"Whoa... color!" - the official Game Gear thread!

[+jgkspsx]

 

A distant second place in the great handheld battle that raged across two decades, the Game Gear had neither the battery life and overwhelming software support of the Game Boy nor the power of the Atari Lynx or the resolution of the NEC TurboExpress. Even though it badly lagged the Game Boy, the Game Gear was not a failed system like so many of my favorites. It sold 11 million units, 9 million in the west, a quantity that is only underwhelming compared to the 120 million Game Boys and Game Boy Colors sold over the 11 years that system was actively sold. It has a large, interesting, and relatively high-quality library, with 364 total titles worldwide. Because it sold so many units, it is cheap and easy to get a working unit, unlike with the Lynx, the Nomad, or the TurboExpress. And with one glaring exception (sadly, the really great tank puzzle shooter Pop Breaker) games are not region locked, so you can buy exclusives from other region with no fear.

 

 

(immaculately staged photo with a well curated selection of games by Ben Griffiths: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sega_Game_Gear_with_modern_replacement_LCD_screen.jpg)

 

The Game Gear, like the TurboExpress, could serve as a portable TV with an optional tuner. It also featured the Master Gear Converter, which allowed you to play the entire Master System library. It's the first handheld I know of that could play home console games! Admittedly, many Master System games are a little hard to see on the Game Gear's lower resolution screen.

 

The Game Gear gets a bad rap because so many of its games are indeed cropped down Master System games, with tiny viewports that make for giant player sprites and lots of cheap deaths. Sonic 1 and 2 are infamous for this - there were no level modifications to make the cropped screen easier to deal with, so you died over and over and over while learning the ropes. However, the system had lots of exclusive games too, and many Master System crop jobs were plenty playable with practice and learning the levels.

 

I think another big reason it has a bad rap is the juvenile, hyper-aggressive advertising campaigns that turned off many parents and Game Boy fans. The fatphobia and abuse of a dead squirrel in the ad above, or the use of Game Boys as clothing and poop scoopers in this ad: 

 

 

while still, admittedly, pretty funny in spots, were the kind of mean, exclusionary, humiliating advertising that characterized a lot of Sega's marketing at that time and, I firmly believe, helped it lose the console wars. With few exceptions (Earthbound's print advertising comes to mind) Nintendo didn't take the edgy bait, and by being the "clean" company was chosen by many more parents and grandparents for their kids and sometimes themselves. A big part of the success of the Game Boy was the fact that parents loved games like Tetris. (Also, nothing succeeds like success.)

 

While the library of Game Gear games is smaller than the Game Boy's and less uniformly high quality than the Lynx's, it is diverse and full of games that lovers of video games ought to play. I'll share some of my harder to find favorites in future posts, but here is a shortlist of good, cheap (<US$15), and plentiful games for the Game Gear that any video game lovers ought to enjoy:

 

• Aerial Assault (this shmup starts REALLY slow and ugly, but hang in there, it gets much better)
• Batman Returns (maybe the best portable Batman game of its generation?)
• Bust a Move (the only version of this I've beaten)
• Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse (the other Illusion games are good too - Land may be a smidge better - but this is the easiest to find and is about as good)
• Devilish (one of the best takeoffs on Breakout ever)
• Desert Strike (surprisingly successful pared down mission-based helicopter sim)
• Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (NOT the fighting game, but an action platformer - the best game the movie got)
• Dragon Crystal (one of the first roguelikes and an excellent game)
• Dynamite Headdy (an endless runner more than a platformer, a TERRIFIC game from Treasure)
• GP Rider (much more technical and demanding than Super Hang On, but it incorporates Super Hang On's backgrounds in its world tour)
• Halley Wars (one of the best shmups for a system that has some good ones)
• Home Alone (really unclassifiable strategy game)
• Joe Montana Football (I don't know if this is the best of the many, many football games for the Game Gear, but it's the one everybody had, and it is good)
• Jurassic Park ("protect the vehicle" lightgun segments and a good looking platformer make this a winner)
• The Lucky Dime Caper starring Donald Duck (another great Disney platformer developed by AM7)
• NBA Jam: Tournament Edition (amazing how playable and complete it is)
• NHL Hockey (NOT NHL All Star Hockey. You'll regret confusing them.)
• Out Run Europa (US Gold, not Sega - Outrun meets Chase HQ and the results are pretty fun, I don’t care what anybody says.)
• Pac Attack (the great Pac Man Tetris clone has a great version in this)
• Paperboy 2 (not as good as the Lynx Paperboy but close)
• Poker Face Paul series (some great handheld card games - how often do you see Gin?)
• Prince of Persia (pretty much just the Master System version, so excellent)
• Psychic World (awesome action platformer)
• Putt & Putter (isometric minigolf puzzle game, really deviously addictive)
• Puyo Puyo Tsuu (seems more balanced than Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine)
• Quest for the Shaven Yak starring Ren and Stimpy (really nice cartoon art for this one and interesting gameplay)
• RC Grand Prix (isometric RC racer, lots of fun though not as good as Rare's RC games)
• Road Rash (still the best portable version of this classic series)
• Ristar (amazing close to 1:1 port of the Genesis game)
• Shikinjou (JP only, sokoban with mahjong tiles, super addictive)
• Solitaire Poker (poker puzzle game, like Square Deal on the Game Boy or Pokermania on the Lynx)
• Sonic Drift 2 (really impressive Mario Kart clone)
• Sonic the Hedgehog (the original and maybe the best)
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (a true sequel to the original Sonic - no spin dash, no Tails, no special stages)
• Sonic Chaos (the first game with playable Tails, I think - much smaller sprites and tons of rings and powerups make this the easiest Game Gear Sonic)
• Sonic Triple Trouble (Knuckles is here, as a villain - also small sprites but some really inventive stuff here)
• Streets of Rage (surprisingly successful portable adaptation)
• Super Battletank (ra ra patriotic Gulf War propaganda is a little hard to take, but it's a solid Battlezone clone)
• Super Columns (the best version of Columns ever, a series I usually find a bit boring)
• Super Space Invaders (good solid take on the classic)
• Wolfchild (EU only, but pretty direct port of the Sega CD game, one of Core's best)
• Wonder Boy / Revenge of Drancon (barebones but great port)
• Woody Pop (Breakout clone, not as good as Devilish but pretty fun)
• World Series Baseball '95 (iteration on the first one, which is also great - you can't go wrong with either)
• Zool (the tiny viewport hurts this already really unfair game, but it's really colorful and pretty fun once you memorize the awful enemy placement)

