"Portable gaming the way it should be."

The original Game Boy was released in 1989. It had limited hardware, with only a monochrome display and slow CPU rivalled by the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear, both with colour backlit screens. However, the Game Boy's advantage over the other two was that it had a very long efficient battery life; being the smallest of the trio and a huge selection of games justified that more than enough, hence it being one of the most successful consoles. For 9 years the Game Boy took the hotseat, as there was no real competition. Nintendo released other Game Boy enhancements including the Super Game Boy, a SNES cartridge enabling you to play GB games on your SNES; the link cable for 2-player games; a monochrome digital camera and a sticker printer which the camera and some other games were compatible with. In 1996 Nintendo released a scaled down version of the Game Boy called, not surprisingly, the Game Boy Pocket. However, it took 9 years for Nintendo to take the next step up. The Game Boy Color was released in 1998 and sold like hot pancakes on it's release, a decent portable games console with real full colour.

Some people say that the Game Boy Color was an abridgement to the Game Boy Advance. Maybe it was, or maybe technology improved quickly over those 3 years. But that was no reason to not buy one, seeing as there were quite a few classics for Game Boy Color, it was smaller than the original Game Boy and it was backwards compatible with all your favourite GB titles, and it even adds some colour to your old classics.

Let's have a look at some of its features. The layout is just the same as the original Game Boy, apart from the fact it isn't the size of a brick. It measures 13.2x.8x2.2cm, a quarter less than the Game Boy, but the screen is only a tiny bit smaller, measuring 4.5x4.1cm. On the front part, there's the screen on the top half and the controls on the bottom half. There's no new buttons added, just A, B, Select, Start and the D-Pad. I'm sure you already knew that. On the back is the cartridge slot (the cartridge actually clicks in unlike the original you had to readjust it and blow the cart for it to work), then there's the battery slot. On the bottom is a headphone jack so you can use stereo headphones to enjoy the wonders of mediocre sound…in stereo form. Next to it is the AC adapter input, a different socket from the Game Boy. The power switch is on the right, link cable socket (again, you have to use the new link cable) and volume control on the left side, and where the switch used to be is the infrared communications port, to exchange information between game carts with another GBC.

The Game Boy Color has a decent TFT display. It's a lot clearer than the Game Boy for a start is, and the animations you see are fluid and smooth, unlike the old GB where the animations were as choppy as hell. The palette is a quite limited. There are 32,000 colours available but it can only display 56 at a time. The graphics capabilities are on par with the NES (8-bit) but the screen is smaller. The real downside is that there is no backlight. The display is clearer so you can play it just as long as you have good lighting, but otherwise you'll need to stick a torch in your mouth or something if you want to play under the bed covers when you should be sleeping.

The sound quality is still very mediocre. It still uses polyphonic sound from synthesisers that don't resemble any instrument at all, so sadly the sound isn't a great deal more than beeps (ok, it's more than that), but you should get the idea.

The Game Boy Color wins top marks for the battery life. It is shorter than the original Game Boy's but it only needs 2 AA's for about 15 hours of play.

The Game Boy Color boasted a great collection of gems. Unfortunately there wasn't a huge deal of top class games. The reason being is that developers made Game Boy Color versions of PlayStation and Nintendo 64 hits, a lot of them being pretty lame. The Pokemon craze was quite a boost to the Game Boy; I even started to actually give a damn about my Game Boy when it was around. Nintendo produced a large array of quality games but third party support was let's just say, a bit more limited. Dragon Warrior monsters, Super Mario DX, Zelda Oracle of Seasons and Ages, the Pokémon series, Harvest Moon, Metal Gear Solid and Bomberman were among quite a few of the best titles. Quite a few old NES classics were re-released for the Game Boy Color as well, that was to start a trend many developer to make easy money from an old back catalogue unfortunately. There were inevitably quite a few rubbish games, but that always happens.

What's more, the Game Boy Color is backwards compatible with your old Game Boy games, and it even colourises them slightly, giving them shades of certain colours. They only used variations of two colours. The sprites are one colour and background another colour. However, it does make the display clearer than the original Game Boy does. The colour's can be changed at the beginning of the game, using a button combination, although they can't be changed in game. A lot of games were made to work both for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, that meant having to make limits on colours and graphics, so cartridges came out that only worked on the Game Boy Color. The GBC has in built colour combinations for some Super Game Boy games in the BIOS, so if you put in Pokemon Red for instance, the sprites are green with a red background.

There are many accessories available. Mainly there's the Universal Game Link Cable; you can connect to GBC's or GBP's together, or to the GB Printer. It has an adapter to connect the classic GB as well. There's also the usual array of light enhancers, power and battery packs.

You don't need any accessories to use the infrared port. You can simply exchange information, like stats and items from games, from the same Game with a friend's Game Boy Colour, so you don't need to use the link cable. It doesn't replace the link cable, however, so if you are going to do 2-player battles with Pokemon, Tetris, etc, you'll need the link cable.

Battery life is excellent. It isn't as good as the originals, as it's a more powerful system, but it's still very good. With two AA batteries you can get around 15 hours play. Not bad.

So is the Game Boy Color worth buying? It's better than the original in every way for playing your old classics, plus the newer Game Boy Color games. If you have a Game Boy Color, then it's worth keeping but if you are going to buy new, then you should really get a Game Boy Advance. The Advance doesn't have the infrared port, which is the only niggle. If you are a collector or a nostalgia fan, or whatever, then get the Game Boy Color by all means. If you're just bothered about a console that ‘does everything', and no infrared port doesn't matter, then get the Advance. The DS is only compatible with the Game Boy Advance games, so don't get one expecting to play all your old gems.

Summary

Graphics Capabilities Decent 8-bit graphics, at last in colour! No backlit light for extended nighttime play. 7/10
Sound Not much more than polyphonic beeps and boops make for mediocre sound. 5/10
Handling Friendly on the hands, no problem. 9/10
Portability Just a bit bigger than the GB Pocket, but it's still portable right? 9/10
Battery Life 20-30 hours of gameplay with 2 AA batteries is just what you need. 9/10
Games Library Quite a lot of trashy portable versions of Psone/ N64 games, but a lot of good classics mar them. 7/10.
Sex Appeal No, don't try it. Seriously. Go into Buffers nightclub playing on one, then you are stupid. It just occurs that lasses don't play games as much as men do, no offence to them like. Unclassified/10

Overall

The Game Boy Color is what it says it is. A limited gaming system is now actually a good one in its own right, with a full colour screen and a decent size, let down from limited 3rd party support. 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/19/05