I woke up extra early today (8:30am which is waaaaay early in my book) in hopes of an early UPS arrival.

The door buzzer rang at around 9:30am. My package had finally arrived...

The gift from the heavens!

Get away damn you!

Package opened!

Dude! I'm playing first!

The GBA opened...

Look how small the box is!

The Mario Advance box

F-Zero Box!

Milky Blue love! Word!

This is exactly how portable this is!

This is SOOOOO Tiny!

The newly shaped R button! Comfy!

Looks like the day's about ready to get underway!

Hey, Billy! It's time to play

Power ON!

Okay! Time for the Real Super Quick First Impressions….

I think the most amazing thing about this is how small everything is. The cartridge size especially. I’m afraid little children will lose these cartridges! But don’t let the GBA’s portability scare you. This sucker’s full of power. Portable SUPER POWER! Your head will explode! Well…not quite. But damn it’s impressive!

Graphically Mario Advance, F-Zero, and Kuru Kuru Kururin are just delicious. I’ll have full impressions of each of these games later on. Portable gaming has definitely reached the next level. I thought the GBA was amazing at Space World, but now…I’m just completely utterly blown away.

As I fired up each game with headphones on I was greeted with glorious stereo sound. The stereo separation is just fantastic! You will always want to play with headphones. It is that good.

I’ve barely had a chance to touch the surface of these games but from what I’ve played so far I’m still dumbfounded in how good this really is! It’s a portable…and it’s this good!

So do I have any complaints about the GBA yet? Not really. The only thing I really wished is that I had a worm light and a few more of the launch titles. I do wish the system was back lit. Overall it’s not that bad, but it would have been nice. I wish you and the rest of the Planet Staff were here and we had a crapload of GBA’s and link cables. I want to play Multiplayer! I also wish Louie would let me play more…but then again, I need to update too. Heheheh. No real complaints here.

There’s a GBA sitting right next to me. How could anyone complain? More updates coming soon!

Impressions...Round Two! [edited 4:12am CST 3.23.01}

It’s been a long day, but after reading my initial impressions of GBA…there’s a few things I’d like to add to them….

The sound in GBA is really THAT good. We are talking super rich stereo sound. As I said before…get some headphones. I can’t wait for a Zelda title on GBA! The music is going to sound tasty! I have also been playing without headphones and the sound through the speaker is still good. It’s not stereo but it’s still nice. Aurally the GBA is excellent with or without headphones. But to really experience the sweet sounds of the Game Boy Advance strap on those headphones!

I am extremely happy with the new large GBA screen! So far I think everything’s very crisp and clear. The new wide screen really makes a difference…it’s really sharp. I would have one complaint…I need light. I’ll be comfortable when I have a Nyko Worm Light. If you have a decent lamp, or sunlight you’re fine. But if you go anywhere dark you’re pretty much screwed.

Every two seconds I have to slap myself and realize that this is really real.

My hands hurt! I don’t know if this is something related to the fact that I’ve been playing for like 16 hours or not. But…my forefinger and thumb have gotten cramped. This particularly happened during F-Zero. I’ll see if this continues.

I haven’t really messed around with playing GB/GBC games too much. I fired up Mario Tennis (US version) and was like…eh…and then threw F-Zero back in. It’s a nice feature, but personally…I don’t know how much I’ll go back. The future of Nintendo portable gaming is beautiful and it’s only going to get better. The bottom line is that this portable system is a hell of a lot of fun. Period.