by Stacey Pace

Created on: May 25, 2009   Last Updated: June 02, 2009

Handheld gaming started for me back in the 80's when Nan bought us a yellow handheld Munchman console from the catalogue. My brother and I took turns all Christmas and pretty much never put it down. It was essentially Pacman by another name and had all the charm of this early title. I still remember the sound it made as you moved around, ate power pills and cherries. We played it and played it until the buttons sunk in and we couldn't play it any more.

We also had a Donkey Kong Jr. handheld, this one was a little more tricky for me so I had more fun putting my brother off instead of actually playing it myself. A lot of handheld games back then had an area at the top where the light reflected in on a mirror that lit the screen. It was fun to put my hand over the top so my brother couldn't see any more!

Back then we could only play games on the TV for about an hour so these games meant we could have hours of fun without disturbing our parents. We could play upstairs too and I would often play in bed with the sound down and the blankets over my head so mom wouldn't know. Handheld gaming was great as it was so portable.

I didn't have another portable console until around 1991 when my boyfriend bought me a SEGA Game Gear. This was like a blast from the past, back to the days of taking it around everywhere with me. The Game Gear was SEGA's response to the GameBoy and it had some great games like Lemmings, Lucky Dime Caper and Sonic the Hedgehog. If you had a Game Gear you would always be looking over your shoulder to see what the GameBoy owners were playing and vice versa.

Next up was the Atari LYNX but only briefly and I can only mention Hard Driving as we didn't keep the console very long. Hard Driving was just that, it was solid and we decided it wasn't the handheld for us and sold it on.

I finally got my hands on a GameBoy around 1994 but only ever played Tetris as I became obsessed with trying to clock it. I took it everywhere with me and spent long hours on the toilet trying to finish Game B. I got up to level 9 and couldn't get past it, I suppose I was hoping level 10 was the end and I could finally move on from my addiction. It was not to be.

The GBA SP was next up for me in 2001 and up to this point was my all time favourite. I loved the way it folded making it very portable but most of all making sure that I didn't scratch the screen while I was carrying it around with the adapter. Nintendo PR sent this to me to do games reviews so I suppose it was

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