The Return Of The Game Boy: Part 1
Life is busy. Really busy. Not only is it busy, but it’s expensive. Console gaming prices are outrageous. Sure, they play movies now, but for crying out loud they don’t need to cost $500+. Video games are first and foreomost games. They are fun. They entertain us. That’s what they are for.
Nintendo gets this more than any other company. They aren’t the towering juggernaut they once were. Nintendo is a more mature and humble company. In many ways they’ve come full circle and are poised to take over the industry all over again. The source of Nintendo’s newfound glory can be traced all the way back to the GameBoy. That big hunk of gaming fun that brought us NES era fun on the go. Sure, we don’t think much of it now, but the Game Boy is Nintendo’s biggest success.
Fundamentally it hasn’t changed much in the last 15 years. It’s still a small device that plays simple and fun games on the go. It’s cheap and it’s fun. It’s the best vaule in video games. There are plenty of great games that can please any gamer out there. With the Nintendo DS, they took it a step further and finally innovated the platform into something old and something new at the same time.
The original Nintendo DS was clunky and obtuse. It was bold and different. It wasn’t very visually appealing, but it made a statement. In the last year and a half the DS has gone from a quirky novelty to the biggest gaming system in Japan. Bolstered by the unlikely heroes of Nintendogs and Brain Age, Nintendo has a reall winner on their hands.
Now, I’m not going to lie. Like many gamers last summer I got sucked into the PSP. UMD movies are a really cool idea and some of the games are really great. The load times suck and the battery life isn’t great, but Sony did a solid job of bringing the PS2 era of gaming to a handheld. However, like many gamers I also have completely neglected my PSP. I don’t buy UMD movies anymore and there are very few games that really appeal to me. I don’t want to play a long game with long loading times and long cinematics. I don’t have time for that. I want to pick up a game and play for 15 minutes and then put it down to go do something else.
To that end I’ve rediscovered the joys of the Game Boy as a platform. Strangely the game that brought me back to the system was Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. I’m a pretty hardcore gamer, but the intriguing mix of Sudoku and other puzzle games has brought me back to Nintendo gaming in a big way. Now Castlevania: Circle of the Moon takes up residence in the Game Boy Advance slot of the DS and Brain Age is handling the DS side of things. It’s a great mix. Now, once again I’m loving having a Game Boy around and I’m preparing to get rid of my PSP. It’s getting traded in for the sexy new DS Lite coming out in a couple weeks. I’m sorry Sony, but you’ve just lost a customer. To Nintendo: I salute you!
