You know there are lots of different Game Boy models, of course. But do you know how their sound output varies over the multiple different DS and Game Boy SKUs? Chiptune musician Herbert Weixelbaum does, and he's created a massive, newly updated page profiling the different noises each GB makes.

He explains of this pretty cool analysis: "not only do the different game boy models sound different, if you have a look at the waveforms, you can see, that these already look very different (thin sound - thin waveform). i recorded the pulse instrument, envelope: A8, wave: pulse width 50% (square), with a pitch of C3 (which is great C, in musical terms)."

Weixelbaum's conclusion? "things like "retro feel" might or might not be of importance to you, but it is a pretty objective judgment, that the original game boy (or the original with the pro sound mod) has the best sound, while the game boy advance sp2 has the best display. if you want to use a gba program, like nanoloop 2.0, the ds lite has the best sound and display." [Via the rockin' vorc.org.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Had a chance to wander around my local Bay Area GameStop store yesterday, and spotted a few details and interesting products for Nintendo's handhelds that might be of interest to GameSetWatch readers - as follows:

- Firstly, Atlus' Game Boy Advance version of puzzle game Polarium is available for $9.99 new - also on the website, but obviously you'll avoid shipping charges if you buy it from the store. Tony 'Tablesaw' Delgado did a whole column on the game late last year, and some say it's even superior to the DS version, so it's worth checking out.

- Not sure how long it's been this cheap, but GBA title Drill Dozer is now $14.99 new at GameStop. It's by Pokemon tykes Game Freak, and here's a handy Onion A.V. Club mini-review: "Reach areas by drilling through tunnels, open doors by drilling cranks, defeat enemies by drilling into their gaping mouths. Yup, [main character] Jill is hardcore like that." Ignoring Freudian issues, might be time for those who haven't to pick this up, as I did.

- I didn't buy this one, but Capcom Classics Mini Mix for GBA is also now $9.99 new, and Armchair Arcade just made a little post about it, handily. Interestingly, "...the games included here are oldies but goodies and are were originally NES ports of arcade games that are heavily changed from the originals in effective ways." And it's got a SD version of Final Fight called Mighty Final Fight, even. Probably not amazing, but intriguing.

- Two final oddities: just available for DS at $20, Namco Bandai's Trioncube hasn't been that well reviewed, but seems quirky and different, at least. Brandon found some nice commercials promoting it in Japan. And I ran into a game that you haven't heard of - Destination Games' Lionel Trains: On Track, apparently a DS-ish Railroad Tycoon type game which, at least according to reviews so far, isn't very good. But it's unknown!

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Fellow Game Developer magazine editor Brandon Sheffield has gone update-crazy with Insert Credit over the long holiday weekend, and his most notable update deals with the two original IP Game Boy Advance titles recently released by slightly odd new U.S. publisher Graffiti Entertainment.

I knew about one of them: "Mazes of Fate is a first person dungeon game from argentina of all places (Sabrasa), and seems to have very deep systems, branching paths, and a lot of gameplay time (if you're into that - I prefer shorter games). "

But I was not aware of the other: "Next there's Back to Stone (French in origin, pictured here). It's a 3/4 view action RPG along the linds of LandStalker (sort of kind of). There aren't a whole lot of impressions of it around the internet, so here are some from comic-kaze of the sngp forums: "Great concept, and the first bits reminded me of great oblique angled 2D games. It has a promising combat system and a lot of puzzles mostly involving beating up enemies and turning them to blocks of stone and then knocking the stones around to get them to land on special tiles to unlock keys."" Ta, Brandon!

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We've been looking around a bit for those interesting games that get a bit 'lost' at this time of year, due to the volume of game releases, and we think we might have found one - Justice League Heroes: The Flash for GBA, as recently reviewed positively over at GameSpot, and a retro side-scrolling beat 'em up blast from the past.

Now, this is a GBA-exclusive version of a multi-platform title, but it's done by the awesome guys at WayForward, who have been responsible for games such as Shantae and the odd/cool Sigma Star Saga, and whom we have previously mentioned on GSW.

