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

neat

[jpr1nd]

that's pretty cool. kinda like super gameboy (play gameboy games on your SNES)... only cube-ier. price seems a little steep for something that contradicts the purpose of a gameboy (presumably people who buy gameboy use it places where a console would not go, hence portable gaming system), but -- hey -- to each their own :P

Re:neat

[NanoGator]

" price seems a little steep for something that contradicts the purpose of a gameboy (presumably people who buy gameboy use it places where a console would not go, hence portable gaming system)"

Just because it's a portable system doesn't necessarily mean we always want it to be portable. If you have a game you really enjoy playing, (Metroid Fusion for example...) having a device like this as an extra way of playing it is a good thing. Save the GBA (plus batteries) for when you can't be near your TV, like when you're on the bus or something.

Don't mistake it as a GBA replacement, but rather an addition.

Re:neat

[Guppy06]

"(presumably people who buy gameboy use it places where a console would not go, hence portable gaming system)"

Statements like this have irked the hell out of me ever since the release of the Super Game Boy. Even IGN themselves are quite guilty of having this kind of attitude.

Game Boy (and all its descendants) isn't a "handheld game system," it is a game system that happens to fit in your hand. I sure as hell didn't buy my GBA because I need a quick fix when I've been away from my GCN for too long. I got it for Metroid Fusion, Golden Sun, Advance Wars, three Castlevania games and a slew of other titles. Writing off Game Boy and the games it plays as "just a portable" is doing a disservice to both the games and yourself.

Heck, one of the main reasons the Game Boy is still going strong after a decade is that Nintendo has never conformed to your two-tiered view of the industry. They still dominate the handheld market because most of their competitors sold mediocre "just a handhelds" and "just a portable games" that were simply unable to stand on their own.

If you want something to just kill time between your console fixes, save your money for an N-Gage (that seems to be Nokia's target market). If you're looking for real (and really good) games, then it shouldn't matter if they're played on a handheld or a television.

Re:No enhancement?

[cgenman]

They mentioned 20 borders, a filter for "flicker transparency" games, and anti-aliasing. Now, admittedly I would have loved the extremely cool scaling effect used in early 90's Lucas Arts games, but it does have alterations. It doesn't mention any of the older GB modifications, but remember this is a GBA stuffed into a box, not a Super GameBoy. So you are likely to see the stretch / squash options for older games, but not the Super GameBoy specific stuff. Palette alterations on the GBA wouldn't make much sense anyway.