The Joy Of Retro Gaming Consoles - An Editors Opinion
You can dismiss it as nostalgia if you like, but there are times when I really can’t help but long for the dizzy, entertaining heights of my childhood video games.
Yeah, there were tripping hazards galore in my bedroom at 11 years old, but so what? I had a blue hedgehog zipping across my television (which took three cranes and a bulldozer to drag up to my bedroom I might add). I had never seen anything like it. Blast processing? What’s that? Something that makes side-scrolling games side scroll really fast, apparently. I was in awe.
Fortunately, these days it’s possible to re-visit retro classics and enjoy those blasts from the past without a TV the size of a washing machine, and wires all over the place.
Gaming on the go is a preferred choice for many, and a big fat slew of handheld consoles have emerged on the market to cater for us old-school enthusiasts.
The hottest choice are the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS. Both have retro capabilities thanks to Nintendo’s Virtual Console and the PlayStation Network’s library of classic games, which at a small price can easily be downloaded to savour at your leisure.
These are ideal, but expensive. And you’re forking out on a console which, if you’re not careful, can be dropped and smashed into a million pieces – or even stolen by a cretin while you’re out and about. Mine live at home and only come out for car journeys (when I’m not actually driving, of course), but I mostly play them while my other half reads. We aren’t ignorant and anti-social you understand. It’s just a case of conflicted interests.
Fortunately, you can now get low-price handhelds which are purely dedicated to the realm of retro fun. For a measly £30 you could buy a Sega Arcade Gamer Portable console – a device I’ve recently been glued to (read our review here). Its a lovely little piece of kit which has 30 old school games spanning Sega’s 8-bit era. And I love it.
It brings back fond memories of playing Alex Kidd in Miracle World – which absolutely everyone had if they owned a Sega Master System Two. If I’m needed for household chores or even a quick trip to the shop, I can easily pause the game and slip it into my pocket.
It is a small item though. Easily lost in the cesspit that is my son’s room. So you need to keep your wits about you.
If you live life on the edge, Emulators are freely available. However, these things carry some risks as they can potentially bring you under the long arm of the law (it’s entirely illegal to own games that you downloaded for nothing). If you own the physical copy of the game then go right ahead, but who still has a copy of Golden Axe for the Master System?
Handheld retro consoles eliminate risking it. At the budget prices they are listed at, it’s hard to say no or overlook them and most play the games brilliantly.
Some don’t, of course. Like the Dingoo A330 I got my hands on last year. On the website that listed it for sale, it had it all. Every emulator you can think of, Super Nintendo, Sega Megadrive, Gameboy all built in, so all you need are ROMs or game files.
But though it looked like a miniature PSP, the games played like crap. Low backlight, glitches, terrible sound quality. It’s more pleasurable nursing a hemorrhoid, and this thing was priced at £129 when I got it.
The lesson here is that handheld retro consoles can be hit and miss. It really depends on what you want to play on it, and whether you want the leg work and risk of searching for and putting game files onto your selected device.
I found that cheaper varieties like the aforementioned Sega Arcade Gamer Portable with the games built in seem to be better constructed, and play better than one you have to fiddle with for an hour before even flicking the on switch – and those seem to be the more expensive ones too.
