The market for LCD handheld games boomed from the 1980s through the mid-1990s. Today, these devices are on the verge of extinction, but one archivist has taken it upon himself to preserve them in the Internet Archive, in a space called the Handheld History Collection, where you'll find a perfect emulation of these retro portable games.
A Blast from the Past
Do you remember LCD games? They were an affordable alternative to the Game Boy and Game & Watch handhelds, the perfect companion for long trips during childhood vacations. Today they are collector's items, and while you can still find them on second-hand sites, they're not as common as they used to be. But if nostalgia makes you want to relive your childhood, or if you never had the chance to try these pocket-sized LCD games, now is your opportunity through the Handheld History Collection, where you'll find a perfect emulation of these retro handheld games.
The Collection
This is all thanks to archivist Jason Scott, who took on the task of emulating more than seventy retro handhelds to play for free. In the Handheld History Collection you'll find several well-known games and companies, such as the classic Tamagotchi by Bandai, Donkey Kong by Coleco, Contra by Konami, and Mortal Kombat by Tiger Electronics (you can also read the report Max wrote about this company's handheld games), just to name a few. This isn't the first time we've seen something like this; just a few years ago the Pica-pic site digitized a collection of Game & Watch games to play online (though with fewer titles).
How to Play and What to Expect
The Handheld History Collection aims to preserve pocket games that were all the rage from the 1980s to the mid-1990s. So if you want to try any of them, just go to the site, pick a game, and play it directly in your browser. That said, don't expect high quality; although these titles may be based on famous licenses, most leave a lot to be desired. They were very simple, with only one or two buttons to use, while others were more complex, with a devilish difficulty that gave no quarter. The official site is Handheld History Collection.
