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"Links beyond the console Zone"

Coming in to work is not always the best thing in the world, particularly on a wet Thursday morning when the last thing you want to do is get out of bed. The Office has its down points, for a start there are no games consoles and people look at you funny if you even suggest the mere hint of music or sound effects being played from your PC.

Well something cheered me up no end at work today, and hopefully it will be an ongoing thing. Someone at work has a GBA besides me and to make things even better, he has a copy of Fzero-x as well (oh, and a link cable) So you can guess the next logical step in our plan to rid the office of boredom. Yes, we decided to give portable multi-player games the test.

Now, finding a moment when we could both manage to get to the ‘canteen’ (a word not often used to describe a drinks machine and four seats, I know, but for want of a better word…) is the most difficult thing on earth when you work shifts, so we finally managed to have around 10 minutes playing time today. Unfortunately, the set up time was included in this, so it was one round of a 4 lap course before we had to call it quits and get back to the boring business of work.

Once you’ve set the GBA game up the first time, it’s pretty easy, but when you first start off everything has to be done in a certain order. Making the link was fine though, and the game makes it even easier by telling you how many players there are and clearly displaying the other players stats and choice of craft, so that, if you are quick you can choose the craft that you think has a chance of beating it before pressing the START button and getting ready to burn rubber (well, air actually…) Playing the thing is fantastic, and if you’re not careful you can get a whole host of other office workers giving you funny looks as they go past waiting for their next caffeine injection. Shouts of “haha!” as you make the corner before your opponent could be heard a few offices away and had some people running for cover.

My conclusion is that this Gameboy Advance link up lark is the best thing to happen to offices since the stapler and if only more people took it up we’d have a lot less stressed staff and more happy gamers. There is plenty of scope for more link up lunch-times in the future too, with Bomberman tournament out tomorrow and Mario Kart Advance soon to be released. I think we should post warnings up on the canteen walls, or at least try to get more people involved (at least one other person has a GBA in the office) It’s the nearest answer to having deathmatches at work, woe betide any passers by when Doom arrives!

LOL!! My mum told me never to use the W word in front of the dogs as they go mental!!

Probably because a four letter word beginning with W means Walk!! :-D

Work is a four letter word and my mum told me that four letter words are not to be used.

Work? hm, well I considered it!!

No, I took what is commonly known as a Lunchbreak. Yes, they kindly let us have an hour each day away from the computer screens to indulge in the task of eating and socializing.

The fact that I choose to spend it playing consoles or surfing the web is beside the point....

Sorry, I'm a bit confused...

I always thought people went to offices to work. Have I got something wrong?

:-D

Yep de,de,de,de,de,de ive got that one in my head too!

"Stook" indeed.

that tetris song rules. how dare you say bad stuff about it, once you've got it in your head you can't get it out. de, de, de, de, de, de, de
de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de.
you've got it stook in my head now.

Tetris would be stress relieving, if it wasn't for that Russian folk song playing in the background all the time.

I would recommend a GBA to anyone, but it's really whether you want to play games away from home, isn't it?

I mean, some people are happy just to play games when they can reach a games console, others want to have that ability all the time, and as I said, it's a good break from working. It also has nice backwards compatibility, so I can play Gameboy colour games like Grand Theft Auto in a bigger screen and even old classics like tetris.

Actually, Tetris is excellent for releaving stress when you really get wound up at work.

The Game wrote:
> there was nothing that could really sell the
> console to me, apart from one thing. The Future.

> Sounds stupid doesn't it, well, it isn't! Look at the GBA
> games coming out...


Oh, the times the PS2 fans said this, and the Ninty's laughed.

How the tides turn. :-)

Personally, I'd never buy another handheld - even if Sony made one.