GameBoy Advance

Mobile gaming

The original series of GameBoy sold over 100 million units. That still leaves Nintendo on the top of the videogaming heap; when you go out in public it's hard to miss seeing a kid with an electric Pokemon dispenser strapped onto his forehead.

Because the technology is similar to that of the Super Nintendo, many of the first run GameBoy Advance games are direct copies of the Super Nintendo games. So while the GameBoy Advance may offer the best handheld gaming ever, the games look more nostalgaic than innovative so far. We still managed to find some games to like in the Nintendo booth aisles.

GBA Games

The graphics on the GBA version of survival horror title "Silent Hill" were impressive. It was strange to see unsettling full motion video on that tiny screen, with gory content that Nintendo has usually stayed away from. We didn't get to try gameplay, but the game is already on sale on the Japanese market and it's been getting decent reviews.

Tetris was the game that pushed GameBoy on millions of folks who weren't otherwise interested in carrying around a digital fun device. We noticed a group of hipster-looking Japanese youths clustered around a tangram game - two-dimensional geometric fragments arranged to complete puzzles. If "Hexcite" has any of the addictive potential of Tetris, it could be the sleeper game that pushes this platform mainstream.

Hexcite

A title called simply "GameBoy War" is a turn-based strategy game. Like most of these games dating back to the classic title the Ancient Art of War, the gameplay mechanic looks to be strongly based on rock/paper/scissors - here the units are tanks and artillery, planes and helicopters. The graphics are childlike, but if you want something with more serious military consequences, this might be about as good as it gets for the next few months (if it even comes out in the US).

Good old turn-based strategy

Methinks the jets should win

Move your troops

We enjoyed what we saw of "Monster Rancher." Monster Rancher is a Pokemon-derivative monster breeding game from the PlayStation that earned some notoriety, as you birth your monsters by inserting various music CDs (Metallica makes one mean badass monster, for example). The GameBoy version features none of the fun pop-culture spawning, but just the kind of Tamogotchi/cockfighting combo games that we love to carry in our pockets.

Monster Rancher

Ugly thing...

One of our favorite Japanese Game Boy Advance titles that we saw but will probably never make it to the states was "Boku-no Kabutomushi" (roughly translated, "My Beetle"). In this game you play a school kid who captures a beetle; you train it, feed it and raise it to fight the beetles of other kids. Kind of like Pokemon perhaps, but any of these beetles could handedly kick some Poke-butt.

My beetle

Is that music in your pocket?

Nintendo had a big display around "Pocket Music" a sampling game for the GameBoy Advance. With all the excited talk in the experimental music community around Nanoloop, the GameBoy music synthesizer, we were hoping for something musically charged here. This is a pattern recognition game, like Dance Dance Revolution, where you hit the right button at the right time to make a song.

Pocket Music girls

Justin showing off his skillz

The scantily-clad Nintendo display ladies were very accommodating in their demonstration of the gameplay - they were singularly confounded by our attempts to rock out using the GameBoy Advance. We tried unsuccessfully to ask them about the game - "Does this have freedom?" Later we saw these ladies mount the stage in purple wigs and play "Smoke on the Water" in a sort of open studio jam mode - it's clear the game allows you to experiment musically, but it looks like whatever you make is gonna sound like classic rock.