Reviewed: December 11, 2003
Reviewed by: Mat Houghton
Manufacturer
Radica
Type: GameChanger GBA SP
System: Game Boy Advance SP
Rating: 8.0
Features
MSRP: $9.99
Something ate my GBA. I went to bed one night, thinking it was safely swaddled in its carrying case. I slept soundly knowing that. All was right with the world. Then I awoke to find to my horror that I no longer had a GBA. It had been consumed in the night and now some vile mutant sat in my desk grinning evilly up at me every time I opened the drawer. It was large and bulky and wanted to devour three of my games. I still shake when I try to play Tactics Advance.
Though my therapist has recommended I stay away from all portable gaming in order to improve my “tenuous grasp of reality”, GBA accessories have become a bit of an obsession with me. The plain old ordinary GBA SP is a compact sleek device with nice lines; it also has plenty of room to Frankenstein. The mad scientist in me chuckles and rubs his hands together in anticipation. I therefore eagerly cracked open the packaging to Gamester’s GameChanger SP.
You slot your GBA SP into this handy little accessory and plug in three games and you’re ready for that 16 hour drive over the holidays with your parents, wife, Aunt Betty, or local law enforcement officer. It also swells the size of your system to about twice the size. Kind of like if it had just swallowed a small kitten. It no longer fits in a carrying case, but sits almost like it has been put on a pedestal. Stick whatever brand of magnification device on the top and you now have a time-devouring mutant that can run for ten hours without needing to recharge, play three games without needing to go to all the trouble of actually removing the cartridge and inserting another (whew! thought I might have to actually move for a moment there, the dust bunnies were getting scared).
All joking and hyperbolae aside this is actually a nice package. It makes the GBA SP bigger, but also fits comfortably into your hands; gives you access to all the important things, like volume control, power switch, etc.; and the games can only be switched when the power is off. When the GBA is on that switch won’t move, which is good because then you don’t have the pesky problem of being in the middle of the last boss fight on Boktai when suddenly seeing the opening screen for FFTA or something.
So if you like mutating innocent, defenseless, little electronic devices into gaming monsters then pick this up. You’ll enjoy how it sits menacingly waiting for the unsuspecting GBA’s to wander too close.