This is something we'd really like to see at E3! Thanks to Markioke for the tip. Looks like the folks at IGN pocket got a super secret hands on test of the GBA. Well at least a development version. From the looks of that they had to say about their first impressions, this little bad boy is going to rock. Here's a rather large clip.

As of this writing, there is no Game Boy Advance system. Right now, the hardware is simply a circuit board the size of a magazine, containing all the functionality of what the GBA system will have when it's completed and put into a casing. This means it has a screen, a cartridge slot, a speaker with volume controls, a link cable port, a headphone jack, a power switch, and buttons for each of the controls the system will end up with: up, down, left, and right (the D-pad), as well as A, B, L, and R buttons. The development unit also has a parallel port used for development purposes – though right now it wasn't in use.

Also of note was the boards inclusion of a Super NES controller. The development unit doesn't have a Super NES controller port on it; rather, a SNES controller was modified to plug into it. All development kits have these, since it's downright impossible to actually play a game using the button layout that's built onto the board. And besides, it's a little more comfortable to have the three-foot long cord so you don't have to constantly bend over the screen while sitting at your PC working on coding the thing.

The screen that's on the development unit will be the same screen that'll be included in the Game Boy Advance when it's finally put into a case. The size is decent, definitely larger than the Game Boy Color and a lot wider, too. Of course, I insisted that the system be turned on so I could see the upcoming system in action. With a quick click on a PC, a file was uploaded to the Game Boy Advance unit. And the power switch was flipped.

First, up came the power-on sequence. Like we reported back in April, the Game Boy Advance has its own quick animation when the power is turned on. The Game Boy had one, the Game Boy Color had one, and now it's the Game Boy Advance's turn. This power-up sequence is VERY quick – from off-screen, the text from GAME BOY gets throw onto the screen utilizing the Game Boy Advance's sprite scaling capabilities. It's super quick and super smooth, and only shows a tiny bit of what the system is capable of.

What came next was a pre-rendered, rotating island with Yoshi carved onto it. The sky and water were constructed using the Game Boy Advance's "Mode 7" style graphics capability – they're painted backgrounds tipped into perspective and rotating with the island. The framerate here is decent, but since the island is prerendered at different rotations, the animation is only as smooth as how many frames were rendered. This island continued to rotate until I pressed a button. Then the fun began.

This was the Yoshi's Story demo that's been talked about for months – on the screen was the most colorful and detailed handheld game I have ever seen. It was so vibrant that after only a few minutes of play I had to make the decision and say this looks better than the N64 game it's based off of. It's only a single level, and the gameplay wasn't completely implemented yet, but all the basics were in place. The basic "plink plink" music from the N64 was there providing the background audio, and using the controller I could make Yoshi walk, jump and squish the bad Shy Guys on the head. When Yoshi stomped, the Shyguys squished using the hardware sprite manipulation. And tapping a shoulder button on the controller zoomed the camera in – and here is where the game didn't look as pretty as the N64 version. The Game Boy Advance doesn't have anti-alias filtering capabilities like the N64, so zooming in on the screen caused a slight blockiness.

This game is the perfect demonstration of what's capable of the Game Boy Advance. First of all, Yoshi's Story is obnoxiously colorful, which puts the color palette of the system and the screen to test. And second, the N64 version used sprite scaling and rotation, and multiple planes of 2D backgrounds extensively – there really wasn't too much in the way of a polygonal engine at work, so the game is tailored for the architecture of the new handheld hardware.

The color quality of the Game Boy Advance's screen is simply amazing. I can't say for sure if the unit's screen can get brighter than the Game Boy Color's, but one thing's for sure – the Game Boy Advance's much larger color palette really makes the image stand out. There's no reason why Yoshi's Story couldn't be made into a full-fledged game, and from what I've seen and played, I'm expecting to see it as a near-launch title.

Of course, one game just isn't going to do it for me as a demonstration. So I grunted, "More….more…!" to the person behind the development PC. With another click, a second file was uploaded to the Game Boy Advance.

This one wasn't a game. Rather, it was a series of tools in use that shows developers and designers what's possible on the system hardware. This was obviously handed over from the research and development team at Nintendo Co. LTD (the Japan branch of Nintendo), because the text menu was almost entirely in Japanese. There were a handful of demos to select in this program, each showing off a specific capability of the Game Boy Advance hardware.

In one demonstration, an extremely detailed RPG-style map popped up on the screen, and using the controller I could move the map around. Pressing the shoulder buttons on the controller would zoom in and out of the image. If I hit a button I could enable a "mosaic" transition effect that's very similar to the blurring effect used in many SNES games such as Super Mario World. This effect can be employed on an entire screen, a single background, or a single sprite (like Yoshi the dinosaur).

In a third demonstration, Yoshi the dinosaur could be moved under different colored circles to show the transparency and alpha-channeling capabilities of the hardware – in other words, moving Yoshi under a blue circle would give the dinosaur a blue tint while still containing his green complexion. This effect might not seem like much, but it could be used for many things – like a slight mist over a old-fashioned village in an RPG, for example.

But alas, my time with the system was cut short and I had to pack up my things and go. I really wanted to test the Game Boy Color games on the system – but I was informed that the development unit doesn't have the GBC chipset built onto it. Ah well.