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GBA

The Worst of the GBA - Revisited

Stupid dares, early digital photography, and the birth of the 'Z' game

by James Jones - June 16, 2011, 8:07 pm EDT

One thing you might quickly notice is that many of these games are reviewed by the same people. Historically, a handful of staffers have actively requested "the worst" games. This is their fault...

Trollz: Hair Affair (Jeff Shirley, December 8, 2005)
"I have been thinking of coming up with a suitable formula for shovelware. The number of corporate logos I see before the game actually begins is directly proportional to the amount of times I will find myself wanting to vomit and inversely proportional to the amount of fun I’ll have."

Jeff, as you might surmise from this quote, reviewed a lot of questionable licensed games. Trollz, which given the misplaced z should immediately inform you that Ubisoft is the responsible party, had four such screens. A collection of dreary mini-games, Trollz shares the title of "lowest GBA review score" with a few other entries on this list. You can read the full review for the mind-altering plot and Mr. Shirley's dissection of the Trollz economy.

Fear Factor: Unleashed (Jeff Shirley, March 14, 2005)
"I feel compelled to put the game down and not play video games anymore. If this were the first game I had ever played, I would never play video games again. I might watch some TV though. And I might happen upon Fear Factor on TV. In a sense, this is the first time I ever encountered a video game made with the intention of drawing me away from video games to something else."

Jeff's second entry concludes with the above concern that Fear Factor on the GBA might actually be a CIA-styled conspiracy. For those of you who don't remember, Fear Factor was an NBC reality show where contestants participated in stupid stunts for cold hard cash. While this game doesn't feature people laying in a clear box while crickets are dropped on them, it does feature dodgy mini-games! Read Jeff's review for a play-by-play of...his playthrough.

Nyko WormCam (Mike Hrusecky, December 17, 2002)
"Whether it should even really be on the market is questionable. There are computer webcams on the market for half the price that offer picture quality far greater than Nyko’s GBA accessory. Nyko should have opted for a more viable solution, even if it meant increasing the cost of the unit and reducing battery life.

Consumers should absolutely wait for Nintendo's own camera coming in 2003."

That would be a longer wait than he expected. Nintendo never actually brought a camera to market, so Nyko's WormCam is, by default, the best digital camera on the GBA. This is not exactly a distinction worth merit. It is interesting to point out that the WormCam, which is precariously perched atop the GBA, would be rendered unusable by the GBA SP only a few months later. Read the review to see Mike and his girlfriend in glorious .0000001 megapixels. 

No logical reason is offered as to why this is called the "WormCam" except Nyko was known for its popular WormLite on the original Game Boy. It has nothing in common with the ground grubbers.

Talkback

TJ SpykeJune 16, 2011

Game Boy Advance was their third handheld system (Game Boy Color was their second).

Quote from: TJ

Game Boy Advance was their third handheld system (Game Boy Color was their second).

Games forward compatible. Same system.

AVJune 16, 2011

Quote:

Read the review to see Mike and his girlfriend in glorious .0000001 megapixels.

how much is the 3ds camera's ??

TJ SpykeJune 17, 2011

Sorry Crimm, but you are wrong on this. They are different systems.

RABicleJune 17, 2011

Jeff Shirley, what a legend, always volunteering to take the pain for the rest of us. I remember Ben's review of that's so Raven as well, so funny.

Bman87301June 17, 2011

Quote from: Crimm

Quote from: TJ

Game Boy Advance was their third handheld system (Game Boy Color was their second).

Games forward compatible. Same system.

I'm gonna have to side with TJ Spyke on this one-- GBC had its own unique hardware capabilities, it was definitely its own system and the successor to the original Game Boy hardware.

And WTF is "Games forward compatible" supposed to mean? While most GBC games were also compatible with GB as well, there were still plenty that were GBC-only. And the ones that were compatible with both did so by containing both GB and GBC versions in the same cartridge.

ShyGuyJune 17, 2011

Top ten worst.

If the GBC is its own system the DSi is its own system.


Also "The Game Boy Family of systems"

Bman87301June 17, 2011

Quote from: Crimm

If the GBC is its own system the DSi is its own system.


