Game Boy Guru Project - updated 4-8-15

[MetalFRO]

I know I'm not super-active here, but since many of you are collectors and fellow proponents of "electronic gaming antiquities" such as myself, I thought I'd do a bit of shameless self-promotion. I'm doing a project I call "Game Boy Guru". I'm sure some of you have heard about Nintendo Legend, Questicle, Sega Galactico, Sega Does, HuCard Heaven, etc. I'm taking on a similar project where I'm going to attempt to collect, play, and review, every North American Game Boy game release. I'll do imports if and when I acquire them, but my primary goal will be to focus on standard GB games that were released in the US and Canada. I have 2 reviews written already, as well as a short write-up about my own personal history with the Game Boy. I'm currently working on 3 other reviews to try and get on the site within the next week or so, and have some other stuff in the works. I currently own just shy of 70 original GB games, but am trying to grow my collection as I go along, to ensure that I don't run out of new games to play.

In any event, I'd appreciate some feedback. My writing style is somewhat verbose, so my posts tend to be long-winded. If they're too long to hold interest, I'd be keen on knowing that, so I can maybe trim up a bit for future reviews. I'm also going to try and dig into the hardware of the unit, and explore a bit of the Gunpei Yokoi "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" philosophy. It's amazing to think that, while the Game Boy wasn't the first (or even second) handheld game system to use interchangeable cartridges, it was so wildly successful, in part because of the timing, and the market was primed for something like that at the time. Unfortunately, I've found very little in the way of transcribed interviews with Gunpei Yokoi, so I'm going to have to do more research to find out what I can about the hardware development. I might also try and find any articles I can about the Game Boy prior to its release, preview type of stuff, and share them on the site with some analysis.

Switching gears slightly: there was a thread about 10 years ago where someone was asking about how many games were out for several systems, and several folks here directed the OP to the search feature in the DP Virtual Collector's Guide. As of this writing, that lists 521 entries for the original Game Boy. Other sources, such as Wikipedia, or Moby Games, list a fair bit more than that. Are there any other reputable sites/sources online that I couse use to corroborate the numbers here at DP? I like RF Generation's listings, but those are far more collector-focused, so there are often multiple versions or variants, based on multiple print runs, re-releases, etc. so the list is way longer, and shows over 1,000 Game Boy games, with some obvious duplicates. I'd like to find at least one other site that can help me determine a solid number of unique North American releases. I'm also looking strictly at original GB games, not GB/GBC (black cart) titles at this point, so I want to make sure the numbers are accurate on that.

Another strange question: does anyone know if any of the early GB/GBC titles ALSO contain Super Game Boy compatibility, i.e., the game has a special background and/or coloring for the SGB, but does full coloring on the GBC? I've not heard of any, but haven't researched it enough to determine this definitively.

ANYWAY, feel free to check out the blog and let me know what you think. I have companion Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Google+ accounts where I'll be posting updates, as well as interacting with people.

http://gameboyguru.blogspot.com

4-8-15 Added Super Mario Land review.