[+Black_Tiger]

Game Gear has much better graphics than Lynx and more high quality games than the Lynx does at all, normally rumning at 60fps.

 

 

The Shining Force Gaiden games are each killer apps, same as the main series is for Mega Drive. As much as they successfully retain the timeless fun, gameplay and artistry of the series' visuals, they also feature some of the best 8-bit chiptunes. The format worked so well on Game Gear hardware as blurring wasn't an issue.

 

I didn't like Crystal Warriors bitd, but Royal Stone is so much fun and looks and feels like a high quality 16-bit game.

 

I was luck enough to find Fantasy Zone Gear bitd and although I didn't like it as much as FZII, it was nice that it was an original game and one of the best portable shooters (unless you count PC Engine).

 

[+atari2600land]

I have 151 Game Gear games. Admittedly, I don't play the thing very much, but I still love it. Perhaps I should play it more because I have the Game Genie for it.

[ComputerSpaceFan]

No love for Terminator 2? For shame, especially with the GameGear's VASTLY superior d-pad. I love holding that thing in my hands. Seriously T2 on GameGear is the best home version, prove me wrong. 

[+jgkspsx]

I think as far as graphics go it’s a split decision. There is nothing on the Game Gear that begins to compare with Blue Lightning (which to be fair looks better than any Genesis or Turbografx super scaler), STUN Runner, Hard Drivin’, Steel Talons, Warbirds, Roadblasters, Electro Cop, Xybots, Battlewheels, Battlezone 2000’s 2000 mode, etc. But the smooth-scrolling platformers blow away the Lynx’s very good but very plain platformers like Viking Child (aka Wonder Boy) and Scrapyard Dog. (Shadow of the Beast is a great game that scrolls smoothly, so it probably would have gotten better if they had had more time.) And the higher resolution screen allows for things like Arena that just wouldn’t have worked on the Lynx.

[+jgkspsx]

3 minutes ago, ComputerSpaceFan said:

No love for Terminator 2? For shame, especially with the GameGear's VASTLY superior d-pad. I love holding that thing in my hands. Seriously T2 on GameGear is the best home version, prove me wrong. 

I don’t have that one yet! I just have T2 The Arcade Game, which, eh, lightgun games weren’t meant for d-pads. I know that there are some movie games I don’t have yet that are great like Alien 3, but there are a lot that are terrible.

[+atari2600land]

How in the world did they expect ANYONE to beat Ren & Stimpy? The game is so freaking hard even WITH a Game Genie. But I finally did it. I was trying to figure out how to beat the final Yeti boss, but I kept throwing hairballs at him until I got him to drop his snowball he was making. The catch is to make him drop his snowball onto himself. But even that is hard due to lousy hit detection (except for all the other enemies which seem to hit you just fine.)

[+jgkspsx]

I think the biggest drawback with Game Gear platformers is that they are generally very short, and that would not play well with 1990 parents spending a lot of money on a new game. So they usually have cheapness dialed to 11 to extend the life of the game. The Game Genie is an important tool for being able to enjoy games.

