Gba Sp

[Marvelon]

I own one of each, and on high action games I don't like either of them for action orientated games. F-zero on the normal GBA was awful, I thought and possibly worse on the SP. I just the GBA player on my US Cube.

Only thing GBA is good for is slow paced games. FF Tactics Advance, that kind of thing. Mario golf Advance Tour maybe.

[E. Randy Dupre]

The old GBA you could never play it after the 5pm as there was never enough light. and I could never see anything with indoor lights.

If you've got a desk lamp or something similar placed behind you, it's absolutely fine.

The main problem I've got with the SP is that the light really washes the screen colour out - any depth of colour is completely lost. Stick a GBA SP with the light on and a well-lit GBA next to each other and the difference is immediately noticable.

Which is messed up, because a standard GBA with a fluorescent light attachment doesn't suffer from this (I've got a Gamester Flo Light, which doubles the machine's weight and doesn't quite manage to cover the entire screen, but is far preferable to the lighting on the SP, imo). Yes, it's nice that Nintendo listened to the criticism, but they really should have made the SP backlit (rather than the strange side-lighting solution that it seems to use).

[Mr Ono]

SP's **** all over the original GBA. It may not be good for your hands but it certainly is good for your eyes (backlight) and you wallet (batteries).

I bought a Silver one on release but sold that and now have Boktai and Famicom ones.

[MonkeySteve]

I got a clear blue GBA near launch, but didn't play it an awful lot because of the screen. Yes, you can sit directly in front of a lamp or something, but that just p****s on the portability factor somewhat. I picked up a FFTA pearl white SP whilst in Japan, and it's seen much more use.

[twigboy]

I was thoroughly disappointed when I got my SP. After a year or two of eye strain on the GBA I was expecting a kind of handheld nirvana. But then I played on it and saw the washed out colour compared to the GBA, the slightly more hand-crampy button positioning and all that. Matters were made worse by the fact that one of the LCD pixelly things was buggered and always shone green/blue. And I didn't take it back. God knows why, but I didn't. I then grew to love it. It totally changed the way I played - I'd only really use it in bed because a light was nearby before. And I stopped worrying about scratching the screen. The dodgy pixel was always a niggle before I got a new one though (free - long story). Anyone else have that problem?

[E. Randy Dupre]

My GBA's got one 'dead' pixel on the screen, but it's only all that visible when it's supposed to be showing a shade of red. As with scratches, it's something that bothers you for a short while, but eventually doesn't matter in the slightest.