Day 128: Perfect Dark

Like everyone else who was playing video games in 2000, I logged many hours playing Perfect Dark on the Nintendo 64. But, like many others I'm sure, I never played the Perfect Dark game released for the Game Boy Color. I'm going to put your mind at ease now and tell you that you didn't miss anything by not playing this game.


As in the console version, the Game Boy game puts the player in control of Agent Joanna Dark on a series of missions, the details aren't important, that are completed by shooting a lot of people. Unlike the console game, this version uses a third person overhead view. The controls for the portable game don't feel as instinctive (as instinctive as killing hordes of people can be for gamers who don't leave the house if they can avoid it). Reloading and picking up items are more of a hassle. Game movement is slow and clunky.

Most importantly though, this Perfect Dark lacks the multiplayer mode that was the bread and butter of the N64 game. No one played Perfect Dark alone if they could help it. Why on Earth would they want to play Perfect Dark alone and on a tiny screen?

Day 113: Bomberman Max

Bomberman Max is the Porsche Cayenne of video games. See, for years, Porsche had its thing. It made sports cars. They looked cool, they went fast and people liked them. Porsche made sports cars in the seventies when everyone else was making tiny little fuel efficient cars. They made sports cars in the eighties when everyone else was making minivans. The came a trend that Porsche just couldn't ignore. The SUV. So Porsche made an overpriced, butt ugly SUV.

For years, Bomberman had been pretty much the same game. It was unique, it was fun and people liked it. Bomberman remained basically the same game even when everyone else started making first person shooters. Then came a trend that Bomberman just couldn't ignore. Pokemon. So Bomberman became Bomberman Max, released in a red version and a blue version and full of cute little creatures to catch and trade.

Day 91: Wacky Races

Wacky Races for the Sega Dreamcast is easily one of my top five kart racers of all time. Wacky Race for the Game Boy Color is okay, but nowhere near that good.

First, three of the racers are missing. Pat Pending , Lazy Luke and the Gruesome Twosome are gone. Whether this was a space issue or simply because eight racers was the established norm at the time, I don't know. Of the eight available racers, only four are available to start the game. Dick Dastardly, Peter Perfect, Red Max and Sergeant Blast all have to be unlocked.


The power ups are so generic that not only does the "ghost" do the same thing as Mario Kart's "Boo," it plays the same music while doing it. The courses are also fairly bland. Rather than laps around a circuit, each race is single end to end route, which fits more with the original source material, but makes for courses that feel more like a bunch of random left and right turns than a real track.

Wacky Races feels like it's just not quite there in a lot of ways. Most of that, I'm sure, can be attributed to the technical limitations of the Game Boy Color hardware. The game is certainly playable, but there are so many better options out there in this genre.