[fiddlepaddle]

One of my favorite systems, that I never play anymore.

(I can reconcile that, but it's basically a long string of minor excuses that build up into a brick wall)

[ComputerSpaceFan]

5 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

I don’t have that one yet! I just have T2 The Arcade Game, which, eh, lightgun games weren’t meant for d-pads. I know that there are some movie games I don’t have yet that are great like Alien 3, but there are a lot that are terrible.

That's the one. And I'll fight ya on that d-pad complaint   (just kidding)  

[+atari2600land]

Does anyone know the difference between Paperboy and Paperboy 2?

[Tanooki]

I've had 3-4 periods since the 90s I've had one, never once bought new though from Sega at retail.  The thing is, when it came out, Sega's disgusting ad agency at the time felt the best way to make sales was to belittle and insult both owners of Nintendo products, but potential owners with straight up insults.  I never even as a kid put up with that, and as such I just didn't buy their stuff for years, many, and in most cases until the DC rolled around, second hand.  That said though, they did have a few, enough unique games over the whole time frame, some though from other regions that cross worked (SMS/GG era) on domestic systems so I found the time I put in enjoyable.  I no longer own one, swore off it too after a steady trail of failures buying bad systems that barely worked to find fixing one thing broke another since Sega used the crappiest quality parts/controls in making them.  I settled on a very nice 100in1 SMS+GG cart for GBA, and if needed self made files can be thrown on a flash kit, and then the one atgames handheld that did work right, the SMS+GG one I still have that too.  Combined it gets the job done.

[Rhomaios]

The Game Gear was my first handheld (the Game Boy was my older brother's), yet I can't play it anymore. It was great as a kid, but now I'd rather play any of its games on the Master System or Genesis on a real TV. The few exclusives it had don't justify what a battery hog it is. Maybe if anyone ever comes out with a rechargeable battery like the Game Boy Advance, I could get back into it again.

 

That said, I did have a lot of good times with it in the early 90s.

[+jgkspsx]

For what it’s worth, I put in a CleanPower power board from RetroSix and a tantalum cap sound card from RetroKai, both pretty cheap, and even with a stock screen I seem to get at least six hours out of rechargeables. The way I tend to play games, superficially and dilettantishly, that lasts me about a week or two between charges.

[+jgkspsx]

1 hour ago, atari2600land said:

Does anyone know the difference between Paperboy and Paperboy 2?

Paperboy is a port of the arcade game by Tiertex of Supercross 3D fame. It uses the Moon Patrol theme for some reason:

 

 

Paperboy 2 is a console-only game (GG version by Manley and Associates) that takes you in different directions instead of always riding up and to the left:

 

 

[+atari2600land]

1 hour ago, Rhomaios said:

The few exclusives it had don't justify what a battery hog it is.

 

You could always plug it into the wall.

[Rhomaios]

21 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

You could always plug it into the wall.

Yes, sure, but then I might as well play on a proper console.

[Mikebloke]

Like many people I found out many years ago my game gear stopped working, and I was going to get someone to recap it but they didn't bother in the end (and its probably a good thing I went back in and asked because they shut down a couple of weeks later) - so its still collecting dust despite my love of it. My next door neighbour had one originally, and we used to sit next to the plug socket as we played it (it was still fun!)

 

I'm replaying Game Gear games now, like Shining Force Gaiden (a team of people is forming to translate this gem, one of the last great game gear games that need a translation probably) - only problem is I'm playing it on a GBA romcart, but hey ho.

 

Would like the Analogue pocket, but was screwed with the issues they had even though I was on it immediately (got to shipping before it failed...). There were other options to play on something physical, like the Retro Freak but they are out of production now too.

[0078265317]

My friend and cousin had a game gear.  But my cousin dropped his and screen was cracked. 

[+jgkspsx]

I started this topic in part so I would have a place to put capsule reviews as I work through my giant pile of cartridges and some Everdrive roms.

 

I finally tried out two JP only releases that I had been curious about, but not curious enough to play. Their highly generic titles are what probably kept them from actually being played.

 

The first game is Buster Fight. (I’m not joking about generic.) I had no idea what it was, and went in totally cold, only to discover that it’s a two player fighting game and also that it’s right up there with Samurai Shodown as one of the best fighting games on the system.

 

 

The control scheme is highly original. There’s an attack button and a special button that lets you use special moves and your weapons. The characters are few and highly generic, but fights are so fluid and fast that I totally got immersed in it. I have only played Guilty Gear a little, long ago, but I think it’s a little in that vein?

 

All four of the playable characters play very differently, and that makes the small number of characters more tolerable. But I’m a quality over quantity guy - give me this any day over Mortal Kombat two button edition.

 

I have added this to my import list, which I did not expect to do.

