Game Boy Advance 

 A Techtite Review

Another year, another video game system is released; so, what else is new? Well, at least it's rare for a portable game system to be released, and although such portable units are usually just miniature versions of 6-year-old technology, they still make for fun options on long trips. However, aren't we more than happy with the portable handheld we already have --i.e., the Game Boy Color? Nintendo's Game Boy Advance is indeed a major hardware upgrade from the GBC, though it does still have some serious setbacks.

What kind of setbacks? First, there's the little matter of getting one! This shouldn't be too impossible, though I must admit, making the unit offered in four colors (Indigo, Fuchsia, Glacier, and Arctic) only makes things more difficult. The color you want is most likely the one not in stock! However, the online store where I bought mine, Amazon.com, has joined up with Toys R Us to offer GBA bundles that include the GBA color of your choice, plus a "travel pack" (a rechargeable battery, AC adapter, and case), and one or two games to get you started. At the top of this review are three such bundles, that come free with the GBA classics games cartridge, at $149. I used this method to purchase my own GBA, tested for this review, and it came very quickly.

The first thing I noticed when removing the GBA from its box is, well, it's very small. No, not as small as the picture shown here (!), though pretty small; about the size of a small adult hand. This means portability, of course, though I don't know; I guess I just expected the next generation of portable handheld game units to be at least one size bigger. Sure, the game unit is longest from left-to-right, instead of the "Walkman TV" type of look of the original Game Boys. Even so, any difference in size is negligible, and could only be measured in millimeters. Sorry kids; expect dad to still refer to it as your "toy."

However, it's a toy with a lot of punch. The Game Boy Color's 8 bit processor has been upgraded to 32 bits. The 160x140 resolution screen has been upgraded to 240x160, with a "widescreen" appearance to make games look even more cinematic. Yes, this includes classic Game Boy games, which can be "upgraded" to widescreen graphics (and back again) by pressing the shift buttons on top of the unit. As this implies, all your former Game Boy titles (even the really old ones) are fully playable on the Advance, which means you can sell your old Game Boy on eBay without worry. Sure, older game carts are twice as big as Advance cartridges, which means they stick out rather obnoxiously from the top of the unit. However, they're still playable.

Adding to the intrigue; this unit can be connected to the Nintendo Game Cube, as a controller! This will allegedly lead to more elaborate games, with game info offered on both the controller screen and the TV screen. However, that's what people said about the VMU on a Sega Dreamcast controller, which wound up only being used for useless, cutesy animations. Still, at least the potential is there. However, if this is the only reason you see fit to buy the unit, I'd wait until enough games for the Game Cube support this feature at all, and with worthwhile usage (like being able to type in RPG data without opponents seeing it).

Some perks come with the high grade linking capabilities of the unit. After all, using the GBA as a controller for the Game Cube wouldn't mean much if you had to buy an additional cartridge to make the GBA work with that game. The benefits GBA's upgraded linking option offers, for multiplayer games, is excellent. Once upon a time, a group of kids could "link" their Game Boy to another Game Boy only if their friend owned the same cartridge. The promise of GBA is, you'll only have to buy one cartridge, which can then be used to "link" to other GBA units and allow your friends to play the game as well, even if they do not own that game.

Let's cut to the chase; there is one very, very big flaw with the GBA, heard 'round the Internet. It's the dim (and I do mean, DIM) screen. Penny Arcade's comic strip on June 13th -- the week everyone started flocking to go get one -- shows a user even trying to use giant wooden torches to get enough light. Sarcasm aside, it's almost impossible to get proper lighting. Making matters even more difficult is how much of a glare magnet the screen can be in brighter lighting. This is an annoying catch-22; too little light and you can see little to nothing, and yet a lot of light can lead to glare/reflections that make things even less viewable. Forget GBA's "long battery life" option; this unit should have had a backlit screen. Sure, Nintendo claims to have increased battery life by as much as %50 on the new unit, though this is peanuts compared to a backlit screen option.

Once you finally get the lighting at the proper angle (which takes about as much time as adjusting the rabbit ears just-so on an old TV), the games themselves are admittedly spectacular. It seems the only problem is the lack of 32 bit ports to such a system; Nintendo never had a 32 bit system, and instead made the moon jump from 16 (SNES) to 64 (N64). This means most translations will either be a step down (N64) or old 16-bit games with better sound/graphics. Still, there is talk of porting the most popular classic SNES games to the GB Advance, and if that includes Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, and the like, you'll likely want to hunt this little system down even more.

Of course, the biggest draw for any new game system is the games offered immediately upon release. For the purpose of this review, let's pull three popular games from out of our hat; F-Zero, Castlevania, and of course, Super Mario Advance. Sadly, Mario is a bit out of step this time around, so most other games have to pick up his slack. I think the problem is such strong memories (even to this very day) of the jaw-dropping visuals of Super Mario 64, which still reigns supreme as one of the best release-day games ever offered for any system (initial N64 sales were in droves, even if this was the only N64 game on store shelves). With no real graphic muscle aside from typical, 2D scrolling capabilities, this GBA Mario is just the same-old, non-3D Mario, all over again. This is a shame, when there is talk elsewhere to make 3D games like Doom available on the GBA. Why couldn't they have offered such a 3D/2D game of Mario, instead of the same, rubber-stamp, 2D scrolling cliché?

As for the other two games, well, Castlevania shows the good and bad of the GBA, all by itself. On the one hand, it's one HUGE game, amounting to quite a long time in game play. However, its dark graphics make the GBA's screen even more annoying. As for F-Zero, it provides a nice "faux 3D" racing game, though much like other racing games, it still seems like just a Pole Position clone. Be this as it may, the music and graphics on both are superb, and far better than anything offered on even the finest of titles for Game Boy Color.

The pros and cons as always, lead to the final question; whether or not to buy. I say, if Nintendo follows through on the promise to link GBA with the upcoming Game Cube, that's great. However, whether you wish to get one now depends on how satisfied you are with your Game Boy Color, presuming you own one. You also need to be very, very patient in the first 3 hours of owning the unit, to find the perfect lighting within your house with which to play a game. In the end, kids may look at dad's PDA with envy, like the Palm IIIc, which can equally be used to play color games, and has a backlit screen. Such PDAs are really fun toys for dad; whether or not a GBA is a fun toy for everyone else, depends on how much light they have in their room.

	Final Rating: Large Crater. A thumbs-up on escrow, due to the portable unit's potential. However, the totally annoying, overly dark screen should be backlit.
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