Nintendo Handheld Gaming Thread (Game Boy to DS)

[Tanooki]

Solar Striker is one of those later 80s/earlier 90s anomalies out of Nintendo which makes you wonder where it all went wrong with them and being brave and creative, not just trying to miserable disrupt the market with underwhelming systems developers ignore as they safety net churn out select titles to cover the losses.

They used to make a wide variety of pretty fun games that weren't in their 21st century wheel house which were very fun, maybe or not under the radar, but well done.


Mario Golf GBC I still believe was sadly(or not?) the highpoint of the entire franchise as far as things go with the single player RPG campaign as the design and course design just worked best.

[jmbarnes101]

Have you tried Pushmo/Crashmo? Those are fun little titles for the 3DS that I think equate back to games like Solar Striker and Mole Mania in terms of play and presentation. It's cheaper to produce digital only obviously so that's where most of their weird titles reside. Rusty's Real Deal Baseball is quite fun even though I'm not a fan of the pricing model. On the other hand to say Nintendo is putting out the same cookie cutter stuff they always have is kind of telling. Not everything they touch is gold and the franchises are reused but most of the time they are innovating something.

[Tanooki]

I've looked into those, not a fan with the Push/Crashmo games. Mole Mania I had a long time ago, couldn't remember much about it so I re-acquired it a few months back and honestly I couldn't stand it. Not really even sure I can nail down a why, but I found it not fun and kind of frustrating at points. Now Rusty's Real Deal Baseball, that I did like, it's a cool free/not free game there for download (as is Sub Wars.)

[jmbarnes101]

Sub Wars is pretty interesting.

So I was reading an old Nintendo Power magazine the other day and stumbled upon a DVD player called Visteon. It was built for mini vans and had GBA software inside of it so it could play games as well. Needless to say I want one of these but has anyone seen or perhaps even have one?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visteon ... ertainment

[Tanooki]

I remember that clearly as I had NP until after the first issue from Future came one when I canceled it due to the writers attitude problems. I thought it was a really cool thing I wished I had when I would need to ride in the back seat but saw no point in paying up for it at this rate. The one thing I dont' remember was about 1P gaming as I don't recall it having a controller on the device, but I know it would take a link cable to add 4 players for games that did it.

[fastbilly1]

Seen yes, have no. The only times I have seen them for sale they were way overpriced (over 1k).

[Tanooki]

I think they retailed in the day for around 1200-1600~ from stuff I read earlier so it's no wonder almost no one would have one. You'd have to be rich and willing to install it in the back of a car to shut some kids up instead of just buying a $100 car DVD player and strapping it to back of the seat.



Anyway back on the Torus Games conversation earlier with Duke Nukem Advance. I dug up Top Gear Rally for the GBA. I took a couple dollar dumper NES titles and a trio of cheap movies to the game/movie store and ended up getting it, Duck Tales GB, Fury blu ray and a little bit of credit in exchange. Should be fun to go digging into those shortly.

That engine Torus used on Doom 2 is just very impressive as it can be scaled to different platforms such as Top Gear Rally did. Have any of you really looked at that one before? You have these 3D courses the cars drive on and they too are big models as well with some very nice details added all over the cars. There's even some cliff side stages where you can spill right off and go flying off screen into the ravine.

[ExedExes]

That engine Torus used on Doom 2 is just very impressive as it can be scaled to different platforms such as Top Gear Rally did. Have any of you really looked at that one before? You have these 3D courses the cars drive on and they too are big models as well with some very nice details added all over the cars. There's even some cliff side stages where you can spill right off and go flying off screen into the ravine.

Top Gear Rally has a GBA port? THAT is worth looking into.
Ok, I see it was done by another Australian studio, Tantalus. Is it using the Torus engine? Those cars look amazing.

Further proof I really need to get more into GBC, Sgt. Rock On The Frontline. An update to the 1982 Taito arcade game that predated Commando and Ikari Warriors. Uses an obscure DC Comics character license too. Less than $10, it will be a future pickup for sure.

[Tanooki]

Yup Top Gear Rally is on GBA, there's also a GT racer too under the Top Gear name but I've never touched that one (they had it at the store though.)

Anyway here's a couple of videos...first one is outdoor in off road/woods area, and its' a sharp image, but the second was recorded badly so it's fuzzy but does show city streets. Take a peek at the car selection on #2 or the last 10 sec of the #1 video and you can see the detail they put into them which is a lot.




It's not a push over either kind of like V-Rally is. V-Rally is more for a relaxing run, TGR will kick your ass later into the game (I remember often getting knocked off the cliff side on that one.)

[ExedExes]

It looks very good. The GBA has a lot of good racing games, and for a portable it pulls many of them off very well.