Slashdot Mirror
Games That Defined The Virtual Boy
The always-refreshing RetroGaming with Racketboy has an article up looking at some of the defining games for the much-maligned Virtual Boy game console. The all-red screenshots are meant to remind you of all the 'good times' that could be had with Nintendo's most resounding failure. From the article: "If there is one game that I think utilizes the 3D element the best, it would have to be Teleroboxer. This Mech/Punch-Ount hybrid game should be a welcome addition to any Virtual Boy game library. Much like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, you have different attacks, blocking ability, and the need to discover your opponent's weaknesses and openings in their fighting patterns."
Given there WERE about 10 games, picking a top 10 is not going to be exceptionally tricky.
mmm games that defined the virtual boy, shouldn't be that hard to find since
only 24 or such were release worldwide... but stop kidding i know the answer:
NONE.
at least if you are like me and get away from the red thing 30 seconds after trying Mario Tennis (and getting a headache)
That's because the virtual boy was only able to display red. Those are pretty much accurate.
Keep in mind, though, the originals are 3d, as opposed to 2d jpgs.
Does the null set count as an answer?
I'm one of the biggest Nintendo fans going, but this ranks right up there with a "best of Sega CD FMV games" list.
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
The Virtual Boy wasn't a bad platform aside from the all red display and the insane price. Many of the games were excellent. Virtual Boy Wario Land is one of the best games in the Wario series. Two very enjoyable titles that were not mentioned in the article are Golf and 3D Tetris. Fwiw, the all red display and the insanely high price were limitations of the available technology at the time.
all of you are complaining that it is easy to pick a Top 10 out of a 2 dozen list, but the article said "Games that defined the system."
I think all the games contributed to defining the virtual boy: Nintendo's first laughable failure.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Who wouldn't want to try out the system after that?
Most of the comments on this story seem to be either jokes or trolls, but I was one of the few people who actually really enjoyed the Virtual Boy. Headaches were never a big problem for me, either. If I remember correctly, all games would have a "break period" after playing for about 15-20 minutes, where it would warn you that you should stop playing for a while. Sometimes I would even ignore this and keep playing anyways. If I got any headaches at all, they were pretty minor. And to a kid, if you have a choice between playing a video game, and getting a minor headache, is the choice really that difficult? While the system didn't have a large number of games, most of them were pretty high quality. When the system started dying, I was able to buy probably half of the Virtual Boy library at Blockbuster video very cheaply. Mario Tennis, Teleroboxer, and Wario Land were all pretty awesome games, and provided me with hours of entertainment. Galactic Pinball and Mario Clash were pretty fun as well. I never really got into Red Alarm... the wireframe graphics just made it too confusing to tell what was going on, in my opinion. Another game I really enjoyed which they don't mention on this list was Panic Bomber. That was an awesome puzzle game, and it was probably just a straight port from another system... but it was still great fun. The one thing that always perplexed me about the Virtual Boy though, was its odd controller. Why would it need two directional pads? Hardly any games even used the 2nd pad. I think maybe teleroboxer used it, but I cant remember. Jack Bros used the 2nd pad, but it wasn't all that necessary. I think any of the games could have worked fine without the 2nd pad. It makes you wonder if Nintendo had something else planned for that... or if it was just not a well thought out controller design.
I still own a Virtual Boy. As a matter of fact, I still -play- my Virtual Boy. I always hear people complain about headaches, and yet I can play it for hours without a problem. If you've never played one, it really is unlike anything else.
As some others mentioned... if Nintendo made a full color version of this, I would be the first in line to buy it.