Everything from Quake to Crazy Taxi makes it to the very small screen
Developers continue to achieve stunning results with Nintendo"s GBA hardware, with the latest demonstrations from Graphic State and Bobbee Tec showing off previously untapped 3D capability in the system.
Leamington Spa based Graphic State has just finished work on a GBA version of Crazy Taxi, the first title to make use of its AGB Rush engine - designed to provide detailed 3D environments and physics as well as dozens of on-screen sprites. The company claims that this technology can give GBA games 3D graphics on a par with the PlayStation.
"We can now create games for the Game Boy Advance that are a generation ahead of current titles," according to Graphic State creative director Richard Whittall. "We are confident that we have developed the best 3D routines for GBA - and unlike many other developers our technology has already been proven in a commercial release."
Meanwhile, Los Angeles based Bobbee Tec has created a 3D engine which, it claims, can take PC games based on the Quake or Quake 2 engines and run them on the GameBoy Advance. Called DRG 3D, the engine purports to offer all the functionality of Quake and Quake 2, which were considered to be industry leading engines on the PC not so many years ago.
The advantages of this approach are obvious, as they would allow developers the ability to create GBA titles using the mature content creation tools available for the Quake engines.