46 replies to this topic

[Gabriel]

Yesterday, I was able to get a Game Boy Player for my Game Cube. I thought I would do a semi-review for the people who are still waiting for it.

Hookup and Basic Operation

The Game Boy Player is a 1 inch thick base that attaches to the bottom of your Nintendo Game Cube. Installing it is a mostly painless process. All you do is remove the cover for the high speed port, plug the Game Boy Player into the Game Cube, and tighten two screws. With this accomplished, the hardware work is out of the way. The Game Boy Player doesn't require a separate AC adaptor or any extra wires, so don't worry about a Sega 32X style tangle.

To use the Game Boy Player, you must put a boot disc (included) into the Game Cube. You are also instructed to have a Game Boy game plugged into the Game Boy Player before you power on the Game Cube. Organization-wise, things are pretty simple. The Game Boy cartridge port is on the bottom of the system. The only real trick is that cartridges are plugged into the Player with their label facing down. A link cable port is above the cartridge port for the use of the various Game Boy Advance perhiperals. There is also a VERY useful eject switch on the right side of the Game Boy Player to get those cartridges out when you're done playing.

When in use, Game Boy Cartridges can be hot swapped. When you're tired of playing a game, you hit the Z trigger on your GameCube controller, and select the option to change cartridges. You are then given directions to swap cartriges, and the new game will start as soon as you get it plugged in.

The manual shows a e-card reader being attached to the system, so it is definitely a supported perhiperal. I don't have that item, so I can't check.

Multi-player by use of the Game Boy Advance link cable is also supported. I didn't have anyone around to test this out with me, so I don't know how well it works. The instruction book does have a couple of oddities regarding this. Unlike every other Game Boy Advance product which goes out of their way to indicate that different Game Boy systems can be linked by the multi-player cables, the Game Boy Player manual implies that only Game Boy Advance systems can be linked to the Player for multiplayer. The manual also says that you should NOT link two Game Boy Players together for multiplayer use.

Also mentioned, but untested by me, was the mention that with a Game Boy to Game Cube special link cable, the Game Boy Advance could be used as an additional controller for games played on the Player.

Overall, it was very easy to set up. And it seems to hit the major bases of Game Boy play.


Actual Use and Features

So, with all that set up and examination out of the way, it was time to play. The Game Boy Player definitely delivers on its promise of allowing you to play Game Boy games through your Game Cube on your TV. So the question becomes how good is the experience?

First off, I must admit some serious bias against the default GameCube controller. I think that it is a piece of crap. So, right off the bat, I found games almost totally unplayable. The Game Boy Advance SP's pad and buttons are sometimes a little flakey, but they were a dream compared to the sheer goofiness of control delivered through the NGC pad. Overall, the NGC controller felt WAY too loose, and alternated between being overly sensitive and not responsive at all.

You can configure the controller a bit. The default setup has the left d-pad acting as the GBA d-pad, A button equals A button, B button = B button, Start = Start, Shoulder Buttons = Shoulder Buttons, X and Y = Select, and Z trigger activates the special functions menu. Since my problem was in the controller itself, this option for alternate configuration didn't help me. So, I probably need to invest in one of those NGC to GBA link cable thingies.

The Z trigger brings up the menu, and it's much better than the old Super Game Boy this time around.

First off, you can select from 20 different frames to have around the image of your game. Most of these are pretty bland, and lacking the character of those on the Super Game Boy. But, they're only background images, so it doesn't matter too much. Most of the designs are just different colors of Game Boy systems. There's also a Tetris theme, a space theme, a sci-fi metal plating theme, and some other random color/texture type things. As far as I could tell, there were no cutesy little animations for each background like the Super Game Boy had.

Moving on, you can select to view the games windowed in a frame like above, or "full screen". This is a little bit of a misnomer, because the games never actually take up the full screen. You'll always have the top and bottom of your "frame" visible. Still, this feature kicks ass, and it's clear that Nintendo listened to at least some of the criticism about the Super Game Boy.

Next there is the option to configure the controller. As I mentioned, this function wasn't of much use to me. The default setup seems fine. Plus, you can't manually configure things. You must select from a preset list of button configurations.

