Gameboy Player - First Impressions

Well, I took delivery of my GB Player yesterday, and thought I would share my first impressions with you all.

First of all, it is nicely constructed piece of kit, screwing onto the bottom of the Gamecube and making into a perfect cube.

You set the machine up in JAP Mode, insert the disk and insert the GBA/GBC/GB game into the slot, and turn on.

You are greeted with the standard logo, followed by the same logo as seen on the GBA (cascading letters, twinkle-twinkle) and the game loads.

Pressing Z on the controller brings up the options menu. First of all, if you are playing a GBC/GB game, you can flick the screen into 'wido' mode (sorry, but my katakana is rusty). Until I try a Gameboy game in it, I can't tell you what it does, but I'll let you know when I do.

If you want to limit a child's use of the GC, you can put a timer on it. Select the number of minutes, upto an hour, and then carry on playing.

As default, there is a border around the outside that kinda matches the outside edge of a Gameboy. You can, however, change the border to any one of above 60 designs.

You can also get rid of the border and make the game run full-screen, should you so wish.

There are options for controller key assignments (you are set certain keys to be the select key), plus one other that escapes me for the moment.

At last I can play a GBA game without straining to see the screen, It's ACE!!!!

THe only problem is one that is inherantly caused by the GBA hardware. The Sound is very fuzzy.

Other than that, it is well worth the money and I recommend all importers get hold of one now, if not sooner!

So what your basically saying is, don't buy an actual GBA cos the screens rubbish, get a GBA Player, and play GBA games on your tv at home?

[ Edited by Ikaruga on 2003/4/17 9:04 ]

I wouldn't say the GBA screen is rubbish, but a full-size TV is far easier on the eyes!

oh ok.

Apparently playing old GB/GBC games in 'wido' mode, as you so nicely put it (hehe), isn't advisable...as they look extremely poor. I suppose it's like when you play them on a GBA and can stretch them to fit the whole screen - it just looks all wrong!!

Anyway, I can't buy a GBPlayer yet, or else I will have wasted my money on my GBA: SP! I'm going to wait until June/July when it comes out over here, so at least I will have got my money's worth out of the handheld by then...

Nice work there mate! Very 'swish'.

where can i get one?

Off the top of my head:

Lik-Sang.com
CAGames.co.uk
ProjectK.com
NewAgeConsoles.com

One of those is bound to have it...and pretty cheap I'd guess.

It's universal aswel isn't it?

[ Edited by Drakor on 2003/4/24 22:16 ]

I read somewhere that the new final fantasy game, whether its tactics or not, will allow for gameboy player tv screens, so its better for the tv, I dont know if this is true, but it would be good

hang on i don understand.

do you have to have a gba to do it or do you just need the games?

Just the games...