So this week marks the 20th birthday of the Game Boy being unleashed on the western world way back in 1989. I’ve already done a whole series on the Game Boy back with my 20 Game Boy games in 20 Days. The whole point of that series was more to take a look back on the games that stood out to me and made me the gamer I am today. Thing is 20 games is in no way enough to cover the great legacy that the Game Boy has. There are all the games I didn’t buy when I was younger, the games I’ve discovered over time, the games I never got a chance to play. So that’s what this series is going to be for, not just the games I played as a wee lad, but all the greats on the system I never owned as well as the rest I grew up with. And while we are at it, the Game Boys Legacy is not in Game Boy games but for all hand held games so I figure why the hell not look at some stuff from other systems. So lets book ourselves a reservation and check into the Handheld Hotel.
 

 
The Game Boy Color was a big deal when it came out. In my humble neck of the woods the 1st handheld wars had finished by 1997, but I can recall a few times I would get mocked for not having a Game Gear or a Lynx and why I stuck with the crappy black and white Game Boy. And then 1998 happened and the world of Nintendo Handheld had changed just like it had for Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ when she left Kansas and entered to Wonderful World of OZ in the 1939 movie. It was around the time of the Game Boy Color that I started getting back into buying video game mags. I had given up on them a few earlier when there was a big shake up in the staff on NMS. But things were heating up in the world of Nintendo for me at the time I needed a mag to get my source of video game news. Also happening around the same time as the Game Boy Color launch was Turok 2 for N64. Acclaim love them or hate them were a huge part of the N64’s support. And without a doubt their major brand name was the Turok games.
 


I’ve never played Turok 1 in either its N64 or handheld variants but I didn’t care, the amount of hype that game was getting, it would have been the first of many potential Goldeneye killers as many video game mags started referring to any new FPS that was hitting the N64 market. And every new N64 FPS it seemed needed a Game Boy conversion, Amorines had one, Perfect Dark had one and yes The Turok games had theirs. Of course the Game Boy being as primitive as it was FPS weren’t something you saw on it (unless it was Faceball 2000) so you had a lot of these odd ports that where more designed to take advantage of the 2d playing space. Turok 2 was a relatively simple run and gun platformer kinda in the same vein as a Contra or a Turrican game. The game starts you off as Joshua Fireseed walking the streets in an interesting little prologue level until you find some sacred item that turns you into the legendary Turok the Dinosaur Hunter. From that point you have to run and jump your ways through various levels fighting off the hordes of Dinosaur things with various auto scrolling dino riding levels chucked in for good measure.



The controls are pretty solid and I never found myself dieing cheap deaths, would have been nicer had changing weapons been made a little easier but what are you gonna do when you only have a few buttons to deal with I guess. The sound is also pretty good, the music has a very C64 feel to it which I guess would be mainly down to the fact that the developers Bit Managers hail from Spain and its just something I've noticed in a lot of early Euro made games. As for graphics it looks good I guess, the game was in the first wave of Game Boy Color games and one of those ones that could be played on both original and color versions of the system. The animation is quite fluid something you would expect from a late gen Game Boy game but nothing on the late gen Game Boy color games (aka Shantae), but for when it came out it was an amazing looking game well for me anyway. Looking back now its not that crash hot, the backgrounds are rather bland looking. It funny looking back at the Game Boy Color graphics cause they sort of seem to be their own thing in the grand scheme of video game graphics. I mean here you have a system that is as powerful as a NES, but I dunno that games don't look like NES games, they look like GBC games, ever ports of NES games like Cystalis and Super Mario Bros DX just don't look like their console versions. Then again I guess when you think about it, most of the 8bit systems graphically wise look nothing alike so mot point I guess.



As I said this is the first GBC game I got, I don't think it took me that long to finish, its not exactly a long game. I'm pretty sure I finished it while I was waiting in the car for my mum while she was at a hospital visiting someone. I think I finished it in about a week from getting it, I can remember being a little disappointed in how quick it too me to finish, I did play through it a few more times but after that it got left by the wayside and eventually traded in for something else. Its quite sad to see how Turok has sort of faded away from the spot light now, true thats no ones fault but Acclaim but back in the day Turok was huge. It was the main console FPS franchise outside of whatever Rare was bringing the table and was one of the cornerstones in the N64 library. On the Game Boy the series wasn't much more then a run & gun, but it was still fun I've heard good stuff about Rage Wars and number 3 so I look forward to checking them out sooner or later. Next week I think I feel the itch for some monochromatic SHMUP fun so I'll see you all then, peace out.