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Games on the Go
by Jeremy Horwitz for Gamers Today
Whether you have only ten minutes between appointments or a five hour flight from city to city, time flies a lot faster when you're carrying a video game in your pocket. At the moment, the best software is available exclusively for Nintendo's portable Game Boy Color and black and white Game Boy Pocket systems, though several other companies are struggling to develop competitors to Nintendo's successful handheld juggernauts. Here are a number of games you might want to check out this summer.
Bust a Move 4 (Acclaim): Like Nintendo's best-selling Tetris, Acclaim's Bust-a-Move series is a simple yet fun and addictive puzzle game - only here, you try to match up strings of colored bubbles to empty the screen as quickly as possible. If you're tired of Tetris, this is the next game you'll want to try; if not, Nintendo's recent Tetris DX is an colorized but uninspired version of the classic black and white Game Boy hit. Another option: Midway's colorful tile-stacking puzzler Klax.
Legend of the Sea King (Natsume): A fisherman's dream, Legend of the Sea King combines a full adventure and role-playing game with a standalone virtual aquarium game. In the former, you'll earn money to buy better rods and bait to pursue "the Sea King;" in the latter, you'll catch and grow new species of fish which you can trade with friends using the Game Boy link cable.
Looney Tunes (Sunsoft): Five separate Looney Tunes games are due for release in the near future - "Looney Tunes" features Bugs, Sylvester, Porky and the Road Runner in a single side-scrolling action game; Daffy Duck, Road Runner and Speedy Gonzales each gets his own solo side-scrolling action game, and Tazmanian Rush is a Tazmanian Devil adventure styled vaguely after Nintendo's classic Zelda series.
Pac-Man (Namco): The Pac-Man character needs no description, but this will be the first color portable rendition of the classic arcade game to appear on a Nintendo system. Moreover, the Pac-Man cartridge also includes "Pac Attack," a simple puzzle game that bears a slight similarity to Tetris. Ms. Pac-Man is coming soon and looking mighty fine; a ton of other arcade classics from Asteroids to Spy Hunter are available on the Game Boy systems, too.
Pokemon Pinball (Nintendo): For the first time ever in a portable video game, Nintendo is adding "rumble" technology to individual cartridges, a feature that makes the entire Game Boy shake in response to on-screen actions. The second game to "rumble" is a two-table pinball game based on Nintendo's current reigning Pokemon series. Just like the earlier Pokemon titles, you move from city to city collecting Pocket Monsters, but here, you have to use your flippers to hit them three times with the ball. The first "rumbling" Game Boy Title, Top Gear Pocket, is a comparative disappointment.
R-Type DX (Nintendo): Two of history's best space ship-against-the-aliens games are coming to the Game Boy on a single cartridge. The amount of time that you'll occupy playing through the two of these might best be described as staggering - these are challenging yet fun space action games which have remained personal favorites for years. Both R-Type and R-Type II can be played either in black and white or color.
