10 Games That Need To Be Included On A Nintendo Game Boy Mini

Advances in technology have a tendency towards miniaturisation. Supercomputers from the '70s are now able to fit on a single grain of rice - long-grained or otherwise - whilst it's well-established from 'hilarious' flashbacks in sit-coms that mobile phones used to be the size of Scotland. Today, they fit comfortably in the palm of a gnat. Technology has even made the world feel smaller, thanks to the internet connecting people several thousand miles apart in an instant. We're doing it right now.

It does need to be careful about going too far, though. Recent speculation about a Nintendo Game Boy Mini, whilst exciting, raises the question of how small is too small? You can ask any of my ex-girlfriends for an answer to that.

If Nintendo are to release a half-pint measure of their pint-sized portable, we hope its screen is a friend to those who played the original, now of rapidly diminishing eyesight. But maybe requiring a magnifying peripheral is part of the nostalgic appeal?

Likewise - and perhaps more pertinently - we hope the games are right. The Game Boy had a library bigger than Alexandria's, but only a handful of the handheld's oeuvre were worth playing. Like a Grecian in their garden, we pick the best of the olive-coloured bunch.

Whilst Donkey Kong Land, the scaled-down version of Rare's platforming sensation Donkey Kong County, was arguably the best of the tie-wearing gorilla's handheld outings, stuffing the SNES's spectacular visuals onto the original Game Boy's (admittedly blurry) screen was already a stretch for our eyesight. Scaling it down further for an even smaller screen might create a look just a little too grotty for Nintendo's liking.

Donkey Kong '94 had the opposite approach. Instead of trying to squeeze a dazzling young beauty queen into an ill-fitting bin-bag, it instead polished up the tiara of her aging predecessor. Don't be fooled by the name: the Nintendo band's chief bongo player's first Game Boy appearance is much more than a simple arcade conversion. Loosely based on the 1981 coin-op classic, Donkey Kong '94 offers 101 brand new levels, introducing innovative puzzles and greater fluidity to its timeless forefather. And Donkey himself seems much more comfortable back in the villain role. It's good to be bad.