Pit Fighter (1992)

Image shamelessly stolen from GamesDBase.
3 buff dudes and a lady in dominatrix gear. Nothing can

go wrong with this scenario, right? Nothing at all...

Since the inception of the modern fighting game with Street Fighter II: The World Warrior in 1991, scores of video game developers have attempted to jump on the head-to-head fighting game bandwagon at least once.  SNK had Fatal Fury, Midway had Mortal Kombat, Data East had Fighter's History, and even Capcom rivals Konami had the little known Martial Champion.  Prior to the fighting game craze, however, companies were still trying to figure out a way to make a fighting game that wasn't just walking left to right, mindlessly punching enemies in the face, but focused more on actual human interaction.  Atari threw their hat in the ring (sorry, pun intended) with 1990's Pit-Fighter, originally released in the arcade.  The game was received well enough to receive a whole cadre of home conversions, including a port for Nintendo's own Game Boy.

Unlike some games, at least the logo is the same here

as it is on the box. That's about all that's good about it.

It makes a weird kind of sense that someone would port a game like Pit-Fighter to the Game Boy, and yet it makes no sense whatsoever.  It makes financial sense, because if you liked the arcade game, you might want a home console or portable version, right?  So why not port the game to anything and everything with enough power to give some facsimile of the game?  Where that logic ends, however, is with the realization that the Game Boy just didn't have the power to approximate a game like Pit-Fighter with enough technical success to make it anything more than a curiosity.  Rather, it's more of an abomination.

Buzz is one of the 3 fighters you can choose from. Not

much to look at, he's your standard beefcake wrestler.

Forget the fact that several development teams, including some of Nintendo's own, had been able to make the Game Boy do some pretty amazing things by 1992.  Logically, you don't take a 3-player, open arena based head-to-head fighting game with beat-em-up mechanics and environment interactivity onto a handheld system that is barely as powerful as its home console hardware predecessor.  I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at that meeting at the Atari Games/Tengen offices when they decided to port the game to the Nintendo Game Boy.  That must have been an interesting discussion.

I could totally see this happening at the Atari Games/Tengen offices, given how much focus
there was on pure profit during those times, especially with arcade ports to consoles.

Nevertheless, like any game company wanting to eek every cent of possible profit from their intellectual properties, Atari Games decided to port Pit-Fighter to every possible console they could to maximize the game's earning potential.  They probably knew that console ports of Street Fighter II were going to dwarf any earning potential they had soon, so it had to release fast and on as many platforms as they could muster in order to capitalize on the arcade original's marginal popularity.  Indeed, the SNES port of Street Fighter II, followed later by the Sega Genesis release of Street Fighter II: Championship Edition took the console world by storm, and most other fighting game franchises were left in the dust.  No one can fault Atari for wanting to bleed the proverbial turnip dry, given the fervor fans had for one on one fighting games by 1992, and wanting to get in on a piece of that action, monetarily speaking.  Sadly, the Game Boy conversion (that term used very loosely) of Pit-Fighter, leaves a LOT to be desired.

Don't talk to me like that, you meanie!

Here's the basic setup, for the uninitiated.  Pit-Fighter is a head-to-head fighting game that, at least in the arcade original, would "pit" (pun intended) up to 3 fighters against one another in mortal combat (I can't help myself).  Each area is an arena in a sort of 2.5D view, and you can move up, down, left and right, and all over the place.  You have the ability to punch, kick, and jump (with both buttons simultaneously), and depending on your proximity to another fighter, and the combination of your movements and button presses, you can do other things like throws, or slamming/kicking your opponent when they're on the ground to deal extra damage.  After you win a round, you're granted temporary use of a special attack, which you can execute by sort of "swiping" over the two attack buttons in rapid succession, executing the attack.  It's a tad clumsy, but it works well enough, and that usually deals more damage than anything else, so it's important to use that as frequently as possible.  Each fighter's health is represented by a counter that slowly whittles away as you or your opponent take damage.  Once the counter reaches zero, it's game over.  No continues, no second chances, just death.

Looks like Buzz won himself a match! I hope that $1850 is enough

to pay his medical bills after the next subsequent beat down!

In the original arcade game, you had nice extras like the 3 player melee, weapons you could pick up off the ground, Double Dragon-style, and crowd interaction.  If you got to close to the crowd, the audience could attack you or push you back into the fight, and you take damage.  This was a strategy you could use to your advantage, by backing your opponent into a literal corner, then a combination of allowing the onlookers to pummel them, and unleashing your own fatal fury upon them (sorry, I can't stop).  In the Game Boy version, the 3-player mode is removed, for obvious reasons, and sadly, there are no weapons available to assist you.  You have to rely solely on your own art of fighting (it's getting bad) to see you through each match.  Unfortunately, there's no health regeneration between levels, and no health pickups or bonuses, so the best and only strategy you can hope for is to get through each level with little or no health lost, so you can make it to the final fight (that was low hanging fruit) with as much energy as you can.

