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GameBiz GBA Reviews Launch!

31st October 2003, 8:51pm
GameBiz now has a brand spanking new GBA section, with more than 10 reviews launched already! The GameBiz GBA team of Brad, Mike, Ben, Ronnie, Jason and myself have worked tirelessly over the past month in readiness for the launch. So well done guys!!!

Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros 3
Reviewer: Jason Eder
The Mario series - published and developed by Nintendo - has been loved and enjoyed by gamers for many, many years and has, so far, appeared on every Nintendo console. Back in 1990, Super Mario Bros. 3 was released, delivering that addictive side-scrolling Mario action that most of us have experienced. Mario has already had a few appearances on Nintendo’s newest handheld console, and has just had another one in the form of the recently-released Super Mario Advance 4: Mario Bros. 3, the updated remake of the classic Nintendo Entertainment System version, also including the original Mario Bros. game as a bonus.

Street Fighter Alpha 3
Reviewer: Ronnie Gaffney
To most of you the Street Fighter series needs no introduction. But many of the new breed of gamers might not played or fully understand the history behind the series. Street Fighter started way back in 1988 when the very first arcade game was released. It had pressure sensitive buttons. Instead of having six lined up, one row for punch and one row for kick, with light, medium and heavy variants, you had two, and depending on how hard you pressed the button determined the strength of the attack. The system didn't work very well, but it established some very well known characters and made way for the most revolutionary fighter ever to be developed. That game is Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior.

Super Monkey Ball Jr.
Reviewer: Ronnie Gaffney
Super Monkey Ball is one of those rare games that comes along every once in a while. A game that seems to throw all convention out the door and focus on doing its own thing. While many games attempt this, very few succeed, and when one succeeds on almost every level, you know you’ve got a gem on your hands. Such is the Monkey Ball sleeper phenomena. Released at the GCN’s launch, most people overlooked it for the big name titles like Rogue Leader, word of mouth quickly spread and many nights were lost in frenzied bouts of monkeying around.

Wario Ware, Inc
Reviewer: Brad Dodd
Mini games make an appearance in a lot of games these days. They are subtlety slipped in to break up the main game, providing that all-important diversity. Nintendo have always shown a flair for innovative and interesting game design and they have come up with another, on appearances, mind-boggling idea- a game of mini-games! Sounds like a Charlie Kaufman movie. Have they hit another home run or is this a cruel piss take?

Donkey Kong Country
Reviewer: Jason Eder
One night, in part of his preparation and training to run the island, Donkey Kong asks Diddy Kong to watch over his bananas while he rests. Ambushed in the middle of the night by King K. Rool’s Kremlings, Diddy Kong is overcome and all of Donkey Kong’s bananas are stolen from his horde, while Diddy Kong is thrown into the bushes inside a barrel. Woken by Cranky Kong and told the bad news, Donkey Kong swears to scour every corner of the island until he gets all of his bananas back with the help of his little buddy, Diddy Kong.

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
Reviewer: Brad Dodd
I’ll come right out and say it, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones has its back well and truly up against the wall. There has never been one decent Star Wars game on the GBA. Not one. Despite being a license open to endless possibilities and so many cool themes at their disposal, game developers have failed to deliver a decent GBA Star Wars experience- even to a hardened fan such as myself. In theory AOTC has the potential to at least give some sort of joy to long suffering GBA fans, but I wasn’t holding my breath. Let’s see how it turned out, shall we?

Worms World Party
Reviewer: Ben Murphy
Worms is a series that most gamers would be familiar with. A long time ago, a bright spark at Team 17 thought that a good idea for a game would be to give a bunch of worms a large arsenal of weapons and have them blow each other up. What’s even crazier than this idea is that the Worms series has turned out to be one of the strategy hit series’ for PC. So how does a game like this fair on the GBA, where limitations to the original formula would be needed?

Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced
Reviewer: Jason Eder
The immensely popular Final Fantasy series first appeared on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990. Since then it has appeared on almost every other console, gaining more and more fans with each release; gamers were drawn to the addictive gameplay and in-depth story. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (FFTA) marks the GBA debut for the series, a completely new adventure utilising the same battle system as its 1998 Sony PlayStation counterpart, Final Fantasy Tactics.

Kuru Kuru Kururin
Reviewer: Ronnie Gaffney
Have you heard of this game before? Probably not. After all, it doesn’t sound nearly as cool as Grand Theft Auto 3 or Soul Calibur. No doubt you’ve guessed it’s a Japanese game. But did you know it was made by Nintendo and Eighting? Everyone knows Nintendo, but Eighting is a bit of an unknown to western gamers. So can Eighting produce the goods to the western world with Kuru Kuru Kururin?

Metroid Fusion
Reviewer: Jason Eder
No doubt by now you’ve heard of Metroid Prime, the hugely-popular, futuristic action game released on the Nintendo GameCube. Featuring the female bounty hunter, Samus Aran, and delivering frantic alien-blasting action, it pushed itself to the top of the 2003 awards list. In order to show off the Nintendo GameCube and GameBoy Advance’s link-up capabilities and to give gamers a next-generation portable version of the Metroid series, Nintendo released Metroid Fusion on the Nintendo GameBoy Advance - and it sure lives up to Metroid Prime’s standards!

Mario Kart Super Circuit
Reviewer: David Latham
I’m going to get straight to the point in this review. Mario Kart: Super Circuit is arguably one of the best games on the Game Boy Advance. Hundreds of hours have been spent with my Mario Kart: Super Circuit (from now on, MKSC), tuning up the best lap times possible, and gaining triple stars in all competitions, and for what reason? Adrenalin-pumping Addiction.

by David Latham
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