Gameboy Advance

Distributed by
Nintendo

Price: £89.99 Have you enjoyed shoving cartridges up game boys for the past 12 years? If so, then you'll be interested in the new handheld console from Nintendo, the Gameboy Advance (GBA). What the Japanese got in March this year, we had to wait three months for. The original Gameboy sold over 110 million units worldwide and the black and white delight brought Tetris to the masses, a simple game which saw blocks of various shapes and sizes to fall from the top and build a wall as they landed. Get a complete horizontal line, it disappears, your score increases and the longer it all goes on the faster it gets and the less chance there is of you being able to complete a line before the blocks build up to the top and it's game over. Other additions to the line-up included various Super Mario and Pokemon excursions and even one for the mid-90s PC smash hit, Duke Nukem. So, if you bought one of those machines, or even the Gameboy Colour, its main additional benefit being the obvious, then why buy the GBA? Because it's bigger and better, that's why.

Taken from the GBA press release, the benefits are : A 32-Bit processor at its heart (the same power as many home video game consoles) giving you better sound and better graphics 32,000 colours can appear on screen simultaneously A wide colour screen 50% bigger than Game Boy Color Higher picture resolution giving a much sharper picture Two new left and right shoulder buttons giving players more complex and varied gaming Multi-player action - now four players can link up and play together. On some games up to 4 people can play the same game with only one cartridge Virtually all existing Game Boy games are compatible with Game Boy Advance Also, if you're planning to buy a Nintendo Gamecube when it's finally released next year in Europe in Spring 2002, the GBA can act as a controller.

Housed in a casing of purple, clear blue, clear red or white and taking a look around the unit, we start with the regular buttons - a D-pad, start and select buttons and the A and B which can control what you do in the game. Along the top is the aforementioned left and right shoulder buttons and the external multi-player link cable connection. Underneath you'll find the off/on switch, a volume control and a headphone socket. The latter is mighty useful because the GBA doesn't put out the greatest sound you've ever heard. Presumably, as it uses a standard 3.5mm jack then a pair of PC speakers can also be used instead. Round the back is where you plug in the cartridge and the two AA batteries used to power up. However, it's also possible to buy third-party add-ons from companies such as Mad Catz that let the unit play from rechargeable batteries and provide a much-needed light so you can see what you're doing in the dark, given that the screen isn't as bright as it could be. I've even seen examples on TV of something to come which looks like a mercury-filled add-on that allows you to turn left/right by tilting the console in the required direction.

So, once you've bought your GBA, what are you going to play on it? Launch titles from Nintendo include Super Mario Advance, Kurukuru Kururin and F-Zero: Maximum Velocity, although they plan to bring this up to 40 titles by Christmas. Initial games from other companies include Rayman Advance, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Ready 2 Rumble: Round 2, GT Championship, Tweety and The Magic Gems, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Konami Krazy Racer, GT Advance, Mega Man EXE and Army Men Advance. Overall, the GBA leads the field in handhelds at the moment, although there's not much competition given that the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx both died a death a long time ago. It'll never make a replacement for a full-blown console like the Sony Playstation 2 or the forthcoming Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube, but it's a great little extra and I, for one, will look forward to see how exactly Nintendo tie it in with their next-generation console.

OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.