Game Boy - Doing it properly this time

[noiseredux]

haha yeah, to me all GB/GBC/GBA games should just be played on an SP, or GameCube GBPlayer.

[retrosportsgamer]

What is the game in the bottom middle?

Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge

Excellent game.

[alienjesus]

I really would love to be able to use the Game Boy as my primary GB device. The display is just far worse than I remembered. The blurring was expected, but it is only a minor part of the problem. The main issue is the contrast. I remember this being a problem back in 1990 and it feels even worse now. There just isn't enough difference between the light and dark areas.

It really seems like the Game Boy was designed to be played by daylight. If you play it with daylight, even on a bright cloudy day, it seems fine. Alternatively, a very bright room lit with diffused light. It just doesn't work very well if you are indoors with a lamp or overhead light. It reminds me of my first time playing Super Mario Kart on a regular GBA, except not as bad.

Anyway, I gave up on my desire to play on the original hardware and picked up two Game Boy Color systems. Both have only minor scratches on the screen and seem to work fine. In my town, I found a listing on Kijiji of $20 for both of these, so I confirmed they had the battery covers and went to the seller's house after dinner.



There is no comparison at all in display quality between the original and the Color. It's like the difference between VHS and Bluray. The screen, while 5mm smaller, is crisp and has minimal blurring. The contrast is perfect. The native colour palettes for games is cool, but I don't like how the coloured sprites can give away background objects that should be "hidden".

However, there is one major flaw: the sound. The speaker volume is noticeably quieter, but I suppose not un-usably quiet like the Game Boy Micro. The speaker is also more muffled sounding than on the original. The main issue is that the headphone output is noisy as hell. I read about this online, but didn't realize it was this bad. There is a constant high pitched noise, and various hums and other noise depending on what is going on in the game. It's terrible. A shame for what otherwise seems to be a good system. Conversely, the sound on the original Game Boy is flawless. Nice frequency range and no noise.

I can't believe Nintendo went from 10 hours on 4AA to 30 hours on 2AA. I suppose that is what 10 years of technology can do. I don't even know if using rechargeable batteries on this thing is worth it.

The kid I bought these from also had three copies of each Pokemon game. I considered picking up a few, but he wanted $15 each and the one I tested had a dead battery. Apparently, him and his brothers/sisters each had their own Game Boy and played a lot of Pokemon. He didn't have a spare link cable, for whatever reason, or I would have grabbed one.

If you absolutely insist on using an old school game boy as your primary game boy console, I would recommend the GB Pocket. The screen is crystal clear, doesn't suffer from the blurring as much as the classic, has a contrast function which is really good for palying in daylight and seems to me to have a less reflective screen than the GBC or GBA.

[jay_red]

I really would love to be able to use the Game Boy as my primary GB device. The display is just far worse than I remembered. The blurring was expected, but it is only a minor part of the problem. The main issue is the contrast. I remember this being a problem back in 1990 and it feels even worse now. There just isn't enough difference between the light and dark areas.

It really seems like the Game Boy was designed to be played by daylight. If you play it with daylight, even on a bright cloudy day, it seems fine. Alternatively, a very bright room lit with diffused light. It just doesn't work very well if you are indoors with a lamp or overhead light. It reminds me of my first time playing Super Mario Kart on a regular GBA, except not as bad.

Anyway, I gave up on my desire to play on the original hardware and picked up two Game Boy Color systems. Both have only minor scratches on the screen and seem to work fine. In my town, I found a listing on Kijiji of $20 for both of these, so I confirmed they had the battery covers and went to the seller's house after dinner.



There is no comparison at all in display quality between the original and the Color. It's like the difference between VHS and Bluray. The screen, while 5mm smaller, is crisp and has minimal blurring. The contrast is perfect. The native colour palettes for games is cool, but I don't like how the coloured sprites can give away background objects that should be "hidden".

However, there is one major flaw: the sound. The speaker volume is noticeably quieter, but I suppose not un-usably quiet like the Game Boy Micro. The speaker is also more muffled sounding than on the original. The main issue is that the headphone output is noisy as hell. I read about this online, but didn't realize it was this bad. There is a constant high pitched noise, and various hums and other noise depending on what is going on in the game. It's terrible. A shame for what otherwise seems to be a good system. Conversely, the sound on the original Game Boy is flawless. Nice frequency range and no noise.

I can't believe Nintendo went from 10 hours on 4AA to 30 hours on 2AA. I suppose that is what 10 years of technology can do. I don't even know if using rechargeable batteries on this thing is worth it.

The kid I bought these from also had three copies of each Pokemon game. I considered picking up a few, but he wanted $15 each and the one I tested had a dead battery. Apparently, him and his brothers/sisters each had their own Game Boy and played a lot of Pokemon. He didn't have a spare link cable, for whatever reason, or I would have grabbed one.

If you absolutely insist on using an old school game boy as your primary game boy console, I would recommend the GB Pocket. The screen is crystal clear, doesn't suffer from the blurring as much as the classic, has a contrast function which is really good for palying in daylight and seems to me to have a less reflective screen than the GBC or GBA.

Haha, pretty soon he is going to own all variations of the gameboy, maybe you should drop some serious bucks on a game boy light?

[Zing]

Oh, I'm sure I will grab the other three basic colours of the GBC just to make it complete.

[slim harpo jarvi]

When Pokemon came out I didn't have a Game Boy, just a Game Gear, so my friend who had two of them sold me a Game Boy Pocket for $5 so I could go out and buy Pokemon Red that week. The next year or so I lucked into a $10 or 15 Game Boy color new in the box at a yard sale from someone who won it at some kind of raffle and didn't know anything about video games. After that my friend wanted his Game Boy back but I was a jerk and wouldn't give it to him.

That's my Game Boy regret.

Enjoy your Game Boy! Still has my favorite version of Tetris, and a lot of great games.

[aaron]

i'll second the superiority of the GB Pocket's screen. probably the best GB design that hit the states. i always wanted a GB Light, but alas, those days are over.