Game Boy Advance - The 32 bit Handheld Powerhouse

The Game Boy Advance is my favourite handheld of all time. I got mine at an EB Games midnight launch, and it is still part of my hardware collection.

For the last few weeks or so, I've been working on my Game Boy Advance presentation for my monthly computer club. This gave me an excuse to delve into its vast library. With over 1500 games to choose from, most of them exclusive to the platform, it's been a blast to discover games that I haven't played previously.

The Game Boy Advance was first released in Japan in March 2001 and in Australia in June of the same year. Fifteen games were available on launch day, such as Super Mario Advance and F-Zero: Maximum Velocity.

Super Mario Advance was a launch title (a conversion of Super Mario Bros. 2)

Hardware-wise, the Advance is a 32-bit powerhouse powered by an ARM7 processor and several graphical modes for sprite work and scaling and rotation of background and foreground graphics.

I've dubbed it the 2D sprite beast! Most of the game library can be downloaded from Archive, and I use the EverDrive GBA Mini to play the various ROMs. Here's a showcase of what the Game Boy Advance can do.

Click above to play