Here's the blurb, explaining the waybackness of WayForward's concept for the (likely simple, but still likely fun!) title, which got 7.9 from GameSpot and 8.9 from the public GameSpot reviewers: "WayForward Technologies, the game's developer, has put together a beat-'em-up game that is along the lines of such classics as Double Dragon or Streets of Rage. The only difference is that the combat and atmosphere are heavily influenced by the Justice League universe."

What's more: "The settings are Keystone City, Gotham City, the Amazon, and Metropolis. And each level is populated with its own collection of robots and henchmen that are ripped from the pages of DC comics." Oo, fanboy drool. Has anyone played it yet?

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Soooo, talking of Game Boy-related audiovisual fun, we got an email from a certain James Kochalka revealing that he has "...put up a new Game Boy song in the mp3 section at AmericanElf.com" - and it's neeto.

Kochalka explains: "It's called My Chemical Sugar High. The music was created entirely on the Nintendo Game Boy using a program called Pocket Music. The song was inspired by the band My Chemical Romance, or at least by their name (and their eye make-up), because I've never actually heard any songs by that band. Anyhow, it's a song about candy and black eyes, and I'm giving away the mp3 for Halloween. Trick or treat!"

Oh, and here's the lyrics:

"My chemical sugar-high
My chemical sugar-high
My chemical sugar-high
Gave me a black eye.

My chemical sugar-high
My chemical sugar-high
My chemical sugar-high
Gave me a black eye.

My sugar depression
My candy obsession
My lollipop, wish I was dead.

My sugar depression
My candy obsession
My lollipop, wish I was dead."

[Picture via DeviantArt - and we've previously covered Mr. Kochalka's 'James Kochalka Superstar video shot on a gameboy camera by James Kochalka and edited by Pistol Stamen', for those wanting to see more Game Boy audio visual overload.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The deadline is passed, so now it's time to find out who won the Japanese Game Boy Camera in box, for all your retro several-shades-of-gray picture hilarity!

After much random finger-pointing, it was Luke Osterritter who won out, answering the question:

"How many pictures can the Game Boy Camera hold in its titanically large 1 megabit SRAM memory?"

...correctly with the following statement:

"The answer is 30; not a lot, which is why I like to keep several around in case the mood strikes. :)"

Thanks to all those who entered, and thanks to a couple of people who didn't quite get it right and made us chuckle a bit (sorry, guys, but '1 megabit' is clearly not the answer, and posting the incorrect number of shots as a comment will also not make you win!)

Anyhow, I'm sure we can think of something else fun to give away again soon, so watch out for the next GameSetCompetition in due course.

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The competition deadline (Monday at noon!) is almost upon us, so time for a reminder on our GameSetCompetition to win a Game Boy Camera in box, for all your retro several-shades-of-gray picture hilarity!

Also, we have to boast that the competition is so hawt this time round that we even got a semi-celebrity cartoonist/rockstar entering (hint: we wrote about his GBCam music videos recently!)

Anyhow, he didn't win just yet (he has the same chance as everyone else, tho!), and as previously mentioned, the question this time round is pretty simple:

"How many pictures can the Game Boy Camera hold in its titanically large 1 megabit SRAM memory?"

Please send your answers to editors@gamesetwatch.com any time before Monday, October 30th at 12 noon PST. There will be one winner randomly picked from the correct answers, the judges' decision is final, and that's that. Have fun!

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nice to see the Patent Arcade blog getting blogosphere love after we linking it last week - and we note that it's posted another Nintendo-related patent, this one for Pokemon, believe it or not.

Lawyer blogger Ross Dannenberg notes: "Nintendo describes the multi-player, portable version of its Pokemon game in this patent. In the pokemon game, each player collects and trains pokemon. When another player is encountered, the pokemon battle each other and the winner captures the loser’s pokemon. Capturing a pokemon includes transferring information about its appearance, strength, etc. to the wining player’s game machine."

He further notes: "The patent also describes a system for allowing players of different versions of the game to battle each other: Whatever information about a captured pokemon is unavailable from the old version of the game gets made up (assigned randomly) at the time of data transfer." Forgive my ignorance - is this feature used extensively in existing versions of Pokemon?

