Game Gear ballers post here

[FilthyRear]

I figured if the Game Boy can get a dedicated thread, then so can the Sega's little-handheld-that-could. Mostly I just wanted to show off the mod I did.

Obligatory paltry GG collection picture (its an old picture taken with a shitty digital potato):



The blue one is my original one (Lion King pack-in). Still works like a charm, none of the caps have leaked.

The other one was given to me a few years ago while I was working at GS - someone came in wanting to trade it, told them we couldn't take it, they said I could have it. This thing was in brand-new condition and it was beautiful - looked like it got 0 playtime. At some point within the last 6 months the caps starting leaking, which led to the sound being quiet and the typical screen darkening. I have yet to open it to do the cap replacement.

I did, however, open the still-working blue one and replace the flourescent tube with an LED backlight:



It's impossible to take a good picture with any sort of light, at any angle.

I had a tough time cutting the plastic diffuser - its not thin, but its still brittle, and all I had was an xacto knife and zero patience, so it broke into a few pieces. after a lot of super glue I was able to put them back together, but holy shit.

The brightness is the same and the screen is as washed out as before, but the light is even (aside from the hotspots at the top - it's noticable, but not distracting) and the brightness dial actually makes a difference now. The battery also lasts a LOT longer now, which is key.

Next step is the cap replacement, but I'm gonna need time for that. First I buy a flash cart.

Share, bitches!

 

[AppleiDog]

Such a shame the guy that made this only made one.

 

[xsq]

Oh yeah, Game Gear is damn nice. Good it got its own thread now!
Nice mod there Gilty - especially if it helps with the battery life. I play mine with an AC adapter, crunches through batteries like nothing otherwise. What kind of backlight did you use and how did you know it would fit (and play nice with the brightness dail)?

I have slowly been picking up and playing some more cheap/loose (mostly system exclusive) titles over the past seven months, pretty happy so far (except for Surf Ninjas, which is crap). I'll post a list of my stuffs (maybe with some comments to the individual games) soon...

In the mean time, here's my old post on how I got started:

Got this yesterday as a birthday present from my gf.
I have never known anyone who owned a GG, so this was really cool of her - she also had the capacitors replaced. I'm still amazed at the thought she put in the gift.

Now I need to research more about the system... I feel like I don't know anything.

Haven't had much time yet, so I have only really played Super Space Invaders a little. It's challenging and the music (plus the sound of the system) is really cool (especially the highscore tune). I checked out X-Men and it seems alright, but on first glance I don't see me putting too many hours in.

I'd love to pick up another system, mod it so I can use it with a Genesis controller on my PVM... the McWill would be awesome, but I just don't have the time atm.

 

[FilthyRear]

View attachment 38900

Such a shame the guy that made this only made one.

Truly is a shame because it's so dead sexy.

What kind of backlight did you use and how did you know it would fit (and play nice with the brightness dail)?

I bought it off of Handheld Legend, and they have walkthroughs on how to install it. Basically, when you remove the light bulb, you have to remove the components for it off the board as well. After that, you just have to bridge 2 solder points and you can use the brightness dial with the LEDs.

I bought a replacement screen protector from them, too, but it's plastic, so there are some slight imperfections. There are glass ones elsewhere that I'm looking into that I might want to use for the other GG.

the McWill would be awesome, but I just don't have the time atm.

I like the idea of replacing that LCD, but the McWill screens have that wonky resolution, IMO.

 

[xsq]

thanks for the info - a glass replacement screen protector would be hot...

 

[FilthyRear]

thanks for the info - a glass replacement screen protector would be hot...

Can't recommend them enough. I bought one for my DMG after I did the bivert and backlight install and it makes all the difference in the world.

 

[ChopstickSamurai]

Can't recommend them enough. I bought one for my DMG after I did the bivert and backlight install and it makes all the difference in the world.

The glass screen lenses are amazing. I've got them for all my Gameboys. Even not modded they make a huge difference. Plus you don't need to worry about scratching the screen.

I need to dig out my old trusty Majesco Game Gear and fire it up. It's been way too long.

 

[GohanX]

That blue Game Gear looks hot, Filthy. I've been wondering about how good the screen looks with the LED mod.

I really do love the Game Gear's physical design. It's a little bulky, but it fits perfectly in my hands, and the d-pad and buttons are excellent. I can play the thing for hours without my old man hands hurting. A few years back I did the screen mod, using Viletim's board and one of those little 3.5 inch screens you can get cheap on ebay. This really isn't great with GG games since it displays them in a tiny window, but it's awesome with SMS games. I got a GG Everdrive at the same time and loaded it with SMS games, basically turning it into a portable SMS.

Unfortunately the screen died on me. I got a replacement but never actually fixed it, it's in a drawer right now. I need to get on that one of these days.