Also "The Game Boy Family of systems"

"If the GBC is its own system the DSi is its own system."-- that's an opinion, not a fact. Where's your factual data to back it up? Here's mine:

Unlike the GB and GBC, DS and DSi share the same processing hardware. Even though there's a couple of DSi exclusive game cards, they're only exclusive because the games depend on the DSi's special add-ons for gameplay, not because of lack of processing ability. That's not the case with GBC exclusive and GB-compatible cartridges. And aside from the rare DSi-exclusive cards, DSi harware depends on the same DS library that the standard DS models depend on. In that regard, they're just as alike the DS Phat to DS Lite-- just a different model of the same hardware that plays the same games.

Secondly, look at a website like GameFAQs, look how they categorize games by system-- GBC is separate from GB, while DSiWare (as well as the rare DSi cards) are grouped with DS-- not a separate category. This is the case with at least 80% of other such websites. I'd say the general consensus clearly seems to be that GBC was its own system, while the DS and DSi are not".


Game Boy/Pocket/Light= 1
Game Boy Color= 2
Game Boy Advance/SP/micro= 3
Nintendo DS/Lite= 4
Nintendo DSi/XL=4.5
Nintendo 3DS=5


"The Game Boy Family of systems"? What's that supposed mean? If you're suggesting GB and GBC are part of the "Game Boy Family" and GBA isn't, you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

UltimatePartyBearJune 17, 2011

I thought that picture of a cat was a picture of Ganondorf.

While we're celebrating the GBA, I'd like to mention to my favorite review on the site, Ty's review of Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak.  Not a good game, but not bad enough for this list, either.  I just enjoy Ty's gushing about the eeeevil Spat the Hamster.

Quote:

Spat is the best video game villain ever. He has long and very evil monologues while his rad theme song plays - he's seriously the hamster version of Kefka.

Excuse me, I'm too busy being correct. A NEW system means its games cannot be played on its predecessor. That's forward compatibility. This is not true of the VAST majority of games branded as "Game Boy Color" games. Those black carts worked just fine on the Game Boy.


On top of that, Nintendo marketed the Game Boy Color as a revision (not a new system, but "Now in Color!").


If you're going to discuss internals, the DSi has different internal bits as well.



ShyGuyJune 17, 2011

I always considered Game Boy Color to be a different system because it had different games. It's kind of annoying though, it probably shouldn't count.

If Game Boy Color is a new system, then the DSi is a new system as well. If you're okay with that conceit, then yes, you're right. However, you can't spin one yarn with one system, and then ignore that yarn with the other one, just because DSi-exclusive games sucked.

Sagagadeogo09June 17, 2011

fun fact: ign gave Hot Potato  a 8/10, hence i'll NEVER TRUST'EM AGAIN!

JasonMaiviaJune 19, 2011

I've always though of the Game Boy systems to be all different types of the same console.  Game Boy Pocket had a sleeker design, and Color added color.  In my opinion, the successor was the Game Boy Advance, where you saw new games that couldn't possibly be done on the GBC (except for the ports).


Where the Wii is its own console, seperate from the Gamecube, the Game Boy Color, to me, was only just an upgraded, redesigned Game Boy.
My argument also goes for the Wonderswan and NeoGeo Pocket.

Aaron BartonJune 19, 2011

Quote from: Crimm

Excuse me, I'm too busy being correct. A NEW system means its games cannot be played on its predecessor. That's forward compatibility. This is not true of the VAST majority of games branded as "Game Boy Color" games. Those black carts worked just fine on the Game Boy.

Game Boy carts that were the same as the old ones except black would work in either system, and were merely enhanced on the Game Boy Color.  However, Game Boy COLOR carts were different than that.  It doesn't really matter what the proportion of games that were released is (and I don't really know it).  Game Boy Color has a very good number of it's OWN games that cannot be played on its predecessor, and those games are even in physically different carts.


I don't know hard numbers, but I don't think the disparity between enhanced Game Boy games and Game Boy Color games was that dramatic.  Thinking back I remember many, many boxes with the "Only for Game Boy Color" label on the corner.

This is a seriously awesome list.  That's SO Raven is classy.  I always feel bad for the designers, artists, and programmers that have to work on games like that.  I mean, can you actually imagine it being your job to get up every day and go to work to create That's SO Raven?  I couldn't handle that.  I seriously could not handle it.  I'd rather not be in the game industry at all.

Quote from: NWR_Lindy

This is a seriously awesome list.  That's SO Raven is classy.  I always feel bad for the designers, artists, and programmers that have to work on games like that.  I mean, can you actually imagine it being your job to get up every day and go to work to create That's SO Raven?  I couldn't handle that.  I seriously could not handle it.  I'd rather not be in the game industry at all.

Can you imagine being told you have to make a sequel?

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