Jamatano: Game Boy Color

Game Boy just evolved, and it's good!

Review By ATATATATA

Nintendo has been dominating the portable gaming market ever since the release the Game Boy in 1989. And the ironic thing about it was that it was just a monochrome system that can only display several colors of gray and black. The competition from other systems that were color and featured backlights(which allowed you to play in the dark, something that was missing in Game Boy) such as Sega's Game Gear. But Nintendo still dominated the portable market, and improved on it more with the release of the Super Game Boy, Game Boy Light(featured a back light), and the Super Game Boy, but things were starting to die down, a new millenniumwas approaching and gamers wanted more than just a black and white protable, so finally Nintendo listened and delivered the Game Boy Color.

It took Nintendo 9 years to finally give the Game Boy a color make over in 1998. The Game Boy color looked a lot like the Game Boy Pocket, shape wise any ways, but it was in color, and the shape of it was just a tad bigger than the Game Boy Pocket. Also the contrast feature was gone, since now the portable displayed color graphics there was no need to adjust the contrast. Any ways the Game Boy Color has been destroying the portable market, and even more powerful portable such as the Neo Geo Pocket Color, and the Wonderswan can't even come close to competing against it.

The Game Boy Color got a big facelift in the graphics department. It can display up to 56 colors at once from a pallet of thousands of colors to choose from, and it's processor has the ability to display 8-bit graphics. Not crappy 8-bit graphics like the NES, but good graphics like the Master System featured. Also The Game Boy Color can play old Game Boy games to, plus if you press a button combination at the opening Game Boy screen, you can set a color tone to the game, making the game appear in color. Most of the new Game Boy Color games can be played on the old Game Boys unless the game box is labeled with ''Only for Game Boy Color.'' Then the game cartridge looks different from other cartridges by having a clear shape and if you try to use them in the older Game Boy models model's you'll be prompted with a message saying this game can only be played on Game Boy Color.

Now you gotta be a little bit forgiving for the sound capabilities of the Game Boy Color. Let's admit it, even the old NES couldn't pull off great sound. The same goes for the Game Boy Color. Most of its games have crappy background music, and mediocre sound effects. However, there are a couple of games which prove my opinions wrong with games like Pokemon Yellow and NFL Blitz which feature digitized voice samples. And the RPG games tend to feature some good background music as well. But let me just say this, if you wanna pull off some pretty good music on the Game Boy Color, you're gonna have to put some effort into it.

The Game Boy Color has a wide variety of games. It has loads of sports games like yearly Baseball updates of Griffey Baseball and All-Star Baseball, plus lots of basketball games like In the Zone, Showtime, and Kobe Bryant's 3-on-3 challenge. Also you got games in the edutainment department for kids with a few of those damn stupid learning with Elmo games. You got lots of great action/adventure 2-D games like the Turok games, Bionic Commando, Rainbow Six, Castlevania, and Perfect Dark. And don't forget the RPG department, the Game Boy Color has loads of RPG's, as a matter of fact I think they have more RPG's than the Nintendo 64! You got the fantasy Natsume RPG's like Harvest Moon, Legend of the River King, and Legend of the Sea King, plus sequels are promised for all these games too. There's also Nintendo's Pokemon games and the Monster Rancher games, and a lot of other one's too.

The Game Boy Color has a great amount of 3rd Party support! As a matter of fact the Game Boy Color has more 3rd party support than Nintendo 64! Capcom, Eidos, and Namco are releasing more Game Boy Color titles than N64 titles. Plus the GBC has publishers like Metro 3D, Majesco, and Vatical, bringing in ports of popular games like Vigilante 8, and Grand Theft Auto as well as bringing in it's own games too. Plus all the big company names make games for it too like Midway, Activision, 3DO, Konami, THQ, EA Sports, Disney Interactive, and the list goes on and on.