GBA = Game Boy Apathy?

I love handheld videogames. Lynx, Wonderswan, Gamegear, NGPC, GP32, even the humble Game & Watch – these miniature marvels have given me some of the finest gaming experiences of my life – so why is it that Nintendo’s all-conquering GBA leaves me cold?

Things I love about handheld gaming…

I love being able to pick up a game and play it for five minutes in what would otherwise be “dead time” – all those times when you’re waiting for a bus, sitting on the tube or waiting for a mate in a pub, times when you’d normally resort to reading free newspapers.

A common scene before the invention of the Game & Watch

I love the intimacy of handheld videogames. It’s just you and the game, there’s no conflicts about whether getting to the next level is more important than watching the Eastenders omnibus. You can quite happily sit in a comfy armchair while those around are gorging themselves on the TV’s passive entertainment, lost in the world of you and the game while still maintaining the pretence of spending time with your family.

I love the portability of them – going away for the weekend? No need to cart a big box of electronics with you (or just go without I suppose. If you’re weird), just pop the handheld into the overnight bag with a couple of carts.

I even love the types of game that you get on handheld consoles - the simplicity born out of the size of the screen and the rigidly enforced up-down-left-right-fire purity of the controls.

Handheld perfection?

I managed to miss the original Gameboy completely; it was one of those machines that I always meant to pick up but never really got around to. No particular reason why not, it just never happened.

But I got caught up in the pre-release hype over the GBA (and was desperately casting around for a replacement for the recently deceased NGPC) and bought one of those on the day of release. And it was fun for a while. I played through Mario Advance, Tony Hawk’s Skateboarding, Kuru Kuru Kururin and a few others.

But, a couple of months down the line, it was being left on the shelf while the, supposedly obsolete, NGPC joined the pocket fluff, bits of string and old coins for the daily journey into the city. It was the screen mainly, as you may have guessed. Anyway, after a little while of this, I decided to cut my losses and run and sold the GBA on Ebay.

Is that a Gameboy in your pocket?

And then Nintendo announced the GBA-SP. “Sorry about that,” they seemed to say, “we’ve lit the screen this time and we’ve made it look really really sexy!”.

Again caught up by the hype, I bought one on the day of release.

And, you know something? Well, you probably do, but it really was much better. Suddenly the screen became usable in normal lighting conditions, and the clamshell case design helped to stop all the string and old coins from scratching the screen. Well done Nintendo.

And yet, some twelve months later, I found the GBA once again relegated to gathering dust on the shelf while I carried the NGPC, or the Wonderswan, or the GP32, or even the massive bulk of Atari’s Lynx, around with me.

I’ve owned smaller laptops…

There are some cracking games on the GBA, Zelda was great, Advance Wars is even better and I’m swearing my way through Mario Advance 4 at the moment, but I still can’t get any enthusiasm for the GBA itself. The Gameboy Player on the cube gets all the action instead.

Boring, safe and predictable while living off past glories?

Every other handheld I own has something unique, something exciting, about it. Whether it’s the NGPC’s clicky stick, or the Wonderswan’s portrait mode, or the homebrewtastic GP32, or even the “my god it’s full of colour!” beauty of the Lynx and Gamegear. But the Gameboy series doesn’t have any of that, there is not one single thing about them which can’t be seen elsewhere (and usually done better). If videogame consoles were cars, the GBA would be a Volvo; Safe, boring, reliable and conservative.

Nintendo have never, ever, taken any risks with the Gameboy. This is almost certainly sound business sense, after all the Gameboy is still going strong while contender after contender has fallen by the wayside, but it lacks the spark, that magical something that separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. And that touch of genius, the elevation above the norm, is one of the main things I love about videogames. Without it, all you’re left with is a pretty, but inconsequential, lump of plastic and silicon.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I took my barely used GBA-SP into Gamestation and traded it in against a new Xbox (Crystal. I’m a tart. I’ve fitted it with Blue LEDs too) and a copy of Geometry Wars.

So, why am I all excited by this then? Answers on a
postcard please…

ahchay, July 2004

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