GameBoy Micro - Hands On -

[chuddy_2001uk]

When the GameBoy Advance came out, it was a fantastic piece of equipment. The GameBoy Advance had a “HUGE” wide screen that gave out beautiful colours and the system had an overall sleek and sexy design. GBA gave players the chance to play top quality games with decent graphics on the move. It also had backwards compatibility with existing GameBoy Classic and GameBoy Colour games, which was a bonus for retro junkies and gives the opportunity to play them without embarrassment. There were a few problems though; the action was very hard to see due to no built in light and you were forced to angle the GBA in a source of light. There was a number of peripherals at hand to aid you with this but none of them worked very well. GBA’s battery life was marginally decent with at least 6 hours worth of constant game play but you had to keep changing those good old AA batteries which became an annoyance to say the least.

Next came the GameBoy Advance SP, the SP meaning “Special Project”. As the name implies the system is still a GameBoy Advance at heart. Nintendo tweaked the innards and unveiled a much sleeker, thinner and overall smaller version of the now ancient GBA. This time around, you don’t have to use batteries and that’s because the SP houses a nifty little Lithium battery that you can plug into a normal power supply. This was a revolutionary step for Nintendo as it was the first handheld to have an internal rechargeable battery that lasted, at the very least, 6 hours.

What was also groundbreaking was the backlight screen. This provided gamers with a constant light source and playing GBA games became an easy job instead of a tiresome chore. The GameBoy Advance SP also boasted a flip screen. By having this very neat addition to the platform, it ensured the owner of a screen that would be very well protected from scratches, dust and anything else that aggressively attacked the GBA.

Although the GBA SP sounds like a much better approach for playing your GBA games, in some cases it clearly isn’t. The SP doesn’t include a headphone jack meaning that you have no choice but to play your games out loud or, well, play them with no sound at all. There is (again) a peripheral that you can purchase to allow you to listen through a pair of headphones but it would have been nice to have a headphone jack built in rather than shelling out money for an easy-to-lose miniscule strip of wire.

As well as this downfall, the SP has another minus and that being that it can get uncomfortable in a small space of time. Playing more than 30 minutes can almost guarantee your hands getting cramps, especially if your hands are on the large side,. Other than that, the SP is by far much more superior and practical than the GBA Classic.

…then came the Micro.

The GameBoy Micro is the latest addition to the ‘Advance series. Fist off, Micro is impossibly small. It’s about the same size as a mobile phone as light as 80 paperclips but has the brightest screen of the bunch. Here are some size comparisons:

(With thanks from Dave)

*I’m not going to go into great detail about the Micro but I will put all facts across and all opinions that I forward are mine and mine only.*

The GameBoy Micro has everything what the SP has and more. The step upward from a blocky yet smaller version of the GBA was the SP but in my eyes, this is a much bigger step.

The screen
Micro’s screen is a tad smaller than the screen of both the SP’s and the Classic GBA’s. Nintendo have gone full throttle and cramped in all the pixels but into a smaller screen…with success. Playing games on the Micro’s screen is still as easy as what it was before but sometimes, with the faster paced games, the action can lag, we don’t know what does it but it happens. Apart from the smallest amount of lag, it really isn’t noticeable enough to disrupt game play and definitely isn’t enough to make you return the Micro. What really is nice about the screen is how bright this little beauty can go. On the right edge of the Micro, there is a little “clicky” button. While pressing “L”, you can click up and down to change the brightness but obviously the brighter the screen the more battery you’ll drain. Some of you may be thinking about the text that occasionally pops up in games, most noticeably in RPG’s such as Golden Sun or in RTS’ such like Fire Emblem or Advance Wars. Well, I can safely say it’s not at all difficult to read the text. It maybe be smaller but because the display is so much more crisp, it’s anything but harder to read. On the flipside, when playing a fast paced racing game it can sometimes give you a headache due to the smallness and/or sheer brightness of the screen.

Everything aside, the Micro’s screen is by far brighter, crisper and overall an improvement from the SP’s display and I would go as far to say it beats the DS’ screen also. Nintendo themselves state it’s their brightest screen.

