“The Super Game Boy is probably the coolest piece of video game hardware in existence. It’s also probably the biggest wasted opportunity in video games. It’s been pretty much entirely forgotten about now, because – as is pretty common with neat hardware made by Nintendo – very, VERY few games ever really took advantage of it at all. And it’s a shame, because the unique visual style of Super Game Boy-compatible games, in addition to just looking really neat, can teach a lot about effectively using colour in games. The ones that do work exist in a really bizarre stylistic place.”
I had to think about the Vectrex which used screen overlays with bits colored in you had to put in front of the screen.
Never heard of the Super Game Boy. The idea is very nice, a shame it didn’t catch on.
I have a few Game Boys: best way to play Tetris!
With a few of them?
I don’t have any Game Boy, perhaps it is finally time to get one… I do have a dedicated Tetris handheld console, similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brick_Game.png (how many of those do you have? ;p ) – this might be an even better way to play Tetris.
Only one.
I have 2 Game Boy Pockets and 2 Game Boy Colors.
Also I have Tetris, Tetris DX and Tetris Attack!
BTW, you might find it interesting that Alexey Pajitnov (designer of the original Tetris) calls GB version his favourite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_(Game_Boy)#Reception
PS. If I want to get a Game Boy, which one would you suggest? Does Color have by far the longest battery life?
For certain the Game Boy Color has color.
Apparently is also has the best battery life, but for me the color bit is more important because it is able to run both the GBC as the older black & white games.
It has no battery level indicator, so always bring an extra pair!
The real downside of these Game Boy is that the screen has no backlight. I have a little light that can plug in to the extension port, but it’s perhaps easier to sit in a well lit room.
It’s shouldn’t be too difficult to find a Game Boy (Color) and loads of games. Just make sure the battery lid is still there and the screen isn’t (too) scratched.
I must be missing something. Maybe I should iron the screen to see if there are lines in invisible ink explaining where the any of the coolness is.
I’m sorry, but if you need to put profanity in your article title, then you’ve already lost the argument.
If you wish to close yourself off from things that use perfectly valid English in a perfectly appropriate manner, then that is very much your loss.
Having just finished the entire series of article, he is perfectly eloquent, and the phrase “Fuck the Super Game Boy” is entirely appropriate for the sentiment he is trying to convey (not his own, mind you) in the final paragraph of the final article.
*she.
D’oh, I’m a moron. Should have just looked at the sidebar or the byline, but was being so very very lazy
You read it all and didn’t notice it’s “she”, not “he”?
Yep, I generally just ignore the sidebars, and only read the article content, which, as I recall, did say anything like “when I was a little girl”.
As I was writing the comment I did think “Wait, is this guy or a girl” but didn’t actually care enough to ctrl-tab to find out (most of the time I bother doing that it ends up being a gender neutral name anyway with an arty picture that leaves me none-the-wiser)
I really am too lazy for my own good
Your loss, it’s a fun article.
If you had actually read the article, you would have realized that there is really no point in having it there. Hate to generalize, but it seems like the hallmark of either a 13 year old kid trying to be cool, or a non native English speaker that peppers every other word with an expletive.
It doesn’t make any sense there. But in other cases it could be entirely appropriate. Even broken clocks are right twice a day…
But if you ignore the article’s title, its not bad. Its a rehashing of a nintendo power article about the super gameboy from the early 90’s. If you played gameboy or super nintendo, its a cool reminder of the craziness of those systems. The super gameboy sounded really cool. But I already had a gameboy, I didn’t see the point of playing it on a tv.
Edited 2013-07-29 15:04 UTC
That’s a shame, because the entire series is fucking brilliant.
I remember being jealous when my friends got a super game boy, when I just had the original. That quickly faded after I saw it, all kinds of MEH going around there. I loved my gameboy, but super gameboy was gimmick to the max.
In countries covered by Bergsala distribution and its successors the supergameboy adapter cartridge came with almost all super nintendo consoles sold after the release.
Cool. I didn’t know the Super Gameboy worked that way. I thought the enhancement it offered beside the border image was offering separate palettes for the background and sprite layer. Kinda sad that it doesn’t do that, but it is cool the options it does give compatible cartridges.
because Game Boy Player for Game Cube is better: it can play Advance games.
Edited 2013-07-29 17:30 UTC
Not sure what’s more ZZZzzzzzzzz.. Talking about the Super Game Boy, or a conversation about the use of `fuck`.
What about the GBA? Ever played a pre-color game on the GBA? You have 5 preset(default or whatever direction you pressed on the D-pad at the Nintendo logo at system boot) color options on that, but I don’t remember seeing it slip in more colors in certain games though.
What about on Game Boy Color when playing pre-color game?
The thing is, this sentiment isn’t just true of the Super Game Boy, but also the original Nintendo DS, the PS3, the Wii, you name it. In theory, all of these devices fail to live up to expectations because they are such closed systems. They always have been, and always will be, and that means that a bunch of the functionality they came with will be underutilised, if used at all.
I wrote about this in more detail here: http://blog.quaddmg.com/2013/2/12/why-the-ps4-will-fail/
OTOH consoles is where the many innovations happens recently (Wii, Kinect) – while PCs seem forever locked into limiting lowest common denominator format of WASD+mouse.
Edited 2013-08-03 13:22 UTC