The entire engineering team at Atari breathed a collective sigh of relief in 1989 when Nintendo unveiled Game Boy, Nintendo’s hand-held video game system.
The Atari folks were working on a portable game of their own called Lynx. So why did they breathe a sigh of relief? Because Game Boy was inferior to their creation.
Lynx had a 16-bit graphic processor and a back-lit color screen and the 8-bit Game Boy had an unlit monochrome screen.
Today, Game Boy is more popular than ever, and Lynx is an admired antique because there’s more to making game systems than technology. Nintendo, whose name spells profits to retailers, received more shelf space in stores and backed its product with a huge advertising campaign. Game Boy also started out with a better range of games than Lynx. This year, Nintendo is adding new weapons to that arsenal. Among them:
Game Boy Camera. Released in June, the camera ($49.95) is a cartridge with a digital camera that turns Game Boy into a portable photo studio. The camera doesn’t take very good pictures, but it doesn’t matter — Game Boy’s tiny screen displays only pixel images.
Bottom Line: If you are looking for picture quality, buy a Nikon. If you are looking for a kitschy toy, Game Boy Camera might be the ticket.
Game Boy Color. After 10 years of bang-up sales with black-and-gray screens, Nintendo is updating Game Boy to color:
The new Game Boy screen has a sharp 32,000 color palette, retails for $79.95 and plays all Game Boy cartridges–most in the familiar black-and-gray monochrome mode, though it assigns washed-out colors to certain existing games.
In a clever move, Nintendo opted against including a back-lit screen on Game Boy Color meaning you can’t play the game in the dark but you get a lot more life out of your batteries.
Color back-lit screens suck batteries dry in a matter of minutes. Nomad, a Genesis-compatible hand-held game from Sega, could drain six AA batteries dry in less than an hour. Game.Boy Color can nurse more than 11 hours out of two AAA batteries.
This extended battery life comes at a price–it’s difficult to see the Game Boy screen in a dark room. In fact, a reviewer from Canada dubbed the original system “Dim Boy” because without direct light the images on the original Game Boy are nearly invisible. Game Boy Color has the same problem.
After 10 years, however, fans of Game Boy have learned to play under lamps or in sunlight. Who says video game players can’t be taught?
Pokemon. One thing young boys will not tire of is Pokemon — a new role-playing game that caused a sensation in Japan in February 1996.
Pokemon, short for Pocket Monster, is more than a Game Boy cartridge — it is an entire industry. Not only has Nintendo sold more than 8 million Pokemon cartridges in Japan, the game has inspired a top-rated cartoon show and a merchandising extravaganza. Counting Pokemon -inspired snack foods, clothing, toys and games (intruding Pikachu, a Pokemon digital pet), this little cartridge has become a $4 billion industry.
Pokemon is a game in which players explore a virtual world looking for monsters to collect, train and enter in fights.
The monsters in Pokemon gain strength and experience through fighting in turn-based combat. In these battles, players are presented with a menu of attacks. Once an attack is selected, the screen shows your monster making its move, then tells you how much damage you afflicted on your opponent. Next your opponent strikes back.
You strike, they strike.
Each Pokemon cartridge has plenty of belligerent monsters, but players also can match their monsters against others by linking two Game Boys. You also can link up to trade monsters.
Pokemon is sold on two cartridges — one red, one.blue — each with several unique monsters, 150 in all.
Monster collecting has become a major pastime in Japan, but not without controversy. One episode of the cartoon show received a lot of bad publicity when it caused approximately 700 viewers to get sick. Contrary to false reports that hundreds of viewers had seizures, most of the children simply became dizzy. The episode in question featured a flashing-light sequence that has since been removed.
The Pokemon cartoon show premieres in the United States on Sept. 7; the game will be available Sept. 28.
A number of parents are going to hear about Pokemon and remember Tamagotchi, but there’s really no comparison. Pokemon has real play value and does not traumatize your kids. A lot of kids were shocked to discover that their Tamagotchi virtual pet died when they forgot to feed it. Pokemon on the other hand, is a real game that does more than show a cute drawing wagging its tail. Best of all, it doesn’t lay a guilt trip on you when you don’t play with it. But parents won’t have to worry about that for at least two months.
THE COMPETITION
With Sega no longer active supporting its hand-held Game Gear and Nomad game systems, Game Boys only serious competitor is game.com, from Tiger Electronics, a Chicago firm.
Like Game Boy, game.com has monochrome gay-and-black graphics, but the system itself has a more elegant design, game.com has a larger, sleeker case with a wider and higher-definition screen. It also has better sound.
The screen on game.com is touch-sensitive. The Tiger system comes with a stylus that acti- vates a calendar, address pad, calculator and solitaire game that are built into its circuits. (Tiger also is making a smaller version of game.com with a back-lit screen. It should be available for Christmas.)
Elegant design, however, has not translated into ideal game play. Though Tiger has produced fighting, racing and shooting games for game.com, the games have noticeably slow frame rates. The racing game looks like a flickering silent picture show. Tiger also released a game.com version of the popular PC game Duke Nukem that looks more like a slide than a first-person shooter. On the other hand, adult gamers might prefer game.com to Game Boy Tiger makes a modem that allows you to go on-line with it. While you cannot download images, game.com will send and receive text messages.
game.com also plays some good logic and puzzle games. Tiger is one of the oldest names in hand-held electronic games and has a good library of puzzles from which to draw. The system comes with a challenging puzzle called Lights Out; similar titles will be available soon.
