GameBoy Player For Gamecube Reviewed

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an IGN.com review of the GameBoy Player for Gamecube. As the article says, "The GameBoy Player is a GameCube peripheral that plugs into the bottom of the system, and enables gamers to play any one of the thousands of GameBoy, GameBoy Color, and GameBoy Advance games released over the past 14 years." As well as being bundled with the Gamecube hardware starting June 23rd, this peripheral will be available separately on the same date, and it's particularly cool that you can control games with "either the GameCube controllers, or a GameBoy Advance system plugged in using the GameCube GameBoy Advance link cable."

Comments

No enhancement?

[Bagels]

One thing that I was a tad dissappointed about was there was no mention of any "enhanced" features. For all three of you out there who bought the Super GameBoy, you might remember that it could do things like change the color palette to be level-appropriate, provide borders for the screen, do full-color title screens, etc. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like this device will do that for new games - but as it still plays original GameBoy games, I wonder if it would pull the Super GameBoy info out of them and use it?

Re:No enhancement?

[MBCook]

It's the same hardware as the GBA, just in a different case (and lacking the LCD, etc). The GBA already uses the SGB colors. As for it it can read that custom border that SGB games had, I don't know but I would guess yes. I assume that new games will be able to make a custom border as well.

But I see no reason why it shouldn't use the SGB data, since the GBA does, doesn't it?

Re:No enhancement?

[Guppy06]

"The GBA already uses the SGB colors."

No, it doesn't. The GBC introduced a fork when it came to coloring old games, and GBC and SGB code don't talk to each other.

With b/w games, the SGB can only display four colors. You can decide whatever you want those four colors to be, but there is never more than four. A GBC (and GBA, same hardware), however, can manage to squeeze 10-12 colors into that 4-color game. They manage this by applying different 4-color pallets to sprites and backgrounds. So Metroid II looks a little better on a GBC than it did on the SGB.

Games designed with the SGB in mind can put out 10-12 colors through it, as well as some other bells and whistles. Off the top of my head, Donkey Kong had some 16-bit sound clips, and Space Invaders had a full-fledged 16-bit game on the cartridge. Unfortunately, the GBC doesn't understand SGB code, and treats SGB games as normal 4-color games, which means colors get lost in the process. Donkey Kong simply doesn't look as good on a GBC as it does on your SNES.

The GBC in and of itself can display 52 colors at a time, but again the language it uses to do so is completely different from the SGB. In order to get cartridges to work on both the GBC and older Game Boy systems (including the SGB), developers essentially needed to put two copies of the game on the one cartridge: one color, one not. When you put this cartridge into an SGB, it's fed the b/w copy of the game (and any half-assed SGB code that was put into that version). Sure, the game may "technically" have some SGB code in it (ie. a custom border), but more often than not the SGB is given the shaft. Tetris DX on an SGB actually looks less colorful than the original, and the only difference between Link's Awakening and Link's Awakening DX is that DX has a border.

In my dream world, this new GB Player will take the best of both worlds and allow you to mix and match, just like any decent Game Boy emulator. I want to play Link's Awakening DX in 52 colors but with the snazzy SGB border they put in the game. Hell, at this point I'd be happy if the GB Player simply recognized the presence of SGB code (so that my copy of Donkey Kong looks and sounds just like it does on my SNES).

But looking at the way the SGB has gotten the shaft, I'm not about to hold my breath.