Honestly now, Is not gamegear the worst system like ever?

[NorseChief]

I remember getting one of those hand-held gamegear things when I was a kid. It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life that I lived to regret.

I mean, to mention a few things, the screens were so small and all the colors just blurred into each other. The graphics were horrible and it didn't feel even close to genesis. You had to really strain your eyes to be able to make out the images in all that blur. As a matter of fact, it felt like I was playing something that preceeded nes or Amiga!

It was just a horrible experience that put me off hand-held gaming systems for life.

My parents got 2 of those overpriced, over-sized pieces of garbage, the other one for my brother. The novelty didn't even take off, for neither of us. It was just cruel. We had to pretend to our parents that we liked them but we were both so disappointed.

They looked kind of cool in the box but the gaming experience is just ... yuck! And I am being 100% honest with you. I think the gamegear system is the worst fail in the history of gaming.

Does gamegear kind of insult your gaming tastes or am I alone on this one? Should the people who came up with the gamegear system be thrown in fail and the key disgarded

 

[FatTrucker]

Gamegear was a brave attempt to innovate and compete with the GameBoy. For the time it was a very technically accomplished system and did host some good games. Where it fell down was that it missed the 2 factors that made the Gameboy so attractive, notably, size and battery life.

The GG was too big to be comfortably carried in a pocket and due to its colour screen would run down 6AA batteries in about 20 minutes. The GameBoy by comparison could be easily pocketed, and would run for several hours on just 2AA batteries.....and it had Tetris!.

To get the most out of the Gamegear you needed to sit with it plugged into the wall completely defeating the object of it being a portable system. So as a concept it was flawed, as a game system it was OK. To compare it with the Genesis is unfair as its the same as comparing the Original Gameboy with the Snes, it was more like a Handheld Master System (by which standard it was very good).

If you wanted handheld Genesis action the Sega Nomad was (and is) the system of choice. Lovely bit of kit.

I think the gamegear system is the worst fail in the history of gaming.

Never heard of the Virtual Boy then?.

 

[ulaoulao]

Never heard of the Virtual Boy then?.

HA!! Nice...

Lets not for get the Tiger Game.com or their Gizmondo for handhelds ( WTF ). or the Philips Cd-I, what was that a vcr LOL?

 

[FatTrucker]

HA!! Nice...

Lets not for get the Tiger Game.com or their Gizmondo for handhelds ( WTF ). or the Philips Cd-I, what was that a vcr LOL?

Or indeed the Konix Multi-System, never actually made it to market, sunk the company, and all the manufactured units ended up being rewired, rebranded and sold as PC game controllers.

 

[NorseChief]

The main thing that put me off gamegear was the way the colors blurred into each other. You also had to play it in darkness in order to be able to see the screen. Not very good for the eyes

But hey, that's just my personal opinion. Glad to see somebody appreciated those things :happy:

 

[retroguiden]

No way. Gamegear was a great little machine. As was Atari's Lynx. (Another handheld that's getting unjustified bashing). And if the colors blurred into each other then either your eyes were faulty or your Gamegear was.

Graphics-wise it was on par with Master System (way better than NES) since it more or less WAS a portable Master system. That's why so many games were simple ports. (You can add that to the machines weaknesses along with poor battery time and no back-lit screen. The size never bothered me. It's not like the Game boy was very portable in those days...)

I bet the blurry colors comes from a blurry memory, even though I'll give you that there was a slight blur during Sonic fastest moments or any other fast scrolling game. But hey, I had the same problem with my original Game boy. And that machine didn't have either Sonic or any colors!

 

[AnAutisticDog]

I had a GameGear and I loved it. I mostly played Mortal Kombat on it while sitting next to a wall power socket. lol

 

[cibomatto2002]

I also liked the game gear.

 

[xplics]

I as well have to say I liked the game gear I know by today's standards for a hand held it was like garbage, but at the time it was almost perfect for me other then recalling sonic plus other fast games blurring during game play.

 

[fantsu]

Far from worst, great games, good graphics, feels good to the hand, and so on.
gamegear was superior to gameboy in almost every way.
Somebody mentioned here, that GameBoy had 2 AA batteries, not true, it had 4 AA batteries when GameGear was released, of course the bigger, full color screen took more power, but overall it lasted as long with 6 batteries, than GameBoy with 4.

GameGear had good puzzle games, even its own version of Tetris.
GameGear had also more complex games than GameBoy ever had, like RPG titles like Shining Force and Crystal Warriors.

The later titles (like Royal Stone), also pumped up the handhelds power to the max, and the games also looked almost as good as Genesis games.

It is true that GameBoy was far more popular with thousands of titles more, but those colors on handheld console we're back then the thing that blew my mind.

Good games:
Caesar's Palace
Columns
Crystal Warriors
Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf
Judge Dredd
Magic Knight Rayearth 2: Making of Magic Knight
Mega Man
Mortal Kombat II
Pinball Dreams
Power Strike II
Royal Stone
Shinobi II: The Silent Fury
Simpsons, The: Bart vs. the World
Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
Sylvan Tale
Star Wars: Super Return of the Jedi
Super Columns
TaleSpin
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
X-Men: Mojo World

Only to mention few.

 

[Zach]

Sorry, but GameGear's screen DID produce an uncomfortable amount of moition blur.

Case in point, fast scrolling screens like in the Sonic Games, and to some extent Shinobi (I think that was on there)..

There was no getting around it. I'm pretty sure it was a liquid crystal display, and we had the same problems with early LCD Flatpanels for PC's, where the refresh rate would produce blurring or "ghosting".

I think it was a bold attempt, but the unit was just too weak.. The SPU was horrible in my opinion as well, compared to the Genesis hardware itself. However I had the chance to borrow one for a while and had plenty of fun playing Sonic 2 with it plugged into the wall, or via battery pack. I would say the blurring issues were probably in some cases on par with, or better than Gameboys on bluring issues.

That said, I wish the NOMAD would have enjoyed more success. A portable Genesis was an outstanding idea, in a time where we wouldn't see another real attempt until the PSOne w/LCD bundle that came years later.

However like many of Sega's illfated hardware platforms, both suffered from lack of quality games, proper effective advertising, and plain old support for & to develop for the platform itself.