$11K for a single low-level fight? I picked the wrong profession...

Graphically, the game does as good a job as you could expect the monochrome handheld to do.  The arcade game was a touch herky jerky, and Nintendo's venerable handheld doesn't handle the scrolling very well so it jerks and stutters a fair amount.  The crowds have exactly 2 frames of animation which go back and forth at varying intervals, so it gives the illusion that there's more going on than there really is, but as you'll be focusing on your opponent, you may not even notice.  The character animations are copied from the original, though obviously scaled down for this format, and are equally as awkward as the source material.  The strange thing is, on the original DMG hardware, the game looks fine.  With different palettes, however, the graphics have a weird effect where your character sprite, or other elements, may disappear into the background because of the blending.  This is evident with the Super Game Boy and Game Boy Player, as well as with the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance.

In terms of audio, it's a mixed bag.  The game has relatively impressive voice samples, taken straight from the arcade game, that are present here.  However, for anyone who played the original, they would notice the rather limited number of samples available here.  Speech samples are a small handful of grunts, a laugh, and a couple yells.  It's reduced to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/3 of the original voice samples, and despite being somewhat impressive coming out of the Game Boy hardware, are still far less than what the original game allowed for.  There are also punch and kick noises, which sound like you might expect them to, sort of a "whiff" sound.  Unfortunately, only one music track from the arcade game is converted, and because the original wasn't exactly a bastion of great melody, since that's all that's left available from the 4 sound channels on the hardware, it grates quickly because it's just not that well composed.

"You're the best around,

nothing's gonna ever keep ya down!"

The other curious thing about the audio is what happens when you play Pit-Fighter on a Game Boy Advance, GBA SP, or Game Boy Player add-on.  You get this curious effect where, interspersed with the sound and music, you hear this high-pitched whistle or ringing effect.  It rings somewhat intermittently as the game is played, but the occurrence of it is near-constant.  As if the game's sound didn't already border on annoying, this happens, and puts the whole experience over the top.  It's an interesting phenomenon, and while I don't yet know the reason for this anomaly, I recorded a video documenting it, along with the odd video problem I mentioned earlier, regarding character sprites blending into the background:

Episode 001 in my new Game Boy Oddities series.

At the end of the day, Pit-Fighter remains only marginally playable.  The original game wasn't known for tight control, and the Game Boy port fares no better.  The game's "moves" aren't easy to pull off, and some of the maneuvers, like the rolling that Buzz can do when he gets up from being knocked down, I was never able to accomplish.  The graphics are problematic because of the choice to merely copy the arcade, rather than retool for the hardware, and the impressive speech samples aren't enough to save the game's audio from being anything more than mediocre at best.  The game offers no continues, unlike the arcade original, and because there are no power-ups (like the "power pill" which offered temporary invincibility in the original), health restores, or breathing room, the randomness of the enemy characters just adds to the punishing difficulty.  With some practice, I was able to kind of make it to the 3rd fight on most every attempt, but the game also lacks the "Grudge Match" option, where you fight a clone of yourself to try and score 3 knockdowns.  With all that's missing from this port, all that the development team failed to tighten, and the obvious fact that this just wasn't a stellar game to begin with, and you're left with a Game Boy title that made neither Tengen, nor TH-Q, into world heroes (please, someone stop me!).  I paid exactly $4 for this, and that's probably the most I would encourage anyone to pay.  Not that I'm encouraging anyone to pay for this game.  No, I would tell you to stay away, because it's just not a good game, it's not a fun game, and it's not worth your time.  Pass this one up unless you're a Pit-Fighter die-hard (should such a creature exist), or an avid collector like me, who masochistically has to have every title, no matter how wretched.

The Cultural Impact Of The Game Boy

Image shamelessly stolen from USGamer.  This ad really shows the diversity of the

Game Boy game library.  Represented here, we have 2 puzzle games, 2 racing games,

an action/platformer adventure title, an action puzzler, a beat-em-up, a shoot-em-up,

a sports game, a light-hearted action title, and a puzzle/adventure game.

