Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Gameboy to Game Man

When I was a young boy, I had a Gameboy.

Super Mario Land was one of the first titles I acquired and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Unfortunately, so did my sister. It was one of the few video games she ever played on her own. What's unfortunate about that? Well, she lost it!

However, this past week, while on a trip to Chicago, I stopped in to a retro game store. While browsing around I saw Super Mario Land for $7 and thought: "now is the time to remedy this 20-year-old tragedy!" So, I got the game, and when I returned home I popped some batteries in my Gameboy to give it a whirl!

... my Gameboy wouldn't turn on. It seems the decades of neglect lead to some kind of corrosion of the battery contacts. Fortunately, my wife has a Gameboy and hers worked! Oddly enough, when I first turned it on it sort of flickered and sputtered as if it was shaking off the rust of its own decade+ hibernation.

So, I've been playing some SML lately... how the hell did I used to play games without a backlight!? Regardless, even as a 30-year-old man, I find that Gameboy is still pretty nifty.

3 comments:

coffeewithgames said...

I wonder if they plan on releasing SML through the 3DS' eShop at some point, or maybe it's already planned with the Ambassador Program for the early purchasers...or is it already out?

Anywho, it's pretty cool that you found the game, and you still have a system that works(your wife's) to play it on.

NinSage said...

No idea on the eShop since I don't have a 3DS (yet!).

And yea, it's cool that her GB works. Gotta try to get mine working again.

SML is definitely a "unique" Mario game =P
Side-scroller shooting stages, exploding turtle shells... the list goes on!

Mop_it_up said...

With the proper cleaners, I'll bet you could clean up that corrosion and get the Game Boy working again.

Super Mario Land is on the 3DS eShop priced at $4. In my own opinion, it isn't really worth that. To me the game just feels like a downgraded version of Super Mario Brothers, which is already rough around the edges. It hasn't aged well, and I'd recommend it only to huge Mario fans who want to try every game.