The Sega Game Gear Thread

[Rogue Trooper]

Just remembered Prince We can mistfully look at games that were planned for Lynx, but never made it, but in cold light of day, G.Gear just had the far wider selection of games people wanted.

With Nintendo capturing so much of the developers market as they had, SEGA did great to get 3rd party support they did for G.G.

That's the thing.
Now beside Atari Germany not promoting the Lynx much, even if they had done more ads etc, it just lacked the games we as kids wanted back then. Only now am I able to appreciate the relatively unknown Lynx exclusives. And the big names the Lynx had were mostly old back then already...in the early 90ies you could not get masses of kids to get excited about Ms.Pac-Man or Joust. We wanted Street Fighter, MK, FIFA and all those big names. And of course licensed stuff, from comics to TV series ans movie licenses.

I hate the sport, but Lynx get a footy game to call it's own? (i know it was well served, no pun, with Tennis and Golf), plus not having a big name 'current' era fighter like MK when your rivials did, did'nt do the Lynx any favours.

Lynx had quality software in droves, far better conversions of Stun Runner, Toki, Hard Drivin, Steel Talons etc than many home formats, but so often you'd see GB and G.G reviews of a big name game, but no sign of Lynx version.

GG and GB had plenty of older coin-op's etc converted, but they were part of a far richer line up of software.Ironic as so often the Lynx hardware was far better suited to a game (screen alone was much better), but it was never even considered.

[TL]

The Lynx had European Soccer Challenge, a superb version of Manchester United Europe by Krisalis/Telegames:



It also had the utterly terrible World Class Soccer too:

[Rogue Trooper]

Jump' n runs like Sonic Triple Trouble, Legend of Illusion, Dynamite Headdy, Tails Adventure and Ristar did not come out on the SMS.

   

They came out later though, only once licencse given to bring them out on MS, so technically they are G.G exclusives for a period of time and for once the ports went the other way around, lol

[TL]

Yes but 108 Stars said they did not come out on the SMS

[Rogue Trooper]

The Lynx had European Soccer Challenge, a superb version of Manchester United Europe by Krisalis/Telegames:



It also had the utterly terrible World Class Soccer too:

Did they have the same 'pulling power' as say something like Kick Off though?-Just thinking along lines of punter see's Kick Off on GB (awful as it is), and game gear, looks for Lynx version, nothing.

[TL]

Well European Soccer Challenge made the front cover of GO! and the original ST/Amiga game was top of the games charts for months. It was also ported to the Mega Drive as European Club Soccer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester ... ame_series)

At the time it was easily as big as any other footy game.

[108 Stars]

Jump' n runs like Sonic Triple Trouble, Legend of Illusion, Dynamite Headdy, Tails Adventure and Ristar did not come out on the SMS.

   

Brazilian, Brazilian and Repro.

[TL]

Still counts 

[108 Stars]

GG and GB had plenty of older coin-op's etc converted, but they were part of a far richer line up of software.Ironic as so often the Lynx hardware was far better suited to a game (screen alone was much better), but it was never even considered.

Another good point. I was about to include Space Harrier on GG in my list, because it is a completely different port from the ground up; but it is not very good, and just think how Space Harrier and the other Super Scaler games could have looked on the Lynx!

Damn, I wish Sega had taken the hardware from Epyx instead of Atari!

[Rogue Trooper]

GG and GB had plenty of older coin-op's etc converted, but they were part of a far richer line up of software.Ironic as so often the Lynx hardware was far better suited to a game (screen alone was much better), but it was never even considered.

Another good point. I was about to include Space Harrier on GG in my list, because it is a completely different port from the ground up; but it is not very good, and just think how Space Harrier and the other Super Scaler games could have looked on the Lynx!

Damn, I wish Sega had taken the hardware from Epyx instead of Atari!