 

[fenikso]

I'll try to get my act together in the next few days and get some pics up. The GG is my favorite handheld from that generation. If Nintendo hadn't released the GBA SP it would probably be my all-time favorite.

Good stuff in this thread so far, BTW.

 

[FilthyRear]

That blue Game Gear looks hot, Filthy. I've been wondering about how good the screen looks with the LED mod.

It's VERY much like the stock backlight, but the light is evenly dispersed instead of the vibrant light in the middle getting darker aound the edges of the screen. You notice the difference right away, but its not going to improve the ghosting or how washed out it looks. I'm happy with it, tho.

I really do love the Game Gear's physical design. It's a little bulky, but it fits perfectly in my hands, and the d-pad and buttons are excellent. I can play the thing for hours without my old man hands hurting. A few years back I did the screen mod, using Viletim's board and one of those little 3.5 inch screens you can get cheap on ebay. This really isn't great with GG games since it displays them in a tiny window, but it's awesome with SMS games. I got a GG Everdrive at the same time and loaded it with SMS games, basically turning it into a portable SMS.

Unfortunately the screen died on me. I got a replacement but never actually fixed it, it's in a drawer right now. I need to get on that one of these days.

I heard about those screens a while back - the GG games displaying in a window turned me off. The SMS games had me tempted, tho

 

[GohanX]

What I'd like to do is rebuild that thing and then use another GG to do the LED mod and use the second one just for Game Gear games. There is a new board that someone made that will allow GG games to display full screen but it's very expensive, I don't think I'm going to do that.

 

[pixeljunkie]

There is a new board that someone made that will allow GG games to display full screen but it's very expensive, I don't think I'm going to do that.

Yeah, I think you are referring to the McWill screens. I was heavily tempted to jump on one of those.

 

[lions3]

you guys just reminded me that I dig up my old release day GG a couple months back. Poor thing didn't bootup. Think it needs a recap. blah.

 

[GohanX]

Yeah, I think you are referring to the McWill screens. I was heavily tempted to jump on one of those.

That's it. If I had to start over I would grab a McWill screen, but I already paid $80 or whatever for the one I have now.

By the way, the screen mod is awesome, and on paper the mod isn't hard. However, with my kit there were like 8 solder points you had to hit and those suckers are SUPER SUPER tiny. Frankly, I'm amazed mine worked on the first boot.

 

[Tanooki]

I'm thinking I said it before but I do have a Game Gear, two actually (2nd one was given to me fairly recently.) I've got the blue model and the original. The blue was bought back in April but the caps are starting to go, takes about 10min to warm up so the screen isn't dim, sound is loud. A month in I got fed up with it and parked the system for a long stretch up until a month ago a friend mailed me a rough normal one, but as a happy trick surprise it was cap replaced! I did an interior swap as they had the same identical board revision so I've been using it finally lately entirely off the sega AC adapter it came with. I paid $30 for it along with 6 common games, the sega power plug and a sega car adapter too. Screen had one annoying scuff that would rainbow out when I'd flip the unit on, but I used my pinball cleaning-buffing-polishing kit on it and got it out.

Game Gear is an interesting one especially market wise. Ignoring the JP only stuff on the side, and just particular games, the system is the absolute most cheap to invest time and money into so it's easy to explore, especially if you stay away from boxes. Sure you have that $50-100 Mega Man but nothing else gets up there which is cool. It got over shadowed to a point by the Gameboy in the day, but it really does have a fantastic varied line-up of quality titles. Being a battery whore, plus Nintendo and their shady contracts kept it suppressed fairly well, but I recall in its better days they did worry Nintendo eating up over 1/3 of their market and a bit more until Pokemon's birth 20 years ago helped revitalize the mono beast.

I had a GG I inherited back in the 90s I held onto for a long time but never had a huge library. So this time around I made a point to get a mix of things I adored then (Aerial Assault for one) but also things I never had but wanted to try, others to experiment with, and I've looked outside the US as well.

The last 3 games I snapped up came from an insane UK seller who put everything almost for free to start and charged oddly no shipping. I paid $20, got Magical Puzzle Popils, Pengo, and Halley Wars which are 3 great games. While those were in transit I had found for $3 Legend of Illusion which is a good Mickey platformer.

Not to clutter up things, I keep a game inventory, and this is my entire Game Gear setup with 39 games -- http://tanooki.byethost16.com/segagamegear.html


By the way I can't trust myself not to foul it up, but I do actually have a spare cap kit and also the 2 light LED mod kit as well sitting in my closet. I really don't mind the screen as it is though, not sure if I should just hold onto the stuff or not.

 

[famicommander]

I love the Game Gear. Shinobi II: The Silent Fury is my favorite game for it. Triple Trouble and Sonic Chaos are classic too, but it's best to play the SMS versions of Sonic 1 and 2. Game Gear versions suffer from the lower res.