Posted by Simon Carless at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You may remember GSW sometime columnist Jeremiah 'Nullsleep' Johnson making delighted cooing noises over Takayama Fumihiko's homebrew Game Boy Advance shooter Vulkanon a while back.

Johnson noted: "While [Fumihiko's predecessor] BulletGBA was mostly a training aid for familiarizing oneself with different bullet patterns, Vulkanon builds upon the "Shooting" side challenges found there and delves further into mini-game territory."

Well, now he's only gone and providing a Game Boy bleeptastic soundtrack to Vulkanon - the new release of v2.0 reveals: "The sound composed by Nullsleep was added... The stage composition of the barrage was adjusted, and the volume improved." We hear BulletGBA might get an aural update too - more on this breaking story soon!

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The sharp-eyed among you may already be aware that cartoonist and musician James Kochalka is a bit of a major video game fan. Well, for the video for his new single, 'Spread Your Evil Wings And Fly', he's gone and proved it (YouTube link).

Why, you say? Well, the accompanying blurb explains: "James Kochalka Superstar video shot on a gameboy camera by James Kochalka and edited by Pistol Stamen". Not sure how the transferring to PC was done - there are some very odd interference patterns on the video, actually, but that just makes it look even more lo-fi. (The author of this very post is a bit of a Game Boy Camera fan, and has an old gallery of GBCam pics up on the Web somewhere or other.)

We also noticed an older Re:Retro interview with Kochalka about games, in which he notes: "I’ve been playing games for a long, long time. I think the first video game I ever encountered was something on the big mainframe computer at the Dartmouth hospital. A couple kids from my boy scout troop got to go check it out. They also let us freeze stuff with liquid nitrogen." Wow - games _and_ liquid nitrogen? [Vid via Fort90, ta!]

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A mysterious wizard by the name of Cendamos has set up his homepage of Nintendo debug goodness, and lo, it was actually pretty interesting.

For example, there's a page on playing as 'Dark Link' in Zelda: The Ocarina Of Time - all a bit scary! And too: "As an added bonus, I even created a Play as Kafei code for MM (USA Release)... go to Clocktown's main street at 6 AM and press L when you see Kafei!" Also, there's a Stalfos House code, fun.

The other bits of goodness are various hidden code-unlocked debug rooms - for Metroid Fusion, and a Wario Land 4 GBA debug, plus Kirby for GBA, heh. [Via Jiji.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We've previously covered the announcement of Game Boy Advance title Rhythm Tengoku, which is indeed created by the Wario Ware designers, and looks like an awesome 2D rhythm mini-game blast, yaaay.

Well, now GamesAreFun has spotted more Internet-available information on the title, explaining: "The official homepage for Rhythm Tengoku, a new rhythm title from the makers of WarioWare, has updated with a number of commercials for the title, as well as a gameplay video."

Also spotted is a video of "the staff learning about rhythm prior to the game's development", and commenter TheHawk speaks much truth when he notes: "t certainly looks like it has that WarioWare randomness. It's that randomness that always made me laugh as I played. I think I'd like to try this one." Here's hoping Nintendo brings it Westward, ho!

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The extremely useful Neologasm DSBlog has updated, not on DS, but the GBA Bit Generations games, explaining in detail of them:

"The first three bit Generations retro casual games are out now in Japan. Get Dialhex, the puzzle color-dropping game; Dotstream, the Tron-cycle-ish race game; or Boundish, a multimode Pong clone. You can see the “trailer” movie for the whole series over here (click where it says “7.5 MB” to load)."

The blog also notes: "If you'd rather wait for a US release, they are already ESRB rated, as the “Digideluxe” series, but a date hasn't been announced yet."

In addition, probably the best thing about the post is a handy English-language review of the Bit Generations series thus far by Ben Grundy (also one of the first posts we've seen on Six Apart's new Vox blogging system!), which comments: "The first thing that struck me about both these games was the clean, simple design. Its essentially effective and yet deceptively beautiful. Combine this with quite possibly the most perfectly matching soundtrack ever created and you have a retro gaming experience that leaves you feeling like you've just discovered something on the cutting edge."

