Game & Watch and Tiger Handhelds

GregN

aka The Grinch
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Anybody still use/collect these things? I bought them when I was a kid and still have Double Dragon, Karnov and Gauntlet. Are they worth anything?

What about Nintendo Game and Watch? I have one somewhere, but it's buried within the deeper bowels of my parent's house somewhere.
 

WoodyXP

Setsuna's Owl Keeper,
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Game & Watch's go for a good penny, especially if they're in good condition. Can't speak for the Tiger systems, though.
 

-SD-

Camel Slug
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I never had any real G&Ws as a kid as they were too expensive, apparently. I did have a couple of the cheap Granstand LCDs that my Mum got from Boots; the obligatory car racing, and one where you're a turtle and you have to bounce the animals across the water.

The one I remember the most was a dual screen Systema game called Hero and Princess. I've just googled images of it and it certainly brings back memories. I had the red one but it turns out there's a blue version too.

I also remember having the first Ninja Turtles game and a knock-off 'Play n' Time' called Bug that my brother-in-law gave me.
 

herb

Vice's Love Slave
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I just started getting into Game and Watch. They're fun to play a bit when you're taking a dump or something similar. Shame that a lot of em are either in terrible condition or the one's that aren't are quite pricey.
 

famicommander

Tak enabled this rank change
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The Tiger handhelds are almost invariably terrible. They would just accumulate around the house when we were kids. My brothers and I never asked for them but received many as gifts. They were cheap and the older relatives/classmates' parents would hear we liked "video games" and suddenly there's like 20 of them in the toybox, under the bed, in the back seat of the car, etc. They all got thrown away when we moved when I was about 12, and nobody ever missed them. But I still have my dad's Atari 2600 from 1979, which was 5 years before my oldest brother was born.

The Game and Watches are better but not worth the price. Just get the Game and Watch Gallery games instead.

I do have the Game and Watch Ball Club Nintendo Reward, though. It's pretty fun.
 

Tanooki

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I used to have a dozen or more of the G&W but they ended up just sitting and I parted off most of it. I'm holding onto a SMB, the Club Nintendo Ball, and I have a tabletop Popeye I recently found locally and sort of fits a Nelsonic Zelda watch. I do have a pair of orphan manuals for DK2 and Mario Bros but I'm trying to get them to someone who needs those. While not entirely the same family though DK Jr overlaps I do have Coleco tabletops for Pac-Man and Donkey Kong w/manual plus the perma power pack to plug it into the wall. The problem is with those G&W is that most of them are just too expensive for what you get out of them as most are mindless point racking games with very few motions to it, but some like SMB, Zelda, Climber, Gold Gliff and a few others there's a good adventure to roll through but those can get into the high two figures into 3 figures just for a semi-decent stand alone toy.

Now Tiger games, those I have a selection of those. I've got Afterburner, Battletoads, Baseball, Castlevania II w/manual, Karnov w/manual, Mega Man II, Street Fighter II, Sub Wars, and then both of their later pinball line of Pinbot and Attack From Mars. I have a blister pack sealed Star Wars Imperial Assault still with this cool attachable Vader joystick.

I've had a few others in the past but that's the most I've had at one time. I got a thing for old LED/LCD games so I keep some around, the oldest being some Mattel late 70s handhelds like Armor Attack (complete in box) and Hockey, but also a complete in box Wildfire Pinball too.

The up side to the Tiger games is that they're more or less fairly universally cheap where they can be had for like $10 shipped on ebay, sometimes less, and some go more near $20, but rare is it to find yourself paying higher than that unless it's just dumb people behavior who don't research before buying. Castlevania SOTN's Tiger mutilation is the only one I can recall people willingly will pay $50+ for. The problem is a lot of them really do suck, and a good many more are fairly average. Usually those based upon NES/Arcade license aren't half bad but some take large liberties with the material. The stuff I've kept is actually pretty decent.
 
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NeoSneth

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
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G&W is not worth it anymore. There are still 100,000's of these things out there, but people want top dollar.
Buy a cheap one for the novelty, then realize it's not worth spending $$$ to get them.
 