I work in healthcare.  More specifically, I'm an "IT guy", one of those overly geeky "computer nerds" who takes care of all things technology.  I work for a hospital, and we work, in turn, with a local nursing home.  I was visiting that location a few weeks ago, when I was struck by a conversation I overheard.  There was some apparent shuffling that needed to take place of some people within the organization, and the woman who was doing most of the talking stated that they need to effectively "play Tetris" with some people and some rooms.  This woman is probably a few years younger than I am, and she was speaking to another person who is several years older.  Both parties knew what the other was talking about, and the Tetris comment was clearly understood.  This isn't the only gaming-related phrasing or metaphor I've heard from people I wouldn't consider to be "gamers" in the traditional sense, but as I've begun to collect a large number of Game Boy carts, and consumed a lot of related content on the internet, it got me thinking about the long-term cultural impact of the Game Boy, and the legacy it has created.

The ubiquity of Tetris is due, in no small part, to Nintendo wisely choosing to include it with the original Game Boy upon its launch in North America.  Sure, everyone knows now what a great game Tetris is, but looking back 30 years ago, who would have thought that an obscure, Russian-designed computer puzzle game would have had such widespread appeal and acclaim?  Who would have guessed that the game would be referenced in casual conversation like my example above, talking about having to rearrange things, much like you do in the game?  I seriously doubt many would have had the foresight to predict such a thing.  Nintendo themselves knew they had a hit on their hand, when they licensed it for the home console market, but I don't think anyone at Nintendo could have foreseen the runaway success their little handheld would bring them.

Image shamelessly linked from Alchetron.
The fact that Alexey Pajitnov isn't a multi-millionaire because of Tetris
is a sad result of the USSR, as well as the perils of software licensing.

If you look at handheld gaming from the mid-1970's until 1989 when the Game Boy was introduced, you'll find that while Nintendo wasn't the first to offer a portable gaming system with interchangeable cartridges, they were the first to do so successfully.  Most famously, the first handheld game console with individual cartridges was Milton Bradley's Microvision in 1979, though its relatively modest success was short-lived, and the line was discontinued in 1981.  A few other companies put products into the market between 1981 and the Game Boy's North American debut in 1989, but none of them were met with much success, and often had a lot of shortcomings due to utilizing relatively old technology.  Nintendo's entry into the handheld gaming console market (not just single-game portable machines) was a landmark that would forever alter the course of gaming.

The interesting thing was, as the technology to make a powerful, handheld gaming system came into being, Nintendo wasn't the only company to be developing such a concept.  Epyx, a software company fresh off a handful of successful titles, began developing their own handheld gaming device in 1986, nearly a year before Game Boy designer Gunpei Yokoi began work on his handheld system.  Epyx didn't have the financial capabilities to mass produce their "Portable Computer Entertainment System", however, so Atari Corp. stepped in to help them make it a reality.  If only the Atari Lynx had debuted 6 months ahead of the Nintendo Game Boy, instead of the other way around, the gaming landscape might be somewhat different than it is today.  Would the Lynx have sold enough at its initial $179.99 price point to keep Nintendo from totally dominating the handheld gaming market?  Probably not, but the Game Boy might have been a bit less ubiquitous, and the poor Lynx might have become more than just the forgotten competitor from the worn out Atari.

The initial model of the Atari Lynx was quite large, and not nearly as portable as Nintendo's
Game Boy system, despite the latter still being a large, white plastic brick on its own.

While Tetris was a large part of the success of the Game Boy, due to its near-universal appeal, the fact that Nintendo marketed the Game Boy so well is another factor that contributed to its runaway success.  Unlike the Nintendo of the last decade or so, Nintendo in the late 1980's was dominating the market, but that didn't stop them from advertising their new product to anyone and everyone.  It was marketed as a fun system with a lot of games for kids.  It was marketed as "edgy" and "cool" to the teenage set.  It was also marketed toward adults, as a diversion from the doldrums of daily life.  Nintendo reaped the reward for all their efforts, as history has shown us, because the Game Boy line sold in the tens of millions within its first few years.

Nintendo successfully fused then-modern music and fast image cuts
with game footage to produce this kid-centric commercial.

Look at this hip 1989 teenage boy with his cool denim jacket, his, "I'm

ready for 1990" haircut, and his hot sneakers! Nerds like me, when I
was in school, would have looked up to him and his Game Boy.

I'd never seen this particular Game Boy TV spot before, but it truly
demonstrates the scope of Nintendo's advertising plan for the Game
Boy handheld. Serious, hard-working adults were just as much a
target as children, and many bought into the hype.

This is the adult-focused Game Boy commercial I remember seeing
as a kid, often watching prime time TV with my parents. Of course,
they weren't interested in such things, but many adults caught the fever.