After that, we come upon an option called "Screen Filter". This option allows you to make the image presented sharper or blur it a bit. It's a bit of a fudge for the differences in a GBA screen and your TV. The options here are "sharp", "normal", and "soft". Personally, I didn't see much difference between the selections. People with HDTVs or other high end video equipment may have different experiences.

Now we have a confusing option. The next option is a timer. You can set a timer to present a notification anywhere from 1 minute to an hour from now. I'm bewildered by this feature, and I don't know why you'd want it other than to let you know you've been playing a game for an hour and it's time to stop. So, I'd have to say this is the most useless feature that could have been included and move on.

Lastly, there is the option to change game paks. Select this option, say yes, I want to change a game, pop the game out and put a new one in. It's that simple.

I tested the GBA with several games: Pac Man Collection, Konami Arcade, Joust/Defender, Qix, Gradius Galaxies, Robotech, Tekken, Zone of the Enders: Fist of Mars, and maybe a couple of others. Every one of them worked fine. The only problem was playing them with the godawful NGC controller. But otherwise things were good. The playability of Gradius Galaxies and Robotech increased tremendously on the big screen.

Some games looked like I was watching a VCR recording of them. It's hard to explain, but the image just looked slightly dimmer and not quite as sharp. This was limited to the Game Boy Color Games, and the Advance games didn't have the quirk.


Overall

In the end, I think the GB Player was worth the $50 I paid for it. In the end, it really depends on what games you have for the Game Boy (and whether you like the NGC controllers). For my part, the action games were improved tremendously on the GB Player. Robotech went from a totally unplayable game to something actually kind of enjoyable. So, I'd definitely recommend it to people heavy on action games or people that just want to save batteries.

However, if the GBA action game library just doesn't appeal to you, then you may want to skip this. It's not going to replace your GBA SP.

[Vic George 2K3]

Sign me up for a Gamecube; I want to get my hands on a Gameboy Player.

[Gabriel]

Ooops!

I forgot to mention, the Game Boy Player saves your settings. So if you like a certain background or alternate controller configuration, you don't have to be inconvenienced to change it when you first power up the system.

And you don't even need a memory card! So, a big thumbs up on that one.

[Ze_ro]

Nice review, very informative Just a few questions though:

Gabriel said:

All you do is remove the cover for the high speed port, plug the Game Boy Player  into the Game Cube, and tighten two screws.

Can the GBA Player and a broadband adaptor be plugged in at the same time? I sure hope you wouldn't have to swap them or anything...

Quote

When in use, Game Boy Cartridges can be hot swapped.

Wow, that's something I sure didn't expect... I wonder if you can use this to do stuff with the eReader and Pokemon or SMA4 instead of needing two GBA's.

Quote

The manual also says that you should NOT link two Game Boy Players together for multiplayer use.

That seems odd... has anyone actually tried this? It doesn't seem like it should be an issue

Quote

You can configure the controller a bit.  The default setup has the left d-pad acting as the GBA d-pad

Don't suppose there's any way to set the analog stick as the controls, can you? The D-pad on the Gamecube really sucks.

The Z trigger brings up the menu, and it's much better than the old Super Game Boy this time around.

First off, you can select from 20 different frames to have around the image of your game. Most of these are pretty bland, and lacking the character of those on the Super Game Boy. But, they're only background images, so it doesn't matter too much. Most of the designs are just different colors of Game Boy systems. There's also a Tetris theme, a space theme, a sci-fi metal plating theme, and some other random color/texture type things. As far as I could tell, there were no cutesy little animations for each background like the Super Game Boy had.

Quote

Moving on, you can select to view the games windowed in a frame like above, or "full screen".  This is a little bit of a misnomer, because the games never actually take up the full screen.

The GBA screen has a different aspect ratio, so in order to make it "real" full-screen, it would have to stretch the screen a bit, which might make things look odd. However, I doubt it would have looked terribly bad... they probably should have added a "stretch" option.

Quote

After that, we come upon an option called "Screen Filter".  This option allows you to make the image presented sharper or blur it a bit.

I think the point of this was to keep things from flickering. Some older Gameboy games used to use flicker tricks to get more sprites on screen (sort of like the 2600). Bubble Bobble comes to mind. I remember reading that one of the options for the GBA Player was to eliminate this flicker (Or maybe this is a different option?). On games without flicker, I guess this effect wouldn't be noticable.

