So, the Ghostbusters game won't be coming out for a while in Europe, unless you're lucky enough to own a PS3. That kinda sucks for those without. Like, Lost and Damned sucks, or, why the hell did I buy Fallout 3 for this damn piece of plastic when there's a 360 sitting right next to it kinda sucks. Well, that's totally my fault for not putting the research in beforehand, but still, its never nice to know that you're not getting the complete version of a product, due to high-end business deals you had no control over when you first made that hefty purchase.

The significance of Ghostbusters, for this blog's purpose at least, is that this is the one game where I genuinely thought that the Wii version looked the most appealing of the three that were to be released. The charming cartoon visuals just do it for me I guess, and the idea of shooting proton streams with the remote then trapping ghosts by sliding the nunchuck across the ground, invokes a more satisfying experience. Those big luminous laser things coming from my Wii remote are just sweet!

Anyway, enough introduction, lets get to the point. It begins with an interview in Official Nintendo Magazine I read over a year ago, with the Red Fly studios – responsible for the Wii version. Mainly however, that they messed around with the concept of implementing the Nintendo DS as a PKE meter, but in the end, “didn't have the time” to add that part in. At this point, the game was in that near completed stage where it was desperately in need of a publisher, and between then and now, has been resting around, unreleased, apparently doing nothing. So in that window, is it possible that the version of the Wii game could have been tweaked to actually have the DS connectivity added, before its actual release. Given that press releases would certainly highlight a feature such as this, my guess is probably not.

I don't know how developers work. Maybe they couldn't add this cool feature because they were expecting a publisher to come along sooner. Or what they had planned wasn't good enough. Alls I know for certain though, is that Nintendo's huge announcement for connecting hand held and console devices back about five years ago, fell off the radar quicker than the ghosts fell off the radar on the PKE meter that I'm not going to be able to use anymor... no I don't know where this is going, forget that analogy. The point is, what happened Nintendo! It was a great idea, made easier than ever now with wireless powers. And when used properly, it entailed for some really great experiences. Here are some of my favourites.


Billy Hatcher approves of Ghostbusters exclusivity deal. He must have a PS3.

Splinter Cell

I'm sure every kid gamer had their console wars back when they were young. Regarding the Splinter Cell series, mine went a bit like, “well the Gamecube one is made easier because it has a map.” Yup, it certainly did, and that map was all kinds of awesome!

If you were to plug a GBA into a copy of Splinter Cell, you'd find that Ubi Soft had kindly re-created every single level of the game as a top down, wire-frame compass, for your portable screen pleasure. While you're running around as Sam Fisher, traipsing down corridors and dodging enemies, on the Game Boy, you see a triangle running through a series of rectangles, trying to avoid the dastardly red circles. The whole process is entirely lag free, which was quite amazing to see in motion.

There are two ways you can view this mode: either as an in-game gadget stretching out into the real world, or as a tactical co-op experience where you and a friend can shout exaggerated militaristic commands to each other. “'Hang on, I'm getting an enemy on the perimeter.' “Where!?” 'He's two clicks north, closing in on your position,'” and other such intensely delivered drivel can be heard when you're in the zone that Splinter Cell presents the player. And its a lot of fun. Think the co-op in Super Mario Galaxy, but with a lot more input from the second person. Player 1 can hack turrets so player 2 can manually fire them at enemies. Or if the one holding the controller sees a coded door that needs unlocking, they can send that over their partner to deal with, while they continue to defend the area. Yes, it does make some situations easier, but a whole lot less frustrating too. I'd have torn my hair out if some of those later levels didn't grant me some kind of assistance.

A big draw for this connection was the opportunity for Sam Fisher to use a brand new weapon: the Sticky Bomb. Unlike other bombs, this is one that you could stick to enemies. Obviously. This new (and quite effective) weapon works very simply: just fire the explosive on one guy, check the map to wait for him to patrol into a pack of guards, hit B on the handheld and your job just got a hell of a lot easier. It made for some incredibly satisfying team based take-outs, which Ubi Soft seemed to have inadvertently come across the concept of in later stages of development. I can tell this, because of a quite brilliant moment near the end of the game where I managed to fire a sticky bomb into the setting of a cut-scene, and detonate it while the scene was playing, knocking out everyone in the room and having me reset the game to progress further.

I imagine the Splinter Cell compass as the product of an ambitious designer's idea and a company risk, which somehow turned out to be fantastic. I wouldn't shirk away from a large Nintendo flavoured sack of money being somewhere in there too, but given the lack of coverage around this nice add-on at the time (I had no idea until I picked the box up!), its not an accusation I'll currently make. Still, I commend whoever gave the green light to this idea, and wonder, why with the more accessible technology of the current generation, developers aren't shifting the effort to making cool little features such as this.


As you look at this image, pretend you're also holding a GBA showing a rough approximation of the corridor and a green triangle where Sam is. That's the experience!

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory is certainly the highlight of the series I've played (and one of my best games of all time) so its a shame that the GBA function is a lot more gimmicky this time around. The top down map is no more, replaced with an isometric view of the whole level which shows which floor you're on. This is approximately of no use to you at all, so at least it won't drain your batteries for too long.

Its second function however, is something that'll make you gasp in amazement at first (well it made me), before you put it down forever. Remember those sticky cameras? Well, when you fire one with a Game Boy Advance plugged in, the image gets transferred over to that screen. Yes, this visually pleasing 3D, 128 bit game can be viewed in real time, again entirely lag-free, on that tiny display. You cant help but be impressed the first time you watch a guard walk past both the TV view and the GBA view at the same time, proving the marvel that was this technology.

