Twitch
07-04-2006, 02:44 AM
In the early 80's when the NES was still in production Nintendo released one of the greatest devices in the gaming world at that time the Game & Watch.
The devices were created by Gunpei Yokoi and when they had finished production more than 60 titles were in the library.
For those of you that were not lucky enough to own or play one of the Game & Watches (I'll call them GW from here on in) they were an excellent gaming platform that could provide hours worth of fun even if they did only have the one game on them. The devices were very simple in their design utilising only a Directional pad for movement and in most cases a single button to perform one action, most of the early models of the game and watch had a single LCD screen with backgrounds already there, however the later models began to be released with two screens in a similar folding fashion to the current day Nintendo DS.
The many different types of GW are often refered to by their model number or their variety, these varieties of GW were, Silver, Gold, Wide screen, New wide screen, Multi screen, Tabletop, Panorama, Supercolor, Micro Vs. and Crystal screen. Most of these names merely reflected the most obvious feature of the GW whether it be the colour of the casing, the screen size, or it's ablities, with each increase in the model the display, sound and gameplay of each device become much better.
At the time when Nintendo began to sell the GW's in the 80's they hadn't as yet established themselves anywhere in the world other than Japan so they turned to other companies to release the GW's for them, these companies beign of course, CGL who sold in the UK, Ji21 in France and Videopoche in Belgium, Futuretronics in Australia, Tric-o-tronic games in Germany and Mego (Time-out games) in the USA. With the later games in the series being released by the big N themselves. Due to this diversity in the releasing companies for the games, most had a different box in each area of the world that they were released in which has in turn made them rare and highly collectable with many groups searching for games in decent conditions with manual and box.
With a legacy spanning a decade the system had some of the best thought out games that are still being played in ROM format as well as being re-released on the Gameboy platform to this day, and for all you nostalgic gamers reading this there's a list of all 60 games and their release dates here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_%26_Watch_games) at Wikipedia.
Although most beleived the series long dead in 1997 Nintendo brought back the series with a whole new face in the Game & Watch gallery game for the Gameboy. This game gave players Oil Panic, Manhole, Octopus and Fire with revamps so that the main characters in the games where Mario and the gang however, Nintendo allowed players the option of returning the games to their original format with Mr. Game & Watch as the main character. Mr. Game & Watch was also included as a character in Super Smash Bros. Melee on the Gamecube and all of his moves are from the GW series from Oil Panic to Parachute, and even a bit of Octopus.
Unfortunately or fortunately depending upon how you look at it in the late 80's Gunpei Yokoi left the GW production team and began work on the Gameboy which was to become the greatest selling handheld gaming device in history.
-Twitch
All of the info for this review came from what I could remember Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org) and, Mike's Nintendo Game and Watch FAQ (http://www.geocities.com/gwfaq/index2.html)
The devices were created by Gunpei Yokoi and when they had finished production more than 60 titles were in the library.
For those of you that were not lucky enough to own or play one of the Game & Watches (I'll call them GW from here on in) they were an excellent gaming platform that could provide hours worth of fun even if they did only have the one game on them. The devices were very simple in their design utilising only a Directional pad for movement and in most cases a single button to perform one action, most of the early models of the game and watch had a single LCD screen with backgrounds already there, however the later models began to be released with two screens in a similar folding fashion to the current day Nintendo DS.
The many different types of GW are often refered to by their model number or their variety, these varieties of GW were, Silver, Gold, Wide screen, New wide screen, Multi screen, Tabletop, Panorama, Supercolor, Micro Vs. and Crystal screen. Most of these names merely reflected the most obvious feature of the GW whether it be the colour of the casing, the screen size, or it's ablities, with each increase in the model the display, sound and gameplay of each device become much better.
At the time when Nintendo began to sell the GW's in the 80's they hadn't as yet established themselves anywhere in the world other than Japan so they turned to other companies to release the GW's for them, these companies beign of course, CGL who sold in the UK, Ji21 in France and Videopoche in Belgium, Futuretronics in Australia, Tric-o-tronic games in Germany and Mego (Time-out games) in the USA. With the later games in the series being released by the big N themselves. Due to this diversity in the releasing companies for the games, most had a different box in each area of the world that they were released in which has in turn made them rare and highly collectable with many groups searching for games in decent conditions with manual and box.
With a legacy spanning a decade the system had some of the best thought out games that are still being played in ROM format as well as being re-released on the Gameboy platform to this day, and for all you nostalgic gamers reading this there's a list of all 60 games and their release dates here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_%26_Watch_games) at Wikipedia.
Although most beleived the series long dead in 1997 Nintendo brought back the series with a whole new face in the Game & Watch gallery game for the Gameboy. This game gave players Oil Panic, Manhole, Octopus and Fire with revamps so that the main characters in the games where Mario and the gang however, Nintendo allowed players the option of returning the games to their original format with Mr. Game & Watch as the main character. Mr. Game & Watch was also included as a character in Super Smash Bros. Melee on the Gamecube and all of his moves are from the GW series from Oil Panic to Parachute, and even a bit of Octopus.
Unfortunately or fortunately depending upon how you look at it in the late 80's Gunpei Yokoi left the GW production team and began work on the Gameboy which was to become the greatest selling handheld gaming device in history.
-Twitch
All of the info for this review came from what I could remember Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org) and, Mike's Nintendo Game and Watch FAQ (http://www.geocities.com/gwfaq/index2.html)