Trouble is, speaking as an Ex-Mega CD owner, i'm left wondering just what exactly SEGA would have done with the Lynx, had they have taken it as they themselves seemed to make so little use of the MCD scaling hardware when it was ripe for converting Scaler coin-op's too.

But also, lets suppose for a moment your SEGA, you've spent an age (and lot of money) priming yourselves for the launch of the Genesis/MD in Europe and USA, this, your going to use to stamp home fact you mean buisness, true 16 Bit system unlike the PC Engine and suddenly your offered a piece of hardware which you could use to gain a foothold in the handheld market, but not only is is ideally suited to convert your coin-ops to, but it out does your own hardware in terms of colours to choose from (4096 VS 512) and sprite scaling etc, how would you market 1 without making the other look inferior in some areas?.

Tricky situation, lol and you def.would not want to be licenscing out your coin-op's for conversion to it in the hands of someone else, espically if you knew damn well it could possibly deliver a closer conversion.

[TL]

The ironic thing is that Sega were offered the Lynx and turned it down, they then tried to copy the design but couldn't and even contacted ex-Epyx guys themselves to help. One of them actually flew over to help them get something working and suggested they just make a portable Master System to save time so they did!

[Rogue Trooper]

The ironic thing is that Sega were offered the Lynx and turned it down, they then tried to copy the design but couldn't and even contacted ex-Epyx guys themselves to help. One of them actually flew over to help them get something working and suggested they just make a portable Master System to save time so they did!

Typical SEGA (sadly) only to look at them later turning down the offer of a 1-chip solution to bring the Saturn up to Playstation performance level's from people behind the N64 technology, due to 'pride' (SEGA much prefering any hardware to come from themselves rather than rely on outside help).

As for build quality, i know ATARI often takes flak for issues with the Lynx (spray painted plastic, loose AC port etc), but had SEGA taken on the 'Handy' technology, what's betting we'd still have seen cheap, poor quality components used in it's construction, inc awful LCD screens?.

Off all the SEGA hardware i've owned:

My Game Gear screen went (after 6 months from new), MCD never had any technical issues, but was a clumsy design (metal plates etc), the 32X set up was awful, extra plug needed, mess of cables), my Saturn would reset after 30 mins plus of play time and went through numerous Dreamcast's due to the resetting issue.

Great games but boy did SEGA's manufacturing and design often leave a lot to be desired.

[108 Stars]

Hmh, I must say beside the Game Gear and Dreamcast (which has the notorious problem of thinking the lid is open, which brings the menue back up and quites the game) I found Sega's hardware and designs to be among the best in the business. Granted, I did not own a  Saturn myself, but at least I never heard of people having to turn it upside down like my three (!) PS1 consoles, two of which eventually totally died. And I'm saying that as a Sony fan.^^
Master System, Mega Drive and Mega-CD are all pretty much flawless. MCD1 can have issues with the opening tray, if it ever disadjusts you can't play and it's a major pain to fix, but the systems generally still work today.

The 32X... I am always wondering if people started complaining about the extra power supply after the AVGN did. Seriously, of course it needs an extra power supply; and no other company could have made it differently. We're talking about a hardware with many times the power of the stock Mega Drive itself; there's two RISC CPUs each clocked at over 20 Mhz in it. The 32X is much more powerful than either MD or Mega-CD, and even both combined. There's just no way the single AC adaptor from the Mega Drive would have been enough.


I look at Nintendo and I see:
NES cart slots wearing out a lot. SNES pads shoulder buttons wearing out easily. N64 thumbstick wearing out easily. Gameboy screens losing vertical lines one by one with the years until little of the screen is still visible.

Atari:
Jaguar is a strange design; no cart slot lid causing lots of dust to settle. The rounded shape of the cart slot making the carts not fit in snug, but you can wiggle them around quite a lot; no system I ever had needed so many restarts because the cart was not in correctly. Jag CD has the lousiest build quality ever. You fell like it will fall apart any moment, and with it's cartslot being so off center you can easily detach it accidently when changing carts. Also needs it's own PSU btw, despite there being much less in it hardwarewise than in the 32X.