The buttons
GB Micro hosts some new buttons, different ones from the SP anyway. The A and B buttons aren’t the ones that you get on the DS or the SP but they’re the buttons that are built into the normal GameBoy Advance. The best word to describe them is probably “squigy” unlike the “clicky” buttons on the DS. By having these, it makes it more comfortable to play the games but also sometimes you may have urge to press down too hard because you don’t know for sure that the button is all the way down, but that’s being too picky and it never really occurs. I have big thumbs and so do a lot of gamers and this is bad news. When not pressing either A or B your thumb can slip onto the screen creating a smudge which can be very distracting indeed, but with practise, you will actually begin to train your thumb to stay put.

The D-pad has also got that “squigy” feel to it. The D-pad is also very comfortable to press and you find that just tilting your thumb in the direction usually works, you don’t have to press each individual direction due to the smallness! The control feels almost perfect and refined and it just adds to the comfort.

It’s a shame the same can’t be said about the SELECT and START buttons. Although these buttons aren’t out of reach, it just feels very unnatural to have them at a different angle from what your playing with. As with the thumb business, you get used to it but it’s a real shame that their not positioned in the usual easy-to-reach place, that being above the A and B buttons. Something cool about these is when you charge the unit. When on charge, they glow a nice red colour, when you switch the Micro on, during the jingle, they flash and glow blue and when the Micro is running low on power they glow red. Pretty simple but quite useful.

Everyone loves the L and R shoulder buttons on a handheld but the ones on Micro might make you change your mind. You see, on a normal controller or handheld the shoulder buttons can be pressed anywhere to be activate, on the Micro it’s a different story. Nintendo chose to set the buttons to be hit in the inside edge rather than the outside, allowing you to rest your fingers along the top and press in with your relaxed fingers. It’s best if you don’t rest your fingers your fingers on them because we found that it’s easier to tuck them underneath the Micro. The clickyness (I have stop using that word) of the shoulder buttons is nice but the layout of them is slightly uncomfortable but they do the trick.

Everything else…
Ok so there’s practically everything but I‘m going to use this paragraph and space to fill in the gaps. I should mention that there is a nifty key chain hole on the back of the Micro and, finally, you will actually put it on the key chain without looking like an idiot

The charging unit is slightly different as well with the bit that plugs in the Micro being of a USB style plug. I don’t know the reason behind this but it just means that you can’t use the charger that you have with your SP and/or DS to feed the Micro the energy it needs to live, unfortunately.

The GameBoy Micro doesn’t play GameBoy Classic or GameBoy Colour games which is a real let down but it does play GameBoy Advance games perfectly. For those of you who use the E-reader you’ll be glad because the Micro handles the add-on with perfection even though the peripheral is twice the size of the micro.

Last thoughts
So, there you have it a complete and utterly thorough run down of the new GameBoy Micro cramped into a smallish review for your pleasure… damnit I’m good to you guys. Anyway if you have the cash and you don’t play your SP anymore then investing in a Micro will do you good. I traded in my GBA SP and I’m glad in doing so. With this sleek, small, sexy beast in your pocket I can guarantee you’ll feel the jealousy from the public almost instantly.

9.2/10




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C'mon you know you want one...

[theONE]

nice review.. but one question... is it really worth it if u have a DS?

[Euan]

Nice review, but the Micro isn't as small as I had thought (noticing from the PSP review), and no matter whether it gets 9.2's in every review site, I'm not spending £70 on a fashion item.

Now what do I want for christmas? An Ipod. Ho hum.

[LancerZWarrior]

ill just continue playing my gba game on my ds. very sleep and beautiful, i just dont feel like dishing out the cash for something that ive already paid for three times (gba, sp, ds).

[Sepharite]

Is it true, if I put it in my pocket, does it attract females? Curious.

dude of course it attracts the females

the GBM is a freaking chic magnet, man

*buys GBM and walks around with it in pocket*

[theONE]

"well yes i am happy to see you, but its a just a gameboy in pocket..."

[Sir Realism]

Good review. I only see one error. The Game Boy Advance SP had a frontlight, not a backlight. Thats why you can see a slat of white emanating from the sides of the SP screen. It wasnt until the DS that a backlight was introduced to the nintendo handhelds. The micro's screen is abundantly brighter because of its backlight. Sorry about my nitpicking but its just so you know.

It was a good idea for Nintendo to produce removable faceplates. I feel that it looks very boring standard.

[ShadowMarth]

Whoah, where'd you come from? Any why didn't you use your old screen?

[superman]

true the micros light is better but it doesnt play games with the rumble feature and besides why would you wont of those since the ds plays gameboy advance games to.