Can anyone tell me what support (if any) the GBA Player has for Super Gameboy extensions? Will it use the extra borders that Donkey Kong has? Will it use the extra colors and sounds? I doubt that Space Invaders will play the extra game, but supporting the color modes would be very nice (GB Donkey Kong is one of my favorite games)

--Zero

[Gregory DG]

The thing that perplexes me is the need for a boot-CD. I would have thought that the player+GBA game being installed would be enough to bypass the main system.

[Happy_Dude]

Gregory DG said:

The thing that perplexes me is the need for a boot-CD. I would have thought that the player+GBA game being installed would be enough to bypass the main system.

SECURITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!1!!!11!!!!

No one can make a G.C disc but Nintendo. BUT if the GBA player could access
the GC hardware without any kind of software security it would be a trivial
matter to buy a GBA flash cart and hack up a little program that accesses the
DVD functions and dumps a GC disc out any given port (Serial, controler, etc...)

This way Nintendo are covering their arses

[Gabriel]

Quote

Can the GBA Player and a broadband adaptor be plugged in at the same time? I sure hope you wouldn't have to swap them or anything...  

I don't know where the broadband adaptor sits, but I presume it plugs into the bottom of the NGC (the only place it could). Because of this, offhand, I see no way you could have both hooked up at once.

Quote

Don't suppose there's any way to set the analog stick as the controls, can you?  

Sorry, I forgot this entirely in the review (too much time ranting and too little time telling what you can actually do with the controller). Yes, the left analog stick can be used to control the games. The right analog stick serves no function.

Quote

Can anyone tell me what support (if any) the GBA Player has for Super Gameboy extensions?  

From my test of Battle Arena Toshinden and Missile Command/Asteroids (the only Super Game Boy type games I still own) there is as much support for the Super Game Boy features as there is on the GBA itself. That is to say, NONE.

[Gregory DG]

Happy_Dude said:

Gregory DG said:

The thing that perplexes me is the need for a boot-CD. I would have thought that the player+GBA game being installed would be enough to bypass the main system.

SECURITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!1!!!11!!!!

No one can make a G.C disc but Nintendo.

Ummm... I've already heard about people copying GC discs. Where people would go to get the mini-cds to burn them is another matter.

[Happy_Dude]

Gregory DG said:

Happy_Dude said:

Gregory DG said:

The thing that perplexes me is the need for a boot-CD. I would have thought that the player+GBA game being installed would be enough to bypass the main system.

SECURITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!1!!!11!!!!

No one can make a G.C disc but Nintendo.

Ummm... I've already heard about people copying GC discs. Where people would go to get the mini-cds to burn them is another matter.

Yeah but their cubes won't be used for gaming anytime soon
They hacked the IDE cable on the GC drive to dump the isos
Imagin if Nintendo, After all this effort to curb piracy, gave every Joe gamer
an easy way to dump games.

Oh and no one has "copied" a GC disc yet, and no one has got a DVD-r to
work either so Nintendo ARE the only ones who can make GC discs.

[SS]

I hope that the GC Player will come in black. I don’t want some ugly purple thing gunking up my nice looking GameCube.

[Rhindle The Red]

SS said:

I hope that the GC  Player will come in black.  I don’t want some ugly purple thing gunking up my nice looking GameCube.

In the US, it only comes in black.

[Raijin Z]

Feh.. the rumor was that the US version wouldn't need a boot disc... I'm not getting one if it requires one.

[SS]

Rhindle The Red said:

SS said:

I hope that the GC  Player will come in black.  I don’t want some ugly purple thing gunking up my nice looking GameCube.

In the US, it only comes in black.

[Defiance131]

Gabriel said:

Quote

Can the GBA Player and a broadband adaptor be plugged in at the same time? I sure hope you wouldn't have to swap them or anything...  

I don't know where the broadband adaptor sits, but I presume it plugs into the bottom of the NGC (the only place it could). Because of this, offhand, I see no way you could have both hooked up at once.

Actually, from what I recall seeing in pictures of the GB player, I believe it plugs into the High Speed port, which would NOT require you to unplug your broadband adaptor... that would just be stupid for Nintendo to make you do that.

There are three places on the bottom of the GC to plug stuff in: Serial Port 1, Serial Port 2 and the High Speed port. I think, unlike the N64DD, Nintendo did a better job planning the peripherals and add-ons for the Cube.

