Barcode Battler - who had one ?

trout

My sister found a Barcode Battler in my mum's attic at the weekend, and has decided it must be mine.

Apparently it's still boxed and appears unused.
I don't remember ever wanting one, let alone buying one ... so this is a mystery to me

Who had one ? Are they any use ?
Is this the most useless retro game ever ?

linkeh : http://www.vidgame.net/misc/barcodebattler.htm

Retr0gamer

I remember them. A few people I know had them but I don't think anyone actually went out and bought them. Everybody who had one won them in a competition Quinnsworth were running at the time (probably where yours came from). They were pretty bad. I remember you ran a barcode through the machine and that would select your fighter and then two players took it in turns to just select the attack command and randomly you would receive damage. There was no strategy at all, the person with the best fighter won and in equal fights the person who took the first go won. The graphics were awful as well just a dreadful LCD display showing hitpoints.

Supposedly it was very popular in japan for a while. If someone found a good fighter on a common product japanese kids would go into the shops with a pair of scissors and cut the barcode off the products. There was a bit of trouble with this. Any barcodes we used just plain didn't work.

LoGiE

I'm pretty sure they were sold in Eason's as well. I didn't own one myself but I do remember seeing them about.... They were kind of a craze in the same vein as those digipet things iirc.