 

The second game is Buster Ball. As with Buster Fight, I went in knowing nothing. I was pleased to learn that the game was made by Riverhillsoft, of JB Harold Mystery Club and Overblood fame, who also did a lot of ports of Western games and I think appreciated the Euro style of gaming more than most Japanese developers in the 90s. This game was not quite so pleasant a surprise. It’s like a fusion of Ballblazer, Speedball 2, Brutal Sports Football, and a foosball table. You start by picking a team sponsor, all clear parodies of auto companies with names and logos that verge on copyright infringement. (Toyoda, Nikkan, Wonda, etc.) That company presumably manufactures the sport robots who will play the game.

 

 

The field is divided into zones protected by electric fences, which is the foosball element. Players are trapped in one particular section and cannot leave it. Each team has players in each zone. The goal in most zones is to charge your opponent robots and incapacitate them, then grab the ball and chuck it into the next zone. In the final zone on each end is the goal. You need to shoot the ball into the goal to score.

 

I’ve found it pretty hard to succeed, but I enjoyed trying. I think I prefer all of this game’s influences to the synthesis of them all, but it is pretty fun and I will probably get better. I’m not sure if this one is worth importing, but it’s certainly worth trying! I don’t think the Game Gear has any other future sports/brutal sports games, so this fills a niche in the library nothing else does.

[newtmonkey]

I somewhat recently got a Game Gear that was professionally recapped and also had the light tube replaced with an LED backlight for improved battery life.  Honestly, I find most of the library to be nearly unplayable due to the poor quality of the screen—it's not necessarily the blurring during movement (but that certainly doesn't help), but just how blurry the screen is even when standing still (I understand that internally it's basically a composite video quality connection).  You can put up with screen limitations if developers designed games with those limitations in mind (there are many games that are still playable even on the original GB and Lynx), but much of the Game Gear library seems to be fast-paced side-scrollers seemingly developed without any consideration for the limitations of the screen.

 

(Of course these limitations are not an issue if playing games on a modern LCD, emulation, etc.)

 

I'd definitely appreciate some recommendations for slower-paced games that play well given the limitations of the screen.  I'm aware of Shining Force Gaiden, but am not a huge fan of strategy RPGs.

[+jgkspsx]

It seems to me, without any actual knowledge of the facts, that some screens are better than others. I just beat GG Aleste with no problems. I don’t think it would have been possible on some of my other Game Gears.

 

 

I will think about good games to play if you hate the screen. Tails’ Adventure moves at a languorous pace for the most part and despite the extremely complex graphics it’s easy for me to see. Skypatrol is pretty busy too but also pretty easy to deal with. Sonic Chaos and Triple Trouble are a lot better than 1 and 2 for blurriness since the sprites are so much smaller.

[Mikebloke]

On 6/4/2021 at 3:44 AM, newtmonkey said:

I somewhat recently got a Game Gear that was professionally recapped and also had the light tube replaced with an LED backlight for improved battery life.  Honestly, I find most of the library to be nearly unplayable due to the poor quality of the screen—it's not necessarily the blurring during movement (but that certainly doesn't help), but just how blurry the screen is even when standing still (I understand that internally it's basically a composite video quality connection).  You can put up with screen limitations if developers designed games with those limitations in mind (there are many games that are still playable even on the original GB and Lynx), but much of the Game Gear library seems to be fast-paced side-scrollers seemingly developed without any consideration for the limitations of the screen.

 

(Of course these limitations are not an issue if playing games on a modern LCD, emulation, etc.)

 

I'd definitely appreciate some recommendations for slower-paced games that play well given the limitations of the screen.  I'm aware of Shining Force Gaiden, but am not a huge fan of strategy RPGs.

Defenders of Oasis is more of a traditional JPRG and is very fun, its not related to the "Oasis" series on mega drive and saturn but pushes the Aladdin style Arabian stereotype of the time heavily which is a nice change from the dull Medieval European stereotype.

 

Its funny, I think people might be right about the variance in original game screens. I remember my neighbour at the time having a very clear screen, but mine a few years later from memory was more blurry. I should probably get mine modded with all the bells and whistles one day, I'd like TV out as well just for my own amusement.

[+jgkspsx]

I wasn’t as lucky with GG Aleste II, but I got to the boss of the penultimate level. Cyber Road starts with a lightsaber-wielding miniboss that just destroys me. I really suck at the Afterburner esque special stages in this one.

 

[NeonSpaceBeagle]

I got one of these as a kid and I just remember the games not being as much fun as the gameboy.  I definitely had the wrong games though.  As an adult, I fried THREE game gears using the wrong ac Adapter.  Any cheap way to fix this?  One of them is nearly brand new mint in the box    and before you ask, THREE TIMES!?!   This was back in the day when I was a drinker.