Nintendo continues to dominate the dedicated handheld gaming market today, though the ubiquitous nature of smart phones has begun to eat into the overall market share.  Still, the fact that we're even playing games on our phones is itself a tribute to what Nintendo accomplished by putting real video games into our hands, not just LCD screens with static images and little interactivity.  The Game Boy was the first system to market that gave the consumer a true video game experience on the go, and it was affordable to do so.  They also wisely chose to include the ability to connect two Game Boy systems together via the Link Cable accessory, which came with the initial hardware, and worked with the system's pack-in game, as well as 2 of the other 5 US launch titles.  I spent many hours as a kid linking up with friends for head-to-head Tetris and Dr. Mario sessions, and after buying F-1 Race, I even got to play that against a friend or two.  It was the first time handheld gaming could be truly competitive as well, a feature that may well have been part of the inspiration for much of the online gaming boon many years later.

Another interesting thing about the Game Boy is that, despite the handheld lasting for nearly 10 years on the market (from its debut in April 1989 to the debut of the Game Boy Color in November 1998), there are only just over 500 original titles for the system.  Several games received "Million Seller" re-issues, and some games were later reissued by other publishers (such as Sunsoft re-issuing the Final Fantasy Legend games), but the total number of original, licensed games released in North America was just a shade over 500.  It seems odd that the Game Boy had so few games compared to the NES, which had somewhere in the 700+ range.  Having said that, the Game Boy did have basically twice the size of library as its closest competitor, Sega's Game Gear, and it dwarfed the library of the Atari Lynx, which topped out around 50 titles.  Despite all this, there are a number of Game Boy games that went on to spawn game series that have had lasting effects over the years.  From the sleeper hit Gargoyle's Quest (that produced 2 console sequels) to Kirby's Dream Land, which continues today in new and interesting iterations, and of course, the pervasive Pokémon series, which sold nearly 10 million copies in the United States alone, and as history has shown, became a worldwide phenomenon, right at the end of the Game Boy's life, all thanks to some innovative gameplay mechanics and the monster collection theme.  For a system 1 month away from the end of its life to have a game that became one of the system's best selling stand-alone titles is no easy feat.

This iconic clip is from the 1990's TV series, Picket Fences. I wasn't

allowed to watch the show, perhaps for obvious reasons, since the

themes of the show were a bit more mature in nature, but the sheer

mainstream saturation of the Game Boy was present in this show,

which was targeted more at adults and teens than kids.

It's easy to look back 25+ years and say that the Game Boy was a resounding success.  By contrast, I understand why some say that Nintendo is floundering with the Wii U, and to a lesser extent, their 3DS line-up of handheld systems, despite that continuing to be a money maker.  Even so, the market is a much different place now than it was during the time of the Game Boy, and there's far more competition for the same gaming space these days.  Smartphones have taken over where Nintendo's white brick once ruled, and even the 3DS (and Sony's poor Vita) struggles to continue to find an audience, amid free-to-play tower defense and puzzle games.  Still, all the hipsters, millennials, and soccer moms crushing candy and slashing fruit like a ninja owe the lion's share of that ubiquity to Nintendo, and their little handheld game system that could.  Without the Game Boy to begin that portable gaming revolution, you probably wouldn't be reading this article, because the lasting legacy of the Game Boy would have been far less important than it actually is.  For that, we all owe Nintendo a debt of gratitude.  I know my life would be less interesting without having spent a lot of time with my Game Boy as a kid, and even in more recent years as I've rekindled a love for the hobby.

Asteroids (1991)

Image shamelessly stolen from GameFaqs.

As with many Atari 2600 games during the console's heyday, sadly,

this Asteroids artwork looks way cooler than the actual gameplay. Also,

is it just me, or does that ship look suspiciously like a Hoth snowspeeder?

The name Atari doesn't have a lot of currency today, but between 1977, after the launch of Atari's Video Computer System (aka the Atari 2600), and it's downfall in 1983, the Atari name had a lot of clout and recognition in the entertainment industry.  This is due, in part, to Atari's home video game console and its dominance of the home video game market, but a large part of their fame was the popularity, and ubiquity, of Atari's arcade games.  By now, most everyone knows that Atari's Pong was a sensation in 1972, and in the years that followed, they scored several hits with other titles like Night Driver, Breakout, Lunar Lander, Tempest, Centipede, and of course, Asteroids.  Were it not for the glut of bad console games and consumer burnout in late 1982 and early 1983, Atari would likely have been held in much higher regard than they have been in recent years.  Alas, twas not to be.

I wish I would have had an opportunity to play the Team Play and

Competition Play modes, because that would certainly extend the

life of an aging arcade game like this, far more than single player.