Tanooki

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I do agree with that. Honestly most of it when it comes to Nintendo, Sega (outside of Genesis and Game Gear), TG16/PCE on the whole, and some other stuff isn't worth it anymore. It's turned into a predatory game of who can screw the next clueless, impatient, or newbie guy more than the last. The market drove me towards any version Gameboy and Sega Genesis and Game Gear to find goodies where it's tolerable still, and it also pushed me both into pinball ownership and my MVS cabinet this month. I'd rather drop some money on a pinball machine I'll use for years/decades vs an overpriced single cartridge with a few plays in it before it's a dust collector. The Game & Watch stuff went that way some years ago, before the push to ruin the old Nintendo/SNES era carts started and has been pretty consistent which is why I backed off them. I'll never turn down a cheap one but pay up, nope.
 

Colorado Rockie

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Only Game & Watch I have is the free one from Club Nintendo a few years ago. I played it for a few minutes, thought it was decent, never played it again. I couldn't see myself dropping $20 on one, let alone hundreds or whatever some of them go for.
 

uiengineer

Kasumi Todoh's Training Partner
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Only Game & Watch I have is the free one from Club Nintendo a few years ago. I played it for a few minutes, thought it was decent, never played it again. I couldn't see myself dropping $20 on one, let alone hundreds or whatever some of them go for.
I've got that one too. Kind of cool. I also have the LoZ green one, and I just picked up the Donkey Kong II one. I'm not that big into them, but I'll grab them if the price is right.
 

Tanooki

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If you are into manuals I have a DK2 (Mario Bros too) lying around if we could figure out something. By the way remind me, your user name looks very familiar to me. You ever into the emulation or irc/efnet circles going back around 1995-2000/1-ish? I could have sworn I used to talk to someone with that username long ago when I went by VmprHntrD on efnet.
 

Dr Shroom

made it in japan
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s0PXUvK.jpg

sup. I also own a tabletop popeye.

The Multiscreen games are the best ones, Squish is still fun today and so is Mario Bros.

Certain games like the panorama screen Mickey Mouse and Donkey Kong Circus are insanely rare and expensive, same goes for the whole Crystal Screen series and early more obscure games like Judge and Flagman (which aren't even good).

The whole collecting scene is expansive with all the various version of the games out there, including promotional versions of games and country-specific distributor releases. I quit when I realized the games I actually wanted would set me back over 500€ and more.

PS: those tiger games always sucked shit.
 
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GohanX

Horrible Goose
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Back when I was around 10 or 11 I used to buy the shit out of the Tiger handhelds. As a lot of you know I love my portable games, but I was too poor for a Gameboy and the crappy Tiger games were around $10 or $15 each. I played the heck out of them, but the only one that I remember actually being halfway decent was the Pinball game. Once I finally had some income from mowing lawns I bought my own Gameboy and the Tigers were a thing of the past. I did buy the Street Fighter II one, which I still have somewhere, and it was as terrible as you can imagine.
 

Danthor

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Back when I was around 10 or 11 I used to buy the shit out of the Tiger handhelds. As a lot of you know I love my portable games, but I was too poor for a Gameboy and the crappy Tiger games were around $10 or $15 each. I played the heck out of them, but the only one that I remember actually being halfway decent was the Pinball game. Once I finally had some income from mowing lawns I bought my own Gameboy and the Tigers were a thing of the past. I did buy the Street Fighter II one, which I still have somewhere, and it was as terrible as you can imagine.

Saaaaaaame, man. I had a lot of the TMNT ones, I had 1, 3, and a TMNT Basketball game that I played way too much. I also remember having Gauntlet. I'm sure there were more, but those were the ones I played most, until I got a Game Gear for christmas.
 

Tanooki

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Ahh ok that's it, couldn't remember as I try to put bad things like that site behind me. I've dropped off caring about that kind of petty stuff. It's nice seeing you.


GohanX: Yup that SF2 one I have it as well, but only got it just this year months ago and it's pretty bad, but where it's like so bad it's good enough to still bother with -- like awful rubber monster movies or something.

You know since Turtles came up, Konami had a very nice line of LCD games spun off their NES titles and I've had a couple over the years but the one I held onto and it's hard is Gradius. That awful company Acclaim did a few as well, oddly a port of Capcom's 1943 and other companies titles like Wizards & Warriors, Bigfoot, etc.
 

SML

NEANDERTHAL FUCKER,
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I never had many handheld LCD games. I got Mario Brothers Game and Watch for Christmas one year, but it was DOA.

