System overview: Virtual Boy

Okay so I want to talk about Virtual Boy without saying the typical things about it. I know that it was a big failure and it supposedly made your eyes catch on fire and pop out, but all this has been blown out of proportion over the last 15 years. Sure, I know that your eyes won't exactly thank you for playing, and that the failure ultimately led to Gunpei Yokoi leaving Nintendo, but I think the whole story is much more than than this. I want to skip most of the easily made fun of bits and just focus on this weird little system that for about six months was unlike anything else on the market.

I remember this thing coming out back in 1995 and thinking about how stupid it seemed. It was called the Virtual Boy, but we could all tell that it was not virtual reality and not really portable in the same way the Game Boy Was. Honestly a better name would've been the 3D Supertripod or something like that. Incidentally I also thought that the DS and XBox would fail while the Dreamcast would be a rousing success. At least I was right once. In addition to the bad name the thing also had lousy advertising. Do you remember the Play It Loud era? This is when Nintendo tried to be edgy (like Sega) and started to make very strange ads. They placed the Virtual Boy in a strange post-apocalyptic world where it had a mind of its own and possessed very dirty looking teenagers. They should've just had some guy dressed up like Mario talking about it. This would have been much more appealing. Anyway, these are the main reasons why I never got around to playing one of these things until 2012. This is a little late I know, but still sooner than most people.

So what is playing the Virtual Boy really like? Honestly it's like no other gaming experience out there. Put you face against that thing and you are suddenly the entire world goes away. It becomes just you and the game. There's no time, people, or responsibilities. It's a little bizarre, and a bit unsettling. I always feel like someone's gonna sneak up behind me and smack me in the back of the head. Back when this thing came out I wondered why they didn't include a strap to go around your head. Now I see why. It would be much too scary without a quick escape. I know that this sound a little silly, but there really isn't a more immersive gaming experience out there. I could only imagine playing Elder Scrolls on this thing. My world would be red forever.

There are only around 14 games for the thing, but most of them are actually fun. There there are a couple from each major genre besides RPG and racing which makes for a surprising amount of variety for such a small library. Most of them are first party so you know they gotta be good. I guess this is why the machine still has so many fans. It's not only people trying to be different. They just want to spend hours playing Panic Bomber and Galactic Pinball. Also, most of the games are practically unheard of outside of the VB due to the unique nature of  the machine. If you want to play Wario Land, there's not really another way to play it that gives you the same experience.

Today just about everyone, including Nintendo, remembers this as a complete failure. I will admit that this is mostly true, but there are surprising elements to the VB story. It seems that today there is still an avid fan base out there today. If you go on Ebay you will see a ton of them, and most of them actually sell. There are also the people out there that are still playing theirs after all these years. The mere fact that a strange and difficult to play machine with less than 20 games has so many fans has to prove something about Nintendo. Even when they make something this horrible it is still damn fun to play. Sure I hurt my back playing it, but I still play it and have a good time doing so. The Virtual Boy is sure proof that Nintendo is the greatest gaming company of all time. I just hope nobody sneaks up behind me and hits me on the back of the head.