But for a short time, Atari were a dominant force in the arcade scene, as well as the home console market, and many of their early games are venerable classics.  Asteroids, released in 1979, was a vector graphics-based game, which means that, instead of what we normally think of with 2-dimensional video game graphics, with flat images full of color from border to border (raster graphics), these graphics were often simple, single-color affairs that consisted of wire-frame images that were merely outlines.  This made them look quite simple, but the reduced aesthetic allowed for the hardware to focus more on the speed and animation of the simple wire-frame images, so as to provide faster action, as well as smooth scrolling and motion.  Later Atari vector graphics titles, like Tempest and Space Duel, incorporated more color, and more sophisticated gameplay, but at the time of its release, Asteroids was a revolutionary experience, and resulted in it becoming Atari's best selling arcade game of all time.

Why your spaceship is thrown into the middle of a random asteroid

field is never explained. I demand answers! I demand justice!

The gameplay of Asteroids is deceptively simple.  You control a small space craft in the middle of an asteroid field, and your job is to destroy the asteroids and stay alive.  This is easier said than done, of course.  Each time you successfully fire upon one of the large space rocks, it breaks down into 2 smaller boulders, each of which will break down again into their own set of 2 smaller hunks of rock.  The game takes place on a single screen, so when the asteroids go off screen, they simply loop back to the opposite side, in a position relative to the one they exited, and continue to travel in the same direction.  Add to that, the alien ships that sometimes brave the asteroid field to try and take out your craft, and you have multiple objects on screen hurtling toward you to cause your imminent doom.

Your options are to turn your ship left or right, fire your cannon, use your thrusters to move forward in the direction your craft is facing.  Unlike the full vacuum of space, however, there is some gravity, which means using the thrusters doesn't mean you'll continue to move in that direction perpetually.  Learning how to manipulate the thrust feature becomes an essential strategy for dodging oncoming debris, as well as maneuvering your ship to better snipe the UFOs and take out the space rocks.  Finally, you have a "warp" button you can use to jump to a random spot on the play field.  The warp feature is handy as well, though it's best to use that as a last resort, as you can just as easily warp away from one certain death scenario right into another, as the warp feature is unpredictable.

Every time you score 10,000 points, you get an extra ship. To

paraphrase Han Solo: "You're gonna need 'em."

With the Game Boy version of Asteroids, the graphics are given the raster treatment, rather than trying to emulate the vector look of the original.  This was a wise move by Accolade, who ported the game, as the original Game Boy hardware might have had a difficult time replicating the smooth scrolling of the arcade hit.  Instead, we get a small, but well rendered ship, nice looking round asteroids with craters and a sense of depth, and a rather obvious flying saucer-style enemy vessel, that gives the game a classic science fiction feel, and is a nod to the source material.  It's all very utilitarian and sparse, but for what it is, it works.  For this kind of game, it's better to keep things simple and uncluttered, and that's just what took place.  The twinkling stars in the background are a nice touch.

Sound design in the game is also very minimalist in nature.  There's a bit of an intro song that plays when the title screen appears, and a little ditty that plays when you lose your last life and get a Game Over screen, but otherwise, it's just basic sounds.  Your ship's fire, the sound of asteroids breaking up, your own ship exploding, and the annoying, high-pitched sounds made when an enemy vessel is flying across the screen are just about the only sound effects in the game, outside of the original game's iconic "heartbeat" thumping that gets progressively faster throughout the level as you take out more asteroids and enemy ships.  It doesn't tax the Game Boy hardware, but it sounds good enough, and does its best to try and replicate the sound design found in the original arcade cabinet.  It gets the job done, and nothing more.

Enemy ships are not immune to the asteroids, as luck would have it.

This UFO is about to meet my friend, "Rocky".

Control is easy, as there are very few options.  You can point the ship by pressing Left or Right on the D-pad, and press Up on the D-pad to use the thrusters to move forward in the direction you're facing.  Hold Up on the D-pad, and your ship progressively gets faster up to a point, so be careful not to hold Up too long, or you'll go careening into one of the many space rocks.  The B button fires your cannon, which is your one and only weapon against the asteroids and enemy spacecraft, and the A button is a "warp" feature, which will send your ship to a random spot in the screen.  There's a definite risk/reward factor to the warp, because you can use it to get out of a sticky situation, but because there's no telling where you'll end up, you could be warping directly to your death.  The Start button pauses the game, and the Select button, as one might expect, does nothing at all.

Because there's no real end to Asteroids, and the game continues to go level after level and just get faster and more frenetic, the whole point of the game is two-fold: survival, and score.  The longer you can stay alive and continue to shoot down the titular asteroids, as well as enemy vessels, the more points you'll score.  For each 10,000 points you amass in this version, you receive an extra life.  The scoring is the same in this version as it is in the arcade original, as near as I can tell.  That means that large asteroids give you 20 points, medium sized rocks are 50 points, and the little pebbles net you 100 points.  The flying saucer enemies give you 200 points, and the tiny ships give you a generous 1,000 points.

