4-Player Link Cable
Score: 75% Developer: Pelican
Function: For many gamers, one of the biggest reasons to buy a Game Boy Advance has been the promising future of great multiplayer action. Games like Chu Chu Rocket!, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity and Bomberman Tournament have brought a welcome return of party appeal to the handheld scene -- but keep in mind, you can't enjoy an ounce of it until you get a link cable! Pelican's 4-Player Link Cable lets you hook up 2-4 systems to enjoy multiplayer titles and share data between GBA/GBC systems (and even the forthcoming Game Cube). Unless you and your buddies already own a few 2-player cables and would rather daisy chain them in a mess of cords, a single 4-player link is the way to go.
Performance: Contrary to popular belief, quite a few things can go wrong with a link cable... but Pelican seems to have gotten things right with this one. After testing the cable on American, Japanese and Singapore GBA models with Super Mario Advance a few times, the link seemed to consistently work very well. Each of the four cable heads are easily identifiable for each player, and they fit snugly into the link ports with no problematic resistance. The folks at Pelican made sure to let consumers know that they've reinforced the cables with ferrite cores for maximum quality, so durability seems pretty high here.
Features: Allows up to 4 players to share games and game data Convenient extra-long cable cords Ferrite cores for enhanced performance Compatible with GBA & GBC games and Game Cube
Drawbacks & Problems: Upon opening the Pelican 4-Player Link Cable, the first words out of your mouth may very well be, 'Good lord, that's a LOT of cord!' True, that does rhyme. Also true: any 4-player cable is going to be a handful. Deal with it. With Pelican's extra-long cords, storing this product in handy spaces could be difficult without something to tie off with. Mad Catz had the right idea with an attached Velcro loop on their link cable; maybe Pelican can still learn a few things from the competition. It should be noted that when testing the cable with Super Mario Advance for the first time, the three connected systems reported a connection error before starting a session. When we turned the machines off and back on again, everything worked fine. Whether this was a problem with the cable or human error, I can't be sure. Otherwise, though, I will be using this cable for months to come (unless, of course, a better product swings by). And hey, with the imminent release of Mario Kart Super Circuit just within reach, just try and name one reason NOT to get a 4-player link!
-Ben Monkey, GameVortex Communications AKA Ben Lewis
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