I did have the first Konami Turtles, which I remember being pretty good. The underwater time limit was intense.

I also had Dinosaur Attack, probably purchased at a discount from my older cousin who owned a Radio Shack at one point. I can't find any real information on it but I remember it being a combat-maze kind of game that I had lot of fun with.

Never had a Tiger handheld, always really wanted one. Looks like I didn't miss much.

I've been playing the G&W simulator that comes with retroarch along with the "Gallery" re-releases. Definitely interested in grabbing some hardware, but I'm a cheapskate.

Are the Nintendo Mini Classics re-releases okay? I know that the manufacturing was farmed out to different companies. Is the quality comparable to the original G&W?
 

Tanooki

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^ Yes I've had a few of them. I think the same plant made them more or less, but over time various entities around the globe got the right to distribute them. I've had a few from the 2 common distributors and the build quality was solidly the same across both. if you just care about the game and not over paying for the stupid 80s shell from Nintendo they're an awesome alternative as they look/sound/control just right. I've had the SMB, Zelda, Mario Bros Cement Factory and DK Jr releases in that style.

I used to be HUGE into the G&W stuff and for a few years ran the Game & Watch Panorama which held some solid data on everything, but it got eventually got ignored since I didn't maintain it every day with fluff piece nor did I pay for an easy domain to use (used a free one) so some others took its traffic away.


Also... http://www.pica-pic.com/ <-- Want to try a lot of the 80s Game & Watch, Radio Shack, Acclaim, Russian bootleg, etc knockoffs this guy has coded up a lot of them and plays in your browser quite easily.
 

uiengineer

Kasumi Todoh's Training Partner
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Ahh ok that's it, couldn't remember as I try to put bad things like that site behind me. I've dropped off caring about that kind of petty stuff. It's nice seeing you.


GohanX: Yup that SF2 one I have it as well, but only got it just this year months ago and it's pretty bad, but where it's like so bad it's good enough to still bother with -- like awful rubber monster movies or something.

You know since Turtles came up, Konami had a very nice line of LCD games spun off their NES titles and I've had a couple over the years but the one I held onto and it's hard is Gradius. That awful company Acclaim did a few as well, oddly a port of Capcom's 1943 and other companies titles like Wizards & Warriors, Bigfoot, etc.

you too man. I remember you b/c you posted a lot (not a bad thing, haha). Welcome to this place.
 

Tanooki

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Thanks appreciate it. Just because the core of that place is in the wrong, there are a good number of quality people there that stuck it out.

I intend to stick around. I've switched greatly over to the public amusement stuff for fun with my pinball machine and now the full arcade in 1 cabinet which the MVS basically is, so that's where my cares lie (that and handheld since it's not a punching bag to price trolls.)
 

uiengineer

Kasumi Todoh's Training Partner
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I hear you. I check in there every now and then, but not nearly as much as I used to.
 

Ip Man

BBLLOOOO__HHAARRDDDDDD!!!!,
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the nintendo game and watch series are truly awesome, even to this day. i have the game and watch compilation for the gba and play it quite a bit. but collecting them is another issue. it could fall in the same lines as collecting for the aes.

the tiger handhelds are a bit of a hit and miss. some are good, but most suck donkey balls, and have left a bad taste in the memory of many children of the 80's and 90's, but they were appealing to the eye more than anything.

terminator-lcd-1984.jpg
 

Lets Gekiga In

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The Angry Video Game Nerd episode on Tiger Handhelds was quite funny. I do remember the Mega Man II one quite a bit because the game seemed to be based on the cover art because Mega Man did in fact hold a gun in his hand.
 

Tanooki

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I own it, he does. It's both a really fun game, but also anger inducing if you don't figure things out early on with it how to approach the game. Your main gun can run out of a charge, and like on the NES some bosses can't die taking hits from other weapons. If you go out of order, and you don't have a full tank of shot on the main gun you're screwed and the whole game is over as you can't just continue. If you do go the right way with it, it's a fun run.

That sealed terminator reminds me, I have a sealed Star Wars Impersial Assault which has an attachable Vader joystick. It's a cool game, a year earlier before getting that I had a loose complete one and it's a fun space shooter taking down imperial large craft and ties in an x-wing.
 

bello

Crossed Swords Squire
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I had 5 Nintendo Game&watch(brand new),now i only have Donkey Kong JR!
 

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