I hate to reference moronic advertising, but ever see that damn yogurt commercial with those two ladies babbling about how their yogurt is? Like it's as good as winning a gigazillion dollars and marrying Russell Crowe and then becoming Queen of Everything and getting manicures 24-7 or somesuch nonsense (don't ask me, my brain goes numb every time I happen to see the ad). Anyway, if I was as annoying as those ladies (or the clownboats who wrote that commercial) to carry on like that, I'd probably do something similiar to describe the GBA. The other option is to reduce myself to a complete Nintendo fanboy. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Nintendo freak -it's a breed all its own, the reason I utilized the term "Nintendophile" to easily describe 'em.

So, I'm not going to do any of that… But I will tell you a bit about my GBA experience before delving into Initial Impressions and other stuff. Forgive me if I have a lot to say, I truly view the GBA launch as a milestone for Nintendo. The sales back it up and there is nothing stopping this little marvel.

Nintendo have a surefire hit on its hands and hype is already running at an all time high. Already a hot system worldwide, importers are getting any GBA stuff they can get their hands on. Is there any wonder why? Nintendo has owned the handheld market since it introduced the original Game Boy back in 1989. Many competitors have come only to fall. There's a chance WonderSwan might come to North America and there are those "Xboy" rumors but hey… Will they really matter? Game Boy Advance is all that and more. The hype is already tremendous.

In fact, I saw it firsthand yesterday.

After I played GBA all night & scooping Japanese wrestling, we got up early Sunday morning. Colin decided that he wanted a new GBA game. He had ordered Dodge Ball Fighters and it hadn't come in yet.

"They've got Silent Hill Novel Advance on back order for me instead," Colin told me as I was just waking up.

"HUH? Dude… That game is supposed to really suc…" I began.

"I'm kidding. That's the kind of game you would get," he replied. "You can put it right next to your copy of 'Wonder Project J2' for N64."

Colin then changed his tone of voice, to imitate an impulsively-spending version of myself.

"'OH! It will be a great game for me to play SOMEDAY!'" Colin mocked.

Hey, Ty bought it first. He told me it was $14 and came with a memory card (and stickers!) and I'm going to finish learning Japanese one of these days, right? Anyway, Colin's just mean and I'm digressing…

Colin told me there was a game store that actively carried imports and he wanted to see if they had Konami's Wai Wai Racing. He called and they didn't but they had Castlevania, Kuru Kuru, F-Zero and other stuff… We called our friend, Steve Boughton, who lived near the store and made our move.

I hadn't seen Steve in years and was excited. The lucky duck actually writes for Alternative Press and gets paid for it. Check it out or something. (Now that I've plugged Steve's writing, I don't feel so bad for kicking him down the stairs all the time back at college…) Even more exciting: the long car trip gave me that much more time to play GBA.