Last November, a Korean outfit by the name Game Park released the long-in-development GP32 handheld game system...but only in Korea. The hardware system hit shelves along with a handful of game software titles, all of which are completely original products developed within Game Park's internal studios.
The GP32 game system had been revealed as early as E3 2000 and possibly before that...and the actual shape and style of the unit had been modified and redesigned several times since then...eventually settling in on a design that mirrors many of the design elements established on the Game Boy Advance system: horizontal layout, two action buttons and two shoulder buttons, and a Start and Select button. But though it looks like a modified GBA system, it can only play games made for the unit, produced on rewriteable Smart Media cards. The GP32's LCD screen is identical in technology to the GBA screen, requiring a strong lightsource to see the image...but the GP32's screen is much larger and features a much higher resolution at 320x240, compared to the GBA's 240x160 resolution. It also has two speakers for stereo support without headphones...though it's difficult to hear the stereo effect this way since the speakers are so close together.
The system can be hooked up to any Windows-based PC through the included USB adapter cable; by downloading the software from the Game Park website, users can upload and download Game Park-compatible files through the cable. This feature alone offers great promise since basement developers can easily create and distribute homebrewed Game Park software for everyone to download and enjoy...but it also makes retail games incredibly easy to copy and pirate illegally.
Internally, the GP32 is a 32-bit game system using an ARM9 processor. The system has eight megabytes of internal SDRAM (the GBA features only 256K of RAM), and even has wireless RF so that it can link with up to three other GP32 systems for multiplayer gaming without a link cable...unfortunately we couldn't take advantage of this feature since we only have one system to tool around with. Right out of the box it can even play MP3 audio files if you insert a Smart Card with MP3 files on it...but they cannot have extended filenames. Most of the time the GP32 won't recognize any MP3 files in anything but the standard XXXXXXXX.MP3 filename format.
When you power on the unit, you'll always be booted to the main GP32 unit where you can either A) Load a game, B) Load and listen to MP3s, or C) Connect to a PC. Because of the dataspeed of Smart Media cards, GP32 games have about 5 to 10 second loadtimes when starting a game...represented by the standard "thermometer bar" showing the progress of the loading. Obviously, the larger the game, the longer the loadtime...and most games also have loadtimes within the games themselves to upload necessary game data during play.
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We received three games with our GP32 system. Each of the titles are completely in Korean...but like Japanese games, there's a sprinkling of English text and speech throughout.
Little Wizard
Players: One or Two
Little Wizard is an original fighting game featuring a cast of eight unique magical brawlers including a robot, a pirate, and even an anthropomorphic tiger. Players fight using an array of cartoony moves in this side-scrolling game, and each character can summon different spell effects during the battle. By using the shoulder buttons, players can page through an on-screen spell book and activate the specific spell for an added attack. For example, one spell will turn the player into a man-eating plant...in another, the player can morph into the opposing player and use his moves against him.
While the artwork in Little Wizard is well-produced and outrageously colorful, the overall framerate is downright appalling. The multi-layer scrolling is choppy as the camera moves left and right, and the distracting framerate makes it difficult to see how one character is attacking the other. Little Wizard's gameplay is strictly average, though, and apart from the addition of the magic effects during battles, there's nothing really here that hasn't been done elsewhere. Sound effects and music are pretty top-notch thanks to the system's ability to play high-quality audio, but even so, you'll hear pops between samples because they weren't cleanly edited together.
Dungeon & Guarder
Players: One or Two
Figure this game as Final Fight in a fantasy world. The game puts you in the role of one of four different fantasy-type warriors...but because the game is completely in Korean, the storyline is pretty much a mystery. Not that it makes any difference, as it's a strict and basic brawler where all you need to do is wander from left to right beating up on the swarms of detailed enemies...knights, orcs, dwarfs, and other creatures will crawl out of the woodwork trying to take out your warrior. Progress will save on the Smart Media card after every level.
Like Little Wizard, Dungeon & Guarder features a somewhat choppy framerate during the scrolling portions of the game, but it's not quite as extreme as the fighting game. The gameplay, for a brawler, is actually pretty tight and features a decent amount of character animations for the warriors and enemies. Sounds are crystal clear and moody...again, the GP32 can handle a good range of audio because of its huge cartridge and memory size, but like Little Wizard, the sounds here do have a bit of distracting "crackle" to them when the action heats up. But, as brawlers tend to do, Dungeon & Guarder gets stale...especially since the settings and enemies fail to change frequently. It's a mindless punch-kick fest.
Dyhard with Infinite Stairs
Players: One
What looked like a girlfriend simulator on the back of the box is actually a simple action platform game that steals the character design and look from the movie "Die Hard." You may have heard of it. The game stars Bruce Reeves in a challenge to climb a massive building all the way to the top, or descend the building to the bottom. In the ascending level, the only control you have is over jumping...your character wanders back and forth, and it's up to you to charge your jump to reach higher platforms without wandering off them. In the descending challenge, you can control your guy, but the screen is continuously scrolling...if you don't stay on-screen and either scroll off the top or fall to the bottom, you lose a life.
The guys creating this game can't even get the name right...one the box and cartridge, it's Dyhard with Infinite Stairs. But in-game, it's Dyhard Infinity. Whatever. Regardless, it's pretty stupid as a full game. This isn't very deep...in fact, some PC shareware programmer could probably come up with a similar concept in a weekend. It's fun for a minigame, and might have done well as an arcade game 20 years ago...but as a game for a system launch, no dice. Graphics on the GP32 screen are both low and high color...with basic detail given to the character sprites and power-up icons, but much more detail painted on the cutscenes and backgrounds. Like the past two games, this game has good sound with bad "crackle" problems.
These three games show off the crisp resolution and high colors that the GP32 screen can handle, but they don't really show much in the way of hardware effects. The Game Boy Advance can perform scaling and rotation effects on sprites and backgrounds, techniques put to good use in games such as Mario Kart Super Circuit, F-Zero and dozens of other games released on the system. The GBA can also do some cool transparency effects as well...and none of the three GP32 games we've played through feature any of these techniques. Yes, the GP32 has more system memory and sound capabilities, but it doesn't seem to feature any dedicated game hardware like the GBA does.
Gamepark promises a whole bunch more games for the GP32 system, some of which are actual licensed products from big-name publishers. Capcom gave Gamepark the rights to produce Street Fighter Alpha 3, Mega Man and Breath of Fire III on the system, and a version of Spike's Fire Pro Wrestling will receive the GP32 treatment later this year. A Tetris game was announced for the system as well, using the Hello Kitty license to endorse the puzzle design.
But will this system reach anywhere near the popularity of Nintendo's GBA handheld? The GP32 currently has no official distribution in Japan, and it isn't clear if this system will ever see an official release in the US, either. But, this game might sneak under the radar with the homebrew development community, because of the system's simple as pie PC connection and Smart Media usage. The system's definitely powerful enough to accurately emulate some of the older gaming systems, including the NES and arcade hardware...not that we're endorsing that sort of thing.
The current game library for the GP32 is not good enough reason to pick up a unit from Korean distributors. But you may see some unofficial game demos produced for the unit that might make a purchase worthwhile. If you must have one right now, game importers such as Upstate Games stocks the GP32 and software.