Review: GP2X Wiz

It’s pretty hard to compete against the Big N when it comes to hand held gaming systems. From the GameBoy to the DSi, Nintendo continues to dominate the hand held gaming market. True Sony has made a dent with the PSP, but it doesn’t come close to what Nintendo has achieved.

Now another player has entered the ring to try and steal a few gamers away from the big guys. GamePark Holdings is trying a different approach, develop a Linux based hand held gaming system to cater to homebrew games and emulation. Can GamePark Holdings (formerly GamePark) carve out its own market with its GP2X Wiz?

The Design

GP2X Wiz is not trying to break the mould when it comes to hand held gaming systems. The design of the GP2x Wiz is fairly standard. Measuring only 4.7 inches by 2.4 inches, the Wiz fits nicely in your hands, feeling a bit small if anything. It’s also lightweight which makes it convenient to throw in your pocket and take with you on the go.

The Wiz has a familiar button layout. A directional pad adorns the left face of the console, while X, Y, A, B buttons form a D-Pad on the right side. Gamers will also find Left and Right Trigger buttons on top. Standard start and select buttons have been replaced with Menu and Select buttons. The power button can be found on the left side of unit and volume controls on the bottom.

The Wiz has a 2.8 inch AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) touch screen. The screen is quite bright and very responsive to both finger and styus touch (stylus included). I do admit however the screen feels a bit small. Looking at the face of the Wiz I felt as though it could have been made a bit bigger and take up a bit more real estate on the console’s face, yet it is by no means a deal breaker. It displays images beautifully.

Overall many will be pleased by the design of the GP2X Wiz. The shiny piano black gloss makes it very easy on the eye. It is a magnet for smudges and greasy fingerprints, but hey, so are iphones and PSPs.

Features

The GP2X Wiz packs a real punch in the features department. First and foremost it is a gaming system. Our unit came with 7 games pre-installed on the device. Not all of them were in English mind you, not that it mattered. They were all pretty basic games. A couple of Tetris style puzzlers, a simple shooter and the bizarre Snake on Dope game. More on the games later in the review.

The Wiz can also be considered a media player. You can play videos (AVI and OGM, WMA and MPG via additional software), music (MP3, Ogg Vorbis), record audio, view photos (JPG format, PNG, GIF and BMP), read ebooks and comics on the device. Files can either be stored on the internal memory (1 GB flash memory) or on an SD memory card.  Tools included on the device include calendar, world clock, calculator and a timer. Yes you get a lot of features on the Wiz but lets be honest, most people will use this for one thing and one thing only…games.

Snake On Dope: The more fruit you eat, the more the screen begins to wobble uncontrollably

Games

It’s clear GamePark Holdings is focusing on homebrew and emulators with the GPx2. Yes the company is releasing official games for the system, but the ones released so far are nothing to write home about.

Take Snake On Dope for example. Ever play the classic Snake arcade game where you have to eat all the apples? Ya, it’s just like that only the game is set to Afroman’s “Because I Got High”. With each apple you eat your tail grows and the screen begins to wobble. The more you eat the longer you grow and the more difficult it becomes to avoid your tail. The screen will also begin to wobble uncontrollably making it difficult to control your snake. We’ve heard the retail version of the Wiz will not have this game because of copyright issues with the music in this title. The game is fun for about 15 minutes, then you’re ready to try the next title. Most of the games included are like this. They’re okay, but you wouldn’t be shelling out much money for them.

GamePark Holdings has announced it will be making a handful of games available for download each month. In the summer, it will be opening up its own online store (think along the lines of Apple’s App Store) for people to download fresh games, and apps. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this.

Emulators

Sure you can get games from GamePark but emulators are what most gamers will be excited about. Imagine playing old school games from classic systems like the SNES and Sega CD. Yup, you can do it on the GP2X Wiz.

Now before I go any further we need to get something out of the way. Although most people reading this review already know this we have to make it clear. Downloading emulators and roms violates copyright laws. You are breaking the law by doing this! Okay, disclaimer out of the way, let’s continue.

When is the last time you played Dragon Quest I?

Getting emulators and roms to work on the Wiz takes a bit of effort. You must first find the appropriate emulator (must be designed for the GP2X Wiz) and then the actual roms (games) themselves. You will have to hunt these down online. Once you have the files you must drop and drag them into the proper folders on the device. This is done by connecting the system to your PC via USB cable. You can then navigate the Wiz’s folders on your computer. Certain files like roms can also be stored on an SD card to save room on the device.

The unit we received came with no instruction manual. Let’s just say it was a bit of trial and error to figure out where to put the files in order to get them to work. Once I figured it out, it worked flawlessly. I was able to play games I haven’t played since I was in junior high! I tried about a dozen  Super Nintendo titles and they all worked flawlessly. I did get the odd frame rate drop but for the most part it worked well.

The number of emulators the Wiz supports is quite impressive. Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Super Nintendo, various arcade machines, Sega Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive, Genesis,  Sega CD, Sega 32X, Sony Playstation and Neo Geo games. While I did not experience any issues getting games to run, the emulator programmers admit some games may not have sound and some may experience slow down.

Battery Life

For a device with such a bright screen I was surprised to see how long the battery lasted. I got almost 4 hours of continuous play from one charge. Not bad. The only way to charge it was to plug it into your computer. This could pose a problem if you’re on the road and the unit dies. You can’t always be near a PC.

Downfalls

Even though we got an early unit to try out, most of my time with the GP2X was enjoyable. Games were fun and the emulators ran fairly well. That being said, I did experience the odd crash and system freeze from time to time. A quick reboot always fixed the problem. GamePark Holdings is making firmware updates available online, so if there are bugs the company is promising to fix them right away.

Bottom Line

The GPx2 Wiz isn’t trying to beat out Nintendo as the number one hand held  system on the market (although I’m sure the company would like that). It is offering something unique and different to gamers, a console that celebrates homebrew games, apps and emulators. This is a unique hand held gaming system that will provide hours of entertainment (even if some of the activities you will be doing on this are illegal). Yes you can expect the odd crash and freeze up, but it is a small price to pay for what this system offers. Let’s just hope GamePark Holdings continues to provide support to the unit as problems arise. If you’re an avid gamer on the go, it’s worth looking into.

The Good

More than just a hand held gaming system (media player, pda)
Plays emulated titles
Decent battery life
Affordable at $179

The Bad

Experienced the odd crash or freeze up
Official games that come with the system are not very good
Screen feels a bit small