LCD Games of the 80s: Part II

INDIE GAMER CHICK’S LCD GUIDE: PART I – PART III – PART IV – PART V – PART VI – PART VII – PART VIII

“Waaaaa, you didn’t play the good ones.” There are no good ones. But fine. Here’s eight more LCD games.

BARTMAN: AVENGER OF EVIL!!
Acclaim (1990)
Gameplay Type: Dodger

Okay, so this is from the early 90s. Sue me. This one sort of tries to do what the double-screened Game & Watch games do, only on one screen. Here you play as Bart Simpson. On the top of the screen, Nelson has kidnapped Maggie and is shooting rocks at you. You have to dodge them while waiting for the Bartman costume to spawn. Once you have all three pieces of it, the action moves to the bottom of the screen where you dodge watermelons and apples. Santa’s Little Helper will occasionally give you an apple that you throw back at Nelson. Ten apples and the gameplay loop resets. Once I figured out what I was doing, the game was still boring but at least playable. It’s better than the Simpsons Arcade Game because at least this is quick.

I speculated in the first set of LCD reviews that a major part of the appeal of these games was that kids thought they were getting away with something naughty by playing them. Even if the gameplay was horrible, it’s the idea that they were playing video games when they weren’t supposed to. By time Bartman came out, Game Boy was out and there were better options. BUT, in 1990 the Simpsons was considered bad for kids. Because Bart said “damn” and “hell”. Of course, like anything else, the controversy just made the Simpsons even more desirable for children. So imagine you’re a young person in 1990, sitting in church and playing a Simpsons game. You’d feel like you were the biggest little stinker in the world. I hate to break this to you, but they knew. Yes, they knew you what you were doing and you’d already gotten your punishment. You were playing this.

ZELDA!!
Nintendo Game & Watch (1989)
Gameplay Type: Adventure/Combative

This released three weeks after Game Boy in North America. So imagine going into a store and seeing this, which was relatively expensive ($34.99 in 1989 dollars, about $75 today) and Game Boy ($90 in 1989, or about $190 today). One was a permanent investment in gaming. The other you’d be lucky if a child pulled five minutes of enjoyment out of. If your parents opted not to save up for the Game Boy, I hope you didn’t follow their example of impatience and bad purchase judgment. Because it’s probably one of the worst of the Game & Watch games. You move left and right on the bottom screen, killing an enemy on the right. Then you climb stairs. This goes on until you fight a dragon on the top screen. It really does seem like it’s trying to make it feel as Zeldaish as possible with hearts and potions to use, but Zelda Game & Watch is soooooo bad. It makes the CDi titles look like game of the year contenders by comparison.

SAFARI!!
Vtech (1981)
Gameplay Type: Cross the Road

When Game & Watch became an unprecedented hit, there were a lot of companies that hopped onto the bandwagon. VTech was one of the most successful at getting shelf space. They did well. They’re still in existence today and were actually part of a massive data breach at some point. Maybe they should have stuck to the off-brand games. In fact, there’s a strong chance a lot of my older fans who THINK they had an actual Nintendo Game & Watch as a kid might have really had a VTech Time & Fun game. But unlike other companies (many of them Russian) who would just straight-up clone Game & Watch titles and slap a different name on them, VTech made their own, original games, most of which seem to retain the same “keep it simple, stupid” gameplay that made Game & Watch titles, if not good, still playable today. Safari uses the “cross the street” mechanics that were popular with LCD games. Here you’re an explorer who must.. avoid..

Oh God.

OH GOD!!

Good lord………………..

Sigh.

It was a different time.

THE TERMINATOR!!
Tiger Electronics (1988)
Gameplay Type: Gallery Shooter

“You didn’t do any Tiger Electronics games! How could you do a review of LCDs and not do a single Tiger game?”

Yeah, I’ve heard the reputation of them. I feel fear too, you know. I never claimed to be brave.

Tiger Electronics’ handheld LCD games are universally considered some of the worst “video games” ever made. But, honestly Terminator isn’t that bad. It’s a really simple gallery shooter. Apparently someone included Tiger in MAME, but I’m nowhere near my MAME cabinet. And the computer that runs my cabinet uses a 2010 version of the emulator and I really don’t want to update it since my understanding is it might render some ROMs non-working. It’s a lot of work. I’ll stick to the simulators. Find me more of them that require as few clicks to play as possible and I’ll gladly do them. Anyway, this is an insanely, crazy simple game that’s boring as fuck. Move left and right, shoot, rinse, repeat. If Donkey Kong 3 is the current “it must be as good as the actual arcade version of Donkey Kong 3 to not completely suck” barometer, Terminator doesn’t quite make it. It’s that boring.

