Vol.
2, Issue 2
November 17, 1999
Pocket
Full o' Love:
GBC Love
by
Jason "loonyboi"
Bergman
i
there! Welcome to Pocket Full of Love. This column is a direct
result of our Put a Little Love
in Your Pocket cover story from Volume
1. In that article, I looked at all the different forms of
handheld gaming, and had a total blast doing it. The article was
so popular, and I enjoyed it so much, that we here at loonygames
decided we needed more on pocket gaming...so here we are.
The problem
these days with handheld gaming, despite their overwhelming popularity,
is separating the crap from the really good games (and believe
it or not there are lots of great games available). Handheld games
don't take too much effort to create if you don't care about the
quality...so there's a ton of really bad games out there. Also,
believe it or not, there is more to handheld gaming than just
the GameBoy and GameBoy Color. In this week's column I'll be focusing
entirely on the GBC, but next time I'll talk exclusively about
the NeoGeo Pocket Color, the latest and greatest pocket system
out there. In the weeks to come, I'll look at some older systems,
including a whole bunch of forgotten gems out there for the Atari
Lynx and Game Gear (and I'll even tell you how to get one for
yourself).
But this
week we're going to talk about the GameBoy Color. The GBC is basically
a color version of the original GameBoy. It's backwards compatible
with all the old black and white (or rather, green) games, and
has some cool, if underused features like the IR port that are
exclusive to the new system. There are GameBoy Color exclusive
titles, but for the most part, the entire GameBoy library works
on every GameBoy system. That includes the original system released
a decade ago (yes, it's really been that long), the newer GameBoy
Pocket, and the Super GameBoy (the adapter for the SNES that allowed
you to play games on your TV. A must have for GameBoy fanatics).
If you
own an older GameBoy, and are wondering if it's worth upgrading
to the new edition, it's ultimately your call. Obviously, the
difference between the two is the color, but also, the GameBoy
Color has a remarkably long battery-life (I haven't changed mine
in six months, and that's with fairly heavy playing).
But the
real issue is the games, and that's what this column's for. I
play a lot of different games, and I'll be reporting on several
of them per issue...so let's look at a few, shall we?
First
of all, there are a number of games out there that say "GameBoy
Color" on the side bar of their box - try not to be fooled
by this. That does not mean the game won't run on your legacy
system! It's just a way of letting people know that it's enhanced
for the GBC. The enhancements usually mean a native color mode,
although some games, like R-Type DX have other features
as well. I've noticed that several games (Pokemon Pinball
being the most surprising) actually work just fine on my Super
GameBoy despite having the "only for GameBoy Color"
stamp on the box.
R-Type
DX is interesting though. When you pop R-Type into
a legacy GameBoy, you're given the option to play either R-Type
1 or R-Type 2. If you play it on your GBC, you have
the option of playing either of those, but also you can play R-Type
DX, a special version that takes both games and melds them
into one.
R-Type
DX is a good
game, but it suffers from the same problem it did in every previous
incarnation - it's way too hard. And I mean way too hard. I've
come to the conclusion that bringing it with me on airplanes is
just a bad idea...I don't need to get that frustrated when I'm
trying to relax (a serious issue for me when I'm up in the air).
The game, if you've never seen it, is a side-scrolling space shooter.
And like all side-scrolling shooters you go through the game shooting
lots of little enemies, and picking up power-up after power-up,
making your weapons bigger and bigger as you go. But R-Type
distinguishes itself by its "power pod".
Next
>>