The let down: its entirely impractical. Yeah it looks cool to see an enemy blissfully walking by on the small screen, but a second later when he's just put a bullet in your head while you were paying too much attention to your Game Boy, you know there's something wrong. Try to play co-op with this and your friend will quickly grow tired, given that their only actions will be to stare blankly at a static image of the level, and occasionally tell you when “that dude has walked past that bit;” the premise is good, but execution was terrible. It lacked the substance of other link-ups, but I suppose it is nice to look at from time to time.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Being a first party effort, this was bound to be something special. The Tingle Tuner was an in-game item which allowed a second player to join in with a GBA, and assist the main character in their adventure. It can also be used to immensely piss you off.


This scene depicts the beginning of the end of many friendships.

This item brings up a kind of dungeon map HUD for the second player, where they can move around as an on (both) screen target and drop bombs on enemies. The downside? Bombs cost money. They can also heal Link's energy or magic with potions, but these cost even more money. Yup, you can have a second player sitting there, draining your funds with items that you essentially don't need at all. This co-op comes with a nasty price. Oh, and once your friend discovers that he can make Link look in the direction of his tingle shaped target with a press of a button, then that's all you're going to see while you play until you physically beat the shit out of them. Have fun with that.

To extend the length of the game, and the point of this device, the Tingle Tuner also had a feature in which you could discover hidden Tingle statues in each of the dungeons. They were only accessible by using a GBA bomb on certain locations hinted at on the small screen, expanding each dungeon into a treasure hunt of sorts. Sweet! Collecting them will help satisfy your kleptomania, and, well not really much else unless you're going for 100% completion. Its a fun little diversion though; just hope whoever you're playing with doesn't abuse you too much.

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg

From the mind of Yuji Naka, this was a real gem on the Gamecube, but after release it seems to have just wiped itself clean out of everyone at Sega's memories. Were they embarrassed to have made a game about a young boy rolling around large eggs while dressed up in a chicken suit? The worst part is, that with this apparent memory sweep, the excellent transferable minigames that became available are buried in gaming past ever deeper: namely, Nights into Dreams, Chu Chu Rocket and Puyo Pop.

As a bonus for playing an already great game, Sega includes some of its other more obscure titles. This means that you can carry a copy of Nights around in your pocket, provided you don't turn off the Game Boy at any point. Personally I preferred Puyo Pop, but that was because at the time for me it carried the cultural significance of hot animé devil girls and surfers with paper bags on their heads. Anyone remember that? No? Okay, moving on.


Playable on Game Boy Advance! Well, at least a kinda short time attack version.

Animal Crossing

Go to the beach where you can finally get away from the shackles of your overpowering raccoon overlord, and escape to the paradise of a beautiful tropical island! Only if you own a Nintendo Game Boy Advance, Ł79.99. After Kapp'n has sailed you away from the neighbourhood you can meet a friendly gorilla who offers you items. Also you can play a kind of mini God-game where you poke at your new friend and force him to dig up NES games for you. Baseball and the mindlessly addictive Wario's Woods were exclusive to this deal, the latter of which had me stuck to Animal Crossing well after I'd got tired of being a slave to that bastard mammal, native to North America and now distributed from the European mainland to the Caucaus region of Japan. When you're not sure its a rodent, the internet is good for specifics.

Similar to Billy Hatcher, Animal Crossing also allowed you to download some of its unlockable NES games for portable use. Balloon Fight on the go is pretty cool, if temperamental with the 'switch off to delete everything' mechanic, so you probably won't be playing any of them for too long. Hint to Nintendo: the DSi has flash memory, actually being able to keep game downloads such as these would be a very welcome idea.


There's one thing I've kept in common with all of these choices. None of them require the GBA to have a game inserted in order to take advantage of these features. If I was to glide past that fact, there would be a lot more games I could use. For extra kudos to Ubi Soft, Prince of Persia had a slightly cheaty feature where you could regenerate your health if both console and handheld games were linked together. Splinter Cell also had some downloadable levels to the GBA version, as a supplement to the compass which didn't need a cartridge. Of course Nintendo also took some advantage of the feature they built up, with examples such as seeing your RPG characters from the portable Mario Golf to the big screen, more transferable levels to be had in Fire Emblem, a new suit in Metroid Prime, Pokémon – I'd really like to see a new 3D one of those in the style of Colosseum – and who could forget The Four Swords Adventures: twenty-four hour long co-op levels of classic Nintendo gaming, that you really should experience. And a battle mode which is a great laugh! I'm currently trying to amass a collection of cheap GBA's so I can bring this back; with the consoles at four quid each nowadays, I wouldn't say no to own this game in its desired form.


A co-op game you need to play. You'll scream, you'll cry, you'll probably end up hitting someone, but it'll be a heck of a time!

I remember Miyamoto at E3 a few years back, promoting that fantastic looking Pac-Man versus minigame as Nintendo's big thing for that year. Sadly, I never managed to play it, since it only came as a pack-in with some crappy looking R: Racing game in Europe. Sucks to be us, in that case. And then really, it all went downhill from there, with the most ambitious projects plummeting to the ground (probably because they required four each of consoles and cables) and other developers losing interest. Its certainly an idea I'd like to see just randomly implemented more often these days, given that practically every household with a Wii will probably have a DS lying about somewhere, and the lack of a middle man pulling them together makes connection between the two ever more easier. Don't just limit it to the big budget Crystal Chronicles, or the blatantly obvious Pokémon link ups, but go out of your way for something really ambitious, like the bonus PKE meter, possibly a Hunter's style HUD for Samus, or maybe even a big red button to rain missile-based death all over Battalion Wars. I hope this old idea doesn't remain as dormant as it currently stands, but becomes a feature which can really stand out to gamers.