The Video Game Critic

Well, I had a great time yesterday and had to write about it. As I've mentioned before I test games/systems for a local mom n' pop shop (mostly comix,games,movies and CDs)...well someone brought in THIRTY TWO (!!!!) GBA games! I tested these along with a GBA (the original un-lit one) a GB Color, two SNES's and an N64. All worked fine and yes it took a while to test 32 games! As a reward I got to pick 4 GBA titles for free... I'll probably review these sometime but I got BOOKWORM (been looking for that!), Tak: Legend of Juju (cute platformer), Pokemon Pinball (great!) and MARIOKART. I had planned to buy the DS MK... but the GBA one seems almost as good. Is the DS really that much improved?
(BTW these games were like new with instructions but no boxes. They all worked. There were two GBA "movie" carts too.)

I don't know about the rest of you but my DS is seeing less and less action, 90% of my DS gaming is via the GBA port. Except for Warioware and a few puzzle games, I'm not Stylus-crazy and more and more DS games are stylus-control exclusive. I'm still looking for the DS Konami collection but that's all. Do others find the GBA games more appealing too?

Agreed, my portable gaming fix comes primarily from the awesome GBA library. It is the greatest source for 2D gaming since the Neo Geo.

As an aside - I don't know about anyone else, but I find that playing the GBA games on an actual GBA SP is much more comfortable and the buttons and directional pad more responsive than the DS. Not to mention the fact that the SP is rock-of-gibraltar sturdy.

I've gotten used to playing GBA on the DS, and it feels OK, but it definitely feels better to use the GBA SP.

-Rob

The only MarioKart game I ever tried was the SNES one. I just couldn't get into it; but then a freind got me hooked on racing games in general so I wanted to give it a try. Well, let me put it this way. Mario Kart Ds=$35 ; MarioKart GBA= free.

I plan to get an SP eventually so I can play older GB games, but the brighter colors on the DS screen make up for skewered controls, really!

for the record, of the other games they had, there were a lot of Yu-Gi-OH games(4 at least), all 3 GBA Pokemon games, Power rangers, Spyro, TWO donkey kongs, GT racer and a LOT of kid games like candy land. Quite possible these belonged to a spoiled kid (they are in immaculate condition) who moved on to PSP or girls!

[QUOTE=Alienblue]I had planned to buy the DS MK... but the GBA one seems almost as good. Is the DS really that much improved?
[/QUOTE]

The GBA game runs off the SNES Mario Kart engine, while the DS one runs off the N64 one. Hard to compare, although I like the new courses in the GBA better than the new DS ones. It's best to get both.

50 - 50

And I think the DS is plenty great design wise for playing GBA games.

Good DS games that don't need a stylus :

Advance Wars DS
Mario Kart
SM64 DS
Nanostray (I think you like shooters)
New Super Mario Bros
Tetris DS

Ughh, I can't think of anymore.....

Good Stylus games to make you a believer : 

Yoshi Touch and Go (Great arcade style game, fun, high score game, should be    
                                 budget by now.)
Brain Age  (This may make you hate the mic instead! Awesome Suduko game       
                  included, but Brain Age 2 is coming. Also budget)
Metroid Hunters (Works better than you would guess, not a traditional Metroid)

Uggh, I can't think of hardly any. Steerforth fails, Phantom Hourglass is coming. You could try Nintendogs, which is intersting, but gets repetitive fast.

Games that use the stylus as a cheap gimic :

Too many to list!

Steerforth: I had Yoshi T & G and Kirbys Canvas Curse and gave them to the freind who gave ME a slimline PS2, games and steering wheel. I have all those games you mentioned except advance wars; I'm not really into RTstrategy games.

I know some stylus games are great(Zookeeper is one of the best games EVER, POLARIUM is very fun too) but I'm old school and prefer "normal" controls. I don't want to HAVE to use a stylus to move,jump,steer a car, or any of the other things pads and buttons do better.

I applaud Nintendo for bringing out COOKING MAMA and BEATMANIA but how about a pad/button controlled RAIDEN game, or some more New SMB type platformers? Some games are just not stylus compatible, big "N"!