"Very weak hardware that was saved by a massive game library"

Nintendo's Game Boy was one of the first portable systems to become widely popular and offered people the chance to play their favorite series while they were away from their NES. Released in April of 1989 in Japan and then brought to the US a short while later. The Game Boy was directly competing with the Lynx and Sega's GameGear, and despite being the weakest technologically, it had the strongest gaming library and as a result was many times more popular that the other two.

In theory the Game Boy was nothing more than a miniaturized Nintendo Entertainment System. In terms of the controls, this was certainly true - it pretty much was an NES controller with a screen attached. The buttons were located directly below the screen and used the same exact design as the NES controller. The button types, size, and layout perfectly matched the NES controller, which was great since it meant that you did not have to get used to a new setup. Nintendo's primary target for the Game Boy was the NES players, and it showed in this regard.

Aside from the game controls, there were buttons for the power, volume, and brightness, all of which could be easily reached without having to move your thumbs away from the controls. There were also jacks for headphones, system link, and an AC adapter, and the cartridge slot was conveniently located in the back, right behind the screen. My only complaint about the hardware design is the power light which, like the GameGear, is located a quarter of an inch to the left of the screen. That means whenever you played you got a bright red light shining in your face. The Game Gear also had this problem, so I really have to wonder if either company bothered with market testing.

Compared to the home consoles and even the other two portable systems, the original Game Boy had extremely weak graphics. While the Game Boy could perform a fair amount in terms of animations and graphical effects, the display was limited to four shades of grey and black over a yellowish green screen. Because the screen was black and white many of the animations involved color manipulation, the full power of the graphical processor was never able to be used. The other major issue with the display was that it did not have any kind of back or side lighting, and as a result you needed absolutely perfect lighting conditions to be able to see the screen but not have any glare on the screen. Some games did look decent on the Game Boy, however it took a very talented developer to do this and the average game was simply horrible looking.

The CPU was very slow, even for its time, so many games suffered from massive slow down when things became too busy. By too busy, I mean a couple of enemies on the screen or everybody firing weapons at once. This unfortunately killed a lot of games that would have been great otherwise. RPGs and puzzle games were rarely, if ever, affected by slowdown, and when the did it was just a minor nuisance that didn't affect gameplay. However, action games almost always suffered from it, and slow down is the worst thing to have in an action game.

Sound was also really weak and scratchy, but even today portable systems really don't have very good sound. The Game Boy could produce stereo output, however only through the headphone jack. The single speaker was just too small to have high quality output, but a good pair of stereo headphones could get you decent audio. While some games had very good audio, most were too quiet and/or had distorted sounds.

The severe lack of power gave the Game Boy two major advantages over the competition: battery conservation and production costs. The Game Boy cost $50 - $70 depending on where and when you bought it, which was half of what the GameGear was selling for at the same time. Consoles being sold at the time (the NES and Sega Master System) were more expensive than the Game Boy, but still cheaper than the GameGear. This helped attract a lot of people, since they could get a whole new system for less than the cost of some console games.

The Game Boy was also the smallest of the three portable systems, though it was by no means a small system, especially compared to today's Game Boy Advance, cell phones, digital cameras, and PDAs. You really couldn't stick the Game Boy in your pocket without looking ridiculous because you would end up with a big rectangular bulge in your pocket. You also needed to carry around games and most likely the AC adapter or battery pack, so you would have to take a carrying case with you anyway. A few years after the release of the Game Boy, Nintendo came out with the much more compact Game Boy Pocket, which was more compact and could fit in your pocket. The change was just like what Sony would do with the original PlayStation 1 and the PSOne years later: no hardware improvement, just the hardware in a smaller case. The Game Boy Pocket had much smaller dimensions all around, but the most noticeable was how deep it was, which meant that you really could fit the thing into a pants or shirt pocket.

One thing that Nintendo's handhelds have always been great at is using the absolute minimum amount of batteries necessary. Four AA batteries easily get eight hours of gaming, while the GameGear would get a measly two hours of life using six AA batteries. With six times the battery life, people could save a lot of money in the long run by buying a Game Boy instead of one of the other systems. Granted, almost everybody ending up buying a rechargeable battery pack, regardless of which system then own, the better batter life certainly made the Game Boy more appealing in the beginning.

There was a variety of different accessories that could be purchased from Nintendo. Many accessories were the typical kind that you could get for any portable device such as an AC adapter and a rechargeable battery pack. These two things were an absolute necessity for anyone who played more than once in a while, since even with the longer battery life you would still end up paying a lot for fresh batteries over the years. The AC adapter let you play at home, since everyone would still play around the house even if you weren't traveling, because quite a few games weren't available on a console. Aside from the standard accessories, there were quite a few gimmicky devices such as a digital camera and a printer, which very few games made use of, but were still mildly entertaining for a while.

One thing that can be said about Nintendo is that they know how to make products that last. The Game Boy and all of the accessories were made of a hard plastic that could take quite a beating. You could throw the Game Boy against a brick wall or out of a three story window and it would still work fine. As long as the screen did not get scratched or broken, a Game Boy bought a decade ago will probably still work perfectly today.

As with any system, in the end the only thing that matters is the game library and the Game Boy had a pretty good one, especially towards the end of its life. Originally many of the games were based on NES series, such as Zelda, Mario, Final Fantasy, etc. These games were generally pretty good for portable games, but not quite as good as the NES games. There were also several GB games that were direct sequels to NES games such as Metroid II or Lifeforce (Gradius II). For fans of the series, this made the Game Boy a necessity. The problem was that games like Mario and Zelda just were not the same quality as the NES games, so to go from some of the greatest games on the NES to the Game Boy versions was a major set down.

Overall, the Game Boy wasn't a particularly good system, especially compared to the GameGear, and the bad screen made games harder to play. However, the massive game library sort of made up for the lack of hardware power, though I still do not feel that it was a good system. Sure it's gameplay over graphics and all, but when you can't even see the damn gameplay, graphics become an issue.

Personally, I got a GameGear instead and when the Game Boy Color came out I got many of the classic Game Boy games and for me at least, that was the best way to do it. The Game Boy Color, or better yet the Game Boy Advance, is completely compatible with every Game Boy game, but has a screen that is much easier to see and a stereo sound system, so you can enjoy the classic games without the technical limitations. Since the GBA contains a GB processor instead of emulating the GB through software, there are zero compatibility issues.

Another way to play GB games that bears mentioning is the Super Game Boy, which let you play GB and GBC games on the Super Nintendo. While I highly doubt anybody will be interested in using such a device today, it was a pretty cool thing to have at the time. I forget what it cost back then, but I belive it was cheaper than the GB.

If you do want to play Game Boy games without emulating, you can get a GBA for $70 - $100, or by a Game Boy color used for around $25. If you really want to own the original Game Boy for some reason, then you can buy a used one for around $15 online. Personally, I would recommend getting the GBA (or if you have a GameCube, get the GBA Player) since not only is it much more powerful you have three generations of games to play instead of just one.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/18/04, Updated 09/12/05