Oh crap, Handheld Havoc is back already? During St. Patrick’s Day weekend I avoided the normal “get hammered and pretend you are Irish” festivities and instead headed to St. Louis to hang with the man himself Brasel the Gamer. We went game hunting, played games, drank beer and had a great time. While at a St. Louis area game store named Game Trader 2 I saw an odd pirate multicart for the original Game Boy. Being both a massive fan of the Game Boy, and intrigued by odd pirate stuff, I had to pick it up for the modest $20 price tag. I had no idea what was in store.

We got back to the Braselcave and Tony suggested we plug into the Super Game Boy to see what it was like. I couldn’t help myself with the image presented and had to ask him “Why in the hell does it look like your Super Game Boy has a boner?!” Thus began a night of innumerous dick jokes, and the labeling of this cart as “Game Boy Dong.” You can see why in the picture below.

How could I not notice this thing sitting in the games case at Game Trader 2 next to normal Game Boy carts? It’s easily twice the length and the top half is actually about twice as thick as a normal cart. No. I will not make a “twice the length and girth” joke. Gah, you see what you made me do?!

One of the interesting things to me is that the slot for the power tab is just a little divot cut into the side, not a formed off section like normal. This is confusing as the cart only works in a regular Game Boy or a Game Boy pocket. I can confirm it also does not work in a GB Boy Colour though I can’t imagine any at Game Trader’s had one of those laying around to test with. Let’s see just what games are actually on this abomination.

Now, any retrogamer who wants to get into collecting pirate stuff should know the rule about multicarts. The rule is that the more games it claims to have the more likely that number is a lie. The particular model claims 68 in 1 but that’s a big damned lie as at least THREE of the games are just Super Mario Land. Hell, there’s TWO versions of Super Mario Land 2 AND Super Mario Land on the first page of games. Normally you have to go through at least a page or two before you get the first repeat, but not so on the Game Boy Dong. Not only do you get shitty hacks of standard Game Boy games, you also get badly translated English!

For the most part, forget your hopes of finding pirate carts with brand new games. If you find non-standard games they will just be reskins of other games for the most parts. Pirate carts with legitimately new games are very rare, but are very interesting.

“Really?! It’s ‘Ninja Turtles.’ There’s two words and you screwed that up?! Great jorb, Homestar!”

Alright, let’s do this. Let’s review some cah-raaazzzyy pirate games! What’s up first?

Well, shit. In good news, if you want to beat this game but suck just scroll through the pages as you can find hacks of the game that start you on any world, or just give you 99 lives. Even a noob could power through the game then. However, how does starting a game with a level skip count as another game? Does that mean that the old Game Genie wasn’t just a game enhancer but a game creator? There are least THIRTY games of this “66 in one” that are just level skips of other games. I almost think I got hosed for my $20 entry fee. But it gets even better, as they go beyond just bad Engrish. They even misspell words that are only five letters long.

Seriously, with this cart I paid $20 for just about ten games: Super Mario Land, SML 2, Snoopy’s Magic Show, Mickey Mouse, TMNT Back From the Sewers, Flippull, Battle City and Adventure Island. To be fair, accumulating all those games would add up to much more than $20 and this makes them all available in one package, right on the front page no less. However, the package is the problem. Is this multicart worth having a Game Boy that looks like a 13 year old boy at the strip club? When you consider just how easy it is to find multicarts, even ones that have no repeats, this one just seems underwhelming. However, I’m still glad to have it in my collection as it’s a very interesting bit of retrogaming kit.

For those of you who want a truly great multicart and are willing to shell out more money there’s only one option.

The GB Everdrive. The greatest GB flashcart ever made.