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Nintendo fansite Cubed3 has a neat interview with WayForward's Matt Bozon posted, in which the Shantae and Sigma Star Saga creator dish on any number of interesting things.

Most bizarrely, it's revealed of Sigma Star Saga: "We had a very cool opportunity to reinvent a brand that was flopping in Japan (a... game called Star Ixiom). We signed on, but the deeper into the details we got the less Namco wanted to follow the original game. So in the end, we were allowed to make a completely new one."

Also, the prospects of a Shantae sequel coming out seem more and more remote, but there's some far-off hope shown: "The GBA game hasn’t been forgotten. Believe it or not, there are still negotiations going on for that game, and the DS sequel. Because GBA is slipping away, I’ve put my attention on DS. But that’s not to say the GBA game couldn’t come back on Virtual Console as a SNES game."

Posted by Simon Carless at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at the ever-beautiful Insert Credit, GSW columnist Jiji has posted noting the official Japanese website for bit Generations, "Nintendo's upcoming series of experimental GBA titles".

As the Jijster notes: "There you'll find new screenshots, play descriptions, and videos - along with some cracking good chiptunes - of both waves of titles, currently scheduled for release in Japan on July 13 and July 27 for 2000 yen apiece. All of the titles in this series feature abstract and colorful visuals meshed with simple, yet original, styles of play."

Other interesting info from the post: "Nintendo haven't made any noise about a possible US release, but most of the titles already have ESRB ratings assigned, so, we'll see... While it's said that most of the games are being developed by skip Ltd., who are best known for Giftpia and Chibi Robo, the developer responsible for Digidrive seems to be Q-Games, which was founded by Starfox's [co-]creator Dylan Cuthbert."

[Randomly enough, I accidentally IM-ed Cuthbert the other week while out in New York for the Webbys, thanks to an errant Mac IM prog which insisted on re-adding all my ancient contacts - in the ensuing ruckus, he mentioned that his firm is also in the midst of finishing out Starfox DS - neeto.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One of the more cultish figures in the Japanese video game is Mother/Earthbound co-creator Shigesato Itoi, but interestingly, he's not just a game maker - PingMag has a new interview with him that focuses on his advertising, design, and vegetable (!) businesses.

Itoi explains of himself: "I do a lot of things, but I would say my job title is still copywriter. I’ve been involved with advertising copy for a long time, and been a creative director in my later years. More recently, I work as a producer, a planner, or an organizer." Looks like games (we linked to a skeptical review of Mother 3 on GSW a few weeks back) really are a small part of his circle of interest.

In fact, the interview particularly focuses on T-1 World Cup t-shirt series Itoi is curating, explaining: "I just wanted to invent something between art work and mass production, such as the craft goods in Japan... The world feels like it’s heading to become a place where there is only “things to be used and then thrown away,” or “things impossible to get.”... So I thought about normal T-shirts, that are not so special that they go on display at a museum, but that people look after." An admirable concept!

Posted by Simon Carless at 5:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Courtesy of the British Gaming Blog, there's a round-up of the top ten Game Boy Advance games ever, which seems oddly relevant at this time in history, as the writer acknowledges: "While many of you will toss your consoles aside and bring in your new DSes and PSPs to play on, there will always be those who do not forget these classic consoles and their games, but honour them."

Of course, the best thing about Game Boy Advance games is that you can play them all on the DS, and the countdown even sports some of the recent GBA titles you might have accidentally skipped, like Game Freak's under-rated Screw Breaker ("a simple play style that was easy to learn, but tough to master.")

What's possibly most interesting is a vaguely controversial overall #1 game - Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga ("mixed traditional Mario platform timing with RPG elements to provide what we think is the best.") So let's open things up to the floor - what's missing from the top ten of all-time Game Boy Advance titles, and what should _really_ be number one?

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Continuing the hard-hitting journalism for which GSW is renowned, we've been reading Bret Easton Ellis' latest novel, Lunar Park, which stars the drugged-up and dysfunctional 'Bret Easton Ellis', the author of all Ellis' previous books, struggling to cope as someone apparently impersonating his American Psycho villain Patrick Bateman starts terrorizing his home town.

