Wished I had one as a kid, as an adult with emulators it honestly just isn’t a big part of my gaming. Columns is great though.
There was demonstration one in our local Kmart in the electronics section. It had sonic the hedgehog on it. Everytime my mom would take us to the mall, I would beeline for the Game Gear and Gameboy they had and play until she got me.
I had one growing up and I actually just got it back the other day! I’m building a Sanni card reader sometime next week and I’m gonna dump all my games (if the saves still exist…which I doubt.)
Never knew anyone with one, but I always wanted one when I was a kid. Magazine coverage made them look awesome. Now I’m old and still want one! But it seems they’re a bit high maintenance…
My cousin had one, but due to the battery drain, could only play it plugged into the wall. He only had one or two games for it, and we eventually would play with the ac adapter more than the game gear itself. It was a “universal” ac adaptor that had a lot of different plugs on it, and we would touch stuff together to make sparks fly. In retrospect this was all probably incredibly dangerous, but we were just dumb kids.
Mine still works. I still play Sonic and Simpsons every once in a while.
I lusted after these when I was a kid, and eventually blew all my saved up Christmas/Birthday money on one.
The battery thing really sucked, but still had a lot of fun with it. Must of played that first level of Sonic 2 a thousand times.
My white whale was the TV tuner, I thought the idea was so cool as a kid.
I had a friend who brought their Game Gear with the TV tuner to the playground in elementary school, and it was a moment of absolute future shock. It didn’t matter that we could barely tell what was happening on the screen, because I couldn’t believe that it was even possible!
I saw a kid hook up the TV tuner in the back of the bus and was insanely jealous.
I had a friend who had one and it looked amazing! Just like a real console attached to a TV, and indeed it was basically a portable Sega Master System in design. I only had a gray-scale GameBoy so the display on the Game Gear was incredible by comparison.
I do remember my joy, when finding out that instead of feeding it with batteries, I could even use the power adapter of the master system to play with the Gamegear. 😄
I had one as a kid. That thing went through batteries so fast, I messed mine up because of it. I had a battery pack for an RC car, and it looked like a bunch of AA batteries in series, so I took it apart. It worked in my game gear for a little bit until I smelled burning plastic. It melted a part of the battery compartment and my game gear wouldn’t take batteries after that, only running off AC power.
My first RPG was on game gear, Dragon Crystal. That was the one where you have a dragon egg following behind you and you had to push your body against the trees to reveal the maze-like path. I don’t know if there was an end to that game, but I barely made it to hatching the dragon.
I loved the Sonic games, Castle of Illusion, Columns, the Streets of Rage series.
I had the adapter so I could play my master system games.
I was walking home from school one day, and I saw that my neighbors had thrown out a box for a game gear with their recycling. In retrospect, I probably should’ve grabbed it for the sake of collecting video game memorabilia, especially since the box was in pretty good condition.
Oh, and I unlocked the Game Gear Sonic the Hedgehog in Sonic Adventure DX Director’s Cut on the Game Cube
Quick edit: I saw it in their recycling in like 2007
I’ve got a one that has long since died due to the leaky capacitors. Tried to resurrect it but no luck so far. May look to salvage the chips for a full mainboard replacement at some point.
It was the handheld version of showing blood in mortal kombat. My super NES only showed sweat ☹️ I was very jealous of my friend for that, but enjoyed playing it.
I was envious of anyone who had one when I was a kid, but now I don’t know if there’s any games on it that make buying this system worthwhile.
Shinobi 2 for Game Gear was a childhood favourite even if I didn’t have any batteries and just had to hang out near an outlet to play it. I booted it up on my Analogue Pocket recently, and it’s still super fun! I enjoyed a bunch of games on the system, but that’s the one that feels like an all-time classic to me.
Yes. Absolutely. Shinobi 2 for Sega Game Gear is an all time classic.
It’s a shame more people don’t encounter it when exploring retrogames. It’s so easy to assume the Genesis versions of each title will be better, and skip trying the GameGear version.
Love and hate, for sure.
As a kid it was the coolest thing ever, but the thing was a battery eating machine, so it was always a struggle to get my parents to buy a new set. Eventually they got me an A/C adapter which was… somewhat compatible. It fit, but shake it a little too much and POP, game reset. And of course that always happened after beating a tough boss. 20 years later I’m still annoyed.
I hope I can find mine tucked in some old drawer at my grandma’s and give it a well-deserved overhaul.
