The Game Boy Advance is like the PlayStation 2 of portable gaming: all developers are behind it 100% (except for Square). The result is a few hundred truck loads of games spanning across every genre. From platformers, fighting games, racers and RPGs, to action/adventures, strategy games, first-person shooters and more, the GBA is definitely the best portable game system ever made. Now the flight/combat genre has landed on the GBA in the form of F-14 Tomcat.

F-14 Tomcat is more of an arcade flight/combat game than Delta Air Force; just point, shoot and land. There are other tasks that must be completed, but taking down "hostile aircrafts" is your top priority in the game. The controls have been simplified to accommodate the GBA's four buttons. The A button fires your weapon, while B, L and R are multi-functional buttons. For example, to increase the thrust, press the B button and Up on the D-pad simultaneously. To select a weapons system, hold down B and press L or R. I would have preferred a different setup, but Majesco deserves credit for making the best of the few buttons available.

The game was about to take off and soar like an eagle, but then the game's biggest problem revealed itself. This problem can't be overlooked simply because all games have faults, either. It's not a control issue, bad AI, disappointing gameplay or any of the other typical problems found in games these days. So what horrible mistake could have been made that managed to kill each and every chance F-14 Tomcat had to be a really good game? It's a mistake that started with Nintendo when they decided to release another portable game system without a back light. And that mistake continues with F-14 Tomcat, a game that is so dark that I can barely see it with two 60-watt bulbs shining directly above the Game Boy Advance. I didn't have too much trouble seeing Castlevania, one of the darkest games on the GBA. But no matter how much light I had, F-14 Tomcat was barely visible.

Unlike us, game developers have the luxury of playing their games on bright, high-resolution PC monitors. Apparently, Majesco forgot to test F-14 Tomcat on the tiny, dim screen we'd be forced to play it on when the game was released. If they did actually test it out on a Game Boy Advance, then I wonder why they released it without changing the brightness of the game. Majesco had a potentially great game on their hands and they blew it by making it impossible to see. You can't play what you can't see. The struggle isn't worth it -- my eyes never hurt so badly from playing a game before. They could have fixed the problem easily by using lighter colors.

F-14 Tomcat's story is about as vague as Shigeru Miyamoto when discussing Mario Sunshine. According to intelligence reports, an unapproved act of aggression by the Republic of China has been executed against the Republic of Taiwan. Not surprisingly, a state of war now exists between the two nations. The President then orders you -- the player -- to head into battle and protect our interests over in that region. The area has been declared a "No Fly" zone by the United States Council, so all aircrafts are assumed to have hostile intentions. There isn't a whole lot more to it than that.

I'm starting to wonder if developers don't have much faith in their games' sales potential, or if they're just plain greedy. F-14 Tomcat is only a multiplayer game IF you have four GBAs and four copies of the game. I can't complain about the former, but come 'on, the other requirement is ridiculous. Four Tomcats = $160. $40 per person. What if none of your friends can afford $40? Or what if they'd like to try out the multiplayer mode before deciding whether or not to make a purchase? Unfortunately, they can't. No one can, unless you're willing to spend more money. You only need one copy of Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Advance Wars or Mario Advance to play with three friends, and those games have sold more copies than most of the third party titles combined. The technology is there...so why is Nintendo the only one using it?

Graphics: 4.5 
F-14 Tomcat is dark, really dark, and I don't mean the good kind of dark either. The game is so dark that it's barely playable. No matter how many times I say it, I'm still baffled, blinded and appalled by the darkness. I don't know how Nintendo can get away with calling the system Game Boy Advance. There system can't process many polygons, it only has four buttons and worst of all, it doesn't have a back light. Game Gear had a back light four years ago! Nintendo is just as much to blame (if not more for) F-14 Tomcat's extreme darkness.

Sound: 7.5
The sound in F-14 Tomcat is pretty well done. For the most part, you'll hear the same set of beats being played over and over again, but I didn't get bored listening to it. Think Iridion 3D without as much musical depth and you'll know what to expect. The sounds themselves are also impressive -- gunshot fire is quite good and during take off, the sound nicely resembles the inside of a cockpit.

Difficulty: 9.5
Why the near-perfect difficulty rating, when the rest of the game received low scores? It's not that F-14 Tomcat is a really challenging game or anything like that. But seeing is the game is so difficult that you'll have an extremely hard time beating it. I flew past hostile submarines several times because I could barely see them in the dark blue sea. However, they had no problem seeing and killing me.

Concept: 4 
While the idea itself wasn't all that bad, F-14 Tomcat's hard-to-see visuals prevent it from being a really good concept. If the developers were going for realism, great. The problem is, they chose the wrong system to do it on.

Overall: 4.5
F-14 Tomcat is a game that could have been great. Usually when I say that a game could have been great, it's because the gameplay didn't live up to expectations or something along those lines. In this case, however, it's due to nothing more than the horrendous lighting. It pains me to think of how great this game could have been if the colors were brighter or if the GBA had a back light.