Amazon Maximum Age: 17 years Amazon Minimum Age: 72 months Binding: Video Game Brand: Nintendo EAN: 0045496712105 Label: SPIG Manufacturer: SPIG Model: AGB S MBA Platform: Game Boy Advance Publisher: SPIG Sales Rank: 5891 Studio: SPIG
Features:
Get set for an all-new generation of games powered by the world's first 32-bit handheld!
Plays all the Game Boy and Game Boy Color games you already own!
New wide-screen format with higher resolution and brilliant color for dazzling, detailed graphics!
Use the Game Link cable to link up with other Game Boy Advance systems, and play 4-player games on 4 different screens. (Game Link cable sold seperately.)
Product Description: Muscular 32-bit processor. Big screen. Great multiplayer features. And it slips easily into your hip pocket. The Game Boy Advance. Welcome to the future of hand-held gaming
Amazon.com Product Description: The Game Boy platform (which includes the original unit, the Game Boy Pocket, and the Game Boy Color) came to market when most video game consoles had a life expectancy of just a few years. More than a decade later, the system is still going strong. How did the Game Boy successfully compete--and in some cases bury--an onslaught of faster, more powerful handheld and home console systems? Let us count the ways: affordability, a huge library of games that consistently made the most of the hardware's limitations, smart power management that extended battery life, and uncluttered controls. But perhaps it was the system's ultraportable design that allowed devotees to play video games around their schedule, making it the must-have system for kids and adults alike.
Now the Game Boy Advance (or GBA as people are already calling it) comes to us with power that would have been unthinkable back in the day. The portable's 32-bit RISC CPU runs circles around the former's 8-bit workhorse, allowing it to process program instructions much faster. What that means to everyday gamers is more intricate visuals, more simultaneous movement on the screen, and better sound. In fact, the often-annoying beeps and boops of old-school Game Boy titles are being replaced with digitized stereo sound. The extra processing muscle also means you can even network up to four Game Boy Advance units together, via the communication cable, for multiplayer fun off of one shared cartridge. Only two Game Boy Color units could link together, and each unit had to have its own copy of the game.
What's not being replaced, however, is the wide selection of Game Boy games. Because the Game Boy Advance system is backward-compatible, it will play its own line of colorful games--including such launch titles as Super Mario Advance, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity, Army Men Advance, High Heat Major League Baseball 2002, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2--as well as all of the monochrome and color games that have already been released for the previous Game Boy systems (nearly 500 in total). Players can view the older games in their smaller, originally square dimensions, or, with the touch of the shoulder button, expand the game to fit the GBA's larger screen. We tried enlarging the screen on a Game Boy Color edition of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and found that Mr. Hawk was much easier to see.
When you first pick up the system, you'll be amazed at how lightweight it is. At fewer than 5 ounces and a little larger than a deck of playing cards, the system easily fits into a shirt pocket without any sag. The GBA's wider shape fits better into a wider range of hands. The former design too often pushed the left and right thumb knuckles together during gameplay. The new layout should be comfortable for all ages, and the center screen orientation makes it easy to see.
Game Boy Color owners will find the GBA's larger screen somewhat darker than they're used to, but that's because the screen is outfitted with antiglare technology. Like the old Game Boy Color, the color LCD is not backlit, so you need pretty good light to play by. Unlike that system, though, you won't be craning your neck and tilting the unit to see around the hot-spot reflection of the light bulb in your screen.
But you'll also notice the graphics. Sporting what's basically a redesigned SNES technology, you'll see things on the GBA that the big consoles do, such as scaling (making objects larger or smaller) and rotation effects--technological advances that will affect the look of everything from crossing a finish line to throwing a touchdown pass to crawling through a dungeon.
Some might argue that Nintendo could have tried to put even more power into this Game Boy Advance. After all, the 32-bit video game had its heyday more than five years ago. Perhaps, but after handling this new handheld, we're inclined to think that Nintendo wisely struck a balance between size, price, and power consumption. And considering how well the old 8-bit system weathered the decade's technological storms, we think the Game Boy Advance is here to stay, and we're glad. --Porter B. Hall
Unit Specifications
CPU: 32-bit RISC CPU with embedded memory
Screen: 2.9-inch reflective TFT color LCD
Display Size: 1.6 by 2.4 inches (40.8 by 61.2 mm)
Resolution: 38,000 pixels in a wide-screen aspect ratio (10,000 per square inch)
Colors: 512 simultaneous colors from a palette of 32,768
Size: 3.2 by 5.6 by 1 inch (82 by 144.5 by 24.5 mm)
Weight: Approximately 5 ounces (140 grams)
Power Supply: 2 AA alkaline batteries
Battery Life: Approximately 15 hours continuous play
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - A Comfortable and Beautiful Portable System - If a Little Dark
The 3rd definite step in the Nintendo handheld systems was the Game Boy Advance. Not only was it the most sophisticated step in handheld systems yet, it remains the most comfortable to use, as well as being the only Game Boy system to be 100% backwards compatible; both original, Color and Advance games can be played on the Game Boy Advance.