Though I do appreciate that you can’t actually see (most) of the bullets you shoot. I don’t know what kind of guns they use to fight aliens in Contra, but like, that’s not how guns work! You point one, you pull the trigger, and before your brain can process that you’ve finished the task of firing the gun, the bullet has already completed doing its thing. So go figure that a Tiger Electronics handheld from 1988 would have the most accurate depiction of firearms in gaming history. Well, besides Duck Hunt, which I guess works that way too and has a muzzle flash. I guess that whole paragraph was pointless. Moving on..

MARIO’S BOMBS AWAY!!
Nintendo Panorama (1983)
Gameplay Type: Cross the Road

Another “cross the road” format game. Honestly, the best Game & Watch titles follow that formula. It’s simple and allows for the most variations without feeling like you’re just copying one game over and over. Here, you’re Mario fighting in an actual war (holy shit!), carrying bombs across enemy lines so you can blow up the camping soldiers (HOLY SHIT!!). I mean, Jesus Christ! Mario was a solider! With a body count! Do you wonder if all the “adventures” he went on afterwards were a coping mechanism fantasy to deal with the PTSD he developed from all the terrible atrocities he had to commit here? It can’t be ruled out.

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Anyway, this is one of the better LCD games I’ve played so far. You have to raise and lower the bomb you carry to avoid the enemy’s torches and the flame started by one of your own guys chain smoking and tossing the butts into a leaky canister of gasoline that causes a flame to go across the ground. It’s actually pretty intense. While it’s hard to get the timing down of when the torches will light the bomb fuse without being able to see motion, I’m revising my verdict and awarding Mario’s Bombs Away my seal of approval. It’s an original, intense, quality cross the road game. And also, look at Mario’s face on the device. That’s the face of a dude that’s seen things. Horrible, horrible things.

DONKEY KONG JR.!!
Nintendo Game & Watch (1983)
Game Type: Cross the Road

This is not to be confused with Donkey Kong II or the Tabletop/Panorama LCD (which was made by Nintendo but released outside of Japan by Coleco). This is like a smaller version of Donkey Kong II BUT with a larger emphasis of using the vines. Once again, you have to grab a key and zig-zag Junior to the top of the screen to unlock your Daddy. Honestly, I think this game plays better than Donkey Kong II. It combines elements from several authentic DK Jr. stages and even has the “drop a fruit on the enemy to score points mechanic” that, to be honest, I would never have expected to have been attempted in one of these.

Is it fun? Well…………… no. But I did have to think about it this time.

EGG!! and MICKEY MOUSE!!
Nintendo Game & Watch (1981)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate

Nintendo reskinned several Game & Watch games to star Disney’s cash rat. Thus, Egg became Mickey Mouse and Donkey Kong Circus became.. well.. Mickey Mouse. That must have been confusing. Weirdly, Egg and Mickey Mouse both came out on the same day in August, 1981. Besides cross-the-road games, the other common, easy to execute LCD gameplay style is “spin the plate” games, where you have to judge which of several objects is the next one you have to touch. Also, this might be the first ever video game where you play as the villain. Because in Egg, you play as the Big Bad Wolf, stealing eggs from chickens. Wouldn’t the Big Bad Wolf.. you know.. EAT THE CHICKENS?

Well, I think the issue is Nintendo was trying to get the Disney license (they’d worked together for decades when Nintendo made playing cards) but wasn’t sure if they would get it. So they made two versions of this, and had to design a character that could seamlessly replace the Mickey Mouse character if they couldn’t work with the House of Mouse. That’s my theory, at least. Anyway, I’m not a fan of these because it becomes too hard to determine the speed after a while. This is one (two) of those games where Game & Watch Gallery had a really easy time making the concept more playable. Just add motion and poof: you’re 80% less boring. 20% being purely genetic.

Does that count as eight? Only seven? Fine.

OCTOPUS!!
Nintendo Game & Watch (1981)
Gameplay Type: Cross the Road

I figure the surest way for a Game & Watch game, or any LCD game for that matter, to win the Indie Gamer Chick Seal of Approval, is to be a cross-the-road game that has a unique, addictive play mechanic. Octopus is almost that. That idea is you have to wait for the tentacles to coil and uncoil, move to the treasure chest in the bottom corner of the screen and scoop up as much loot as possible, then return to the ship for bonus points. The more points you score, the faster the tentacles move. And that’s really it. It’s almost fun. It’s so close, but the lack of motion hurts this one. It’s why the remake on Game & Watch Gallery is so strong. This is just short of that.

And now I feel like I’m on a quest to find a good one of these LCDs. I just bought every DSi Game & Watch release, plus the first three Game & Watch Gallery titles on Virtual Console for comparison sake. Weirdly enough, playing these games does make me feel like I missed out on something. I’m gaining an understanding of the gaming upbringing of my older fans, and a better appreciation for the era that I came into the hobby, from 1996 – 1998. By that point, I never had to worry about getting stuck with one of these crappy “games.” Nope. I just have to hear older people say that this is all they had and they walked uphill in three feet of snow both ways to get them and they liked them. Weirdos.