Before the Game Boy family diverted the attention of schoolchildren the world over from the more mundane aspects of young life (such as school), there was the Nintendo Game & Watch. You know (if you were old enough, or if you happen to be collecting them now) those little plastic packets of joy and fun capable of playing only one game each, used the same black-&-white pre-printed LCD screen as cheap calculators used, had pretty much two difficulties (usually called "Mode A" and "Mode B"), and tended to have limited gameplay options. Yes, portable gaming has come a long way since those days.

Yet those games were surprisingly open-ended and addictive, even mind-numbingly challenging - even if the only objective was to get the highest score ever, in only one long, continuous gameplay.

Later games even incorporated two LCD screens, one on top of the other, in a design very similar to that adopted for the Nintendo DS. Well, Nintendo must have realized the connection, too. Kid, meet your grandpa: The Nintendo Game & Watch Collection for the DS.

De ja vu all over again: the dual-screened Donkey Kong Game & Watch on the left,
and the DS on the right

And this is what happens if they have kids (photo from IGN.com)

This isn't the first time Game & Watch games have been released on the Game Boy; the GB and GBA have also seen Game & Watch ports released for their respective platforms. The difference is that with the dual-screen setup, Nintendo can now port their dual-screened Game & Watch titles into the DS. For this release, Oil Panic, Green House, and Nintendo's favored gorilla Donkey Kong are packed into this one DS cartridge.

(On a side note, given the memory capacity of the DS, other dual-screened and even the single-screened Game & Watch games could have been packed in as well. Then again, since the DS can also take GBA cartridges, then that platform's Game & Watch collection remains available for use).

As mentioned before, gameplay isn't exactly revolutionary - Green House has you spraying bugs away from your precious plants; Oil Panic has you collecting the dripping black gold and passing it on to a partner; and everyone knows Donkey Kong. But it is gameplay nonetheless, as the bugs, oil, and other challenges just keep on coming. And piling up. The nostalgia value of these games lies beyond them being the Game Boys of yesteryear: their open-ended nature means you never really "finished" or "100%" the game. The next high score could be just a few button presses away - if you could survive that long.

But before global audiences start warming up their opposable thumbs to party on their DS like it's 1981 (or 1991, since the Game & Watch series was still being published until then), hit the brakes but for a moment: the Game & Watch Collection is only available in Japan, and only available to Club Nintendo members who rack up the appropriate number of points (500). Fans of vintage will have to settle for emulators or GBA ports, or - if they're insistent on taking both screens of their DS units back in time - hope that Nintendo will release this or a fuller collection worldwide soon.

Remember those old Game & Watch Gallery games for the GameBoy? Well, it looks like they are being revived - and this is over and beyond the Game & Watch DS modding we told you about earlier...

In Japan, gamers can redeem points for purchasing Nintendo games through a website called Club Nintendo. As an incentive, the good folks at said site are offering a series of DS titles that feature ports of old double-screen Game & Watch games. The first one (available now) features Donkey Kong, Oil Panic, and Greenhouse. The games will feel right at home on the system - players won't suffer from that cramped feel that Game & Watch Gallery offered for games that used two screens.

Sadly there are no plans to bring Game & Watch Collection to the US. Stay tuned for more updates, though!