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.
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 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.
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.
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.
My cousin had one. I had a GameBoy. I was jealous at first, but I realized I had Zelda and the batteries would last an entire car trip. Being into retrogames, I’d love one, but I feel like as a Kid I got the better deal TBH.
Bought mine in the 90’s from a high school friend. Got the car adapter and it was a lifesaver for the family road trips which we did a lot of back then. I kept it even though it stopped working years ago. Then learned how to recap it during the pandemic and got hooked to console modding. That was a slippery slope. I’ve since bought, fixed, and customized 6 game gears with custom-painted shells and installed the different variations of screen and power upgrades. Now I find broken consoles and fix/upgrade them as a hobby. There’s something so satisfying about bringing life back to gaming hardware that people have given up on.
Thank you for doing this. It’s so cool to bring new life to old systems.
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 grew up with it and only had 3 games for it. Adventures of batman and robin, Sonic 2 and X-Men. I played X-Men the most and it’s a really fun game with nice music. Years later I discovered the rest of it’s library though emulation
That X-Men game was a solid metroidvania for the time. I tried to revisit it recently and I didn’t have the patience, but back when it came out I had a great time for a lot of hours with it.
Mine still works. I still play Sonic and Simpsons every once in a while.
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.
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.
It was my first console, played a lot on it. After a few years I traded it with a friend for Warhammer stuff. I still regret it!
Saw a classmate with one once and it looked hilariously massive to me. Would be cool to explore the library someday.