I'd love to have a consolized Game Gear with RGB output and a controller port.

That goes for Lynx and NGPC, too.

 

[xsq]

Game Gear is an interesting one especially market wise. Ignoring the JP only stuff on the side, and just particular games, the system is the absolute most cheap to invest time and money into so it's easy to explore, especially if you stay away from boxes. Sure you have that $50-100 Mega Man but nothing else gets up there which is cool.

Absolutely, I'm so happy to get into GG now - hope the prices will stay decent unlike all the other older systems.

That goes for Lynx and NGPC, too.

Such a shame there isn't a way to get video out for the NGPC, I'd be all over that.



//EDIT:

http://tanooki.byethost16.com/segagamegear.html

I see you marked two of the titles as "EU" - I was wondering how to tell US and EU releases apart if one only has the carts. I'm guessing it's where it says "Game Gear" on the label - whether vertical on the left (US) or horizontal on the bottom right (EU)...

 

[FilthyRear]

I got mine with Lion King, T2 Arcade, and Addams Family. Those were the only GG games I had for years until I got the second one with the rest of the games. Any others were played through emulation. I also got it towards the tail-end of Sega's support for it. When the PS1 and Saturn got released, the GG went in a box and was forgotten about.

I really don't mind the screen as it is though, not sure if I should just hold onto the stuff or not.

You're gonna have to replace that tube eventually - Once it goes theres no replacement for it.

I was wondering how to tell US and EU releases apart if one only has the carts. I'm guessing it's where it says "Game Gear" on the label - whether vertical on the left (US) or horizontal on the bottom right (EU)...

Sega started doing the Game Gear logo on the left around the same time they started doing it with the Genesis and Sega CD games. Early releases have the Game gear logo on the bottom-left. That Spider-Man I have is an EU cart. The US one looks like this:

 

[Tanooki]

xsq: I could tell from the Game Gear emblem on the sticker, or they didn't get a release outside of a region when I flag stuff JP or EU. As to the prices they've been and have stayed this low for as far back as I can remember other than a few anomalies. It's kind of the last of the old guard system makers titles that have gone under the radar.

FR: Good point probably should hold onto the LED kit, not harming anything in its little bag.


You know I am surprised at the solid quality of Defenders of Oasis on the GG which I got fairly recently with the manual. It suffers from the non-sense stupid naming of spells so a guide is needed until it's memorized but other than that it's pretty solid for its age.

 

[-SD-]

I have a fully re-capped Game Gear with the McWill LCD. I was contemplating going for a complete loose UK set, plus the US exclusives and whatever Japan only games that are understandable. So far I'm on 52 loose carts, a few boxed/NOS Japanese games and an Everdrive. I also picked up a Master Gear and a few Master System games that didn't see a GG release.

Japanese GG boxes are really cute, I couldn't believe how tiny they are when they arrived.

 

[FilthyRear]

I'm seeing a lot of talk, but not a lot of pictures...Just sayin'...

 

[GohanX]

Come to think of it, I really don't have much of a "collection." I have three actual Game Gears, two original Sega models and the Majesco one I bought from Amazon way back in the day when you could still buy new ones. I got there pretty late, like in 98 or 99 or so after the system was pretty much dead. I probably didn't have 10 games total, and what I did have are the usual suspects. The Sonics, Shinobis, the only standout is that I got a CIB Ninja Gaiden, which is pretty cool. Sonic Chaos is probably my most played and favorite GG game, but I always thought it funny that the game is so long that you probably couldn't complete it on batteries.

 

[FilthyRear]

Come to think of it, I really don't have much of a "collection." I have three actual Game Gears, two original Sega models and the Majesco one I bought from Amazon way back in the day when you could still buy new ones. I got there pretty late, like in 98 or 99 or so after the system was pretty much dead. I probably didn't have 10 games total, and what I did have are the usual suspects. The Sonics, Shinobis, the only standout is that I got a CIB Ninja Gaiden, which is pretty cool. Sonic Chaos is probably my most played and favorite GG game, but I always thought it funny that the game is so long that you probably couldn't complete it on batteries.

The Sonics, I thought, were very good. Playing them on the SMS felt strange. Sucks that there weren't a lot of exclusives for this system.

I'd like to see that Ninja Gaiden.

 

[Tanooki]

Ninja Gaiden is an odd one but it's solid, can be unforgiving because if you die even on the boss -- DO THE WHOLE STAGE OVER! The only reason I don't ever take group buddy pictures of games is that I tend to go through stuff and either keep it, hate it/bored of it and sell it, or I get more so it gets outdated.

Here's something just quick n' dirty done with my iphone. Not in there is a copy of MK1 and JP1 I have no interest in keeping in a back closet I was going to give away but the friend found his own copies first.

 

[FilthyRear]

View attachment 38986

We need more pics like this.

How's that SamSho?