The Game Axe is an unlicensed handheld video game system made by the Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Redant, a division of Legend Technologies. It is sold in Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. It is a portable famiclone

Nintendo Entertainment System hardware clone

Owing to the popularity and longevity of the Nintendo Entertainment System , the system has become one of the world's most cloned video game consoles...

 that can play Famicom

Nintendo Entertainment System

The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...

 games, and by using the included adapter, American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an Nintendo Entertainment System

Nintendo Entertainment System

The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...

games.

More information

In the USA, one can only obtain the Game Axe through mail import. The price is somewhere around $150.00 + shipping cost, and the add-on adaptor needed to play NES cartridges runs an additional $10 – $30, depending on import realtor mark-up. Usually when ordering, it will come with two add-on controllers (slimmer than standard NES controllers but with the same functionality) that have standard A and B buttons as well as A and B turbo buttons, and the AC adapter. Many North American Game distributors know little if anything about the Game Axe.

Features

The Game Axe is a hand-held direct port of Famicom and NES (with adaptor) games, and only the Turbographix handheld could do as such with its console games.
It contains two controller ports at the base, an AC jack, and an RCA jack, to essentially make the Game Axe into a small version NES / Famicom Console system.

Issues with the NES cartridge adapter

Having to plug in the adapter into the top, and then the NES cartridge into that, the Game Axe suffers severe stability issues if playing NES games while holding the device. Any jarring of the hand held causes NES games to lose enough contact to freeze, turn off, or hang up. If NES games are the main focus of the user, it's best to simply use the Game Axe in conjunction with all external add-ons and play using a T.V. though as a hand-held Famicom it performs admirably (though in most cases one needs to understand Japanese in order to benefit).

External links

• The Game Axe Information Site