#nostalgia64

My first handheld console wasn't a Gameboy. In fact, I didn't own a game boy until I was in my mid twenties, and by then the fad was long gone. No, it was actually a Game Gear. And more to the point, it was also the first video game console I owned.

And the reason for getting one is clear from the previous part in this series. I was in love with the SEGA games at the time and this was basically a portable Master System. More to the point, compared to the black and white ( or dark olive green and light olive green ) Gameboy , there was no contest. I did have a choice, though. Either get a Game Gear or a Mega Drive. The Mega Drive, or Genesis for those not in England, was tempting but I couldn't resist the allure of having something I could take with me to school. A Game Gear it was.

The Game Gear was a nice little handheld. It had the controls of the new Mega Drive, and also was a lot more rounded and well presented than the Master System was.

I can't remember which games I actually owned other than Mickey Mouse's Castle of Illusion. It wasn't as pretty looking as the Mega Drive version, but it still did a good job. It was colourful and fun, and when I look at it now it just makes me think how even up to the 90s Mickey Mouse was still a popular figure - and he would last for a few more platform games too. I think there's something endearing about a character who is as expressive as Mickey. I also never realized it but my two favourite platform characters' names both had the initials MM - Mickey Mouse and Mario Mario. I'm a little tempted to play the remake of Castle Of Illusion now.

Another game I remember playing was Shinobi. Now this gets a bit confusing, because I remember playing Shinobi games later on other SEGA machines and none of them were at all like the one I played on the Game Gear. I seem to recall discovering that the Game Gear version was unique, and for some people it was the better version. I remember there being an epic battle against a helicopter, and being able to play as different coloured ninjas.

Sonic was a perfect game to play on the handheld. It played smoothly and seemed more fun in its own self contained device. There's something more connective about playing that way, with the buttons either side of the screen. It feels more like you are the character you're controlling. I'm curious to see if there are any games on the Wii U that will make me feel the same way, assuming any utilise the tablet in a similar way.

There was on huge problem with the Game Gear, though. The battery. It didn't last long at all. I think it might have survived about a couple of hours if I was lucky. Plus, unlike modern devices, you couldn't know exactly when it was going to die - only that it was close. So there I'd be, about to get to the end of a level and then pfffz - game over! I ended up having to buy a power adapter, because carrying around spare batteries was useless in most cases since I don't recall ever being able to save in any of the games I played. Basically, somebody in SEGA sucked at basic arithmetic. If most games take 2 hours to complete in normal play throughs - i.e. with an average amount of deaths, continues and restarts - and the batteries last less than that, then you're never going to be able to finish a game on batteries. The adapter let me finish them, but now I had to carry something else with me and could only play where I was guaranteed a spot near a wall socket.

The Gameboy didn't suffer from this problem and that was the key to its success. I did actually play a lot of Gameboy games, just not on my own one. I remember the craze over Tetris, playing various Mario games, and playing a lot of other games I couldn't begin to remember. It didn't matter. Somehow with the worst colour palette in gaming, it had conquered the world. People quickly realized how useless the Game Gear was as an actual portable gaming machine, whereas Game Boys lasted much longer and also fitted in people's pockets.

The Gameboy  would go on to last about a decade, with a few different iterations. The Game Gear would be forgotten.

The 8 bit home computers weren't the only 8 bit machines available at the time, though, and while I never owned one of the big two involved in that other Great Format War of the 1980s, I often look back at the SEGA Master System and the Nintendo Entertainment System with fond memories.

Time has been much kinder to the NES than the Master System, but I actually think I spent more time on SEGA's machine than Nintendo's, at the time at least.

I could go on for hours boring you about these old games, so I will. But I'll try to keep it quiet.

The first difference between the two machines was the box art. SEGA's box art was horrendous.

I mean, just look at it. Putting everything on a graph paper background makes me think of a mathematics lesson, which is not what a child needs to reminded of. But at least they underlined the words "Master System", because otherwise we wouldn't have known for sure. 

And that was one of the better looking examples of box art. Here's another, just for comparison, that was drawn by a 5 year old.

Urrrnghh!

And yet, this ugly box art did achieve one thing. It did make it easy to spot the boxes out from the growing crowd of video games. When most people who ran electronics stores didn't know the difference between the SEGAs, Nintendos and Commodores it helped to stand out. However, it didn't help the games stand out from each other when lined up side by side.

NES box art in contrast was, well, just normal. In fairness, later Master System games did move away from the graph paper art.

Then there was the controller. Everyone knows the iconic NES controller, and for good reason. The Master System's gamepad had no sense of style at all (they'd correct that with the Mega Drive/Genesis)

At the time, since I didn't own any of these machines and as far as I recall neither did any of my friends, I only got to play the games in the electronics store. Games were still a specialty thing, and most shops were more interested in selling big TVs, which at the time were as deep as they were wide, so took up a lot of store space. Still, some stores realized you could sell two things at once if you put the game on the TV.

The store I remember going to most was at a retail park just out of town. There was the big supermarket and then in another building was the electronics store. My mum would go shopping in the supermarket and I'd go to the store and just play games for an hour. I have this memory of the manager not minding that I was playing the games for ages and telling my mum that it helped show off the games.

Since I had no control over what games to try out, I just played whatever was on the machine at the time.

I played a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog on Master System, which at the time was a huge technical accomplishment. The fact that it could update the screen so quickly isn't to be taken lightly, when you consider that most other games were still on flip screen.

Of course, Sonic was the exception to the norm. Most games were much slower.

I also recall playing a silly game called Alex Kidd In Miracle World. There was some elf-boy, or maybe he was just a normal human with big ugly ears, which explained why he would escape into these fantasy worlds. Come to think of it, I had big ears as a child... Anyway, Alex Kidd had none of the visual flair of Sonic, but it was challenging enough.

For NES games, I recall them having Punch Out and Super Mario Bros, who I always pronounced Bros instead of Brothers, thinking they were part of the all male pop group. They might have had Duck Hunt with the light gun too, because it showed off how cool and futuristic the games could be.