Game Boy Camera (included games)

The Good
As you would expect, this is not your normal Game Boy game. Oh no it's....uh....hm....huh.....well........it's something, fun, but what I'm not sure. Read on to find out more about this puzzling little piece of fun.

The camera-

The centerpiece of the cartridge. The camera takes pictures in grey scale (2 bits per pixel) 128 by 112 pixels. That is pretty laughable by today's standards, but this was actually one the first mass available digital cameras. You can only hold up to 30 pictures though. But not to fear ! It's Game Boy Printer compatible. One last technical note. The camera head can turn 360 degrees. I don't know why I should mention it, but I wanted to.

Shoot- This is the mode where the action happens ! It's actually got a lot crammed in there. You have options for a self timer, panorama and vertical pictures, trick lenses, and inverse lenses. I'm surprised Nintendo got all that into one cartridge. When you actually take your picture, you have even more options ! Hit select to bring up a menu. You have the option to turn on or off the dithering, change shutter speeds and inverse the picture colors ! And it freezes the picture before it captures so you can decide weather you like it or not. The other features are for the rest of the game. You can shoot your own face for the games in here. You go to magic and select game face. It'll give you a screen with four blank ovals. Place the camera so your face fits the ovals and take the pictures ! Now you too can look ridiculous in a video game !

To wrap up the camera functions, very nice ! And not as primitive as you would think. Now onto the gameplay modes !

Gameplay-- Play-

Since this game has a camera built into it, you would expect to use it for the built in games. And you be right. Now for mini reviews !

Space Fever II- A fun little shooter. You start off with two ships that momentarily hover in front of you. Shoot one and you get the juggling game. Shoot the other and you get the DJ game. Get a score of 2000 and you unlock a sprinting game. Space Fever II it'self isn't a bad game at all. All of the bosses are picture heads of the Nintendo staff. The third boss is your own face if you took the play pictures !

DJ- As the name suggest, you play a DJ. You have the option to compose three different pieces and put them together to make music. It can be a little confusing at first, but after a few times, you get it. Plus you can hold down the "a" button to scratch the music. And use your own face for the DJ !

Ball- Again, you can use your face for the ball juggling guy. That pretty much explains the ball game.

Run run run !- This is actually the most challenging of all the games. Again, you guessed it ! You can use your face for the runner. You race against a bird and a mole. You have to tap the "a" button as fast as possible and jump over hurdles to get to the finish. I've only done as well as second place.

Overall great games ! And now onto view !

View-

You didn't think Nintendo would go to all this trouble and not let you look at the fuzzy masterpieces you took did you ? Well, aside from being a viewing gallery, you can doodle and and stamp your pictures ! Take nice portraits of relatives and paste googly eyes and and a giant nose on them ! You do so by pressing the "a" button when viewing a picture. It's fun, and there are a lot of stamps to choose from. The garden variety big nose, to Pokemon and Mario. And if you don't like the stamps you can doodle on them yourself. Painting is somewhat awkward with a Game Boy's D-pad, but not impossible. The other mode in view has a whole range of options. Animation lets you view animations (aka pictures you took strung together). Hot spot is cool, but useless really. You put a stamp on the picture that's invisible and choose a reaction when you find it on the picture. The other is a slide show. It's self explanatory. But you can choose the music that plays and the order in which they come. Decent to say the least !

Start and Select-

Ah..finally, the last part of this review. Almost. When at the main menu, you can press start or select to gain, yes, even more options. Most of the options you can get access to in other parts of the game. But some specific options can only be found here. Like making the hotspots for your pictures, composing (I can't remember what it does. Sorry !) and linking. Yes you can link two Game Boy Cameras together. You can only trade pictures, but it's still cool anyway. And you can make animations in the select options.

Start takes you to a galaxy far far way........but don't expect the theme you're expecting to play. Here you can look at high scores, make a ID for your camera, picture stats and credits. You have to unlock "Run Run Run" to see the actual credits though.

And that ends the longest Gameplay- part of a review I've EVER DONE. Now onto the graphics.

Graphics-

Well well, quite a surprise here ! They may not be the most technically impressive, but they have style. Almost everything looks hand drawn. Like the head at the view menu is something I didn't the Game Boy capable of. It's incredibly smooth. And so it goes with the rest of the game. Excellent design ! The camera graphics are another thing. Obviously it isn't going to be high res, but not as bad when the proper settings are applied. The main menu is immediately impressive. When selecting from the different modes, the camera head turns with your selection. Plus it's animated smoothly. And the dancing Mario at the title screen is hilarious. So in short, (I think it might be too late to say that in this review) the graphics are excellent.

Sound-

The music here is super catchy ! Plus you can make your own in the DJ game. There isn't really any other sound than the music other than the usual conformations beeps and bloops. It's actually the second best sound I've heard on the Game Boy. First being Donkey Kong Land. So to keep it brief (Ha ha !), the sound is superb !

Control- The D-pad and "a" button are used for everything. The "b" button is usually the cancel button. That's pretty much it.

And that's it for the good. Now for the bad. I promise I'll keep it short. I hope.

The Bad
Gameplay-

The DJ game only has one slot to save your creations. How infuriating.

Space Fever II- You only get ONE LIFE. I know it's not a hard game, but come on ! And for some reason when you press the "b" button, it apparently is self destruct. Utterly useless.

And that's it. Wow. I actually kept it short. Weird.

The Bottom Line
This is for all of those who wish strange, off beat fun with a camera. I one hundred percent recommend this game. For boredom, fun, mischief and all purpose wackiness. One piece of advice, don't try and take a picture of the sun. It'll ruin your eyes !