Quite frankly, the graphics capability of the GBA was truly groundbreaking for a handheld system. It took the Super Nintendo approach to graphics and even improved it. A typical Game Boy Advance game is pure eye candy, clear and pleasing to watch, with few visible limitations. Animations are more alive than ever before, and as such each game is pleasing to take in. The sound system is the most sophisticated yet for a 32-bit machine - even old Game Boy games sound melodic on the GBA, and it's the first 32-bit console to deliver near-perfect voice tracks.
The design of the GBA is wonderful - and I don't just mean the beautiful semitransparent hard-plastic casing; with the D-pad and the action buttons on separate sides of the screen (like the Sega Game Gear, only much smoother), it has never been more comfortable to play a Game Boy console. What's more, batteries live a long life on this machine, and even when the battery light turns red, you're guaranteed a few more hours of uninterrupted play. To top it off, the GBA is light as a feather - you'll laugh once you think of the chunk of pounds that was the original Game Boy.
The only minus I can give the GBA is the absence of backlight. My Game Boy Color is better lit than the Game Boy Advance - even a separately purchased light is of little help - and this means that you're restricted to playing in clear light. But the GBA's pros - the aesthetic and comfortable design, great graphics and especially the ENORMOUS library of games open to play disposal - should more than make up for it.
It's just a shame that the Nintendo DS was released so shortly after Advance and left it without as many crowning achievement games as it should have had, though it's still not to say that the Game Boy Advance is without its host of good games, far from it - just the mass of Super Mario games open to the machine is reason alone to buy it, as well as a number of games whose calibre one expected in the past to wind up on the Sega Megadrive console.
In overview, the Game Boy Advance is a gemstone in Nintendo's already near-spotless repertoire of user-friendly video game systems with much to offer. If you're an old-skool gamer as well as a GBA enthusiast, by all means get it. If you're only interested in titles for GBA and up, get the Nintendo DS. Overall: 4.5/5
Rating: - The game works well
The game works well, however it is kind of hard to see the screen if you aren't in an extremely lit room. My 10 year old son loves it though and doesn't have any complaints.
Rating: - GBA
Excellent game console system has much more accessories than the GBA SP you can accessorize so much more with this game system because they made more accessories for this one. Excellent system plays well exactly to a tee like the GBA SP only difference it doesn't fold and doesn't have a back light like the GBA SP but you can get the light for the original GBA on amazon for 2 or 3 bucks if that. Really cheap basically. Even this system because it's been out a while you can get it really cheap which is really good if you don't want to pay more to get a gba sp I mean this system is the same exact thing still plays any kind of game boy advance game, game boy color game, and let's not forget the original game boy games. I recommend this game system for and anyone who plays gb, gbc, and gba games. WHO EVER BUY'S THIS GAME SYSTEM YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED IT'S STILL GAME BOY ADVANCE JUST CHEAPER HELLO?!? DUH THIS IS A STEAL FOR ANYONE WHO LOVE GAME BOY GAMES GAME BOY COLOR GAMES AND GAME BOY ADVANCE GAMES. BESIDES YOU GET TO SEE INSIDE THE GAME SYSTEM THAT IS ONE THING THEY DID NOT DO WHEN THEY MADE THE GBA SP THEY DID NOT MAKE THE GBA SP SEE THROUGH THE ORIGINAL GBA THEY DID THAT WITH A COUPLE OF TIMES.
Rating: - This GBA Was horrible
I bought this a few years ago because I sold my Game Boy Advance SP Classic NES Limited Edition since I bought a Nintendo DS Lite Onyx Black and later came across some of my old GB Color and Black and White games I thought I lost in a move. This is crap compared to a Game Boy Advance SP Classic NES Limited Edition system (or any GBA SP). The screen is so dark on this original GBA System, I have to shine several lights on it to see the screen and sometimes the glare of the lights makes it even more difficult to see the screen. Just stick with a DS or an GBASP system to play GBA Games.
Rating: - Incredible.
This console was awesome. Surely 5 stars. It ranks equivalence to the SNES in graphics, so you can really get something nice out of it. It also plays Gameboy/Color games so it's kind of the "GameBoy Ultimate." It plays everything, it has SNES+ graphics, and it has several features. Along with the Gameboy Player, the E-reader, and several others, the GB link cable makes a comeback. You can be playing Mario Bros. with 4 of your friends, or hook up for more stuff. Excellent value, recommended.
- A Comfortable and Beautiful Portable System - If a Little Dark
- This GBA Was horrible
