More gubbins from Retro Gamer that made me go "What the fuck is that"/"Oh yeah, I remember that".

From the latter camp, here's the Watara Supervision, a GameBoy competitor that I remember being in the pages of The Laminated Book of Dreams (aka Argos catalogue), and had, until now, completely forgotten about.



The main selling point seems to be the bendy bit in the middle. Technologically, it seems to be the roughly the same as the GameBoy, but the screen suffers from even more ghosting, rendering fast moving games almost unplayable.

Despite tanking commercially, the machine got a reasonable library of games - sixty six of them, in fact, according to Wikipedia. This means it beats the Neo Geo Pocket in shear numbers by around 25 titles. (If the image is to be believed, even the mighty Treasure made something for it.)

Also in the "Oh, yeah" bracket, this is the Sega Control Stick for the Master System. I remember seeing this and thinking the right-handed version would be quite good for arcadey games, but Retro Gamer shattered those illusions - this is the only version of the controller, and yup, for some reason SEGA decided to put the buttons on the wrong side.



This segues nicely into the following item, and first of the "WTFs". The Control Stick wasn't the first time that SEGA decided to do things in a left-handed style - here's the Sports Pad. Not sure what makes it suitable for sports games, but I'm guessing there weren't many RTSs on the MS.



Final thing for the post, and it's also on the WTF list - the Atari Cosmos. A never-released "handheld", the system used rows of LEDs to illuminate holograms, allowing for glasses-free 3D visuals way before Nintendo got in on the act. (This could go in my 'nothing new under the sun' thread, but people don't seem to like that one, so it'll stay here. ) A few units did make it out into the wild, and are now extremely collectible.

Blue Swirl wrote:

Also in the "Oh, yeah" bracket, this is the Sega Control Stick for the Master System. I remember seeing this and thinking the right-handed version would be quite good for arcadey games, but Retro Gamer shattered those illusions - this is the only version of the controller, and yup, for some reason SEGA decided to put the buttons on the wrong side.

I have one of those. I have no idea why it's that way round, it takes a bit of getting used to.

Diluted Dante wrote:

I have one of those. I have no idea why it's that way round, it takes a bit of getting used to.

I can imagine. It must be like when you accidentally pick up a pair of left handed scissors and suddenly realise how arse-about-face the entire world must be to left-handed people.

Blue Swirl wrote:

here's the Sports Pad. Not sure what makes it suitable for sports games, but I'm guessing there weren't many RTSs on the MS.

On this one as well actually, it offers 360 degree motion as opposed to 8 directional, which would help quite a bit for sports games.

Apparently it's compatible with World Soccer, which is a game I can't see the pad offering any benefit to. Something like Sensi though, yes. But that isn't compatible.

I also have one of those, which I used on my MS.

I think I have a Retro Gamer that cover that, I'll try and dig it out.

Who recalls the absolutely mental Steel Battalion controller with 40+ buttons?

SeanySean wrote:

Who recalls the absolutely mental Steel Battalion controller with 40+ buttons?

My brother had that. No desk though, so slightly comical situation of trying to use it on his knees whilst still having his feet on the pedals.

Is it true that if your mech got destroyed in the game before you ejected your game save was deleted?

davyK wrote:

Is it true that if your mech got destroyed in the game before you ejected your game save was deleted?

ChopperByrne wrote:

Yep. Proper Hardcore mode.

Cheats (like my brother) would play with the eject button cover permanently up.

I'd like more games with rad controllers. But those MS sticks were righties: we all used our right hands in the '80s.

Looks like one of those cheap DVD players. Is that thing official?

That's awesome!

"The Visteon Dockable Entertainment System [...] is a portable DVD player created by Visteon in 2006 for the US market at an MSRP of $1299 USD."
Strange that it was released after the DS had come out.

Nice!