 |
Frank Provo Contributor |
GBA Games Rule, #&$*%!
A new year is almost upon us. I hope that all of you out there in Internet Land are safe and sound and that you managed to work large meals full of power pellets, super mushrooms, and phoenix downs in with your traditional holiday festivities. This time of year also means that another edition of GameSpot's Best and Worst awards has come and gone. Most likely, you disagree with at least a few of the winners, and you're probably livid that some of your favorites weren't even nominated.
You have the power to correct a few of these injustices by casting your vote in this year's readers' choice awards. You'll feel better for doing so, and you'll send a message to all of the publishers out there who think that the only games worth making are those with a picture of a famous athlete or a movie poster on the box cover.
As for me, I consider myself an advocate for portable gaming and a pusher-man for all things good on Nintendo's Game Boy Advance. I played more than 120 different games on my GBA in 2003, wrote reviews for approximately 90 of them, and enjoyed around a dozen of them enough to keep them in my collection permanently. Every year, when the Best and Worst awards come out, I develop a sense of melancholy because some of the games I really enjoyed didn't even make the cut for an award nomination. Most of the time, the games in question are wonderfully put-together but don't quite have the same universal appeal as say a Super Mario Bros. or a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. It's not that they're lacking in quality, it's just that they're aimed toward a specific audience that likes what that particular game is trying to do.
So I'm using this GameSpotting column as my soapbox to point out three or four GBA games that weren't nominated for a GameSpot award in 2003 but would make excellent additions to the game libraries of those of you who are into certain genres or design styles.
First up is Drome Racers, a hot little racing game from THQ. From the moment you pop in the cartridge, this game makes a strong case for itself. The flat-shaded 3D polygon engine looks great on the tiny GBA screen, and the action actually moves along at a good clip without much in the way of slowdown or polygon breakup. Once the honeymoon with the graphics wears off, you're still left with a solid arcade-style racer that combines weapon-based combat with the traditional three-lap setup found in most racing games. Surprisingly, THQ released the game at a budget price point of around $20, which is quite a bargain considering you're getting a good game with a four-player link option and battery-saved high scores. Come on, Sega! Take the challenge offered by Drome Racers and bring Virtua Racing to the GBA.
The next game I'd like to bring to your attention is Medal of Honor: Infiltrator, which comes to us from EA Games, the most prolific publisher in the history of sports--and James Bond. And The Sims. Infiltrator is a top-down shoot-'em-up that takes the concepts first pioneered in games like Commando and Frontline and updates them with modern design ideas, such as stealth gameplay and multiple mission objectives. Although blasting away at countless enemies with machine guns and grenades is fun, what makes the game so interesting is that it gives you the choice between going in with guns blazing or sneaking up on enemies and clocking them with the butt of your rifle. The ability to drive tanks and control tripod-mounted guns doesn't hurt either.
Still here? Good. (I'm a tart for attention.) The third game I want you to mull over is a farming simulator from Natsume called Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. While the game is fairly accurate in its representation of farming--in that you have to till fields, water crops, and raise livestock in order to earn money to live on--the reason it's so addictive is for all of the things you can do besides tending the farm. There are people to talk to, people to give gifts to, and people to flirt with. There are events to see that tell the story of the lives of the people in the nearby village. There's a TV shopping channel that lets you buy furniture and stuff, like a kitchen, which you can use to conjure up more than 100 different recipes. In time, you'll even get to the point where you can ask one of the villagers to marry you. Thanks to its never-ending design, Harvest Moon is the sort of game that will appeal to anyone with a compulsive personality.
When conceiving this column, associate producer Ryan Davis suggested that I show some love for Konami's Ninja Five-O in this write-up. I have to admit that I didn't get as much out of that particular game as other people I know did, but I can certainly see why Ryan and others swoon about it. You play a ninja with a sword, a grappling hook, and an endless supply of throwing stars. The sword and throwing stars can be used to attack enemies or to ricochet their bullets back toward them, while the grappling hook allows you to pull yourself up to higher platforms or to swing across the ceiling like Tarzan. If Ninja Five-O has a fault, besides the old-school 1992 graphics, it's that it's one of the most unforgiving games ever made. It's a real challenge to rescue hostages, duel other ninjas, and swing over spike pits with just a single life bar per level.
Finally, I want to end by giving props to all of you out there who realize that the Game Boy Advance is the only system worth playing. While everyone else has been bickering over which console is better--the Xbox, GameCube, or PlayStation 2--we've been playing one great game after another.
GameSpotting: Final Fight
We get into one last verbal brawl before the year closes out.
