Sega Gamegear
Launch Years: NA: 1991, EU: 1991, JP: 1990
The Gamegear was intended to compete with the Gameboy and Atari Lynx. The color graphics and front-lit screen are technically superior to the Gameboy, however it comes at the cost of 6 AA batteries which lasts like 2 hours lol. It can be powered by a Genesis Model 2's power supply, but that defeats the point of being a portable came system.
The Gamegear's bulky size fits comfortably in my hands, but I could see it being a problem for kids or tiny people with tiny hands. The games are pretty good, many of which being ports of Master System games. The Gamegear is basically Master System hardware in a compact form factor with a screen attached, so development was certainly familiar to the 3 or 4 Master System developers that were out there. As a fan of the older Sonic games, the variety of exclusive Gamegear Sonic games are what mainly brought me to this system.
An unfortunate aspect to gamegears is the quality of their internal components: which is dogshit. I once met a guy who had 4 gamegears in his lot, and NONE OF THEM WORKED. Sega cheaped out on the capacitors, meaning they are a very common point of failure. It's becoming much more difficult to find gamegears in working order. Luckilly, cleaning the system and replacing capacitors is usually all it takes to fix them (unless the board has been eaten away by battery acid).
The Majesco models, like the one in my collection, tend to have lower failure rates because they were built with higher quality capacitors. Majesco models can be identified by their black shells and completely white gamegear branding on the screen bezel. Older models are typically a gray color, however there are some more rare variants such as the blue or red Coca Cola systems.
Games (7)
| Title | Genre | CIB? |
|---|---|---|
| Bust-A-Move | Puzzle | Loose Cart |
| Sonic Chaos | Platformer | Loose Cart |
| Sonic Drift 2 | Racing | Loose Cart |
| Sonic The Hedgehog | Platformer | Loose Cart |
| Sonic The Hedgehog 2 | Platformer | Loose Cart |
| Sonic Triple Trouble | Platformer | Loose Cart |
| Vampire: Master of Darkness | Action Platformer | Loose Cart |
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