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GBA

The Worst of the GBA - Revisited

Psychic high school, blockbuster sequels, and... tubers

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

More licensed games are manifest in this set of grave GBA games.

That's So Raven (Ben Kosmina, November 12, 2004)
"Raven's line of defence includes dumping spring water on the floor to make people slip and fall over, swinging her handbag around to deflect objects that are being thrown at her, and SPRAYING PEOPLE IN THE FACE WITH PERFUME. Am I the only one who finds that a bit odd? I can just hear the Disney exec saying 'We don't want anything violent. Make her blind people with perfume.'"

that's SO Raven  (that's how its written) was a mid 2000s Disney Channel show staring the youngest Huxtable child as a psychic teenager (she was early to mid-twenties at the time) who ruins the education of her peers. Ben's review breaks down the person Raven and he concludes that she sucks. Find out why in his review. 

FUN FACT: This game got a sequel. We never reviewed it, otherwise it would probably be listed here.

Spider-Man 2 (Ty Shughart, July 27, 2004)
"Spidey does some of his trademark wisecracking taunts, except, no, he doesn't. The dialogue in this game is harder to read than an L. Ron Hubbard book that's covered with scorpions and anthrax. Sure, suggesting similarities between fish bowls and Mysterio's head isn't too bad, but saying 'well, you'll be getting plenty of attention from now on, behind bars!" is beyond cheesy. It's just horrible. And if I were the Shocker, I'd want to kill Spidey too, if he called me an 'oven-mitt head.'"

If Nintendo World Report isn't here tomorrow, it is because the Scientologists sued us for making fun of L. Ron. Ty writes Spidey a love poem and then discusses why this game bucked the trend of GOOD Spider-Man games. License be damned.

Hot Potato (Jonathan Metts, August 28, 2001)
"The 'mission mode', in which you have to take out a certain breed of potato in addition to just clearing a path through the street and surviving, starts out slowly enough for you to learn the gameplay basics..."

This is the first review we feature from someone who is still a member of the staff. Dr. Metts has been here so long he actually became a real doctor. While he doesn't have anything particularly scathing to say about Hot Potato, he actually finds the game to have some redeeming value, I couldn't resist including the phrase "certain breed of potato." 

I asked Jonny about this game, and after his memory was jogged he used words to describe it that I simply cannot repeat here. Suffice to say, he thinks it's weird. By his own admission, this review probably makes no sense.

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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