December 1991 brought seven North American Game Boy game debuts, but I’m choosing to only include the five that didn’t also debut in Japan this month in this post. PAL still didn’t get any debuts.
Bill Elliot’s NASCAR Fast Tracks (Distinctive Software/Konami)
It will come as no surprise to anyone that this was exclusive to North America. It’s likely based on Bill Elliot’s NASCAR Challenge, which the same developer released in March for NES and various home computers. Wikipedia claims it was the first game to use the NASCAR license, but it had a dire 55% review average on MobyGames. Fast Tracks made the questionable decision to keep the first person view of Challenge. It’s certainly the first racing game with this view on Game Boy, but it comes at the cost of any track detail, being able to see more than six feet in front of you, and some of the worst aliasing that has ever been seen in a game. It’s not particularly playable.
MobyGames has a 61% average for it, but that’s coming from the ever-useless Games-X and a bunch of European reviews in languages I can’t read. As such, I don’t know why anyone considered this acceptable. Maybe the graphics were just that novel in 1991.
Rating: 1.
Dick Tracy (Realtime Associates/Bandai)
One of many Dick Tracy movie tie-ins released around this time. This one is apparently loosely based on the NES version, but is considered its own game. You have to at least give it a lot of credit for how detailed the backgrounds are. Unfortunately, it’s another incredibly stiff beat ’em up with attacks that only hit an inch in front of you. The platforming also feels pretty awful.
It has a 61% average on MobyGames, but none of the reviews are in English. I’m not sure why so many European reviewers went out of their way to review an NA-only game for a movie that seems to have only released in the US.
Rating: 1.
Double Dribble: 5 on 5 (Konami)
A port of an arcade game that had already been ported to basically everything before this version. I believe this is the third attempt to do basketball on Game Boy, and while it still has issues with being able to tell if your shots are any good, it’s much easier to see what’s happening here. The music and animations are both pretty good. Unlike most contemporary sports games that insisted on having the player character blink on and off, Double Dribble wisely attaches a “1P” logo to them instead, although it’s not visible in my screenshot. If you had to play basketball on Game Boy, this would have been the best way to do it in 1991.
Reviews averaged 61%, inexplicably the same as Bill Elliot, but only EGM reviewed in English. Their blurb says nothing useful and the review isn’t archived. Still, that average is broadly in line with every other 90’s version other than the NES, which is clearly the definitive version of the game. That one is miles ahead with 75% from 21 reviews.
Rating: 2. It’s not great, but it’s the best you could do for this sport.
Faceball 2000 (Xanth/Bullet Proof Software)
A 3-D maze FPS. It isn’t the first such game on Game Boy, but it is the first one to not cheat and make movement a literal slideshow. You have actual smooth movement throughout. For the player, anyway. Your bullets are definitely still teleporting every frame and you can tell because the framerate cannot be above 10 FPS. It’s not the most comfortable game to play for that reason, but it is playable and you can’t fault the ambition considering that it’s a true 3D game on a handheld in 1991. There’s also an overhead view you can use to see a map of the maze that automatically updates as you explore.
MobyGames has it at 77% from 10 contemporary reviews, which is by far the highest score of any platform this released on. Critics were unsurprisingly blown away by the graphics. It seems to have been a hit with users as well, since it’s one of the rare GB games to have two pages of GameFAQs threads and someone uploaded maps of all 75 levels. The game did release in Japan, but results are all for other platforms there.
Rating: 3. It deserves to be experienced.
Hudson Hawk (Ocean/Sony)
Another movie tie-in. It’s largely the same side scrolling platformer that every movie tie-in is, but it features an odd attack that has you punch and throw a ball at the same time. The music and graphics are okay. Other than that, there’s not much to say about it.
The Game Boy version averaged 64%, which was lower than any other version except the NES. The one English review praised the gameplay but criticized it for only having three levels, and all other reviews are in German.
Rating: 1
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