Atari 5200: joysticks.

Lynx I: spray paint covering the cheapest plastic ever used for a video game system. Strange placing of the card slot. Beside that, no complaints.


So... I don't think that Sega made a bad job at hardware in general. I always felt I was buying quality.

That said, the issue of the Lynx scaling capabilities being superior to the Mega Drive would have been a concern; but then again the Lynx was designed in 1987, before the Mega Drive was final. Had Sega taken the Lynx, they might have added a Suzy to the Mega Drive, who knows?

[TL]

Yeah I don't get the criticism of Sega here either by RT, I even mentioned in my video how shocked I was that the GG was so badly built when the MD and SMS were so good. I have also never had a problem with either of my Saturns and thought that machine had a rep for reliability, especially compared to the PlayStation.

I will never understand all the criticism of the Jag CD either, I have had mine since new and never ever had a problem with it and it's been all over the place with me including several flights on an airplane. It now has a broken catch on the lid but that is because some arsehole broke it at a retro show and not because its unreliable in any way. I have certainly never even heard of that detachment problem you spoke of let alone experienced it!

[Rogue Trooper]

:-) in my defence i can and indeed have ripped into numerous other machines i've bought/still own, but since it was a SEGA related thread i stuck to SEGA hardware, but i'll quite happily wax vocal about the Atari ST ports being underneath the machine, the PSP analogue nub, the plastic lens holder on the PSone, the entire look of the N64-would shame Fisher Price, the PS2 dual shock dead zone on sticks,  etc etc.

Plus i've never understood the 'love' for the GC controller, nor hate for the the Jaguar or original Xbox (not S-type) controller.

But back onto SEGA hardware poor design:seriousily, you guys never seen the board layout on the Saturn? it's a mess and what makes it more of a kick in the face, it could have been all together different, had SEGA taken up Silicon Graphics offer of a simplistic, single chip design CPU that could compete with Playstation, instead we end up with Parallel 32 Bit RISC chip configuration, something even Yu Suzuki admitted made life very difficult and that he'd have much prefered a single, fast CPU and that most Saturn developers would struggle to get 1.5X the Speed of a sigle SH-2 chip when coding for both (a lot just used a single SH-2).

As for the MCD? that metal tray was utterly pointless, the automated disc tray and flashing lights just added extra cost to the device (i paid £270 for mine on day 1).

I've owned 2 Saturns, 1 suffered reset issues, other did'nt, so that's a 50% failure rate there, same applied to my Game Cubes, 1st would reset, 2nd did'nt.

From my launch day Dreamcast i went through 5 machines, all suffered the reset issue, easy to open up case and tweak prongs in short term, but that's why i now own 2 Dreamcasts, 1 for use, 1 as a back up.

My G.G, as i say, screen went in mere 6 months of use.

So i can only comment on hardware exp.as i've found it, had 3 Xboxes, no issues there, on my 2nd PS2, nothing gone wrong with either, PSP? well i broke my 1st one, now own another 3, never had issue like dead pixels, my 360 is an Elite, never had anE74 or Red Ring on it, PS3 is same 40G model, had a 250G HDD that I bought and had put in fail, but then i've had 3 PC HDD's suffer same issue (bad sectors) but no yellow light.

GB? well never use as screen is bloody awful, ditto for GBA, never had issue with the Micro though.

32X well i owned years ago, long before i joined here (which was 1st time i ever watched an AVGN video, lol) and it is bloody awful, having to connect RF cables etc, it looks  crude.


32X might be more powerful, but only really gave MD: extra colours it badly needed, better sound chip (which MCD also did, except it was hardly used) and limited 3D abilities, it was a poor stop-gap of a platform, poor decision by SEGA to release it, espically after the damage done by the handling of the MCD (yeah, great idea to release FMV crap on a machine with limited colours onscreen, plus avaiable to choose from)