"In about 10 years time this system will be looked upon the same way the Game Boy is now..."

The Game Boy handheld series is truly the penultimate definition in classic portable gaming. In 1989, the world was introduced to one of Nintendo's greatest creations, the Game Boy. Almost a decade later, the Game Boy Color, an improved, slightly smaller version of the premiere model was made, and then the latest in the series, the Game Boy Advance, arrived. It also has a counterpart even better in design the GBA SP.

Nintendo made the Game Boy Advance in 2000, and in the middle of 2001, it was ready to hit the games market, to some great responses from the fans. If you look at GBA gaming, you'll see that this small system is as powerful as Nintendo's hit console the SNES. It has made some improvement over its predecessors, yet the shape has changed drastically and there were still a few problems with the layout. For one, controlling seems harder. Two, the screen is very fragile and if you're playing in a well-lit area, you can't see the screen very well and the colours don't look very good. Third, the battery power runs out very quickly, making a GBA power pak and charger almost necessary to enjoy it in its full potential.

So, while the Game Boy Advance had its problems, it also had its advantages and good points. It is a powerful system. There are a lot of cool games out for it. It's portable. The GBA SP improves on many of the faults within the original GBA. Nintendo's latest gaming creation in the handheld department doesn't fail to impress, and this is why. Read on...

Size and Shape

The Game Boy and Game Boy colour had their D-Pad on the left side of the controller, the Select and Start buttons in the middle, and the B and A buttons on the right, shaped deliberately to resemble a NES controller, and held so it is greater in length vertically than horizontally. Your hands got squashed together, but it was somewhat rather comfy and easy to press all the buttons.

The Game Boy Advance's new design is meant to be held up and supported by both two hands and is lengthier horizontally. The Select and Start Buttons are both beneath the D-Pad now and are in the wrong order, so you must adjust to them in order to get used to them. You can view the screen better, and it is comfier to hold in your hands.

The GBA is made from plastic, and so are the buttons. They are held together firmly however. One problem is that the GBA is rather large and tough to carry around with you in a carrier case you can purchase. The GBASP focuses on this problem so it can be folded and the carrier can fit into your pocket, which indeed is very handy.

Controller

The Select and Start buttons are made from rubber and wear out easily. The rest is plastic, and it's comfortable to press down when you are playing. The placement of them around the controller suits it well, yet the Game Boy Advance SP changes it back to the original design. Overall I think it's good but you may need to adjust if you're new to it but have played a lot on the Game Boy or Game Boy Color.

The buttons are each placed a suitable distance apart and are all easy to push down without too much hassle and the quality of your gameplay can go unaffected by this. There are two new buttons, the L & R buttons on the shoulders of the pad, which are easy to hit with your index fingers like you would on a SNES controller. Overall I love the design of the controller on both versions of the GBA.

Visual Quality

The Game Boy Advance's graphics are more powerful than those of the Game Boy Color, and its colour display is a lot clearer as well. One huge problem I have with the system, which is really frustrating, is that in very well lit areas the screen gets dark because all you see is light reflection and you must wrinkle your face up to decipher the pictures on the screen. This would spoil the image, however if you have a GBC lamp (which also works on the GBA if you plug it into the port on the top) you could play in the dark, or buy an add-on piece of equipment that both lights and magnifies the screen.

The Game Boy Advance SP has a self-lighting screen to rectify this problem of light getting into the screen and phasing the images up. It looks a lot clearer and displays the graphics many times better than the original GBA model does. The screen looks very clear and the graphics that the system displays look terrific in their full glory despite a couple of obstacles.

Audio Quality

The speaker of the Game Boy Advance is somewhat small, and if you play games like Super Mario Advance and compare it to the SNES' Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. 2, you'll notice that both soundtracks sound similar, but the GBA's sound is toned down because of the speaker size. You can listen via earphones to help solve this problem and get a lot better quality sound.

The GBASP's speaker is placed in the centre of the controller so your hand does not blur the sound. My personal recommendation is to use earphones, yet there isn't a port that allows you to do so with the GBASP =(. Otherwise play in a quiet area to get the best sound out of your games.

Battery lifetime

The Game Boy Advance has a lot of power, and due to this, it drains the life out of your batteries very quickly. Rechargeable batteries are not as strong as normal batteries for any electrical job, which anybody knows, but they last incredibly short in the back of a Game Boy Advance. I really hated this because I didn't get much time of playing.

The Game Boy Advance has its own power pak adapter, however. You can charge it up and plug it into the battery case of the console and it generally plays a lot longer, or you can put the pak in the back and plug in the charger plug and play from the electric mains for basically as long as you want. This is a good thing in case you are playing through a long game and the next point to save is a rather far distance away.

The GBASP comes with its own special made battery, which is rechargeable, and can last as long as 10 hours at any one time without the need to recharge it again. Yet again Nintendo focus on minor problems and make them a whole lot better.

Overall: 9/10

It was really tough to grade the Game Boy Advance because I was originally intending to give it 10/10, but there were more minor problems with it than I thought which made me change my mind. Nintendo however worked on the problem and solved it with their new model, the Game Boy Advance SP, and the gaming satisfaction can be enjoyed to the full. As well as that, there's also a fantastic library with a range of games and genres to enjoy on this fabulous system, like the Super Mario Advance series, Sonic Advance, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire, and you can also play regular Game Boy and Game Boy Color games on the system as well, so if you get the system and have a GB or GBC, there's not much point in having them any more, so you can sell them for some profit! (But if you love your models too much, don't!) This system has made a name for itself in handheld gaming, and is fabulous technology. In 15 years time this will be looked upon the same way as the Game Boy is now. As a legend.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/04