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bargora said:
While we're talkin', how's the GBA Atari Anniversary Edition compilation? Nobody seems to mention that one (either to laud it or trash it), which seems funny, this being you-know-what Age and all.
I wrote a review of it on Yahoo! Shopping. You can read it if you click here.
cryptik76 said:
Good choices for games, I think. I don't have the Konami collection yet, but I've heard good things.
Konami Collector's Series: Arcade Advanced is pretty awesome. I'd say it's my favorite of the classic game compilations on the GBA (Atari Anniversary Advance is a close second). Konami made a deliberate decision not to use emulation (for various reasons, screen resolution and layout among them), but instead translated them to the GBA hardware. The quality of the conversions is excellent, although most of the music in Frogger was changed, and Time Pilot seems a bit harder than the arcade game. There are also two-player modes which can be played using just one cartridge, and even a few extra goodies that can be unlocked if you know the code.
IGN had a good interview with the lead programmer of this cartridge, which you can read if you click here.
cryptik76 said:
I still like my Lynx, though, and until they come out with Rampart, Klax, Shanghai, or Roadblasters for the GBA, I'll still play it almost as much as my SP.
I got my hands on the Game Boy Color version of Rampart a few months ago. It was developed by Digital Eclipse, who also did Atari Anniversary Advance. It's quite good by GBC standards, and even includes a few minor things from the arcade game that didn't make it into the Lynx version, but I still prefer the Lynx version overall.
The GBC has several skill level settings, but even most of the easier skill levels are difficult, particularly when the ground troops appear. The ground troops multiply very quickly (much more so than the arcade or Lynx versions), and also move more quickly. If even one ground troop is adjacent to a castle when the building phase ends, then you can kiss that castle goodbye the instant the firing phase begins (arcade and Lynx will give you a second or two to shoot it before it destroys the castle). It's like that even on the easiest setting, and it makes the game incredibly frustrating at times. Also, much of the music and sound effects are quite "staticky," like they were digitized at a low sampling rate. Still, it might be worth getting if you can get it cheap like I did (I paid $7.99 for it).
Click here for IGN's review of the game. BTW, the screens they show there are early; the final version looks better.
I'd like to see Midway and Digital Eclipse attempt this game again on the GBA. They should be able to port the arcade game even more closely than the Lynx, and they might even be able to squeeze in one-cartridge multiplayer linking.
There is a Klax for the GBC, but I haven't tried it. From what I've heard, it's also an excellent conversion, but the Lynx version is still tops. IGN has reviewed that one, too; you can read it if you click here.
There have been one or two renditions of Shanghai for GB/GBC over the years, but I don't know how good or bad they are. I'm not aware of a RoadBlasters port to any of Nintendo's handhelds.
