Game Boy Advance: simple and durable

When I recently purchased a Game Boy Advance SP console I was mentally prepared for disappointment. I thought this small, portable game system was bound to be flimsy and cheap. The long history of Game Boy systems made me think this would be yesterday's technology and that the games would be too simple to be entertaining. If you are considering buying the Game Boy Advance I hope you'll read on before you let those stereotypes deter you as they nearly did me!

On the road again
Game Boy Advance SP is a game system meant to fit in your pocket to travel with you. It's about six inches wide, three inches deep, and one inch thick. When you load the game cartridge it slides inside so it adds nothing to these dimensions and is protected while the game is carried in a pocket or bag. There is no weight to speak of, it seems to weigh less than my wallet.

Batteries? You don't need no stinkin' batteries! Game Boy Advance comes with a built in rechargeable battery that seems to have an incredible life span. We've charged our Game Boy once over a couple of months and that is with some pretty heavy play.

Games: quality and selection
It turns out that there are thousands of titles available on the system that are modern and entertaining. We've bought a number of these and found that all were in color and had pretty respectable graphics. I'd even go so far as to say that the graphics are nearly on par with Playstation 2...except that they are limited to a three inch screen.

Typically game programmers skimp on the sound, or do in our games, and I suspect this is a memory saving technique. All the games we've bought are without speech and play only a repetitive and annoying soundtrack across the system's built in speaker. Good thing the volume has three settings: high, medium, and off.

For your reference, some of the games we've bought that I base this assumption are:
Dogz 2 (a great title!)
ET: The Extraterrestrial
Bratz
The Bible Game (fun trivia and adventure!)

You can select any one of thousands of titles for your system ranging form a wide array of topics. There aren't many ultra violent games like Grand Theft Auto that you'll have to worry about stumbling into, most of them are geared for a younger audience.

Ease of use
Switching the game cartridges in and out is easy enough to allow small hands to complete the task. Durability is an advantage of the cartridges and they seem to handle being dropped or fumbled during this process well. Playing the system is easy enough as well. There are only four buttons and a directional pad so the games aren't going to be much more complicated than the original Nintendo games.

This system requires no memory cards or peripherals to operate. Each cartridge provides it's own memory for saved games and such to allow the player to avoid buying additional hardware on day one.

Charging the battery is much like a cell phone. Plug into the system on one end of the cord and the wall outlet on the other end...simple.

Headphones are simple to use as well. You just plug them into the jack the way you would with a Discman or MP3 player for personalized sound wherever you go.

Overall:
It's a fun system for children. Adult or college aged gamers may prefer the ultra high quality Playstation Portable but it's much more costly. Game Boy Advance is a lower priced option that is durable enough to be handled by smaller kids and I'm glad we made it our choice.