other than Street Fighter Alpha?

Mickey Mania, they are almost as long as the Sega CD load times, which is completely unacceptable for a cartridge system. On that note, man, what a game that is on Sega CD.

[j_factor]

The SNES version of Out of this World also had load times, and the Sega CD version didn't.

[chinitosoccer]

Game Boy is my favorite but Game Boy Advance is the best for sure, why pick Game boy, Game boy pocket/color when i can have all of them togheter in a single console??


ps- What SNES game has load times? other than Street Fighter Alpha?

The SNES has loading times in almost his entire game library, the ones i remember right now:

Street Fighter Alpha
Fatal Fury 1, 2 and Special
Thunder Force
Ranma 1/2
Art of Fighting
TMNT the tournament fighters
Top Gear
Super Soccer
Street Fighter 2 turbo and SSF2 have loading times too, this 2 games takes at least 1 or 2 seconds more than the genesis version to load between stages.