Pushing the Gameboy Advance to its Absolute Limits

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Last time we looked at what the venerable 32 bit legend, the original Playstation, could do in the hands of expert coders. That was a popular article! Perhaps because so many people had a PS1. But the PS1 was designed to do 3D from the start, so it's hard to do anything truly technically impressive.

What I mean is, the most impressive programming feats in my eyes are those which either create real 3D visuals on systems that shouldn't be capable of it, or convincingly simulate 3D. The Gameboy Advance is a good example of a system which was right on the verge of being 3D capable, but not quite.

That didn't stop scene demo coders, however. Nothing ever does. In my opinion, as someone who has rocked loads of GBA demos on actual hardware using a flash cart, Matt Current is the cream of the crop when it comes to talented GBA demo coders. Just take a look at these:

Whew. Talk about a strong start! There's not much I can show you that will top any of that. The GBA, though its focus was 2D games, was at the upper end of 2D hardware power. It could display thousands of simultaneous onscreen colors. It could do transparencies, mode 7, sprite scaling and rotation, very similar capabilities to the Jaguar and Neo Geo.

It was also comparable to an upgraded Amiga 1200 with the AGA chipset. Many demo coders cut their teeth on Amiga computers, and transferred the tricks they learned to newer platforms. I will for sure do a post on Amiga scene demos at some point, there's just so many (and such amazing quality) that's going to be a huge, time consuming megapost I've been putting off.

The amusingly named 'Shitfaced Clowns' have also done wonders with the GBA, producing eye popping demos that are on par with Matt Current's best efforts:

This one is actually named Matt Current. As a tribute? Or as a challenge? Naming a demo after a rival coder was a bold and cheeky move. Another one I want to showcase before we move onto games is "Phloam" by Unique. I remember being floored by the 3D scenes and what look very much like shaders:

Now, "Oxygene", one of the first GBA demos I ever saw. It's less impressive than the rest with its untextured, flat shaded polygons. But it's so smooth, and evokes that Star Fox feeling:

Remember, all this on a system which wasn't really intended to do 3D in the first place. The game side of things is a little more rough. The GBA had many poor, crude 3D games like Dark Arena, Medal of Honor and Crazy Taxi. But it also had some excellent 3D games which worked cleverly around the limits of the system to maintain a playable framerate and good controls.

First up is Super Monkey Ball. Simple graphics, but that makes for a smooth framerate, crucial in a game about physics and precise movement:

Next up is a more ambitious title, V-Rally 3, which boasts some of the best and smoothest texturemapped polygon graphics seen on the system. Sure the cars are 2D sprites, but you can always switch to first person mode:

Next up is Payback, a GTA 1 clone featuring fully texturemapped polygon environments. Again, cars and characters are sprites because they couldn't spare the polygons for that. I'd say it turned out well given what system it's running on:

This next video is of the prototype for Banjo Pilot, which had a voxel based 3D engine. It was decided it wasn't quite smooth enough, so they eventually went with a boring Mode 7 engine instead. But if you ask me, this looks amazing for the GBA hardware and is how the game should have been released:

If you thought Payback was impressive for GBA as a GTA 1 clone, you'll have a hard time believing Driver 3 was on GBA as well. Basically a GTA 3 clone running on what amounted to beefed up SNES hardware, Driver 3 made the GBA do things which still seem impossible to me:

Yet most of this pales in comparison to Asterix and Obelix XXL, widely considered the crowning achievement of 3D graphics on the GBA. It looks very much like early Sega Saturn and PS1 titles, boasting a smooth framerate despite a texture mapped polygonal environment:

There were yet more promising 3D engines under development for GBA, such as the C2 engine and Blue Roses, which never saw the light of day (except in one or two releases that barely used their features) because the DS was announced, making achieving 3D on the GBA less of a development priority.

These tech demos give some idea of what was truly possible on the GBA, if its lifespan had been longer:

Honorable mention to Banjo Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge. Not a polygon to be seen, but it's impressive in that Rare replicated the experience of playing a 3D platformer on the GBA using entirely isometric pre-rendered 2D sprites:

There's plenty more. I could have included Doom, for instance. I didn't because while impressive, it's not as impressive a technical accomplishment as many other games/demos on this list. No disrespect is intended and of course it was a feat getting them to run that well on the GBA, but there's better stuff out there.

Stay tuned, I have many more entries in this series planned, and you've not yet seen even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to programming wizardry on obsolete game machines.