Nintendo e-Reader - Card Reader for Game Boy Advance Review

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(More customer reviews)The Game Boy Advance is nothing if not, well, advanced.It's more powerful than a Super Nintendo Entertainment System and yet runs for hours on a pair of AA batteries.It plays all the original Game Boy (classic, Color, Pocket) titles, and its games are priced right for kids on tight allowances.Now, it provides something for the old-school gamer in all of us, along with new features and boundless possibilities.
The Nintendo e-Reader is the latest in an oddball line of scanning devices for kids.Earlier such devices generated virtual pets based on the UPC barcodes on various products; in fact, a particular brand of instant soup flew off store shelves in Japan after it was learned its barcode created an ultra-powerful character.However, the craze has never really caught on in the United States.That is, in my opinion, until the e-Reader.
The e-Reader is about the size of an N64 Transfer or Rumble Pak, and plugs directly into the cartridge port of the GB Advance.As the e-Reader also plugs into the GBA's Game Link port, a "replacement" port is provided on the e-Reader itself, so you can continue to use Link Cables and some (not all) GBA lighting products.
The key to the e-Reader system is its data cards, which are basically another family of trading cards, a la Magic The Gathering and Pokemon (more on this in a moment).Cards designed for use with the e-Reader are distinguised by rows of dots along their length.These dots are the basis of Dot Codes, a proprietary format that the e-Reader sees as digital data.By swiping a compatible card through the e-Reader, you are loading data into the Reader.
What kind of data, you ask?Depends on the cards.The e-Reader comes packaged with two 5-card booster packs.The first contains the complete Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) port of Donkey Kong Junior ... you read that right, an NES cartridge stored on five trading cards!Other NES games, similarly translated, are available from retailers now, with many more to come.
The second pack contains an assortment of other e-Reader cards, including three from the Pokemon Trading Card Game.These three cards are the first in a new line of Dot-Code-bearing Pokemon cards.Along with being used in the Pokemon card game, these cards hold (in their Dot Codes) extra data on the particular Pokemon (readable on the GBA screen), and even mini-games you can play.A fourth card includes a sample Nintendo Game-and-Watch game (old pre-GB handheld games).
However, it is the fifth card that really can open up doors in how you play games.This card contains bonus items that can be used with the Nintendo GameCube title "Animal Crossing."By connecting your e-Reader-equipped GBA to a GameCube via the appropriate Link Cable (with a compatible title, like "Animal Crossing"), you can upload new information to the GC game.Just imagine ... you could update the stats of your favorite football or baseball player simply by swiping his compatible trading card through the e-Reader!
How does the system work in practice?Actually pretty well.It takes about 60 seconds to completely load a game like DK Junior, for example.Unlike ATM or credit cards, an e-Reader card needs to be swiped slowly.Like credit cards, you need to treat them somewhat gently; any stray marks (such as writing something on the card) in the Dot Code area could mess up the data, rendering the card useless.Younger kids may need some assistance at first with swiping, but they'll get the hang of it quickly.The e-Reader has a small amount of internal memory, so if you load a game/program you like, you can keep it, at least until you want to swipe something else into it.
Also, some of the NES games aren't 100% perfect ... DK Junior's sequence of boards is wrong, and it seems to have gotten slightly squashed in order to fit onto the GBA screen, but neither of these detract seriously from the gameplay.In other words, it's as fun as I remember it.
It's too early to see how e-Reader will catch on.After all, Pokemon isn't as popular as it once was, and so far only Nintendo and Wizards of the Coast have any card support.But, as early adopters go, the e-Reader is a cheap investment whose potential uses are as unlimited as the imagination.

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Product Description:
The e-Reader is an accessory for use with the Game Boy Advance that reads information from collectible trading cards and translates it on the GBA into standalone games or enhancements to some traditional games. The e-Reader connects into the GBA cartridge slot and can also connect to another GBA or even a GameCube. Players simply slide the paper cards, available for as low as $1.95, through the e-Reader much as you slide a credit card through a point-of-purchase machine at a grocery store. When you do this, the unit scans the codes imprinted on the card and stores the information in its 1-megabit flash ROM for as long as the power is on. Animal Crossing for the GameCube takes advantage of this technology, and many more uses are planned. This set includes the e-Reader unit and the e-Reader card for the NES version of Donkey Kong Jr.

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