Under the right conditions, you'll start seeing smaller, faster enemies

that shoot more accurately and relentlessly at you.  What did I ever

do to them to deserve this kind of maltreatment?

Obviously, shooting down the enemies is where you can earn the most points, but since they don't show up as frequently as the asteroids are plentiful, there's a balance to scoring big points.  One classic strategy is to destroy all but one tiny asteroid, and let it fly around on the screen while you easily dodge it, and pick off enemy ships as they continue to come on screen periodically.  For example, you can score approximately 2,000 points in the first stage by destroying all the asteroids, shooting down a pair of ships, and then maybe picking off a third before you destroy the last rock.  At 200 points per larger flying saucer, if you're patient enough, and skilled enough to avoid both the last asteroid as well as the enemy fire, you can quickly rack up a pretty good score.  Another notable strategy, or perhaps design choice, is that when you fire your cannons, the bullets only reach so far, so you can't just fire away and destroy everything within a few seconds.  However, if you're close to one edge of the screen or another, firing your cannons means those bullets will loop around to the opposite side of the screen, so you can use that to your advantage to destroy rocks as they fly onto the screen from that side.  As you progress, the asteroids begin to fly faster, and there are more of them, so each level gets progressively more difficult and frenetic.  If you want to master Asteroids, the name of the game (literally and figuratively) is practice, and lots of it.

Despite the fact that Asteroids was released in the arcades in 1979, and this conversion was released 12 years later, the ability to truly capture the arcade experience at home hadn't truly been realized yet, and that's especially true of the Game Boy.  This port gives a pretty good approximation of the arcade game, though using raster graphics instead of the original vector approach, despite a few notable differences.  The arcade game can relatively fast paced and frenetic, and because of the vector graphics and low hardware requirements, the movement of your ship and other objects on screen is fast and fluid, and you can pull off some really tricky maneuvers with your craft.  This fluidity doesn't exactly translate to the Game Boy, because the speed of the game can't compare with the original, and with the original DMG model's blurriness happening with any kind of quick motion, it would make the game nigh impossible to truly enjoy if it tried to replicate the speed of the arcade original.  As such, the game feels like the laid back big brother of the original.  He's a bit more stylish, with his 4-shades of green and raster graphics, and slightly more fleshed out aesthetic, but moves slower and isn't in as big a hurry to get somewhere as little brother in the arcade.  On the plus side, the game replicates the "heartbeat" effect, that sort of Jaws-esque harbinger that grows faster and more menacing as more Asteroids are destroyed and more particles fly around on screen, so it really gets that unique element right.  Also, I found the collision detection to be nearly pixel-perfect, so if you get hit by an asteroid flying at you, don't get mad - it was probably your fault.  One odd quirk I found is that, when entering your name on the high score screen, sometimes trying to change the letter using up and down, or choosing a letter with A, or erasing one with B, is less than responsive.  I suspect that may be because of the way the letters are flashing on the screen, and the fact that, perhaps the Game Boy is being taxed a bit, and the commands you're inputting don't always register.  It's a minor issue, but noticeable enough to mention.

If you're a little too happy with the bullets, you'll find yourself totally

overwhelmed by asteroids from all sides. Prepare to die.

At the end of the day, it's somewhat difficult to recommend this port of the game.  Not because it's not functionally a good game, because it is.  It's hard to recommend because, just 4 short years after this cart's release, the game came out again as Arcade Classic No. 1, and that cart contained this conversion of Asteroids, as well as a conversion of the classic Missile Command.  That cart has Super Game Boy compatibility, but also gives a couple notable upgrades to this port of the game: that is, it includes an option to change the button configuration, if you find the default control scheme not to your liking, but more importantly, you can choose to play in the original vector style, though still with the twinkling raster-based stars in the background.  The advantage of this version is both of the 2-player options, so if that's the experience you're looking for, then obviously this 1991 version will be the one to seek out.  For anyone just looking for the single-player experience, the latter release with another game on the cart, including the option for the original vector graphics, would seem to be the no-brainer option.  Either way, you're getting a reasonable facsimile of the original game, but without the ability to have the really fast action that makes the original still attractive to play.  That said, you can do a lot worse for $4 or $5 on the Game Boy, so I'd say if you have any interest in classic arcade games on the go, or Asteroids in general, this might be one to add to your collection.  Tentatively recommended.

Introduction to the Game Boy Guru

My name is Josh, and I've been playing video games, in some form, since I was 5 years old.  I first experienced the thrill of video games at the ripe young age of 5, at a family get together.  My uncle brought his Atari 2600 console, and between Pac-Man, Combat, Battlezone, and a handful of other titles, I was completely smitten with the idea of controlling some small, multi-pixel object on the screen.  Every time we would get together with family, I hoped one of my uncles would bring their Atari 2600.  Every time I'd visit friends, I would beg them to play video games.  And eventually, I would own my own gaming platform, but more on that later.

