theTodd.com

Entertainment Quantified

Jun 5, 2003 - Games

Has anyone seen my GameBoy Advance SP?

The one major flaw with the Nintendo GameBoy and more so with the GameBoy Advance was that a person had to be in direct sunlight to see what was going on in the game screen. The image was so dark most of the time that you were forced to squint to see the image. This problem was lessened with the scores of lighting options that plugged into each of the GameBoys. The problem here was that you’d get a really bright spot somewhere on the screen and that is usually where the bad guys like to hide out to kill you. Now Nintendo released the GameBoy Advance SP. This version comes in a clam shell case and has a backlight for the screen. It also has a rechargeable battery that is rated to last 12 hours without a recharge (10 hours with the light on). Once I finally got mine it looked really sharp. The main buttons were a little close together but no worse than they were on the GameBoy Color. The left and right buttons at the top are a little hard to reach, but fortunately these have not been used by many developers. Many games now include a sleep mode where the GameBoy is paused and the screen is shut off conserving electricity. I have not tested to see how long the battery lasts in this configuration, but that is only because Leanne decided to take it with her to England. The new GameBoy Advanced SP from Nintendo is a great product, and at only about $20 more than the original GameBoy Advanced it is well worth the money.