Friday, September 03, 2010

Gunpei Yokoi's Invention Was Just That Good

So today I was taking a couple pictures for my site, things for title graphics, and I wanted to have my Game Boy in the picture.  So I unzip the carrying case and everything is covered in black dots.  First reaction "damn, did bugs get in here or something?"  Thankfully the black dots were simply from the foam padding inside the case - after twenty years it had finally degraded.  The Game Boy in the case is just a little older, it's my original Game Boy from Christmas of 1989 and it still works 100%.  I must have logged thousands of hours with it over the years.  It was the summer game platform of choice while I was away from home.  It also underwent a bit of a renaissance when I was between gaming platforms - the void between the Super Nintendo and PlayStation when I didn't buy many console games.

I also have an old original Game Boy AC adapter / battery pack, although that was picked from a knot of miscellaneous cables at a flea market within the past five years.  Amazingly it still holds a charge.  In fact I just let it charge for a little while and then fired up Tetris on my old brick friend.  141 lines and around 98,000 points, not bad for having not played that version in almost ten years.

I'll be honest to say that I'm fairly interested in the upcoming Nintendo 3DS, and I haven't bought a handheld since the original Game Boy Advance (which I later Afterburner modded).  The GBA SP's I've picked up for small cash and trades in the years since don't count since they were acquired used - and the GP2X doesn't count either.