After having been exposed to the Atari 2600 through family members, and then computer gaming through another uncle, my parents bought a family computer.  Mostly, my dad wanted to be able to do productivity stuff with it, but as much time as I could spend on it, I did, playing various shareware games and games designed for the system.  And while we were late to the game, owning the IBM PCjr well after its marketability had all but dried up, that little machine gave me countless hours of joy.  I had adventures with King's Quest, played hoops with One on One Basketball, destroyed property as a Paperboy, and spent hours exploring space and discovering new life forms with Starflight.  Until I started buying games that didn't really work on the PCjr, due to the limitations of RAM (and no hard drive), that computer was the perfect outlet for my early gaming curiosity.

Image shamelessly linked from Old Computers.  Our PCjr had multiple "sidecar"
upgrades to boost it from the stock 128KB to a smoking 640KB of RAM!

My parents wouldn't buy me a dedicated games console, in part, because they said I would monopolize the TV.  They were right, I absolutely would have.  I did have a short stint with my uncle's 2600 when he let me borrow it during part of a summer.  Sadly, the somewhat broken joysticks led me to fits of young gamer rage, which prompted my mom to pack it up and send it back to him.  Once again, I was relegated to just my PCjr, and various friends' consoles, to get my gaming fix.  Thankfully, my next door neighbor had a 2600, NES, and even an original Magnavox Odyssey, and was happy to have me come by any time to play games with him.

There was light at the end of the tunnel, however.  Though my parents wouldn't allow me to own a home console, with only 1 TV set in the house, they did say I could buy a Game Boy, provided I bought it with my own money.  I didn't get that much in allowance money, but I dutifully saved my cash, rather than spending it on G.I. Joe figures, and saved up until my 13th birthday, April 1990.  I bought the Game Boy, complete with Tetris cartridge, and my parents bought me Castlevania: The Adventure as my birthday gift.  It was a glorious birthday, potentially one of the best ever.

Image shamelessly linked from Wikipedia.  This game

was an integral part of my early Game Boy experience.

It was an impressive use of the modest Game Boy hardware.

What followed over the next 2 years was pure childhood gaming bliss.  I bought over a dozen classic Game Boy games: Super Mario Land and its sequel, Alleyway, F-1 Race, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, Gargoyle's Quest, Final Fantasy Legend, Duck Tales, Dr. Mario, and several others.  I poured a lot of time into my Game Boy, and every time my family went to visit my grandparents or other relatives, I had my trusty Game Boy with me.  When I stayed overnight with friends, we each had our Game Boys with link cables, ready to duke it out in Tetris, Dr. Mario, or whatever other 2-player extravaganza we both had.  I also spent countless hours in my bedroom, fighting and clawing to reach the end of Castlevania and Gargoyle's Quest, and a lot of time perfecting my 4-row technique in Tetris.  It was a magical time.

Sadly, that time came to an end in 1992, when I decided that I absolutely had to have a Sega Genesis.  My parents were buying a new TV, so that opened up the possibility that my younger brother and I could buy their old TV, pool our money together and buy a Genesis, so we could experience the awesome power of the system.  I had already played Last Battle, Golden Axe, and the awe-inspiring Sonic the Hedgehog at a classmate's house, and I knew that was what I wanted.  I still didn't have that much money, however, so I ended up selling my Game Boy and all my games to pay for the Genesis.  I don't regret buying, owning, or playing the Genesis, because it's still one of my favorite systems, and I have a ton of great memories of that.  I just wish, in hindsight, that I hadn't let go of my entire collection of complete-in-box Game Boy titles, especially F-1 Race, because I had the 4-player adapter with it.

Image shamelessly linked from GameTrog.

This Genesis model is the one I sold my

Game Boy to obtain.  I still have the system and

box and still use them today.

Thankfully, I recognized my egregious error 2 years later, and when my best friend from school decided to sell his Game Boy, I bought it from him without a moment's hesitation.  Granted, I didn't get back the boxes and manuals, but I did reacquire some favorites like Tetris, the original Super Mario Land, and Alleyway.  I soon purchased Dr. Mario and Duck Tales again, and was reliving the fun of owning a portable system once again.  I snagged Super Mario Land 2: The Six Golden Coins (still have that complete-in-box!), and loved it, as well as a handful of other games, to eventually get back nearly all the titles I enjoyed just a few short years earlier.  By the time I graduated high school, however, I wasn't gaming much, in part because all my money was going toward dating my girlfriend.

