This series is re-covering a bunch of games I already talked about in our Discord server before this site existed. I’m repeating them here so that the site has a full GBC catalog. There will also be a few games that I accidentally skipped at various points in the main series, like these Toy Story games:
Toy Story 2 (Tiertex/THQ, 1999)
Against all odds, this Tiertex game actually runs! It’s a platformer based on the movie, but Buzz’s physics are extremely contextual and it just feels awful to play. Points for having a good soundtrack, though.
Toy Story Racer (Tiertex/Activision, 2001)
Getting a full 3D racer to fun on GBC is extremely impressive even if it looks like absolute garbage and has a draw distance measured in inches. It isn’t very fun to play – the track is basically a series of S-curves to keep the draw distance down – but it does have decent music.
Monsters Inc. (Vicarious Visions/THQ, 2001)
A basic puzzle platformer. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about the gameplay, but it does at least sound and look quite nice.
007: The World Is Not Enough (2n Productions/EA, 2001)
You have to respect the ambition of making an MGS-style stealth action game on GBC, but it doesn’t really work. There’s a lot of combat, and it’s a “shoot first and hope for the best” kind of affair.
3D Pocket Pool (Aardvark Software/Virgin Interactive, 2001)
It’s rarely a good sign when a game is most proud of the number of dimensions it has and the fact that it’s portable while also being a public domain sport. It’s unique – I don’t remember any other 3D pool games on GBC – but it isn’t very good.
3D Ultra Pinball: Thrillride (Left Field Productions/Sierra Online, 2000)
It won’t be the one to finally convert me to pinball, but credit where it’s due: it looks good and the music is great. It isn’t 3D, though.
10 Pin Bowling (Morning Star Multimedia/Majesco, 1999)
Bowling with a really weird throwing mechanic where you have to hold the button while the meter below slowly fills up. If you let it go before it reaches the green/white spaces, you stop the throw and can try again. Once it gets there, the bar starts filling up very quickly and you need to let go before the red. If you don’t, it’s a foul.
102 Dalmatians – Puppies to the Rescue (Crystal Dynamics/Activision, 2000)
Another licensed Disney platformer. Decent graphics and good music, but let down by tedious level design with tons of slow elevators and dead ends.
1942 (Digital Eclipse/Capcom, 2000)
Likely the worst version of this you can play anywhere. It looks terrible compared to the arcade, can barely fit anything on screen, and the music is a random sequence of ear-splitting beeps.
720 Degrees (Digital Eclipse/Midway, 1999)
Another crappy arcade port, this time of a game that’s not great on any system. It’s a skateboarding simulator meant to eat quarters with loads of unfair hazards and demanding goals, and dpad controls are really not up to the task.
Action Man: Search for Base X (Natsume/THQ, 2001)
An evolution of Pitfall with weapons and other special equipment. It’s kind of fun and has good music, but the level design isn’t quite there for me to want to keep going with it.
The Adventures of the Smurfs (Infogrames, 2001)
An adventure game where everything hurts you on your way to cure Smurf smallpox and directions are never clear because “smurf” is the only verb. It’s not very good.
AirForce Delta (Climax/Konami, 2000)
Fly into an endless green void on a quest to kill a certain number of enemies. The time limit is way too long and you never run out of ammo, so it’s mostly a test of your patience.
Aladdin (Crawfish Interactive/Ubisoft, 2000)
A port of the Genesis game. It mostly works, although it can be a little hard to make some things out in this resolution and you often have to take leaps of faith.