I mentioned the wonderful Gameboy Advance a few episodes back. I was excited about it and I still am, very much so. The screen captures I've seen look spiff, the reviews I've ready are all positive, and I even got to play Mario Advance for a couple of minutes the other day at Wal-Mart while we picked up Bangai-O. Very, very exciting stuff, even if I haven't seen anything mentioned about a upgraded port of Super Metroid or Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past... Ah, well, I figure they need to keep a few aces up their sleeve for next year...

I could spend the entire issue here going on about this wondrous little system, but no, yet again, it's something negative in the game industry that catches my fancy: Bundle Packages. My fiancee and I recently saw a couch/loveseat/chair set which would be nice for the new apartment we'll be moving to down the road. All three pieces were as comfy as can be, but the chair was just downright butt-ugly, not matching either of the two pieces. But in order to get the set at the deal it was (and what a deal) we'd have to take the chair.

This scenario may sound familiar to any of you who have tried to pre-order your Gameboy Advance. Electronics Boutique, Babbages, and just about every other place you find will only offer pre-orders if you take their bundles, which include 2-3 games and the Gameboy system. Invariably, every bundle I have seen does not provide me with a set of games satisfactory to my desires. In particular, I want nothing of this Fire Pro Wrestling or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, one of which can be found in just about every bundle.

This pisses me off. I shouldn't have to be forced to buy games I have no interest in just to preorder an item. If this is an attempt to limit the number of preorders a company will take so as to avoid things like the Playstation 2 Shortage fiasco, then it works fine, although I'd rather they just limit the number of preorders they take and be done with it. What it mostly looks like Bam! Entertainment and Activision are just trying to hedge their bets, forcing people to take their games if they want to assure themselves of having the system at launch. Those two games might be tastier than Godiva chocolate (heck the Fire Pro Wrestling games on Playstation and Saturn were quite good and Tony Hawk appears to be the Harry Potter of the video gaming extreme sports world at the moment), but they aren't what I want on my GBA.

We bought the couch set and don't regret it. We'll let the chair belong to the dog so that she'll leave our couch and loveseat alone. I didn't preorder the Gameboy Advance. I'll just take my chances when they come out. Maybe I won't have one for months afterwards due to demand, but I won't be paying money for something I don't want and can't make use of.

Oh, did I mention Bangai-O? I believe I did. This is a mighty fine game, filled with the kind of quality Treasure is known (and all too often overlooked) for. Take the timeless gameplay of Robotron, throw in the destructive debris of Einhander, juice up the graphics and mayhem on the screen and add in the quirky characters and storyline that only Treasure can provide, and you've got a hit that the masses will never accept. We got it for $29.95, and I've seen tales that it's selling as low as $9.95 in some places. That's just crazy. Do yourself a favor, Dreamcast owners, and go pick this up now.