I rediscovered gaming again in 1998 when my wife and I took a trip to another uncle's house for a big family get together weekend, and my younger cousin had his PlayStation there.  We spent the better part of that weekend pouring over Tekken 2, and my wife decided at that point that we needed a PlayStation.  We bought one, got Tekken 2 and Tekken 3, and I also picked up a couple shmups and a copy of Final Fantasy VII.  Once again, I immersed myself in gaming, and though my Game Boy laid largely dormant during that period, I was still cultivating my love for gaming, and the memories of that earlier time were still part of what propelled me to continue to invest in games.  I spent a lot of time with that system, and it's still one of my favorites to this day.

Image shamelessly linked from GameSniped.

This DualShock PlayStation model is what I have, and

still have, complete in box.  I sunk a LOT of hours

into a whole cadre of games on this great system.

In 2000, I got the itch to get back into portable gaming again, so I picked up an Atomic Purple model of the Game Boy Color.  I could go back and play my existing Game Boy library, and then also some new games I picked up, like Bionic Commando Elite Forces, Project S-11, R-Type DX, Frogger, and even the goofy game The Smurfs' Nightmare.  Once again, I immersed myself in portable gaming, taking the unit with me on trips and to various places when I had the chance.  The screen was better, it only used 2 batteries instead of 4, was more truly portable, and I could plug in one of those ingenious "snake light" peripherals to give light to the screen without a giant, bulky attachment.  Suddenly, my original Game Boy library came alive again, some titles with a reasonable amount of color, and on a much improved display.

I missed out on the Game Boy Advance immediately, because I was concentrating on mostly console and PC gaming throughout much of the mid-2000's.  I didn't pick up a GBA until years later, sometime in 2008 or 2009, when I found a GBA SP very reasonably priced at a used game store.  Within a short period of time, once again, I found myself enjoying old Game Boy games, picking up more original Game Boy and Game Boy Color games I hadn't owned before, and also buying new Game Boy Advance games that had come out years before.  The advent of the backlit display was a huge bonus, and the GBA SP is still my handheld of choice for playing any of my Game Boy library.  My portable gaming life is now split between my GBA SP (and library of Game Boy family of games), and my Sony PSP, which my wife bought me for Christmas in 2005.  I occasionally cross over, playing some GB, GBC, or GBA titles on the PSP (via custom firmware and emulation, of course), in part, due to save states, and additional color options, but sometimes strictly out of convenience.

Image shamelessly linked from Wikimedia.

The stunning silver Game Boy Advance is my weapon

of choice when it comes to playing GB games on the go!

So now we come to the genesis (sorry, pun intended) of this project!  There are a number of folks who have endeavored to do full system reviews, which are game-by-game analysis of every title for the respective console(s) they've chosen.  You have Nintendo Legend, and Dylan Cornelius' Questicle project to review every North American NES title, and his subsequent descent into all things Sega with his Sega Does website and podcast.  You also have HuCard Heaven, for TurboGrafx and PC Engine games, and Sega Galactico, aka The Sega Legend, working his way through the Sega Genesis library.  Tom Hall, of the Breaking Bits Podcast, calls himself the N64 Connoisseur, and is attempting to review every North American N64 release. Not every system has a "Legend" working on the game library, but it's becoming more prevalent.  In the Game Boy space, there's GameBoyle, a fantastic YouTube series and Twitter account of a great resource for all things Game Boy.  There's also Game Boy World, a great resource of GB game reviews and information.

So why does the world need a Game Boy Guru?  I'm not sure it does, but as my conversation with Dylan Cornelius went (great dude, go follow him on Twitter right now!), the more people exploring the entire game libraries of each console, the better.  The more people that are uncovering the lesser known titles, milling through the shovelware, and truly highlighting the best games of a platform, the better off the retro gaming community will be.  My opinion may be just one in a sea of opinions, but I want to express it just the same.  This will be an outlet for me, but also a learning experience, since the vast majority of the Game Boy library remains undiscovered by me.  As much as I've enjoyed my Game Boy systems over the years, I'd love to play through a lot of the library.  I've been actively buying Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games when I find them inexpensively, and have built a small, respectable library that will be a great place for me to start.

"It's dangerous to go alone, take one of these!"

I hope to build a near-complete collection of North American Game Boy releases, as well as eventually getting close to that with both the GB Color and GB Advance.  I will cover Japanese and European games if and when I can, based on when I can acquire them.  If the site gets good feedback and people are asking for content faster than I can acquire games, I may look into Patreon or some way folks can help me continue to acquire games for review.  I may also look into a YouTube channel, though my existing channel has been quite neglected of late.  Either way, I want to bring you my thoughts on the Game Boy family of handhelds, and I felt like now was the right time to start doing that.  Game on!