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| .....Virtual Boy - A Look Back: Written By Marion |
Written 3-14-07
No doubt if you're reading this, you're probably a gamer in some way, and thus have come into contact with the Wii in some form or another. If you're like the vast majority of people that have tried it, you love the Wii. You realize what an amazing, revolutionary piece of hardware it is. It's fun, it's unique, and even gives you a bit of a workout. Thankfully for us, Nintendo got it exactly right with this console.
But I'm not here to talk about the Wii. No, I'm here to talk about a time when they didn't get it right. Yes, I'm here today to talk about the Virtual Boy, a "revolutionary" console that was supposed to immerse gamers in an almost virtual reality-like experience. It didn't. It was supposed to be fun and unique. It wasn't. Although, it did give you migraines after playing for extended periods of time. Not quite the same as the workout the Wii gives you, but they had to start somewhere, right?
The list of mistakes made by this system was near endless. Design flaws, unfulfillable promises, lack of software support... you name it, Nintendo fucked it up. First up on the list of mistakes was power. The unit needed an assload of it. Six AA batteries worth, to be specific. The original Game Boy only needed four, with Game Boy Color and Advance dropping that to two. Even though the Sega Nomad, pretty much a portable Genesis, needed six AA's, it actually had a normal AC adaptor, using the exact same one as the Genesis. This meant if you didn't wanna blow through tons and tons of batteries, you could just grab your Genesis adaptor, which if you had a Nomad (Which only played Genesis games), you most likely had the adaptor. This wasn't the case with the Virtual Boy. There was an AC adaptor made available, if you wanted to drop an extra $30-40 for something that should have been incorporated in the system. Why should it have been incorporated into the system by default? Because the fucking adaptor was the exact same one used on the SNES! Unfortunately for us, the morons that designed the system decided that rather than put an input for the adaptor in the controller by default, we should have to go buy an adaptor that would slide in place where the battery pack normally is to allow us to connect the power adaptor. No worries though. We should be able to play long enough, right? After all, we're using six AA batteries. That's gotta count for something, right?
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Nope. Those six batteries would only last us about six hours ...if that. Keep in mind that Wario Land by itself lasted at least 6 hours or more, especially if you wanted to find all the treasures and get the best ending. This meant you'd go through an entire set or two of batteries, costing about $8, just to play the game that you already spent about $40 on to begin with. We're off to a great start, aren't we?
The treasure Wario was really searching for: About 60 hours of power for his Virtual Boy.
It was billed as being a portable system. When most people think of a portable videogame system, they think of the Game Boy, or more recently, the Nintendo DS. Unfortunately for the Virtual Boy, it was less Game Boy and more 10 pound brick strapped to your face. Actually, that might not have been that bad. Instead of getting to strap the monstrosity to your head (which, admittedly, would be hell on your neck after a few minutes), we got the Virtual Boy stand. The stand was about a foot tall, atop which sat the Virtual Boy. The problem here is that it severely limited where you could play. Not only wasn't it portable, but unless you had a table that was just the right height, you were gonna have trouble playing it at all. Almost any other position you could find to play it in (laying on your stomach, with the stand resting on your lap, or any other way you could find to hold it in position), would cause horrible, horrible neck pain after about 10 or 15 minutes. This neck pain went along surprisingly well with the next problem of the Virtual Boy: Migraines!
So we're promised this amazing, revolutionary, three-dimensional game console that will change gaming forever. What do we get? Red. Lots... and lots... and lots of fucking red. For some reason, the future of gaming will only feature red. And black, although that's somewhat of a technicality, as the black is only a result of an absence of red being shown in that particular spot. You might be saying, "Hey, I like black and red! I've been to that one site that uses a black and red color scheme and makes fun of people. I don't see how that could possibly be a problem!" Well, you're fucking wrong! It was horrible. Not necessarily the red and black itself, but the horrible strain on your eyes and accompanying headaches it would cause after only about... you guessed it, 10 or 15 minutes. While the display did give the perception of depth, you have to weigh the benefit of that perception against the negatives of ungodly battery consumption, a one color display that causes eye strain and headaches and complete non-portability. Guess what? It doesn't hold up. Perception of depth isn't even close to a worthy trade-off for all the system's negatives. There's really only one thing that actually makes the Virtual Boy worth playing: Wario Land.
There were only about 30 games even made for the system, even when you combine the Japanese and American released titles. Among the US titles, even fewer were actually worth playing. Add to this the fact that places like Blockbuster didn't rent out games for "portable" systems and you probably didn't play more than two or three Virtual Boy games if you had the system. As such, I'll only be talking about the two games I actually ever played in depth. The system's library sucked. Hard.Hell, even if you add games I only played once or twice for a few minutes, that number only comes to three. I also feel the need to point out that the only thing done worse than the Virtual Boy itself are the emulators available for it. As a result, I couldn't even do my own screencaps for this article, since attempting to do so results in the following:
So advanced shitty that we can't get a decent emulator twelve years later.
