Game Boy Advance:
Nintendo Re-invents the world's best selling portable.
This image is slightly smaller than actual size when viewed on a 15" display at 800X600
Nintendo did a major re-engineering with the Game Boy Color to help modernize their successful Game Boy system. The Game Boy Advance is not just a re-engineer of the original Game Boy, but rather a totally new item, but made to be backwards compatible with the existing Game Boy titles. Very impressive.
At a glance, you notice the small size of this unit. It is very thin although this image does not show the thickness of the unit. The next thing is that this is not laid out in the traditional "Game Boy" portrait layout, this is in the wide or landscape format, as I call it. Upon closer examination, there are two buttons on the top corners of the unit, and there is no AC adaptor port, at least not on mine!! However, claiming 15 hours of battery life, I doubt that an AC adaptor is going to be needed often. Like Game Boys before it, batteries are included so everything you need to start gaming is included in the box, except for a first game. Being backwards compatible with existing Game Boy titles, this should not be much of a problem for players upgrading from their Game Boy and Game Boy color units.
First impressions are mixed. I was impatient and got mine as an import unit. Unfortunately, the Japanese version of Super Mario Advance is too Japanese-oriented so many screens are unreadable to me, but that is not a big deal. The game shown above is Super Mario Advance. The scan does not do this system justice as the screen looks a lot better than the scan would suggest. The unit is rather comfortable for smaller hands and is very light and compact. Colors are fantastic. In my limited experience, the screen is not really dark, but does seem to require a lot more external light than a Game Boy Color. The screen is wider than a typical Game Boy screen. I can tell there are a lot of colors. Game play is smooth, I don't really notice any blurring. A couple of interesting notes I feel I should mention are in regards to cartridges. Game Boy Advance cartridges will fit cleanly into the GBA unit, while the older Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges will extrude over the top of the unit. This is not really a big deal but it is an item of interest. This is rather similar to the Sega Genesis Nomad in reference to titles not fitting cleanly inside the portable unit.
Multiplayer gaming is different for Game Boy Advance to Game Boy Advance, however any Game Boy titles require the same old method for multiplayer gaming. If you are not aware, to play multiplayer games on the original Game Boy, Game Boy Play It Loud(Game Boy in colors), Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light and Game Boy Color, every player needed their own Game Boy unit and identical cartridges and of course the appropriate link cable. Typically, the most players in a game would be two, although Nintendo released a 4-way adaptor that never really caught on. Again, if you were to multi-player play with a combination of Game Boy and Game Boy Advance, such duplication of software is required. With Game Boy Advance and depending on the Game Boy Advance game title, in a multi-player environment, only Player 1 needs the actual software, the other player or players(up to 3 additional players) can all game from the one cartridge. This breaks the software issue of multi-player gaming, leaving the only hurdle being the availability of a game link cable or device. This is a great concept, allowing lots of random gaming with people you might run into at places where people end up gathering together, such as an airport, where there are perhaps lots of "strangers" that may have Game Boy Advance and want to go head to head for fun. This leaves out the element of "chance" or "luck" in running into someone with a matching system and matching software. Of course, not all Game Boy Advance titles that are multi-player capable support this feature.
Overall I would say that Nintendo has a very nice system available to the general public. The Game Boy Advance was release-priced at $99.95, but has seen price drops all the way down to $69.96 at retail locations. Considering the only real competition out there is Game Boy Color, Nintendo has a firm hold on the marketplace. The Game Boy Advance is the better value since it can play the existing library of Game Boy titles. Larger screen, better battery life, light weight, compact and fun. I'm happy with my new purchase and am anxious to show it off and share it with some friends of mine.
Kirby's Pinball Land [Completed]
Select+RIGHT+A Play bosses, can't die
If you did this right, a black cat(?) will walk from Left to Right at the high
score screen.
Select+LEFT+B Play bonus rounds.
If you did this right, a white cat will walk from Right to Left at the high score
screen.
Kirby's Dream Land [Comleted]
At Title Screen:
Select+UP+A Tougher game
Select+Down+B Cheats and soundtest.
![[Game Boy Advance, White]](images/gba1.jpg)