Post-modern conceits aside (and the book is _very_ well written, incidentally), the relatively on-the-ball references to video games as part of Ellis' (fictional?) family life in the book are notable, including mentions of a Mortal Kombat Halloween character, Ellis' son reading GamePro and Nintendo Power, and various other reasonably clued-in passing jabs.

But on P.116, Ellis' trademark cutting wit gets to work on Blinx creators Artoon, or more specifically, their pre-Blinx PS1/GBA platformer, as referenced with regard to Ellis' daughter: "Sarah went to the media room to play Pinobee, a video game about a flight-challenged and oddly charmless bumblebee whose expression of disgust always managed to fill me with alarm."

We say it's time for a rumble between Sonic co-creator and Artoon founder Naoto Oshima and the fictional coke-snorting version of Bret Easton Ellis - who's with us?

Posted by Simon Carless at 9:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We at GSW continue to link to reviews that deflower your favorites (and alleged soon-to-be-favorites), and next up is import store NCSX's het-up review of Mother 3 for Game Boy Advance, in which, well, fur flies.

The un-named reviewer barks: "Perhaps the bottom line with respect to the visual department is simply why the game is on the outdated Game Boy Advance platform in the first place?", continuing: "Mother 3 offers absolutely nothing new when it comes to gameplay; truth be told, anyone familiar with either of the prior installments (or any other RPG ever made) will have no problems understanding what to do."

While he admits of the series: "Still, oddity is not without its own charm and hence gamers fell in love", the conclusion is grim: "It is remarkable that nearly 12 years after Mother 2 was released, Nintendo could still put forth a product that feels like a true sequel. It is appalling, however, that while the latest installment feels like Mother [aka Earthbound in the U.S.], it is an artificial sentiment more than a genuine one. Maybe this series is really a flash-in-the-pan: this is the third installment yet in truth the second original game; Mother 2, for all its fleshing-out and expanding, was at its core a remake of Mother 1."

Apparently: "In seeking to create an entirely new story and scenario, Shigesato Itoi let whatever nonsense that floated into his head to accumulate on paper and, even worse, morph into a full fledged game." Wow, what's that in my cornflakes? GameSpot has hands-on impressions of a much more Switzerlandian nature, on the other hand.

Posted by Simon Carless at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A few days ago, Nintendo re-announced Digitylish, or Bit Generations, as it's called in Japan, for the Game Boy Advance, a series of seven games with a common digital theme. Then, they had said they would exhibit the series at Shibuya Parco soon. And soon they have, though I live nowhere near Shibuya, good o'l Famitsu is here with a report (Japanese language).

Nintendo had 60 Game Boy Micros set up at on six different pillars, running demo movies of all the games except Sound Voyager. It attracted quite a bit of attention from young people, who would walk up to the demo stations and try to play them. One person commented, "At first, I thought you could play them, so I was mashing the buttons (laughs). No matter the title, it seemed you could get sucked into their mysterious graphics and sound."

Famitsu then gives brief descriptions of each game: Coloris is a 'line up the colors' puzzle game whose sound direction is overseen by Oyamada Keigo, otherwise known as pop musician Cornelius. Digidrive is an action puzzle game that revolves around traffic control. Dotstream sees you crossing colorful lines in a racing game. Boundish is a racket ball table tennis game sure to give Rockstar's table tennis rendition a tough challenge for who has the best graphics. Orbital is an action game that would like you to use the gravitational pull of the orbits of planets to move. And Dial Hex is a puzzle game of an equilateral triangle that you revolve to create same-colored hexagons.

My, what big plans you have, Nintendo! Personally, I'm most excited by Cornelius' involvement. His wife and oft-times collaborator, Takako Minekawa is said to be the lady who made the "Play-Stay-SHUN" voiceover you hear in the Sony commercials. Both of them are Shibuya-kei electronica musicians who produce some really funky, fresh music.

Posted by szshou at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nintendo and its various franchises are a steady predictable in Japanese supermarkets and convenience stores, with everyone from Hamtaro chocolate to Pokemon gummies. Now, the company is expanding that to train stations too.

