Twenty years after Game Boy, the variety and strength of dedicated gaming handhelds has turned a novelty into a viable industry. The Game Boy's distant cousin the Nintendo DSi ($169) is still on top, but Sony's new PSP Go ($249) eschews hard media for downloadable games, and Linux-based units like the Pandora ($330) and Gamepark's GP2X Wiz ($179) are as open-source as it gets for the homebrew and emulation community. Throw one in your bag and bring the arcade wherever you go.
As an addendum to our glimpse into the future of mobile gaming in the 2009 Style & Design package from our latest issue, we're taking a look back at the 10 best handheld games of all time...
TITLE: GTA: China Town Wars (2009)
SYSTEM: Nintendo DS
• Handheld or not, this is one of our favorite games of 2009. Same concept as all the other ones, folks: rise to power. Only this time, you better listen: "No tickey, no laundry!" And if you have a problem with that, you're going to die. Seriously though, we like this one because it has original gameplay, making good use of all the DS's abilities. Guaranteed to waste plenty of your precious time.
