Game Boy Advance - The Retro Graveyard

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• published: 10 Oct 2015
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Mitch takes a look at the Game Boy Advance! Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/deadhorsegaming Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/deadhorsegaming Follow us on Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/deadhorsegaming Support us on StreamTip: http://www.streamtip.com/t/deadhorsegaming Watch The Retro Graveyard: http://bit.ly/1JjKPrI Watch Five Fun Facts: http://bit.ly/1KhBG5c Watch Dead Horse Live: http://bit.ly/1IcEFFR The Game Boy Advance, the successor to the original Game Boy line which included the Color, was released in North America in June of 2001. I would call this the first major upgrade to the Game Boy line. It featured a total redesign, with a form factor unlike any Game Boy before it. This gave it the room for a wider, now 3:2 aspect ratio screen, with a resolution of 240x180 pixels, up from the 160x144 resolution of it’s predecessors. It’s capable of displaying 512 color simultaneously in what’s called “character mode”, which is what games used most of the time. But there was also a bitmap mode that could display 32,768 colours simultaneously. Speaking of color, the console came in 6 main color variations, and a whole lot of special edition variants. Backed by a 32bit, 16.8mhz ARM processor, and the Advance was clearly quite the upgrade when compared to it’s predecessors, and was the highest spec’d portable gaming console in 2001. It’s main competitors, the Neo Geo Pocket Color and the Wonderswan did not match the processing power. Back in 1996, gaming magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly and Game informer were reporting about a new 32 bit Game Boy, codenamed Project Atlantis. They were saying it was going to launch in early 1997 with specs very similar to what the Game Boy Advance turned out to have. So it looks like the Game Boy Advance was definitely a long time coming from Nintendo. This thing was really great. I think this original one is definitely the most comfortable Game Boy to hold and I definitely logged a lot of hours playing on this thing. I also went through a lot of double AAs playing it. The Game Boy Advance didn’t have a rechargeable battery, it ran on two AAs which lasted for about 15 hours, which isn’t too bad. Unless, of course, you need a worm light, then that’ll drain the battery WAY quicker. Oh yeah, did I not mention that? The screen isn’t backlit or front lit, its a reflective display, which means it requires a considerable amount of light to be readable. You’re gonna need a window, a lamp, or a worm light for sure. These two things are unthinkable now, but at the time were necessary to keep the cost of the console reasonable. There really were some wonderful games on this device. Most them around the graphical quality of SNES games, and that’s totally cool. Many of these games were so good that they continue a life today in the Wii U virtual console, if you’re into paying for the same games multiple times. It’s also completely backwards compatible with Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, which gave it a huge library boost, even though they stuck out of the back like this. There were some interesting accessories for the Game Boy Advance. There was the wireless adapter that came with Pokemon Leaf Green and Fire Red, which was pretty neat but wasn’t compatible with a whole lot of games, since it was released in 2004, closer to the end of the Game Boy Advances life. There was also the Play-Yan. An official Nintendo accessory that was actually mean’t more for the Game Boy Advance SP or Micro due to it’s high power consumption, but it still ran on the GBA. It was an MP3 and Video player add on that took SD cards, and also features some mini Games. But unfortunately, that one never made it outside of Japan. Then there was the eReader, which I covered in a different video you should check out. Here’s a weird one. There was a thing called the Glucoboy which was an unofficial glucose meter accessory for the Game Boy Advance. It apparently had some built in games that encouraged diabetic kids to check the blood sugar levels. I can’t find much on this thing, but it looks like it existed. Here’s a thing many people many have forgotten over the years. It wasn’t just games that game on Game Boy Advance cartridges. There was a home video line called Game Boy Advance Video, that had full color, 240x160 episodes of kids shows packed into the cartridge. There were Cartoon Network shows, Nickelodeon shows, as well as 3 feature films which were Shrek, Shrek 2, and Shark Tale. These 3 cost 20 dollars each and ran for 90 minutes, while the ones with episodes of shows cost 10 bucks, and ran for about 40 minutes. The buttons on the Game Boy were used to control playback of the videos. Interestingly, these were blocked from playing back on the Game Boy Player Accessory for the GameCube, out of fears of copyright infringement.