According to Famitsu, Nintendo is teaming up to use Suica (Japanese link), the ubiquitous electronic money card, with their Pokemon centers and various other outlets throughout Japan. Children will be able to use their cards to buy Pokemon merchandise, challenge others in games right on the spot, win prizes, and participate in events like the annual summer JR Train Line Pokemon Stamp Rally (it's only a matter of time before its as traditional as the tea ceremony). The article even shows an example of Pokemon/Suica slot machines, proving its never too early to teach your kids the value of gambling.

This is terribly handy, you see, because Suica is wonderful. Named because they are Super Urban Intelligent Cards, as a play on the word for watermelon in Japanese, at thousands of kiosks and these guys update your account instantaneously by simply being near them and in your pocket. Lately, they've been combined with a new technology in cellphones that allows you the ultimate convenience of simply walking through a train gate with your cellphone in your pocket to instantly deduct trainfare wherever you go.

Combined, these two technologies can buy everything you'd want in the legion of vending machines and stores that crop up around the heavy business of train stations. Thus, in yet another way, Nintendo increasingly becomes a part of Japanese lifestyle.

Posted by szshou at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The ever-lovin' Kikizo, a UK site that often concentrates on in-depth Japanese game developer interviews (Sega a specialty!), has landed a rare chat with Nintendo's R&D1 team, also described in the piece as the 'Wario Ware All-Star Team'.

The team includes Metroid supremo Yoshio Sakamoto, who comments of the game's concept (originally birthed from the N64DD tool Polygon Studio): "...we got the idea of using Wario and the other characters because we couldn't think of anyone else who would be best for the role. Wario is always doing stupid things and is really idiotic, so we thought him and the rest of the characters would be best for the game."

Kikizo also get in one of the funnier questions asked recently: "Weren't you afraid of someone hurting themselves on the train while playing [tilt sensor enabled] MaWaRu [Wario Ware: Twisted]?", to which the reply was "That's why on all Nintendo games they have warning labels, and in MaWaRu we also put a warning label in the game in case something bad happens. We hope that everyone doesn't hurt themselves on the platform... I hope that people don't hurt themselves in the train either!"

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And lo, after Nintendogs, a spate of virtual pet clones pop in to say hello, with Ubisoft's Dogz for Game Boy Advance the first to be reviewed by GameSpy. Reviewer Patrick Klepek comments that, "in the absence of an option for picking up Nintendo's effort, Dogz is a less compelling but worthwhile riff on the same idea ideal for younger gamers", but probably the most interesting part of the game is its use of the Dogz 'franchise' name, which you may remember was part of a larger mid-'90s Petz series for PC that even included Babyz, and way predates Nintendogs.

In fact, this new GBA Dogz was developed by unrelated Japanese firm MTO, and was called Kawaii Koinu Wonderful when released in Japan in 2004. However, the Dogz 'virtual pet' series itself was started in 1995 on PC by San Francisco firm PF Magic and Facade co-creator Andrew Stern. Andrew comments handily on the fate of the original creators: "The Petz team in San Francisco disbanded in 1998, when PF.Magic got folded into The Learning Company (TLC)... the Petz license ended up at Ubisoft."

[Bonus note: you might know MTO from its GT Advance series for GBA, but it has published other racing games in Japan, including Kuju's Lotus Challenge and Team 17's Stunt GP.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ex-GameSpy staffer Ben '222b' Turner has an eye for the obscure, and is a particular fan of cult Japanese developer Treasure, having written an excellent retrospective of the Gunstar Heroes creators for 1UP.com recently.

So, imagine his surprise when some eagle-eyed forumites pointed out to him Tiny Toon Adventures: Scary Dreams, a Conspiracy-published Treasure title for Game Boy Advance, believed to be a Europe-only release under a different name, but currently available on eBay in largish amounts from a liquidator. Unfortunately, Ben notes: "All told, it's fast, it's chaotic, it's mildly entertaining. It feels very much like a prototype of Astro Boy: Omega Factor, which it probably is. But where Astro Boy is refined and beautiful, TTA: Scary Dreams is simplistic in gameplay and barebones in presentation." So... hardly a slamdunk, but collectors had better get in fast, before the inevitable price gouging starts.

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)