Trigger

I picked up the gameboy advance and it's hard to see the screen... are they gonna come out with a backlit one? I've had the gamegear for years and years and it's way better I think. But maybe there's something about the gameboy advance that I don't know.

ipkevin

Nintendo Gameboy Advance is like a handheld Super Nintendo system. It's not exactly a SNES, but pretty much.

Sega Game Gear is like a handheld Sega Master System (you know, Sega's original 8-bit system).

Sega Nomad (if you can find one) is *literally* a handheld Sega Genesis and it has a backlit screen. It even plays Genesis cartridges!

Josh H

Like ipkevin said, the GBA is a little more powerfull than the SNES, as 16-bit system, whereas the Game Gear was based on the Mastersytem, which I think was an 8 bit, or less system as it was out even before the original SNES. So the GBA's graphics are significantly better than those on the GG. As for the lighting, I have no problems seeing it just sitting near a lamp, and using the Pelican Light Shield advance. There was a thread here reviewing the various GBA lights, and there is a feature on this at pocket.ign.com. Picking up a good light will help you out a lot.

The other advantage is the size of the library. The GBA plays all GB and GBC games in addition to the GBA games so there is a ton more games available for it than the GG. Plus the GG is a dead system so there won't be any new games coming out for it, whereas the GBA should be getting support from pretty much every game producer as it is the only handheld on the market in the U.S.

There have been rumors of a backlit model, but I seriously doubt we'll see one here. Nintendo decided that the extra battery life was more valuable than a backlit screen.

brkhrt7

check out www.portablemonopoly.com

ScandalUMD

Game Boy Advance has a much longer battery life than a Game Gear. A reflective screen drains a lot less power than a backlit one.

Trigger

I see - so it's 8-bit vs. 16-bit. That's a good point. You've all made pretty good points. I guess the only problem I have is the non-backlit display... otherwise I'd probably get one. This is a compelling argument though:



I'll keep my eye on this guy and see what develops.

Sega Nomad sounds like a cool device - must've slipped past my radar back in 95... I guess it was short-lived. It also looks a tad bulky.

IdgIe49

I was make a thread asking about this but I saw this. I bought a GBC color yesterday for 5 bucks from TRU. Having heard that that AGB plays GB and GBC games, I thought what the heck. So I bring it home, stick it in my AGB and it doesn't do JACK! ALL games don't play or what? I wanted to play this silly little game as it is up my alley its some donald duck game. but it wont play on my AGB. Am I just out 5 bucks???

mmconhea

Hey, the Game Gear was my favorite portable system! Here are some pros and cons of each:

GameGear:
PROS
- backlit screen
- comfortable grip
- Had a TV tuner to turn it into a porable TV
- TV tuner had video in , so you could use it as a portable monitor)
- Had a SMS adapter so you could play Master System games on it.

CONS
- Eats batteries (wasn't it 4 hours on 8 AAs)
- lack of 3rd party accessories
- No longer supported by Sega, though a 3rd party tried to ressurrect it earlier this year and release new games, but failed misserrably.
- Screen was not easily replacible.
- Poor qualiy of manufacturing left artifacts under the screen glass.
- link ability undersupported
- backlight had a life of 500 hours
- batteries not included
- Only 2 buttons (+start)
- Large size of system.

GameBoy Advanced
PROS
- Plays GBC and GB games
- displays more colors on screen and has mode seven capability
- the best 3rd party support
- 10 hour battery life
- batteries included
- larger library of games
- 4 buttons (+select and start)
- Extensive link capability
- Multiple colors to choose from

CONS
- Needs light assistance to play
- Very reflective glass cover
- Poor grips

Travissk

My GBA has played every GB and GBC game I've put into it - I'm not sure if there are some incompatible ones, but I doubt it, considering the GBA has a Z80 processor identical to the GBC one. The shape of the cart you stick in triggers a physical switch in the cart slot that tells the GBA which processor/"system" to start. GBC carts aren't emulated; they're run directly, so I'd bet that either you have a bad cart or it needs to be cleaned or something.

Regarding the GBA vs "other" handheld arguments, the fact that people have successfully gotten the GBA to run Sega Master System/Game Gear games should tell you something. I'm not sure how fast they run; I just read this somewhere on a Gameboy Advance programming site.

The PortableMonopoly light is a front-lighting system made from two LEDs and a refracting mechanism that takes the LED light from the sides and distributes it evenly across the front. I agree that the Advance can be very hard to see at times (ok, most of the time), so I'm really interested in this frontlight. The biggest advantage of this frontlight is that it doesn't suck much power - I had an Atari Lynx that I bought on clearance somewhere with a few games in the box. I didn't play it much, because if I remember correctly, it drained 6 AA batteries very, very quickly with the backlight on. The GBA should still last a while, even with this frontlight on.

Breakfast with Girls

There's just no comparison anymore except the lighting issue. A third-party TV tuner is coming out for the GBA, and the PortableMonopoly frontlight is in the works.

I liked my Game Gear except for the battery issue and the lack of RPGs (too many platform games on it). But the GBA blows it out of the water, and has a nice variety of gaming genres to boot.

Travissk

I believe the GBA is also easier to program for - I was never into GameGear programming, but it's fairly easy to get started making little demos with a free C Compiler. While you're not an official developer, it shows that a lot of people can truly make games in their basements - the GBA Development scene is fairly big. If you extend this to real developers with licenses, tools, and teams, you'll see some pretty impressive stuff.

This is a double-edged sword; on one hand you get talented developers concentrating on optimizing code and having the time to experiment with a quality release, and on the other hand you'll have people that, well, seem to develop games in their basements - from what I hear, there are quite a few rushed titles out. My friend told me that some company released not one, not two, but three fairly mediocre licensed games based on the Jurrasic Park franchise.

I truly know near nothing of the Game Gear (I was too young to understand the technical stuff when it was in its heyday, I think), but the GBA does hardware alpha blending, scaling, mosaic effects, and rotation of backgrounds and sprites. Sure, those kind of things don't make a system great (the N64 beat the original Playstation in quite a few areas, and the Jaguar technically beat out the other systems of its time), but they're just neat little facts.

In the end, you have to judge a system based on the quality of its games. I'm not sure what the best Game Gear games were, but the GBA has Castlevania, Mario World (coming soon, at least), a new Sonic the Hedgehog (I don't know if that's out, either), Advance Wars, Golden Sun, and more - and it's only been out for half a year.

mr.snowmizer

Simple answer...

Game Gear's nearly identical to Sega's Master System; GBA is an enhanced SNES. How much more advanced has always been a fun topic for debate.