Gameboy Advance SP - Initial Opinion

Opinion Posted on March 24 , 2003

Written by R.D. Reynolds

I've never been overly fond of Nintendo's handheld systems. In fact, the first Nintendo portable I owned was an Advance I picked up about a year ago, despite the fact that I owned every Nintendo console released.

The first handheld I ever owned was an Atari Lynx, and despite its relative lack of games, I always preferred it to any Gameboy that came down the pike. Following the Lynx, I nabbed a Sega Nomad on clearance ($40!) a couple of years ago, and fell in love with that system too. Despite its tendency to devour batteries, the ability to go out and acquire a massive library of great games (how expensive are Genesis games these days?) was awesome.

Of course, both of these systems had what Gameboys always lacked: true color backlit displays. Every single Gameboy required some type of gimmicky device to light the screen, and no matter how well engineered these add-ons were, they all sucked in comparison to the Lynx and Nomad displays.

FINALLY, Nintendo has seen the light, this time, quite literally. The Advance SP has changed my tune about the Gameboy, and I am now happy to say I bought all those games I couldn't see well enough to play over the past
year. The light on the system, while not a true backlit, is still excellent - I can easily play even the darkest games without straining my eyes. The screen is deceptive, too - when I first saw it, I thought it was way too small. Upon playing the system for a few hours, I have come to appreciate its size. It's really nice.

The system is rather comfortable, too. It's really light, easy to hold. I thought it would cramp my large hands, but thus far, that has not been a problem. My only concern is that the shoulder buttons may be hard to quickly tap. I experimented with a few games, and found that while it isn't easy, it can be done. You need to bow your fingers out to do it, and I think that might get uncomfortable after a while. Thankfully, 90% of the games I play on the unit do not require the shoulders. Even ignoring the shoulders, I don't think it's as comfortable as the standard Advance unit, but I will gladly take the light in compensation.

The system took about 2.5 hours to fully charge. I have only played for about three hours or so, so I am unsure if the system will hold the charge for the ten hours advertised. Still, not having to buy battery after
battery is a huge plus in my book.

In fact, I only have a few complaints thus far about the system. First off, the lack of a headphone jack is simply inexcusable. I understand that Nintendo squeezed the system to be as small as possible, but I would gladly
have taken a larger box just to have that. I know that they will be releasing a headphone adapter, but that's just another cord that I could possibly lose. And I believe it plugs in where the power goes, so you can't play the system while it is charging if you want to use eadphones. Lame.

I also wish they had included some type of brightness adjustment. As it is, it is either on or off. It would have been nice to turn it up or down. It would also have been nice for it to be just a bit brighter. Still, it is miles ahead of even the nicest attachment light, without any glare.

So far, I have tried out Konami Arcade Classics, Defender of the Crown, Rayman, Tony Hawk 2, Pac-Man Collection, Fire Pro Wrestling, and Caesar's Palace. All work a million times better with the new unit. In fact, I now
hate Namco even more for deleting music from Pac-Mania, as now that I can see it, I love playing it on the Advance! Ah well, guess it's back to the PS1 Namco Museum version.

As an aside, it wasn't too hard to find the system. I first went to Circuit City, where they had a handful of systems left in stock. They were giving away a choice or Iron Man or Defender as the free game. Since I am not an Iron Man fan, and have heard horror stories about Defender on the GBA, I passed. I went to Best Buy. They were giving away carrying cases, but were completely sold out of SPs. I next went to Target. I got the last one they had, a blue one (would have preferred the silver, but eh, who really cares, I'm all about the play). Got Driver 2 as the freebie. Finally, I went to Wal-Mart. They were giving away nothing, but had tons of both colors in stock. So if you want one, you should be able to find one.

And you SHOULD want one. I am very impressed with the SP. THIS is the unit Nintendo should have released when the Advance originally launched. Still, I am not complaining - in fact, I may even have a new favorite handheld system. 8)