Screencap issues aside, the VB emulators suck in just about every other aspect as well. There's no sound, you can't use any input method besides a keyboard, and most of them have trouble when it comes to actually playing most of the games. The awesomeness that was Wario Land loses almost all of its fun once you strip it of all sound and completely rape the controls. Yep, the Virtual Boy sucked so bad that since no one bothered to ever put in the work to make a decent emulator, if you wanna play the one great game for it, you're forced to do so on the actual system, all downsides included. I just want to play Wario Land without using fifty bucks worth of batteries and losing my eyesight. Is that so much to ask?
The first game to be discussed here is only getting a few sentences, as it's the one mentioned above that I barely played, plus I remember it sucking, like most VB games apparently did. Mario Clash was somewhat of a 3D incarnation of the classic arcade game Mario Bros. Much like the original, you had your one screen playing area with a few platforms and a couple pipes which enemies came out of. The Virtual Boy twist on this is that there are now two areas like this; One in the foreground and one in this background. With this "twist", comes the need to throw turtle shells at the enemies to kill them, generally from the foreground area to the background and vice versa. The game was never-ending, with repeating levels with no way to save your progress. Wait, you mean I don't even get the satisfaction of two lines of text telling me how awesome I am because I beat the game? Screw this game!
Mario Clash: Using the "revolutionary" Virtual Boy to make a crappy update to an ancient arcade game!
Next up is Mario's Tennis, the pack-in game that came with the Virtual Boy, and the precursor to all the "Mario-related, but not actually a Mario game" games. Most tennis games tend to give you a nice, overhead view that allows you to see the full court, as well as letting you keep track of the ball very easily. That's not good enough for the Virtual Boy! Instead of the aforementioned easy to perspective, we got a horrible view from just above and behind your character's head. This by itself wasn't so bad, except it was an absolute bitch trying keep track of the ball's depth, leading to a lot of missed balls because you swung too early or late, thinking the ball was closer or farther than it was. That problem aside, the game was kinda fun. Unfortunately, this was ...you know, a tennis game, so that was a pretty big problem. The game featured seven playable charac ...wait. You're telling me this amazing, new, groundbreaking system couldn't even deliver as many characters as the original Mario Kart could? Screw this game too!
This image gave birth to the fun party game "Am I Drunk or Playing Virtual Boy?"
Finally, we have Wario Land, the Virtual Boy's diamond in the rough. Since that's not saying very much, I suppose I should go further and say that the game was awesome. The gameplay was very much like the Game Boy Wario Land, with Wario getting to be a powerful oaf that smashes, crushes, and destroys whatever stands between him and treasure or the level exit. Along the way, Wario would encounter pools of lava, all manners of spiked things, chasms, and of course, enemies. To aid him in his quest were a trio of power-ups. First, the bull helmet, which gave added power to Wario's already bulky frame, allowing him to shake the ground when landing ass-first, as well as little horns on his helmet. Next were the eagle hat and dragon hat. The eagle hat granted Wario flight (Horizontally) for a moment or two. The dragon hat allowed the shooting of a stream of fire from the hat. The dragon and eagle hats could be combined to make the dragon king hat, allowing flight and the shooting of fire ...obviously the most fun of the three power-ups.
Artist's rendition of Wario with the bull helmet. It's so realistic!
After every three levels, you'd get to face off against a boss, with a final boss fight occurring on level 14. Generally the bosses would incorporate both the foreground and background areas. This included things such as the boss attacking from the background before moving to the foreground to confront you or, as is the case with the final boss, having to bounce between the two areas to attack the boss. Upon completion of the game, you'd unlock a second, harder playthrough. Sadly, this harder playthrough only includes the addition of spikes all over the place and slightly more aggressive bosses. None of the items get moved during this hard mode playthrough. The game also feels kinda short, especially in comparison with the Mario games, and even the original Wario Land. Regardless, if you ever come across a cheap Virtual Boy, even ignoring the nostalgia factor, it's worth it to pick it up just for this game.
With all that said, it's now time to bring our look at the Virtual Boy to a close. We hope you've found our journey into the depths of hell through the world of the Virtual Boy entertaining and informative, and if nothing else, have taught you that unless Wario Land is involved, you should steer clear of it at all costs. If you weren't entertained or informed, then you can at least take solace in knowing you didn't waste a Christmas present on a $200, red and black piece of crap.
Marion
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