I'm also guessing the boot disc might help keep the cost of the GC player at $50... it's one less thing they have to do to the hardware, and if they don't want people pirating their games, fine. It's certainly not going to prevent us from getting one, if we have to have one.

I guess I could live with black. I was really hoping for platinum tho... A friend of mine is getting one, so I guess I'll wait to see how she likes it.

[Ze_ro]

mrs. bigferret said:

I'm also guessing the boot disc might help keep the cost of the GC player at $50... it's one less thing they have to do to the hardware

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Gamecube is just emulating the GBA in software that was being loaded off the CD... with the GBA Player hardware basically just wiring a cartridge port to the unit. It would definitely make for a tidy profit, since manufacturing chips is more expensive in the long run.

I don't really see how having a boot disk really decreases the chance of piracy... in fact, having a boot disk might increase the chances of piracy. If they can figure out how it communicates to the GB Player, they might be able to wire up other things to load code into the machine.

In any case, it's only a matter of time before people figure out a way to do it. They already have it running demos through an exploit in PSO.

--Zero

[liveinabin]

I think the reason it uses a boot disc is not one of security but of convenience. The GBA player screws into the underside of the GC right?
By not activating it with the disc, you can still use the GC as a GC without unscrewing the player every time. Of course, this could also have been solved with an on/off switch:)

[Zloch]

Hey Gabriel,

Thanks for the great review! I found it very informative.

I wonder if they could make similar players for the NES and Super NES.Iw ould buy them in an instant!

Sean

[Raijin Z]

liveinabin said:

By not activating it with the disc, you can still use the GC as a GC without unscrewing the player every time.  Of course, this could also have been solved with an on/off switch:)

Or a menu option, or by holding a key on startup, or any number of alread-available options.

[Gabriel]

Zloch said:

I wonder if they could make similar players for the NES and Super NES.Iw ould buy them in an instant!

You and me both.

[kisrael]

One review I read mentioned the Player is all the GBA hardware minus the controller and screen.

Which is too bad; how cool would it be if they did it in software, and could do 4 player games on one GC, splitscreen...

[Wntermute]

You should be able to use a GBA Player and Broadband Adapter / Modem at the same time. The GBA Player uses the High-Speed Port, while the BB and Modem adapters use Serial 1.

The only feature I wanted that they forgot was to have the GBA Player function as an all-in-one "Connectivity" device. For extra game features like Metroid Prime/Fusion and Zelda Windwaker/LTTP, you still need a separate GBA and GC-GBA cable to unlock the extras.

[MegaManFan]

I've got $5 down on mine. When I bought the Phantasy Star Collection several months ago, it was in anticipation of this day.

[sdstuff64]

Nice review,if they made one in purple I might buy one,a purple system with the black player might look odd,oh well.

[SmileyDude]

kisrael said:

Which is too bad; how cool would it be if they did it in software, and could do 4 player games on one GC, splitscreen...

That would be nice, but I don't think that the GC's hardware is up to doing 4 GBA emulators at once. Especially considering that a lot of PCs have hard enough of a time just handling one GBA emu. The GBA is decepitively hard to emulate -- 32-bit RISC chip, running at 16mhz, and a kick-ass video chip as well. I guess that the PowerPC chip inside the GC could handle it, but it wouldn't be an easy thing, that's for sure

Much cheaper for Nintendo to simply put a GBA chip inside the box, and let the hardware do it's thing

[SmileyDude]

Gabriel said:

Zloch said:

I wonder if they could make similar players for the NES and Super NES.Iw ould buy them in an instant!

You and me both.

All signs are pointing to the inevitability of a mod chip for the GC coming out soon. The homebrew scene is starting to awaken for this machine, and once it gets going, you can almost be certain of a NES and SNES emu to come along. Sure, it would be nice to have something like the GB Player for the NES and SNES games, but I think having emulators would be the next best thing

BTW -- there already is a NES emu for the GCN -- Animal Crossing has a limited number of NES games included with it, and Metroid Prime has the original Metroid as well (if you have Metroid Fusion for the GBA, that is). I would personally be very happy if Nintendo put together a compilation disc with a ton of NES games on it and the emu. That would be worth quite a few bucks out of my wallet... oh well, I guess I can dream