February 16, 2014
My Mobile Gaming
Over the years gaming has always been part of my life. it all started when my parents brought home that NES. Some of my earliest memories is from playing that thing with my dad. I remember we would sit there and play a game until we beat and with most NES games there was no save points so you either let it sit paused or you started all over from the beginning. A few years later you Nintendo introduced a platform that meant you were no longer limited to sitting in your living room you could take your games with you.
Nintendo gave us the Game Boy. Today, a whole generation of kids will grow up with nary a clue about what the Game Boy is and how it affected our lives. Today, a whole generation of kids will grow up with nary a clue about what the Game Boy is and how it affected our lives. When the Game Boy was first released, the video game industry was much different. There were fewer developers, less growth, and some doubt about the viability of video games in the consumer market. The Game Boy changed all that and became a significant contributing factor to the success the industry enjoys today. And that’s why we loved the Game Boy. It rebuffed the wisdom of the day and brought gaming back to its basic goal: fun.
I can still remember the first time I laid my hands on a Game Boy. I played Tetris, which came bundled with the original systems. It wasn’t sophisticated like some of the games I was playing on Nintendo’s home system the NES. It didn’t have color, and the screen was small, but I sat there for hours arranging those falling boxes just because it was so darn fun.
I was one of many that felt the Game Boy was different, special. We all needed to have one. We all wanted to have the latest games. And though I always enjoyed the handheld’s Mario games and playing Zelda titles, it was always Tetris on that old monochrome display that held a special place in my memories. And what memories they are.
After the success of the game boy then came the Game Boy Pocket. The pocket edition was simply the same thing only smaller in design larger screen and took AAA batteries. However is was the next handheld that I took to the Game Boy Color. With it we were able to view our 8-bit wonderlands of games…in COLOR! The Gameboy Color basically gave Nintendo full control over the handheld market for nearly a decade. With its multiple color designs, many bundles, excellent and large abundance of games, the Gameboy Color was a force to reckon with. Let’s not forget Nintendo’s Link Cables, allowing for multiplayer even through handhelds! From Pokémon to SNES ports, the Game Boy Color was a great system.
But great doesn’t always mean perfect system. The Game Boy Color still ran on batteries and let’s face it…it was impossible to play in the dark with no backlight. I owned one GBC game that was Mario Tennis. I would run several sets of batteries dead playing this game hours on end. This game was just fun and never got old for me I can’t explain it. Now I don’t play tennis, but I absolutely love the sport. Tennis is probably the only sport I do enjoy.
Down the road there came the Game Boy Advanced. I never did buy the original GBA I hopped on board with the GBA: SP. The real changes to Gameboy came in 2003 when the Gameboy Advance SP came out. Now, we had a backlight, now we had a rechargeable battery. The GBA SP not only was a more advanced redesign, but it made the carrying of your system much easier, as it folded up into a smaller square…er cube. This handheld got me through college for the most part.
I was able to get a lot of the old games I use to play not only on my NES but also on my SNES from back in the day. Having a portable version of Super Mario Bros 3; what more could you ask for? But alas I lost my GBA: SP somewhere in a move and not sure where it went to. A year later came the Nintendo DS and the end of the Game Boy label.
When I first picked up my DS Phat, I bought the only game worth owning at the time: Super Mario 64 DS. Still a student in college, I quickly bought up more games to satisfy my gaming hunger Animal Crossing: Wild World & Mario Kart DS were added to my collection. I fell in love with dual-screen gaming, quickly learning how to manage both screens and at the same time asking how did I ever game before without this extra screen holding vital information needed for the game I was playing! Also with the DS it ended having to lug around all my consoles I was able to play my GBA games on my DS. Then the DS lite came on I didn’t see the need to get a Lite I has my phat and it did everything I needed. Then came the release of the limited edition golden ds the Legend of Zelda edition.
Being a Zelda fan for life I needed this console but at the time I was not in a financial setting to get it so it passed me by and just settled in to own the DS phat. Until one day I went into a game stop store and was looking at used systems and there lo and behold a DS lite … a unit cast in gold with the triforce printed on the cover all for 100 bucks knowing I couldn’t let it go. I bought it and you can tell it had been used, however to me that makes it all the more special. To the life of me I will never understand why anyone would let that version go.
That handheld has gone through a lot with me over the years it lived through the DSi release and the DSi XL and through the 1st gen release of the Nintendo 3DS. There has not been much released over the years that I felt I needed also I had been falling out over the handheld gaming community maybe I’m getting older and that’s why, but no I believe the fun has been the factor. Games started to get dull and I was losing interest. Last week I started looking for a new RPG to play. One that would be fun like the old turn based RPGs that you might of played on the NES, SNES, and the PlayStation.
You cannot find any. It seems that with the latest gen of consoles the days of turn base play style are over. Then I came across a list and GIANT list of RPGs available for the 3DS and so I started researching. By research I mean search YouTube for gameplay videos. I soon came to realize I had missed out on and entire library of games. Considering it has been almost 8 years since I bought a handheld or even and handheld game. I decided it was time to upgrade and by this time I’m already 2 years behind on the release of the 3DS XL but as I am looking what do I see but the limited addition Zelda one.
I looked at the release date of that handheld Nov 3013. Its only February and the stock is still high. I picked it up and I must say to date it is probably the best handheld I have owned. I have only gotten to play with it very little because I am in the middle of a move, but I plan on playing more portable games though.
all my surviving handhelds